The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

[Chooch]

19 minutes ago, scottcr said:

 

all that is fair enough - but to abandon the game entirely because of one section that literaly takes about 5 minutes and has one of the games best bosses is a shame.  Especially when you can decide to do almost anything else at that point.

Its funny, this is like every time you get stuck in a Metroid and Cyhwuhx comes along, pretty much calls you an idiot for not getting it before explaining why you shouldn't be feeling the way you are in a really condescending way.  See also the Hollow Knight thread.

[hughes]

Turn left, climb ladder, drop from ceiling, climb second ladder, banana lure, drop from ceiling walk forward. 

 

Also, can you get to that boss from the overworld? It looks like you can but I'm not sure if he'd spawn.

[ZOK]

3 hours ago, hughes said:

Turn left, climb ladder, drop from ceiling, climb second ladder, banana lure, drop from ceiling walk forward. 

 

Also, can you get to that boss from the overworld? It looks like you can but I'm not sure if he'd spawn.

 

Yes you can go there, but nothing happens in that area unless you go through the stupid way.

[robdood]

6 hours ago, Cyhwuhx said:

the realisation that you have no alternative is the maddening part. So much for "an open world".

You can finish the game without doing it. 

 

The alternative is to leave it.

[Adrock]

Yeah I was going to say. You can just avoid it and do everything else. Then go and fight Ganon without having beaten Vah Naboris.

[the_debaser]

I liked the stealth bit. 

[Kevvy Metal]

The stealth section is a cool little change of pace and is probably easier than tying your shoelaces. 

[Marlew]

I hate stealth, hated that section, looked up what to do, did it first go, forgot about it. And it's optional. 

[ZOK]

As I remember it, the main problem in that stupid stealth section is the steps you run up behind the first stationary doorway guard are very dark, and you can climb to the top of the wall without realising you can also move to the side to get to the next section. So as a consequence you think that's a dead end and spend an hour farting around trying to work out where the hell you are supposed to be going in the main area in front of that guard, and getting into fifty unwinnable fights with the guards.

 

Or at least that's what happened to me. Once you get past that bit it's piss easy. Just boring.

[Delargey]

I did the same thing.

[cohen205]

If the game was perfect then they’d have nothing to improve on in the sequel 

[bradigor]

Finally picked this up and it beautiful to look at (even in handheld mode). 

 

I'm not sure if it is me and where I am in life, but I am finding it a tad overwhelming early on, which was never the case with other Legend of Zelda games. I think it may be because my gaming sessions are limited to 30 minutes a go right now, so I can't get properly stuck in. 

 

I am liking the tombs you come across though, they are fun to do. 

[Nespresso]

Huh, odd. I remember failing that stealth section once or twice but it never made me want to throw my Switch out the window. That said I can see why others might though hehe. 

 

Anyway BotW still remains one of my favourite games to date and I like coming back to this thread every now and then to read new players' experiences. Personally every minute of this game was filled with non-stop wonder and glee for me, loved it! 

 

Never did pick up any of the season pass stuff though. Did that turn out to be worthwhile at all? 

[iknowgungfu]

19 minutes ago, bradigor said:

 

 

I'm not sure if it is me and where I am in life, but I am finding it a tad overwhelming early on, which was never the case with other Legend of Zelda games. I think it may be because my gaming sessions are limited to 30 minutes a go right now, so I can't get properly stuck in. 

I had the same experience too as I don’t get much chance to sit down for lengthy play sessions these days either (hopefully when my kids are a few years older we will all play together). I almost gave up on it. However, over the course of 10months this proved to be an amazing game and I am so glad I stuck with it. 

[iknowgungfu]

7 minutes ago, VN1X said:

Huh, odd. I remember failing that stealth section once or twice but it never made me want to throw my Switch out the window. That said I can see why others might though hehe. 

I had to have a few goes at that stealth section and it was probably one of my least favourite parts of the game. I don’t mind stealth in games at all but the fact that you were essentially forced to play it stealthily was completely at odds with the feel of the game in general. I found it a bit jarring. 

[the_debaser]

33 minutes ago, VN1X said:

Huh, odd. I remember failing that stealth section once or twice but it never made me want to throw my Switch out the window. That said I can see why others might though hehe. 

 

Anyway BotW still remains one of my favourite games to date and I like coming back to this thread every now and then to read new players' experiences. Personally every minute of this game was filled with non-stop wonder and glee for me, loved it! 

 

Never did pick up any of the season pass stuff though. Did that turn out to be worthwhile at all? 

 

The second dcl was ace, wasn’t a huge fan of the first. 

[linkster]

I bought this as a launch title. It was cool going away on business and taking it with me. I sank well over 100 hours and it’s the best open world game I’ve ever played. It puts the rest to shame. The lack of walls and barriers is extraordinary. Every time you push you find it confounds your expectations.

 

in spite of all that, it’s not my favourite Zelda, not even close. The story is lazy and forgettable, the game mechanics can be tiresome and feel like pointless grinding, all those weapons and potions and barely anything to distinguish them. 

 

The horse system doesn’t work at all, no need to pick one over another, or to dress them up unless you are extremely bored. No bond close to the previous games.

 

Worryingly after Skyward Sword this feels like another full on Zelda title that was shipped before it was fully ready.

 

in all honesty I much preferred A Link Between Worlds.

 

i desperately hope now they have that magnificent game engine a same-gen sequel is all about the content 

[Adrock]

I don't know how you'd weave a tight narrative around such an open and free experience.

 

My son played through this again after completing it over a year ago. Did all of the memories too this time. Is the DLC story worth the extra money?

[linkster]

I don’t think it needed a tight narrative, the mechanics of finding the story out of sequence worked fine and I was utterly driven to find it all, but the content itself was very weak

 

There were plenty of hubs where you could have met compelling characters to link up narrative in the open world but again I can’t thjnk of a single one to match the best of the previous games

 

The bigger challenge is probably in the mechanics - how do you make progression meaningful given the sheer amount of time you can spend simply exploring? I must admit I wasn’t that taken with the camp combat, yes there were many many ways you COULD tackle them but I tended to take the shortest route as again it was kind of tedious

 

It’s an extraordinary achievement, the best game world ever made, the sequel really could be extraordinary 

[kensei]

I liked the plot. It was a light wrapper around the gameplay, and finding a memory felt like a tangible reward the way a sword didn't.

 

The combat is fine, and you need to think of the swords like a gun in an FPS rather than a sword in an RPG for the most part. You use them and they die. You get another one. Occasionally you find something a bit rarer and more exciting. The problem is that it really plateaus mid game. Guardians are terrifying at the start, and it's worth raiding to get loot and stuff, but by mid game you are too strong for basically everything. Balancing that is hard, but throwing some more enemy types in the mix would have helped. Where are my Darknuts?

 

The idea that this is unfinished is the maddest thing I've ever heard. There is so much to do. The world is incredibly crafted. The "chemistry engine" is rock solid. It's just impossible to nail it all first go. If ever. LBW is to this what NSMB is to Odyssey. Its not the same game. 

 

For the sequel, I think they need to make it a bit *less* open in places. Gliding is too useful. There's value in restricting you a bit at times, and say forcing you to take a horse. 

[linkster]

It’s not mad at all. What is Zelda the classic series but an RPG with all the stats cleverly hidden? That’s why it’s so loved. The level of polish and craft in the earlier titles for such enormous endeavours is incredible. This is a lesser Zelda because it has good ideas that don’t combine to achieve a whole, plus it falls into the trap of so many other RPGs it has until now skilfully avoided. The quality experience has been sacrificed to launch a console (cos nothing else was ready).

 

again, for 100 hours these are niggles, only cos the damn series set such a standard 

[kensei]

I respectfully think you are missing the polish in this. The work it must have taken to get the physics and chemistry to work properly, the design of world that just gently leads you, that perfectly sparse soundtrack, the general lack of weird open world game bugs ... it's a phenomenal achievement. Given the scope, it's also a game you could work on forever. They had to let go sometime. 

 

I was adamant that they couldn't do this. It would be Zelda. And yet while it's a vastly different game, they somehow retained the core.

[linkster]

I already said it’s the best open world game ever! It’s an astonishing technical achievement, no doubt. I just don’t have the kind of emotional connection that usually comes with Zelda.

[nakamura]

It's exactly like the original Zelda to be fair. So it's very much a classic Zelda game, they just became a lot easier to navigate.

[linkster]

2 hours ago, nakamura said:

It's exactly like the original Zelda to be fair. So it's very much a classic Zelda game, they just became a lot easier to navigate.

Hardly anyone would argue The Legend of Zelda is a high point of the series ...

 

anyway, it’s just my opinion. The last time there was a proper same generation Zelda sequel it turned into one of the best games of all time so here’s hoping ...

[Rayn]

9 hours ago, Adrock said:

 Is the DLC story worth the extra money?

 

Yes, it really is!

[Stanley]

10 hours ago, linkster said:

 The quality experience has been sacrificed to launch a console (cos nothing else was ready).

If anything they held it back for the Switch launch given that it was originally a Wii U title and slated for a much earlier release. I see no evidence that suggests it was rushed, it's as polished and complete as any other top Nintendo game.

[linkster]

1 minute ago, Stanley said:

If anything they held it back for the Switch launch given that it was originally a Wii U title and slated for a much earlier release. I see no evidence that suggests it was rushed, it's as polished and complete as any other top Nintendo game.

I’ve alteady listed multiple reasons why the game does not feel as rounded and coherent as previous. Nintendo tried an open world game and fell into the same trap as everyone else who has tried - but in many ways they did it better. But the story IS rubbish and tacked on. Ganon has basically no impact on the game beyond the final encounter. You don’t emotionally engage with any other character. The finale is memorable only for being accessible whenever you are able. Most damning I’ve had no desire to revisit it, that’s unheard of for me in 20 years of playing Zelda.

[Stanley]

Yeah I've read your reasons and none of them are signs that the game was rushed to meet to the Switch launch. Like I said, if anything it was held back and polished even more. 

[Stanley]

2 hours ago, linkster said:

Hardly anyone would argue The Legend of Zelda is a high point of the series ...

Perhaps not in the UK because the NES was never that popular here. But elsewhere it was considered important as it was the first one that many people played. 

 

Regardless, Nintendo have said numerous times that they wanted to rediscover the essence of the very first game, and bring back that same sense of adventure and exploration. 

 

I think there's a beautiful symmetry to BOTW in that sense. It takes everything from every open world adventure game ever made in the last 30 years yet at it's  heart it is returning to the freedom and simplicity of the very first Zelda. Breath of The Wild, to me, is like playing a history lesson in game form; taking everything we've learnt in both their own games and others and then gently, effortlessly, reminding us why we played them in the first place, and offering us suggestions for new paths to be forged in the future.