Breath of the Wild
I suppose that wraps it up for the base game. As much as I'd love to shit all over the game there are some aspects of it I ended up liking, unfortunately. But the cons still outweigh the pros and oh boy do I not have a lot to complain here
( + ) Lets get the positives out of the way first, the open world is competently designed, although quite generic at times it still holds up very well compared to the deluge of uninspiring and linear open world titles with no sense of creativity whatsoever. The fact that the main quests never really get in the way of exploration really adds to the sense of the adventure which is pretty much the entire selling point of the game and it does somewhat deliver on that front. The physics engine coupled with the rune abilities also pave the way of tackling problems and traversing through tricky terrains in various different ways. Lastly, there's the cell-shaded artstyle, which really helps to mask the overall age of the game when it comes to the visuals and still manage to look fantastic even by today's standards
( - ) This game can be absurdly tedious at times and I mean ABSURDLY TEDIOUS. Simply traversing through it can aid to more frustration over entertainment after the honeymoon phase is over because of the game doing absolutely nothing to give the players a more convenient way of exploring the massive open world. To rub salt into the wound they tie down sprinting in empty terrains to the stamina bar. Like, I understand the need for stamina while climbing mountains as it can gatekeep more difficult areas if you haven't made enough progress. But, there's absolutely no reason to deplete the stamina bar when the only method of faster travel is on a horse that controls like crap and surfing on shields that break within mere seconds, as it does nothing but waste time and in turn bore the players.
The game also suffers from being just all around repetitive in its structure. The 4 main quests leading up to the final encounter all basically play out the same and the side quests are just a bunch of random fetch quests that boil down to doing the same errands just for a different NPC. The shrines sprinkled throughout the open world also suffer from being incredibly samey. After reaching the halfway point I ended up mostly just using them as checkpoints instead of checking out whatever puzzle or combat encounters await inside as they're all roughly the same, especially the combat shrines.
The absolute worst aspect of the game would be its horrid combat and the laughably bad enemy/boss encounters. But you might say "Fa, it's totally normal for an open world game to have lackluster combat since the focus is put on the exploration instead." To that I'd say you're completely wrong since the combat is just as integral as exploration is when it comes down to these types of games because most of the times your objectives are centered around combat which is arguably more significant than the exploration part itself. And crafting a decent combat system doesn't really take all that effort so I can't really see the logic in these arguments so I just dismiss them as cop-out defense to shield any cohesive criticisms. Digressions and tangents aside, BoTW's combat being on the lackluster side could've been easily remedied by pinning link up against enemies with well thought out movesets or by having proper variety in the enemy department, since the combat revolves around pattern memorization it'd only make sense for the enemies to actually be somewhat capable of putting up a fight. But as it turns out the enemies/bosses in this game are COMPLETELY inept, most of the time the fight basically just boils down to finding out their gimmick and just abusing it throughout the whole fight to win. The only exception to this rule would be the Lynels, which are somehow more engaging than the major bosses despite being literal mobs. Mechanically weak encounters with more emphasis put on dumb gimmicks outright ruined any potentials of the game even having a half decent combat
As for the story, I couldn't bring myself to care about any of it. It's just a bunch of nothing with the core characters being no personality having losers that only exist to guide you towards your next destination or annoy you during the main dungeons or be a damsel in distress
the open world is pretty ok everything else tho not so much
I suppose that wraps it up for the base game. As much as I'd love to shit all over the game there are some aspects of it I ended up liking, unfortunately. But the cons still outweigh the pros and oh boy do I not have a lot to complain here
( + ) Lets get the positives out of the way first, the open world is competently designed, although quite generic at times it still holds up very well compared to the deluge of uninspiring and linear open world titles with no sense of creativity whatsoever. The fact that the main quests never really get in the way of exploration really adds to the sense of the adventure which is pretty much the entire selling point of the game and it does somewhat deliver on that front. The physics engine coupled with the rune abilities also pave the way of tackling problems and traversing through tricky terrains in various different ways. Lastly, there's the cell-shaded artstyle, which really helps to mask the overall age of the game when it comes to the visuals and still manage to look fantastic even by today's standards
( - ) This game can be absurdly tedious at times and I mean ABSURDLY TEDIOUS. Simply traversing through it can aid to more frustration over entertainment after the honeymoon phase is over because of the game doing absolutely nothing to give the players a more convenient way of exploring the massive open world. To rub salt into the wound they tie down sprinting in empty terrains to the stamina bar. Like, I understand the need for stamina while climbing mountains as it can gatekeep more difficult areas if you haven't made enough progress. But, there's absolutely no reason to deplete the stamina bar when the only method of faster travel is on a horse that controls like crap and surfing on shields that break within mere seconds, as it does nothing but waste time and in turn bore the players.
The game also suffers from being just all around repetitive in its structure. The 4 main quests leading up to the final encounter all basically play out the same and the side quests are just a bunch of random fetch quests that boil down to doing the same errands just for a different NPC. The shrines sprinkled throughout the open world also suffer from being incredibly samey. After reaching the halfway point I ended up mostly just using them as checkpoints instead of checking out whatever puzzle or combat encounters await inside as they're all roughly the same, especially the combat shrines.
The absolute worst aspect of the game would be its horrid combat and the laughably bad enemy/boss encounters. But you might say "Fa, it's totally normal for an open world game to have lackluster combat since the focus is put on the exploration instead." To that I'd say you're completely wrong since the combat is just as integral as exploration is when it comes down to these types of games because most of the times your objectives are centered around combat which is arguably more significant than the exploration part itself. And crafting a decent combat system doesn't really take all that effort so I can't really see the logic in these arguments so I just dismiss them as cop-out defense to shield any cohesive criticisms. Digressions and tangents aside, BoTW's combat being on the lackluster side could've been easily remedied by pinning link up against enemies with well thought out movesets or by having proper variety in the enemy department, since the combat revolves around pattern memorization it'd only make sense for the enemies to actually be somewhat capable of putting up a fight. But as it turns out the enemies/bosses in this game are COMPLETELY inept, most of the time the fight basically just boils down to finding out their gimmick and just abusing it throughout the whole fight to win. The only exception to this rule would be the Lynels, which are somehow more engaging than the major bosses despite being literal mobs. Mechanically weak encounters with more emphasis put on dumb gimmicks outright ruined any potentials of the game even having a half decent combat
As for the story, I couldn't bring myself to care about any of it. It's just a bunch of nothing with the core characters being no personality having losers that only exist to guide you towards your next destination or annoy you during the main dungeons or be a damsel in distress
the open world is pretty ok everything else tho not so much