I've been a hardcore Zelda fan since I was a little child. Now I'm playing Breath Of The Wild and after all the praise it got I had extremely high expectations. I'm kinda saddened and slightly shocked to say that I'm really not feeling it. Objectively seen it's obvious to me how this can be considered a great game. But is it also a great ZELDA game? Is it even a Zelda game AT ALL or should it be considered more of a spin-off?
I've found it terribly boring so far. The whole cooking and eating business etc. just annoys the shit out of me, not to mention the weapons which break after like 3 hits. Going from A to B takes literally 30 real life minutes and simply isn't entertaining to me. I've seen like 3 different mobs so far. There are no dungeons, just some shitty 5 minute shrines. There is barely any story line and the little of it I've seen so far really doesn't sound that good.
Please don't shitpost, as somebody who has always loved Zelda with passion this really bothers me. Does it get any better after a while? Should I just forget about the whole "Zelda" part and try to enjoy it as some open world RPG? As somebody who doesn't even like open world RPGs that much, is it even possible for me to get invested in this?
BotW tried to reinvent how the games work for a wider audience. Anyone who's played the other games would realize that this is not a good Zelda game, you are supposed to enjoy it for what it is.
You'll hear a lot of praise everywhere because it's pretty good, but it's hard to critizise it for not being a Zelda game when everyone jumps at you and calls you a nostalgia faggot immediately.
Zachary Peterson
>Is it a zelda game at all >Gorons >Zora >Rito >Zelda >Dungeons >master sword, hylian shield, sheikah's >Hyrule >Ganon >Fairies / Great fairies >Korok / Deku
How is this not a zelda game? Cuz there's no green tunic?
Bentley Baker
Because >muh nostalgia
Joseph James
>hardcore >zelda fan
yeah playing a game for children and manchildren is so hardcore
Adrian Ortiz
You get the green tunic for beating all 120 shrines
Jaxon Howard
>3 types of mobs
Actually try 3 pages
Wyatt Hill
>it's a good game, just not a good [x] game
I hate you.
Logan Morales
It carries many of the superficial aspects of a Zelda game and is remarkably polished, but is a complete and total departure from the structure and mechanics of any other existing Zelda game.
Grayson Perry
Don't be retarded, all of those are in HW which is clearly not a Zelda game.
Sebastian Davis
>anyone who's played the other games would realize that this is not a good Zelda game >literally NOT MUH ZELDA
OOTfag please fuck off, we zelda NES nao.
>BUT MUH STORY
the princess herself has more character development in botw than the rest of the franchise put together. Link even gets more than just LE SILENT PROTAGONIST.
John Long
>I've been a hardcore Zelda fan since I was a little child. this is your problem, you want it to stick to the formula instead of improving. Your judgement is clouded by expectation.
Cooper Martin
besides the first zelda game, right?
Xavier Perez
I never understood why these sentence triggers everyone's autism.
How hard is it to understand that a game can be good while deviating from the pillars of that game franchise so much that it doesn't feel like it belongs to it?
Jayden Mitchell
you also get tunics for abusing amiibo but that is paid DLC
Luis Morris
OP you obviously went into the game already expecting the game to be shit and garbage.As a result you're never going to like it no matter what happens. My advice is to honestly just exchange it at the store if you still can. Let those who like the game, enjoy it. It's clearly not for you. There's no need to desperately fish for people to share your thoughts.
Cameron Adams
I think this posts speaks on its own to the kind of people that like this game.
Joseph Murphy
>what is the NES' The Legend of Zelda
Because it's an utterly retarded thing to say.
Christopher Baker
>Departure from the scructure and mechanics of any other existing zelda game >Z targetting >Lost woods >aquiring the master sword
I'm starting to think you've never actually played the game. Can you prove you even have a copy?
Connor Rogers
>total departure from the structure and mechanics of any other existing Zelda game this fucking shit again. The second fucking game was literally nothing like the first game, Ocarina of Time flipped the entire script of what Zelda was supposed to be and now BOTW is doing the same. Just because the last five games have been formulaic as hell it doesn't mean the series was always supposed to be just that.
Thomas Rogers
This isn't an argument though. Improving and deviating from the formula aren't the same, there's several changes that make no sense and make the game worse. The core feature of Zelda games, like dungeons and items, are the worst part of BotW. Even with all the improvements in other areas, there was no reason to make dungeons awful and boring other than to bring quantity.
But people can't accept criticism of their beloved game.
Daniel Smith
>we zelda NES nao
I guess I see it, it's a lot like Zelda II because it's total dogshit.
Thomas Myers
>How hard is it to understand that a game can be good while deviating from the pillars of that game franchise so much that it doesn't feel like it belongs to it?
Because there is a way to do it right and a way to do it wrong. No one gave shit to RE4 when it came out, even it's even more different now with 7. Metroid Prime made people nervous upon it's release but it won people over. How are those allowed to be main installment pieces that are worthy of their franchise name but not BOTW?
in b4 Prime is a "spinoff" because assflustered Sakamoto said so.
Carson Torres
>5 different reskins for the same mob here's your (you)
Lucas Perez
>Going from A to B takes literally 30 real life minutes and simply isn't entertaining to me. >There are no dungeons
what? with paragliding going from one destination to another takes no time at all and no dungeons is a lie
Elijah Evans
I don't like that the final boss is garbage.
Caleb Wright
>Because it's an utterly retarded thing to say. How so? I don't see any problem thinking that a game is good but doesn't excel in the things that make the games in the franchise good.
The only case in which I could see it seeming retarded is if you are misunderstanding it to mean that the Zelda games are so good that in that scale BotW isn't good, which isn't what the phrase means.
Carson Young
>Improving and deviating from the formula aren't the same Yes and they're not mutually exclusive either. BOTW both improved and deviated from the Zelda formula.
Xavier Bell
People are desperately trying to damage control this game.
Ryan Reyes
Link's Adventure is the second best Zelda
David Sanders
>"Zelda 2 is bad" meme
I hate underage shitters like you that put this in the same conversation as botched sequels like Simon's Quest. though to be fair most CV2's problems had to do with the terrible localization. a redone translation fixed most of its' cryptic problems
Zachary Hill
Shhh, don't burst their bubble or the manbabies will start screaming again.
Nathaniel Jenkins
RE was very niche originally, RE4 made it popular with a wider audience, there's still people complaining about the direction it took the series in.
Metroid Prime doesn't change that much from what makes Metroid games good, it's pretty much a Metroid game mixed with a FPS.
I'm not even arguing that BotW is bad or that it doesn't belong to the franchise, I'm complaining about the unnecessary changes that separate it from the formula just because.
Caleb Ramirez
>No one gave shit to RE4 when it came out
Zachary Anderson
>beat all the divine beasts, get the master sword, and max out your best armor >wonder why Calamity Ganon is a pushover
not defending the climax or anything but really?
Aaron Scott
yeah I remember all of those GOTY Awards it won and people praising it for its' difficulty and atmosphere. the fuck are you green texting about?
Jack Richardson
Yeah because block pushing is so much fun
Kevin Murphy
Are you 12? Of course it deviated from the formula and improved, I never said it didn't. The problem is that there were some changes that didn't make the game better, removing items and making the dungeons awful and short didn't make the game better, but they were changes that made the game different from all the rest of the series.
Robert Edwards
>The core feature of Zelda games, like dungeons and items, are the worst part of BotW.
Items are emphasized in BotW more than they ever have been in any other Zelda game. Runes are constantly getting usage throughout the game and different weapon types are all integrated into the combat.
Dungeons were NEVER supposed to be more emphasized than the overworld until OoT. In fact in the first LoZ dungeons were largely unimportant and more combat-based than anything. All you're doing here is confirming that you've never actually played a Zelda game that preceded OoT.
Tyler Hill
So it's exactly the same? Casual audiences taking over a franchise that was completely revamped while fans of the earlier games get a lot of hate for criticising the changes. You should go to school, learn a couple of things.
Michael Ramirez
It's the best 3D Zelda, I can't go back to play any of the other 3D borefests, it feels like a 3D a Link to the Past
>There is barely any story line and the little of it I've seen so far really doesn't sound that good.
Zelda lore is basic as any children story book, at least this game details it a little bit if you bother to reach Kakariko and speak to Impa.
>not to mention the weapons which break after like 3 hits
A little bit of basic resource management ain't so bad, it helps enemies are quite tough so you can't Z-target to win anymore.
> but is a complete and total departure from the structure and mechanics of any other existing Zelda game.
Like what? wow travel to this dungeon, get an item that it's necessary to solve the baby puzzles!, oh see the bosses are weak to that item and you only hit them 3 times after figuring out a basic pattern. At least the shines can be solve in different ways using all items and require quite a thought this time.
>Going from A to B takes literally 30 real life minutes
And how it's this different from riding the empty Hyrule fields of all 3D Zeldas?
Kevin Gray
>I'm complaining about the unnecessary changes that separate it from the formula just because. >it's pretty much a Metroid game mixed with a FPS.
yeah you didn't remember all the HURR METROID IS HALO NOW FUCKING BETRAYAL WHERE'S MY SEQUEL TO SUPER retards when the game was fresh.
Grayson Reed
Please. Zelda 2 is the odd man out of the entire franchise because it has so very little in common with all of them.
It was such a bad idea they never repeated it. This little Castlevania wannabe has been forever pushed into the corner of history for a reason and only a mega-autistic fedora tipping hipster would even try to call on it as good like some sort of contrarian time traveler.
Jaxon Martinez
You buttblasted OoTfags are part of the problem. You're the reason we got Skyward Sword instead of a decent Zelda title. Your formula has been a complete blight on the series.
You remind me of those cancerous Adventurefags from the Sonic fanbase whining that Sonic games don't adhere to Adventure's formula anymore.
John Gomez
>Items are emphasized in BotW more than they ever have been in any other Zelda game. Runes are constantly getting usage throughout the game and different weapon types are all integrated into the combat. Weapon types aren't items. Runes are too few and the fact that they are so wide in their use makes them generic and boring, which is just awful considering how inventive the items have been in the latest games.
Dungeons have always been the point of the games, I'm not sure what you are trying to say about emphasising them in OoT, where it was pretty much the same as ALttP. I'd even say ALttP had more focus on the dungeons than OoT, but that's another topic entirely. Zelda has always been about getting to dungeons and finding specific things, even if the first Zelda had shitty dungeons with more combat than puzzles, the series improved and fleshed out that aspect, with ALttP reinventing how it worked, and OoT translating that to 3D.
This game did want to go back to its roots, but there was no need to make dungeons shitty, and I can't understand that you are defending it by comparing it to a NES game that people do critisize.
Hudson Lopez
except no one was calling it shit until internet pundits put the idea of it being shit into the common pop culture psyche. Guarantee most of the people that think Adventure of Link is terrible or the worst Zelda never touched it.
Leo Peterson
>whining that Sonic games don't adhere to Adventure's formula anymore Sonic games have been shit since Adventure 2, so that's a valid complaint, you seem like a childish person that needs to validate their opinions by insulting those with different ones, nice going.
Jackson Murphy
Yeah sucks to be you.
I don't really get complaints about items. Sure, there's a few I miss, but the concept and implementation are so much better than the last decade of Zelda games.
Twilight Princess exemplified the problem of Zelda items, which is that they had very specific applications and relied on the combat and level designers to make them useful. If you don't have a statue to control, the Dominion Rod is completely useless. This is pretty unsatisfying because it resulted in a situation where you basically didn't use an item outside of one dungeon, because there were too many specialized items and level design only really showcased the dungeon item.
In BotW, every rune and utility item has functionality built-in instead of being "granted" by level design built around the item. Instead of putting the square rod into the square hole when the game gives you the hole, you have a handful of tools that aren't universally applicable, but are used as you see fit. Now everything is useful even if the level design isn't built around it, which is why there's so many shrines you can complete in unintended ways. Being able to cheat torch puzzles because you brought flint and wood makes for better item use than any Zelda.
Kevin Richardson
>wanting the Adventure direction back
unless you were playing as Sonic the adventure formula was HORRIBLE. i was in the target demographic when that game came out in '99 no not a furry manchild just a 3edgy 5me teenager and I thought it was godawful back then outside of a few levels. Definitely not the Mario 64 leap done right.
Joshua Miller
Weapon types are items, they're used in the exact same way to negotiate the environment.
There's plenty of times when I want a Korok Leaf or a Fire Rod, or going even more basic, a blunt weapon vs. a sharp weapon, or something metallic or something wooden, and using the properties of weapons to accomplish something is exactly what items are about in a Zelda game.
Jacob Lewis
While the versatility makes for interesting results, I think it ends up being worse for the game. The puzzles themselves end up being easy and short because the physics of the game let you do so much.
The puzzles in Zelda have never been hard, but they were fun because of something they did so well that I have a hard time putting in words, and this goes beyond 3D Zelda, starting with ALttP. BotW doesn't have that.
Nathaniel Johnson
Nobody was calling it anything because despite selling decent(not as well as its predecessor) it was forgotten immediately.
Parker Carter
>There's plenty of times when I want a Korok Leaf or a Fire Rod
fucking this. korok leafs and fire swords end up getting more use than 90% of your weapons because of their utilitarian effects on the overworld.
Parker Jones
>Implying you need to do any of that in order to land seven arrows on a turret shaped like a giant pig
C'mon man don't defend a shitty boss battle.
Leo Hall
>Weapon types aren't items. Runes are too few and the fact that they are so wide in their use makes them generic and boring, which is just awful considering how inventive the items have been in the latest games.
You can't be fucking serious. Literally the biggest complaint 3D Zelda games have is that a lot of their items never see a lot of utility, some of which are actually replaced by better alternatives later in the game. The runes are designed to keep this aspect minimal and to the point, giving them a reason to be used throughout the entire game both in and out of the overworld. The same boomerang, hookshot, iron boots, etc. are not "inventive".
>even if the first Zelda had shitty dungeons with more combat than puzzles, the series improved and fleshed out that aspect
No it didn't, it just made that aspect different. Dungeons were never supposed to be long slogs that took up a majority of the playtime until later in the series. The NES titles were just emphasizing what Zelda at its core was always meant to emphasize - open exploration.
You're literally just crying that BotW doesn't cater to your idea of what a Zelda game should be when in fact that was never the original point anyway.
Alexander Bennett
>What is the first Zelda >What is Zelda II >What is phantom hourglass >What is spirit tracks >What is triforce heroes >What is Majora's Mask
Please, explain to me these generic "structures and mechanics" of existing zelda games?
Austin Mitchell
>because of something they did so well that I have a hard time putting in word
so either no reason or nostalgia. also bullshit on that statement regardless. I can name tons of "A HA!" or "If I do that, will this happen?" moments in BOTW it's not even funny. If you played this game with any sort of external guide you were doing it a disservice.
Levi Young
Fuck off Arin. Go be an autist somewhere else.
Chase Flores
Uh Alttp did it first you moron.
Christopher Gray
Play botw for the good overworld and play the other 3d zeldas for the good dungeons.
Brody Sanchez
>BotW tried to reinvent how the games work for a wider audience. And holding your hand, forcing tutorials, making the games more lineair like the previous two games is not catering to a wider audience?
>this is not a good Zelda game Oh no the game doesn't follow the OoT formula like the other 3D games and focuses on exploration, it's totally not a good Zelda game.
Easton Ramirez
Not really, alttp gives you more freedom.
Caleb Price
ALttP, OoT, MM, Links Awakening and the Oracles games are objectively the only really good games in the series.
There's nothing wrong with enjoying more, but that was really the high point.
Aiden Wright
I completely disagree. Puzzles are fun when they either test some skill (reflexes, timing, basic geometry, whatever) or they make me feel smart when I find a solution, not some sort of "je ne sais quois."
I don't find doing Zelda puzzles fun just from the act of doing them. This is why I think the Wind Waker has the worst puzzles and dungeons ever, because every single puzzle is "interact with the one thing you can interact with," taken to its stupid extreme in the mirror room of the Earth Temple.
I like BotW's puzzles because at a basic level, they're all tests of skill that aren't just remembering which item does what, and because being able to break them rewards lateral thinking.
Luke Bell
Outside of the dungeons it's like zelda 1 and 2 for the most part
Zachary James
It's a copout from actual discussion for people who just want to sound like they know what they're talking about. Faulting a game for straying away from franchise conventions is just another way of saying it didn't have what you wanted from it in it even though the game never set out to have those features. It sounds like a betrayal of expectations when really the critic just had misplaced expectations.
Julian Morales
They need to blend it together in the next one. I want to randomly stumble upon something like the forest temple in OoT. And the next one needs more memorable bosses and mini bosses.
Christopher Howard
To me the dungeons were the dealbreaker.
4 is a decent amount, dont get me wrong. But the fact that they were pretty much carbon copies of each other is what really killed it. And the fucking bosses were also carbon copies what the fuck.
Once I reached the castle it made think that they definitely could put some more process into dungeons.
I like open world and they went on the right direction but they definitely left a lot of other great things behind.
Bentley Barnes
Because it doesn't make any sense? If you say that X game is a good game then it's automatically a good game in its respective series.
Isaac King
>fire forged master sword in LttP >did more damage than regular master sword that was it
>fire sword in BoTW >lights stoves, torches and creates campfires from wood >melts ice >low level cold protection >burns the enviroment including dry grass, thorns, trees, wooden enemy forts, wooden weapons, etc
I know fire arrows and fire rods cover overlap some of that too even in older zelda games but this is the game where this shit felt the most useful.
Jordan Collins
Sony "concern trolling" is really on another level.
Grayson Hall
>most linear zelda to that date >more freedom
Zelda 1 had more freedom
Adrian Rodriguez
To be fair, a lot of those are reskins and scaled up mobs. Not counting those the enemies in this game are (including bosses) >Bokoblin >Moblin >Lizafols >Keese >Slimes >Lynels >Octoroks >Tiny stone dudes >Small guardians >Large guardians >Flying guardians >Flying skulls >Hinox >Talos >Ganon Blights >The three dragons (though not really enemies per se, they just get counted under it) >Wolves >Yuga Clan archer >Yuga Clan assassin >Yuga Clan heavies >Master Kohga >Moldoga >Calamity Ganon >Dark Beast Ganon
Did I miss any?
Samuel Foster
It feels like way more of a Zelda game than Skyward Sword did.
What has always made Zelda to me is the feeling of exploration. The original LoZ has always been the baseline for me. OoT felt like Zelda when you were looking for secret grottos in Hyrule Field and the Graveyard. Wind Waker felt like Zelda when you were sailing randomly looking for unknown islands. Twilight Princess felt like Zelda when you exploring the geometry for hidden caves and poes. Only Skyward Sword had zero exploration elements and removed those core nuggets of Zelda experience that I normally enjoy between all the linear events.
Breath of the Wild is built out of those feelings that I only found in small scraps of the previous 3D games. It feels like Zelda without all the scripted filler that usually comes between the "Zelda-like" stuff.
I guess that's all just me, though
Austin Peterson
>Divine Beasts all had the same "rotate the dungeon" gimmck but where done differently based on the element/animal you were in >HURR THEY LOOK THE SAME CARBON COPY >Ganonblights all fought differently with different elements, weapons and strategies >HURR THEY LOOK THE SAME CARBON COPY
Kayden Hill
>what is the NES' The Legend of Zelda
A game with real dungeons, the back bone of every real Zelda game.
>inb4 Shrines
Don't even try to pass off those basic bitch room escapes as fucking dungeons.
Evan Lopez
>the labyrinths don't count because my autism says so
Aaron Long
Its like No Man's Sky but instead of basic math puzzles there are shrines.
Charles Harris
Eventide Isle was better than most traditional zelda dungeons.
Gavin Watson
It's a defense mechanism to try and validate your opinions by getting people to agree with you on a small point. "I didn't like this game at all, and I'm in a very small minority, but can we all agree that at least it doesn't belong in this franchise?"
Ian Jones
This.
When people complain that BotW isn't a good """Zelda game""" because it doesn't use OoT's formula, what they're really doing is admitting that they've either never played the first Zelda game or that they went into the game comparing it to later titles while completely failing to understand what it was supposed to be about.
BotW is great in the same way that Mario Galaxy and Sonic Generations are great. They go back to their roots and the core mechanics that made their franchises so fantastic while throwing out all the needless bullshit that accumulated within them over the years.
Leo Collins
but wasn't Final Fantasy 13 the diametric opposite of what you just described? Hated by most "fans" but still liked by a "vocal minority"
Jonathan Anderson
>real dungeons
You definitely never played the first LoZ.
Daniel Morris
This isn't your blog faggot
Anthony Foster
>basic math puzzles >implying you weren't trying to play 4D underwater basket weaving when you got to the constellation puzzle when in reality the solution was much more simple but you got fooled by the vague description and the amount of patterns
Oliver Smith
I'm glad OoT/WW/TP babbys are finally getting btfo
>m-muh dungeons >muh items!
get fucked
Dominic Smith
The original zelda was filled with mini puzzles or combat challenges. You don't even know what you're talking about.
Colton Young
It presupposes that the games can only be one way to be a LoZ game and that's the Ocarina of Time formula. Which is retarded since Ocarina of Time is a diversion from LoZ(NES).
It'd be like saying Super Mario 64 isn't a good Mario game because it's too different to Super Mario World.
Xavier Parker
The roles are flipped, but the core of the argument is the same. 13 fans trying to get the fans of the other games to agree that it's a good game, just not a good final fantasy game. The root is still wanting people to agree with you, even if it's on a completely meaningless point.
Ian Hernandez
Maybe because FF13 could have flaws which could turn off players, like literally hours of tutorials?
Jonathan Taylor
I started with OoT and I love BOTW. Don't lump us in with those faggots.
The complaints are mainly coming from anyone who probably started actually gaming in the gamecube era.
I feel like people would probably bitch about this puzzle less if the description wasn't there.
Henry James
>Ocarina of Time formula I said it once and I'll say it again. Alltp did it first. OoT just put it in a 3d perspective.
Robert Murphy
>underage windwakerfags stirting up shit when new zelda refuses to follow its' suit
pardon me while I pretend to act surprised
Adrian White
>OoT just put it in a 3d perspective.
Then ALttP didn't do it first, OoT did.
Camden Sullivan
>The complaints are mainly coming from anyone who probably started actually gaming in the gamecube era.
That's a good point at that point in time a lot of the series had been defined and were quite similar for 2-3 entries in a row.
There's probably a good number of people who are only just experiencing significant shifts in the formulas of Nintendo games like this but have the idea that they shouldn't change.
Chase Wilson
>i played ww as a child and this is boring
Early zelda had no story. It only had dungeons.
This is late zelda, the antithesis of zelda 1. There are over 300 logic puzzles to be found in the world, the shrines you say are small are merely the beginning. The difficult shrines are either hidden behind quests or tucked in the far reaches of hostile environments. Some shrines are even larger than the smaller dungeons and have more keys and puzzles.
Its not even a game in the traditional sense, there no direction. You see something you think looks cool or out of place you explore and get rewarded. Thats it. Similar to WW only so much more.
This isnt even mentioning the systems working together, what it lacks in variety of enemies it makes up for in freedom of approach.
Xavier Campbell
Everybody knows that, don't be an akshully fag.
Besides, what LttP did was the structure - dungeons, items, Master Sword, Triforce, world shift. As far as actual gameplay elements - Z-targeting, combat, first person aiming, mounts - the 3D Zeldas pull far more from OoT than LttP.