This is the MOST video game I've ever played.
I saw credits on this thing after 105 hours with 45% completion.
I didn't really want a BOTW 2 as I figured roaming the open world again would get tiresome. I was quite wrong. Adding the verticality and the three different flavors of sky, surface, and depth kept things mostly fresh. The cave spelunking was also a good time, until it wasn't.
The building and fusion systems are just incredible and inspired. It's a bizarre idea that the only analogue I can really think of "The Incredible Machine". You have the freedom to build and can make things to move around, solve puzzles, fight enemies, or just be a weirdo. This system is a little clunky but so robust and inspired that it is just a joy to interact with. The ability to fuse monster parts to your weapons also works very well in tandem with the durability system... it's not longer awful if you only have crappy weapons as you can uncrappify them with fusion.
It also makes the bow and arrow such a more interesting system. We used to have fire, ice, and lightning arrows. Now you can attach wings, items to make arrows stronger, eyeballs for tracking, etc.
Wandering around the huge open world, solving the shrine puzzles using the unique and novel building mechanics, and just uncovering really intriguing secrets was a joy.
It wasn't all great!
Firstly, there is just too much stuff. I love this game but 100 hours is a big ask. I'm trying to play some other stuff before I die here! And I really would have liked to see even more but I have to try some other stuff. And thats for 45%.
Secondly, the combat is fairly babyish. Some of the coolest bosses have some Shadow of the Colossus style nonsense you need to do to beat them which is fun. Average enemies are just smacked away with a sword and if you try to engage Dark Souls style with the parrying and evading... it just becomes very clear that the combat is baby Dark Souls if you try to interact with it that way.
Narrative-wise, the world and lore is real neat. The Zonai ruins and sky islands are fascinating. Exposition-wise... I was so bored. There is nothing compelling about the characters and the narrative themes are pretty light and hammered over and over again into your brain. I skipped some of these cutscenes! I didn't like em! To be fair I felt the same in BOTW but I was hoping to see some advancement on that front. There are cool story beats but overall it is really not interesting to me.
Musically, it's about as good as BOTW. The Lookout Landing theme is hot and so is the Rito Village theme but there is a decent amount recycled from BOTW.
I sunk about 85 joyful hours into this and then spent 20 mostly enjoyable hours trying to hit the credits. With any game this long it usually becomes a slog for me at the end but there was just so much genius here and so many amazing things I had never done in a video game with all the building mechanics/puzzles.
A little too much game and open world exhaustion hit but this is a banger and a real accomplishment of game design, especially running on my tired 7 year old launch Switch.
I saw credits on this thing after 105 hours with 45% completion.
I didn't really want a BOTW 2 as I figured roaming the open world again would get tiresome. I was quite wrong. Adding the verticality and the three different flavors of sky, surface, and depth kept things mostly fresh. The cave spelunking was also a good time, until it wasn't.
The building and fusion systems are just incredible and inspired. It's a bizarre idea that the only analogue I can really think of "The Incredible Machine". You have the freedom to build and can make things to move around, solve puzzles, fight enemies, or just be a weirdo. This system is a little clunky but so robust and inspired that it is just a joy to interact with. The ability to fuse monster parts to your weapons also works very well in tandem with the durability system... it's not longer awful if you only have crappy weapons as you can uncrappify them with fusion.
It also makes the bow and arrow such a more interesting system. We used to have fire, ice, and lightning arrows. Now you can attach wings, items to make arrows stronger, eyeballs for tracking, etc.
Wandering around the huge open world, solving the shrine puzzles using the unique and novel building mechanics, and just uncovering really intriguing secrets was a joy.
It wasn't all great!
Firstly, there is just too much stuff. I love this game but 100 hours is a big ask. I'm trying to play some other stuff before I die here! And I really would have liked to see even more but I have to try some other stuff. And thats for 45%.
Secondly, the combat is fairly babyish. Some of the coolest bosses have some Shadow of the Colossus style nonsense you need to do to beat them which is fun. Average enemies are just smacked away with a sword and if you try to engage Dark Souls style with the parrying and evading... it just becomes very clear that the combat is baby Dark Souls if you try to interact with it that way.
Narrative-wise, the world and lore is real neat. The Zonai ruins and sky islands are fascinating. Exposition-wise... I was so bored. There is nothing compelling about the characters and the narrative themes are pretty light and hammered over and over again into your brain. I skipped some of these cutscenes! I didn't like em! To be fair I felt the same in BOTW but I was hoping to see some advancement on that front. There are cool story beats but overall it is really not interesting to me.
Musically, it's about as good as BOTW. The Lookout Landing theme is hot and so is the Rito Village theme but there is a decent amount recycled from BOTW.
I sunk about 85 joyful hours into this and then spent 20 mostly enjoyable hours trying to hit the credits. With any game this long it usually becomes a slog for me at the end but there was just so much genius here and so many amazing things I had never done in a video game with all the building mechanics/puzzles.
A little too much game and open world exhaustion hit but this is a banger and a real accomplishment of game design, especially running on my tired 7 year old launch Switch.