Will a comment on BOTW made by a stranger on blacklogged almost 8 years after its release have an impact on the world? Obviously not. Yet, I think it is interesting to question our relationship with open-world games, of which BOTW is, for many, the standard-bearer.

To provide some context: I am playing BOTW for the first time, having spent a significant part of my life playing WOW, and for the past year, I have been trying to catch up on the major successes of recent years. I am also a player of "Souls" games and have spent several hundred hours on Elden Ring.

Why such a preamble? Because my relationship with "open-world" games is not neutral and is no longer the same in 2024; I am even exhausted by it. Spending hours pressing 'w' / up arrow and observing an "infinite" world exhausts me. I no longer have the energy to invest a hundred hours in a game collecting XXX items, doing MMO-like side quests that essentially involve going to a certain place, doing X things, and getting X rewards. The pseudo-freedom of the open world offered by developers annoys me: they place too much trust in players. However, and WOW taught me this, players are experts at ruining their gaming experience; we should not trust them.

The question now is: can BOTW be approached as a linear game, like a "classic" Zelda? Well, not really. If we consider the game not as a world to explore but as a mission to accomplish (kill Ganon) using the tools the game provides, then the game reveals a lot of weaknesses.

The game can quickly become artificially difficult, especially in the fight against Kohga in Vah’Naboris. Every mistake is instant death.
All resources (food, weapons, and shields) become a hindrance to progress. You end up having to farm them. The weapon-breaking system completely discouraged me from exploring; I wanted to save my resources as much as possible.
The open-world aspect makes almost everything "skippable": it is possible to finish the game by killing practically no enemies.
Once the power of Regali is obtained, exploration as such comes to an end in my opinion. It is possible to completely skip Hyrule Castle at the end of the game. What I expected to be a "mega-shrine +++" turned out to be a courtesy visit to Ganon.

Obviously, I am exaggerating a bit, and it is undeniable that the game is simply beautiful in many aspects, especially graphically and musically.

Gasp… I think I am getting old and expecting something else from video games than being 'infinite interactive toys.' Perhaps I am expecting games to be controlled by developers and not left to players. Unfortunately, I have the impression that Tears of the Kingdom continues in this direction by adding 'Minecraft'-like crafting.

FR :
Est-ce qu’un commentaire sur BOTW fait par un inconnu sur blacklogged presque 8 ans après sa sortie va-t-il avoir un impact sur le monde ? Évidemment que non. Pourtant, je pense qu’il est intéressant d’interroger notre rapport aux jeux open-world dont BOTW est, pour beaucoup, l’étendard d’un standard.
Pour donner quelques éléments de contextes : je joue pour la première fois à BOTW, j’ai passé une majeure partie de ma vie à jouer à WOW et cela fait maintenant 1 an que je tente de rattraper mon retard sur les grands succès de ces dernières années. Je suis aussi un joueur de « Souls » et j’ai passé plusieurs centaines d’heures sur Elden Ring.
Pourquoi un tel préambule ? Parce mon rapport aux jeux « open-world » n’est pas neutre et n’est plus le même en 2024 : j’en suis même épuisé. Passer des heures à presser « w » / flèche directionnel en haut et observer un monde « infini » m’épuise. Je n’ai plus la force d’investir une centaine d’heure dans un jeu à collecter XXX items, faire des sides-quests « à la MMO » qui consistent essentiellement à aller à tel endroit faire X choses et obtenir X récompenses. La pseudo liberté de l’open world que me propose les développeurs m’exaspèrent : ils placent trop de confiance dans les joueurs. Hors, et WOW me l’a appris, les joueurs sont les experts pour ruiner leur expérience de jeu, on ne doit pas leur faire confiance.
La question maintenant est : est-ce que BOTW peut-il être abordé comme un jeu linéaire, comme un zelda « classique » ? Et bien, pas vraiment. Si on considère le jeu non pas comme un monde à explorer, mais une mission à accomplir (tuer Ganon) en utilisant les outils que le jeu nous propose, alors le jeu révèle un grand nombre de faiblesses.
1. Le jeu peut rapidement devenir artificiellement difficile, notamment sur la fight contre Kohga dans Vah’Naboris. Chaque erreur est une mort instantanée.
2. Toutes les ressources (nourriture, arme et bouclier) deviennent un frein à la progression. On se retrouve obliger d’aller les farm. Ce système d’armes qui se détruit m’a totalement découragé à aller explorer, je voulais ainsi économiser le plus possible mes ressources.
3. L’aspect open-world rend à peu près tout « skippable » : il est possible de finir le jeu en ne tuant pratiquement aucun ennemi.
4. Une fois le pouvoir de Regali obtenu, l’exploration en tant que telle prend fin à mon sens. Il est possible de totalement passer le château d’Hyrule à la fin du jeu. La où je m’attendais à un « mega-shrine +++ » s’est révélé être une visite de courtoisie à Ganon.
Évidemment, je force un peu le trait, et il est indéniable que le jeu est tout simplement magnifique sur beaucoup d’aspects, notamment graphiquement et musicalement.
Gasp… Je pense que je deviens vieux et que j’attends autre chose des jeux vidéo que d’être des « jouets interactifs infinis ». J’attends peut-être que les jeux soient contrôlés par les développeurs et non pas laissés aux joueurs.
J’ai malheureusement l’impression que Tears of the Kingdom continue dans cette voie en y ajoutant des craft « à la Minecraft ».

Eu juro que tentei, quatro vezes, em dois consoles diferentes. Se tinha alguém que ia conseguir fazer me gostar de mundo aberto, era Zelda, e não foi dessa vez.

Eu consigo entender porque as pessoas gostam tanto de BotW e o que ele tenta trazer de novidades e qualidades, mas eu acho que só não é algo que eu acho divertido. A movimentação era lenta, as recompensas eram muito pequenas, a escalada era demorada demais, até as batalhas não tinham variedade o suficiente pra serem interessantes.

Fico triste, mas acho que Zeldinha pra mim sempre foi muito bom e não é essa mudança que eu queria.

Man. I really wanna like this game, I do, but I’ve literally tried to play it over five times and i drop it every single time. It’s actually insane how many times I’ve told myself that id give it another chance. Well I’m SICK of it!! This shit is boring🙅‍♂️🙅‍♂️🙅‍♂️ I may play TOTK one day just to shit on it and make some fanboys mad but that’s where I want my interaction with modern Zelda to end. I gotta play some actual good shit like Windwaker. Matter of fact, that’s what I’m GONNA do! I’m gonna play WINDWAKER!!!

I honestly hate myself sometimes. About a week after finishing Tears of the Kingdom, I pulled out my Steam Deck and set up Cemu. I swear I only intended to use Breath of the Wild as a kind of stress test, but it somehow managed to snowball into a full-blown casual playthrough. I can't say I fully understand why; I don't have any strong feelings for BotW.

Just to get it out of the way, let's start with the story. 100 years after Link and the four Champions failed to stop Hyrule from being ravaged by Calamity Ganon, Link wakes up in the Shrine of Resurrection with no memories of his role in the grand scheme of things. One tutorial island later, and King Rhoam's ghost informs you that Zelda has been keeping Ganon at bay in Hyrule Castle for 100 years, and it's your job to finish him off. Optionally, you can help out the various folks with their Divine Beast woes, or regain your lost memories, but aintnobodygottimeforthat, the people of Hyrule have been waiting 100 years for their lives to go back to normal.

The kingdom of Hyrule is vast, expansive, and not that deep. See that mountain in the distance? You can climb it! See those horses? You can tame them! See that dog? Well, you can't pet him. Look, but don't touch. Hyrule just doesn't have much to do between points of interest. I know the point is to let your curiosity guide you and explore at your own pace, but I don't feel like there's that much to discover out there, aside from the 120 shrines and 900 Koroks. I don't really consider the Koroks to be "meaningful content". They're not engaging, they're glorified distractions that I partake in only because I know they'll amount to more inventory space in the long run. The best parts of the overworld are the environmental puzzles and riddles that require you to pay attention to your surroundings, testing your knowledge of the world you've been traveling. I find them far more interesting than the shrines and the simplistic puzzles that are found within them. Your four runes (Remote Bomb, Magnesis, Stasis, and Cryonis) are very situational in nature, so all the shrine puzzles end up being samey after a while. And that's disregarding the many "tests of strength" shrines where you fight the same damn guardian drone with varying degrees of inflated health and damage. Several shrines also have these terminals that you control via motion controls, and every time one of them showed up, I groaned. They're unintuitive no matter what kind of controller you're using, and should've been altogether scrapped.

I wish the sidequests could help make up the difference here, but aside from a few exceptions, most of them pertain to mundane tasks such as gathering 10 items and handing them over. Even Tarrey Town, an extensive and memorable sidequest that's held in high regard by players, requires 110 bundles of wood to complete (140 wood+3000 rupees if you count the quest where Link buys a house as part of this story). The Divine Beasts, this game's main dungeons, are just five shrine puzzles taped together. They're all visually similar on the inside, and the mechanic of controlling a part of each dungeon never goes far enough to be memorable. At the end of each beast, you fight the corresponding pathetically easy Blight Ganon, most of which fight and look very similar to each other.

The weapon durability system is the crux of the combat, and you either love it, or you hate it. For some, it encourages on-the-fly decisions and dynamic combat scenarios. In my case, it's constantly bogged down by the negatives. I hoard all my strongest weapons, never finding a good time to use them. Using them doesn't feel good, it just means I won't have them later, even if superior weapons will come my way in the future. I inherently avoid conflict because watching my weapon stash get blown to smithereens by my own hand doesn't feel good. The thrill of gaining more weapons is also subdued by the fact that there's only three types of weapons: swords, clubs, and spears. Some of them come with different attributes (like how magic rods are just swords that shoot fire, ice, or lightning projectiles), but you'll be acquainted with all of them by the time you leave the tutorial island. Now when I open up a chest, I see the "Your inventory is full." message, and shrug my shoulders. All of this boils down to a point that I think most aren't willing to admit: The weapon durability system is flawed at its core, and Nintendo tried to design their gameplay in a way that justifies its flaws, but it just doesn't work.

The music in BotW is absent for most of your playthrough so you can soak in the atmosphere, but I'm glad that it knows to step in when things get interesting. There's actually a lot of dynamic layers at play in each song, depending on factors like enemy types, battle duration, and even your own actions. If I'm being honest, this game's biggest redeeming factor in my eyes is your final stop, Hyrule Castle. It embodies everything that this game stands for. The moment you're off the Great Plateau, you can book it straight to Ganon, if you so choose. You have the freedom to do that. Hyrule Castle is a deadly labyrinth with countless entrances, exits, and secret passageways. You can approach it in any way you see fit. Not only does it contain tons of the most powerful equipment in the game, but you'll also find substantial amounts of lore pertaining to the events that occurred 100 years ago.

Breath of the Wild was a pivotal moment for Nintendo. It capped off their first-party support of the Wii U, and kickstarted the launch of the Switch. After the hyper-linear Skyward Sword was met with backlash from fans, they went in a completely different direction, finding an audience of both new and returning players. Even if I disagree with a decent amount of what it does, I still respect it. I considered giving the game a 6/10 for this review, but I'm sure a 7/10 is bound to make some Zelda purists go crazy anyways, so let's just say I felt generous. Despite claiming to not enjoy this game that much, something always keeps me going like a Hylian possessed.

Eu não sei dizer o pq de eu nunca ter escrito nada pro meu jogo favorito de todos os tempos (até agora no caso, ainda não joguei o tears of the kingdom por inteiro).
É algo que provavelmente vai mudar por causa do TOTK que eu nem terminei, mas que tem sido uma das melhores experiências com jogos que eu já tive.
Vamo lá, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the wild.
É sem dúvida nenhuma, a melhor experiência que eu tive com qualquer mídia de entretenimento, em todos meus poucos 23 anos de idade (sem contar o totk), que jogo absurdo. Não é toa que esse jogo foi tão marcante, não só pra mim, mas pra tanta gente, que fez o switch ser o que ele é hoje, e que me fez fazer uma tatuagem pra que eu nunca me esqueça disso.
Esse jogo é tão complexo, e ele é ESPETACULAR em TUDO que ele se propõem a fazer. Sistema de combate, cozinhar, exploração, verticalidade, trilha sonora, história, gameplay, tudo.
Como fã da franquia, eu obviamente tava muito ansioso pro lançamento e eu nunca poderia imaginar o quão marcante ele foi, tirei leite de pedra num PC antigo que eu tinha pra jogar, emprestei switch de prima, juntei um dinheiro no meu primeiro emprego só pra comprar um switch pra poder jogar, o tanto que esse jogo importa pra mim é indescritível.
Ele fez parte de mim, teve um período que tudo pra mim tava muito ''nublado'' digamos assim, eu não tinha perspectiva de futuro, minha mãe doente, minha vó com alzheimer, o trabalho tava desgraçando com a minha cabeça e esse jogo me ajudou TANTO nessa época, zelda é mais que uma franquia pra mim, é literalmente parte de mim.
A história do jogo é absurda. Uma Hyrule pós-apocalíptica, com um mundo aberto absurdo, cheio de sistemas, a solidão é algo presente no jogo, mas que não chega a incomodar, pq faz parte da narrativa e aquilo te joga pra dentro de uma forma absurda.
Ganon é um vilão cruel, mesmo que ele não tenha propriamente uma ''forma'' e diálogos, etc, ele é sei lá, devastador.
A Zelda nesse jogo é, sei lá, fácil a melhor interpretação da personagem, primeira vez com VA. E porra, que história de superação fudida.
O Link por mais que seja só alguém pra nos colocar na pele do protagonista e infelizmente ainda não ter falas tipo, por voice acting, eles justificam colocando isso como parte da personalidade dele, e acredito que é um dos Links mais expressivos nesse sentido, as falas demonstram bem o tipo de pessoa que o Link é.
Os guardiões são incríveis, eu amo muito eles, e porra, são marcantes pra CARALHO, Urbosa, Revali, Mipha, Daruk e Link.
Todas as histórias são muito bem escritas e a narrativa não ser linear acredito que te instiga mais a procurar saber sobre esses personagens.
A trilha sonora talvez seja a coisa que eu mais vi as pessoas reclamarem por não ter alguns temas clássicos da franquia, mas ainda assim, EU, acho que encaixa perfeitamente na narrativa.
Breath of the Wild é um jogo perfeito pra mim, não mudaria nada, e tudo que poderia ser melhorado e dado um upgrade, foi, na sequência. Obrigado pro essa experiência. te amo Aonuma.

Okay this review is gonna make me lose my credibility (if I ever had one)

I do love The Legend of Zelda series a lot and I remember being really really excited by this new title.
I love the series for different reasons, but if I gotta summarize what are the key aspects of a zelda game I always look for, it may be these 3: fun and addicting gameplay based on item variety and cool combat, challenging and creative dungeon designs and bosses, and enthrilling story full of memorable supporting characters.

I remember the day this game came out: I got it from my cousin, played it for a lot of hours, exploring around and trying to progress through the story, going all out until reaching the final confrontation with Ganon. And for all the game, I found 2 of these 3 key parameters to be really missing.

Don't get me wrong, this title is beloved for a reason: it's a open world that makes you wonder discorevries like no other, able to want you go around the land of Hyrule forever despite the common reuse of enemies and assets. The customization and ability to experiment with the game engines and physichs was so good that they perfected and used as a big selling point in the sequel. The breakable weapons can be annoying and weirdly restrictive at times, but the ability to improvise and use so many more options scattered around gives you enough incentive to move forward, instead of "farming for the best weapons over and over again".

In that regard, the gameplay and exploration is incredible...... but the rest of the things I love about a Zelda game got kinda sacrificed in the process:
If dungeons once where important world building assets, full of complex mechanics and cool menaces, now they are turned into the samey monotone sets of corridors and enemies..... sure you can break those dungeons with the game physics and you can solve a "puzzle" in more that one way because of it, but in all honesty I miss the more refined puzzle solving of older titles..... the dungeons are also cool in concepts (being some ancients mechanical beings used as guardians of the land) but I kinda wish they did more with that and gave a little more variety to the whole bunch.

And the story, one of the things I love the most about a zelda game.... is basically already finished: you wake up from a long slumber only to find out that all of your friends are dead, the evil resurfaced, and the only big ally you have left is fighting for her life as you go around and cook frogs and apples..... I kinda wish you will be able to... you know... actually live the story the game is trying to tell, instead of discovering it with bits and pieces. I feel like other videogames, like most of the Dark Souls titles, are able to introducing you into and already messed up world while still making you feel part of the narrative, in a way, something that I kinda wish this game did better. There are some fun characters like Sidon, RIju or the Yiga clan, but overall I felt a bit of... emptiness in the narrative of Breath of the Wild.
You are free to enjoy it of course, these are the best versions of Link and Zelda for many reasons, but it's just not for me.

Overall, I feel BOTW has many reasons to be considered an amazing game, but FOR ME PERSONALLY it's not able to translate well a lot of the mechanics that made me love the series in the first place, creating a new type of experience thhat in my opinion goes a bit too far from classic zelda titles.
I guess I just prefer the execution of titles like Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess or Wind Waker, I dunno..... so seeing this often considered "the best game of all time" is something I will entirely disagree.

I tried so hard to like this game but it just very unfortunately was not my cup of tea. This game is so BORING.

It has an expansive map with little to do in it but random pockets of caves with some enemies in them or a single NPC waltzing around with little to say. I blame this game for the constant onslaught of empty open worlds we keep getting today, too many companies trying to copy what this game did and I don't understand why??? The world is bland, and I can applaud it for making climb mechanics actually function without looking like ass, but I just simply wasn't engaged. The only thing this game revolutionized was a new way to piss me off.

For a game that wants you to explore, it sure makes you work hard for it. The 3D puzzles are cool at first until you're on your 34th shrine with the same physics puzzles you've already seen. Or another shrine with the same enemy standing in it... again.

The weapon durability in this game is just infuriating and made me less likely to fight enemies because I'd know that my entire inventory would probably be broken by the end of it, so there was little point to fighting anything. There are some games that I love to death with durability features, but this game likes to leave you empty handed most of the time and struggling to find a good replacement often times in terrible spots, making it painful for the sake of being painful. Even then, the rewards were usually garbage and not even worth it anyways.

There are some NPCs who ask you to play games with them, but they're just time sinks. I would think "finally, something interesting to do" and then watch as all of my weapons shattered in my hands while doing it. It's like the game noticed I was enjoying myself for a minute and then said, "Wait- You gotta stop."

I cannot stand how the most basic features of upgrading your inventory slots and armor is blocked behind chores and Rupee paywalls in this part of the series. The memories feature has to be the worst feature of them all though because it directly affects the plot. If I want to learn anything about Zelda at all, I have to find these very specific parts of the map using only photographs as clues. She's meant to be an extremely important character with the highest priority of helping, but everything about her as a character is hidden behind optional content.

The best moment for me was when a Guardian vaporized my horse, now that shit was funny as fuck. Other than that though, I just don't find it enjoyable.

It's probably not the best game I have ever played, even TOTK is better objectively buy this one is my favorite, of all. nothing I have ever played has had this impact on me, watching back the change my life itself has made since I played this game is incredible. Sometimes I still play it and it is as amazing, even tho it feels different than before because I usually make speedruns but when I open my original save file and just walk on the world, it's so great words can't explain.

More than 400 hours in, made me interested of speedrunning, changed the way I see videogames and has made my life better in a lot of ways. 0/10 you can't pet the dogs

not unlike the 5th elder scrolls game (which they were open about being inspired by), i played for like 40 hours nonstop as soon as it released and got my fix of it. i'm good, don't really have a desire to return.

but, unlike that other "see that mountain, you can climb it!" ass game, i look back fondly on my (perhaps limited) time with it. initially, i felt as if it was a return to form for the old ninty, up there with a link to the past and metroid 3, but these days i'm not so sure. still stands as one of the better examples of the post 2010ish triple-ehhhh open world experiences, which is something i'm kinda lukewarm on, favoring a tighter, focused experience almost unanimously. good for them tho i guess

Well, Zelda Botw is a compilation of good ideas, limited by weak hardwares, but how much of it is really a good idea per se, instead of becoming a good idea because Nintendo did it?

If innovative and revolutionary is the capacity of being made copies later, then botw is all of that (thanks Genshin). But if it is doing something no one ever did or upgrade what came before, this game does nothing new.

The map is pretty i can give them that, but what do you do in it is far more important then the screenshots you take. There is not much to do: towers(classic map unlockers), shrines, enemy camps, simples side quests and the devilish korok seeds(collectables lmao). What of theses things is really a massive step foward? Not a single one.

The game is good because you can cut the grass? The amazing possibility to ignore what the devs wanted and do your own thing is good, instead in this game you destroy the level design team to do the most simple of puzzles because the players will ignore anyway. I did not spend like 5min in the great Hyrule Castle, because i could simple climb the back and get to the boss, so why do a dungeon this big if there is nothing to win by exploring it?

The story... there is not story basically. The most basic of basic hero's journey with the (again classic) protagonist's amnesia. Zelda is an interesting character, limited by flashbacks and whispers to a boring and empty main character.

Soundtrack? What soundtrack? I only hear the BREATH OF THE WILD OOOOOOHHHH YEAAAAH.

So what really makes Zelda BotW special? It is made by Nintendo. Simple as that. There are a lot of open world games that came before this one with far more qualities and innovations, something that Nintendo never needs to do because of the wave of blind fans who will pay and love everything they throw at them.

Imagine if this game was made by Ubisoft, the story would be far different...

Cool game which introduced me to the Zelda series but was lacking some depth.

Game is very open and doesn't really tell you what to do. Quests are quite hard to follow and it doesn't really feel like a story quest but more like side-missions.

Played 3/4 through the game but couldn't find the energy to pick it up again.

Fun game with nice little mechanics but could be executed better in terms of story, quests and other little things.

I still remember the first night this game was out, watching a friend play it and both coming up with insane ideas that the other of us would say "No, no way. That would never be possible." And it then it actually worked. That feeling of discovering the ways you can work within the game's systems is the main draw of Breath of the Wild. And that night is still one of my favorite of all the games I've played. For that it will always hold a special place in my games library.

The problem comes when you move beyond being initially impressed by those things. Then you think "okay time to do side quests," but the quests are all boring fetch tasks with very little thought/plot.

"Okay, then I'll do shrines," but there are so many and they all look so samey it's hard to stay engaged with them for too long.

"Okay then I'll just do the main story," but the story is pretty boring this time around, and legacy dungeons, the divine beasts, and their bosses are so similar I genuinely can't remember which is which or in what region it was in.

BoTW is a good proof of concept that loses steam when you go "Okay I realize I can roll a rock down a hill to buldoze over a group of moblins, that's a great physics engine. What else U got???" And unfortunately the answer is not much.

And FUCK this weapons durability system. How are you going to tell me the fucking MASTER SWORD breaks??? At least there's no chance they'll repeat that little mistake in the sequel. 👁️👁️