Yes, BotW. Extremely dull. I want my hookshot back. It would be nice to have larger, more challenging dungeons with unique bosses instead of solving a few puzzles and then beating the shit out of roughly the exact same ghost. Most the quests are “get me 10 items” fetch quests. How much wood did I collect to build that town? That’s not fun. Majority of the content is wandering through scenery with nothing in it, or climbing for several minutes at a time.
The first two seem to like the game, whereas the third… don’t. I’m part of the third. The Zelda gameplay loop has typically been:
Explore world to find dungeon
Explore dungeon to find the items - new tool, compass, and map
Use new tool to solve puzzles, along with some puzzles using older items
Fight dungeon boss, using the new tool
Use new tool to find secrets in the overworld
Go to 1 until item slots are full
Fight main boss (a form of ganon), which is the most difficult fight in the game
BotW dumbed all of that down and added a lot of grindy mechanics:
korok seeds
shrine orbs
fairy upgrades
cooking
It’s a completely different game and has just enough overlap with the established formula to disappoint. The older Zelda games don’t have any grindy bits unless you really want some piece of equipment early.
So that’s my take. BotW is a decent game, but it’s my least favorite Zelda game. If it wasn’t branded “Zelda” and hyped so much, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with it. My kids love it though, so there’s that.
Oh, and I finished BotW just before TotK launched (kinda late, I know), and instead of buying TotK, I bought Skyward Sword and Link’s Awakening and absolutely loved them. If Switch 2 has more games with the classic formula, I’ll buy it, otherwise I’ll probably pass.
I loved BoTW and ToTK, but your criticisms are pretty much on point. I’m hoping a future game can combine the sense of exploration of the newer games with the traditional dungeons and bosses of the older games, with Majora’s Mask level side quests please!
Isn’t that more of a leveling RPG? If I got progressively stronger in BotW instead of just picking up slightly larger weapons I might like it more.
Another problem are that there are like, what, 7 kinds of enemies? Every encampment a small flock of keese, some bokoblins, some lizalfos, a moblin or two. Every situation I just use the same swords and arrows. Surely Skyrim has more varied enemies? If Nintendo are trying to make an expansive game they should put content in it.
That was an issue with Breath of the Wild; the scope of the world is way larger than the scope of the game, so there’s lots of big open empty fields with the occasional collection of slight variations of the same half dozen monsters, and the only thing you will encounter during your adventures are a korok “puzzle” or a shrine. maybe a memory.
I will give Nintendo this: they listened to their fans. Zelda players sometime around Twilight Princess started bemoaning how linear Zelda games have become and the inability to sequence break and wanted more non-linear Zelda games. So they made a non-linear game. And Nintendo, being Japanese and thus congenitally incapable of doing anything halfway, made a game so aggressively open world that it will hold you down, squat over your face and non-linear in your mouth and nose.
They went through so much trouble to make the game as non-linear as possible that - whenever a character lists the four divine beasts, the old or new champions, their races, villages, or biomes therein - it’s never done in the same order twice so as not to suggest a canon completion order.
This prevented them from doing big sweeping stories like the one in Twilight Princess because events could happen out of order or not at all, so the story takes place 100 years in the past and you find out details of it out of order.
Tears of the Kingdom is simply not as good. The story is even thinner on the ground to the point of feeling lazy; the champions plagiarized each other’s cut scenes. It’s outright inconsistent with previous lore, so that’s just a big fuck you to long-term fans of the series. And even if there is a slightly bigger variety in monster types and whatnot, it’s spread across a MUCH larger play area and the sky and depths are full of…mostly nothing.
It feels like every idea anyone suggested during development ended up in the game. There’s not one but two new crafting systems along with the new rune mechanics, and none of it gets a change to breathe. They had enough ideas here to make two games, one that explores the vehicle/robot building mechanics, and one that explores the weapon fusing. Maybe have one feature the sky, and one that features the depths. But no, TotK is a mile wide and an inch deep.
Yes, BotW. Extremely dull. I want my hookshot back. It would be nice to have larger, more challenging dungeons with unique bosses instead of solving a few puzzles and then beating the shit out of roughly the exact same ghost. Most the quests are “get me 10 items” fetch quests. How much wood did I collect to build that town? That’s not fun. Majority of the content is wandering through scenery with nothing in it, or climbing for several minutes at a time.
Faire enough. Judging by the reception most do like them though.
Botw and totk are my favorite games of all time!!!
I think there’s three kinds of Zelda fans:
The first two seem to like the game, whereas the third… don’t. I’m part of the third. The Zelda gameplay loop has typically been:
BotW dumbed all of that down and added a lot of grindy mechanics:
It’s a completely different game and has just enough overlap with the established formula to disappoint. The older Zelda games don’t have any grindy bits unless you really want some piece of equipment early.
So that’s my take. BotW is a decent game, but it’s my least favorite Zelda game. If it wasn’t branded “Zelda” and hyped so much, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with it. My kids love it though, so there’s that.
Oh, and I finished BotW just before TotK launched (kinda late, I know), and instead of buying TotK, I bought Skyward Sword and Link’s Awakening and absolutely loved them. If Switch 2 has more games with the classic formula, I’ll buy it, otherwise I’ll probably pass.
Yeah, they do seem to like it. It’s nice to chill but definitely not anywhere near the best Zelda like some people rate it. IDGI.
I loved BoTW and ToTK, but your criticisms are pretty much on point. I’m hoping a future game can combine the sense of exploration of the newer games with the traditional dungeons and bosses of the older games, with Majora’s Mask level side quests please!
Did you like Skyrim?
I didn’t play it. I like the memes tho.
Isn’t that more of a leveling RPG? If I got progressively stronger in BotW instead of just picking up slightly larger weapons I might like it more.
Another problem are that there are like, what, 7 kinds of enemies? Every encampment a small flock of keese, some bokoblins, some lizalfos, a moblin or two. Every situation I just use the same swords and arrows. Surely Skyrim has more varied enemies? If Nintendo are trying to make an expansive game they should put content in it.
That was an issue with Breath of the Wild; the scope of the world is way larger than the scope of the game, so there’s lots of big open empty fields with the occasional collection of slight variations of the same half dozen monsters, and the only thing you will encounter during your adventures are a korok “puzzle” or a shrine. maybe a memory.
I will give Nintendo this: they listened to their fans. Zelda players sometime around Twilight Princess started bemoaning how linear Zelda games have become and the inability to sequence break and wanted more non-linear Zelda games. So they made a non-linear game. And Nintendo, being Japanese and thus congenitally incapable of doing anything halfway, made a game so aggressively open world that it will hold you down, squat over your face and non-linear in your mouth and nose.
They went through so much trouble to make the game as non-linear as possible that - whenever a character lists the four divine beasts, the old or new champions, their races, villages, or biomes therein - it’s never done in the same order twice so as not to suggest a canon completion order.
This prevented them from doing big sweeping stories like the one in Twilight Princess because events could happen out of order or not at all, so the story takes place 100 years in the past and you find out details of it out of order.
Tears of the Kingdom is simply not as good. The story is even thinner on the ground to the point of feeling lazy; the champions plagiarized each other’s cut scenes. It’s outright inconsistent with previous lore, so that’s just a big fuck you to long-term fans of the series. And even if there is a slightly bigger variety in monster types and whatnot, it’s spread across a MUCH larger play area and the sky and depths are full of…mostly nothing.
It feels like every idea anyone suggested during development ended up in the game. There’s not one but two new crafting systems along with the new rune mechanics, and none of it gets a change to breathe. They had enough ideas here to make two games, one that explores the vehicle/robot building mechanics, and one that explores the weapon fusing. Maybe have one feature the sky, and one that features the depths. But no, TotK is a mile wide and an inch deep.