Four years later and with the launch of Tears of the Kingdom I finally managed to come back to BoTW and finish it.
The game is still an incredibly fun experience, there's a bunch of cool things to do, but at the same time I also just don't care as much about Zelda's world as I do about some place like the Mojave. I guess I prefer my open world games to be a bit more upfront in being lore driven experiences with interesting narratives.
Combat is fine, though I will say the Ganon bosses (strictly the Divine Beast ones and the DLC Rematches) kind of just suck. They're either just super easy and boring or have a gimmick that is incredibly annoying to deal with.
The final area/boss was definitely hype and doing all the Divine Beast stuff before that point makes it feel extremely rewarding.
What didn't feel rewarding was doing the DLC. It kind of just sucks. Champions Ballad is way too bloated even if I think the actual upgrades you get (and the motorcycle) are cool. Starting with 4 trials you have to do while having only one hit point, and then having to do 12 more trials followed by a final dungeon and a boss fight against a Shiekah Monk is just excessive and doesn't really feel like a natural way to add more content.
I didn't bother with Trials of the Sword outside the beginners one because it's A. Pointless by Endgame and B. Incredibly tedious.
Fundamentally though you can't go wrong with BoTW, this game has been a therapeutic experience for me coming back to games, a palate cleanser after my awful experience with FE Engage. I don't think it's the greatest game ever made (I am also tentatively not into Zelda), but it's a good time and not hard to see why it has become so influential.
Anyways sorry this review wasn't deep, I'm just now getting back into the swing of things.
The game is still an incredibly fun experience, there's a bunch of cool things to do, but at the same time I also just don't care as much about Zelda's world as I do about some place like the Mojave. I guess I prefer my open world games to be a bit more upfront in being lore driven experiences with interesting narratives.
Combat is fine, though I will say the Ganon bosses (strictly the Divine Beast ones and the DLC Rematches) kind of just suck. They're either just super easy and boring or have a gimmick that is incredibly annoying to deal with.
The final area/boss was definitely hype and doing all the Divine Beast stuff before that point makes it feel extremely rewarding.
What didn't feel rewarding was doing the DLC. It kind of just sucks. Champions Ballad is way too bloated even if I think the actual upgrades you get (and the motorcycle) are cool. Starting with 4 trials you have to do while having only one hit point, and then having to do 12 more trials followed by a final dungeon and a boss fight against a Shiekah Monk is just excessive and doesn't really feel like a natural way to add more content.
I didn't bother with Trials of the Sword outside the beginners one because it's A. Pointless by Endgame and B. Incredibly tedious.
Fundamentally though you can't go wrong with BoTW, this game has been a therapeutic experience for me coming back to games, a palate cleanser after my awful experience with FE Engage. I don't think it's the greatest game ever made (I am also tentatively not into Zelda), but it's a good time and not hard to see why it has become so influential.
Anyways sorry this review wasn't deep, I'm just now getting back into the swing of things.