16 reviews liked by LIEV_008


What started as an eye catching and potential filled remake, became a disaster of a plot and a bloated journey. While the core gameplay is fun, its graphics pretty, and the soundtrack hummable, I am left with a distinct sense of meaninglessness after having watched credits roll. A game with profound themes has been turned into a disposable entertaiment experience.

A game directed by Hideaki Itsuno, I should really like it, but I don't.

I'm honestly baffled as to all the praise this game gets, especially regarding its combat. I found it very clunky, unresponsive and not really complex. I've played a number of Action RPGs, and you can't tell me this is one of the better examples of combat in the genre. It's especially disappointing coming from the director of Devil May Cry 3 and 4, which have some of the best combat in any game ever.

One of the main gimmicks of this game is climbing onto huge monsters, which is apparently a feature first introduced in Shadow of the Colossus. Now, I've not played Shadow of the Colossus, but I have seen this feature in another game - Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. I didn't like it there, and I don't like it here. I don't really see why people find it exciting to turn a boss fight into a slow and tedious platforming section. It's awkward and frustrating, as the camera keeps shifting and altering your directional controls, and the monster keeps throwing you off before you manage to reach the head. In addition, if you play as a mage (which is the mistake I made on my first attempt), this feature is completely lost on you, because you're a ranged and vulnerable class that should stay away from the enemies and can shoot them in the head from a distance.

I mean, that's kinda a half-truth, because you can't really aim with your regular attack as a mage. Only with your skills, which it takes forever to cast. That is if your button presses register, which they might not, because the controls and animations are so ass. You have to hold down Ctrl or Alt and then click one of the mouse buttons (and hold it? Sometimes? I'm not sure tbh), and the skill ends up being cast when you release Ctrl or Alt, not when you release the mouse button. This is incredibly counter-intuitive. And because the animations are so long and can't be cancelled, sometimes you press Ctrl/Alt right after you released it but before the animation is done, and your character just ends up standing there. And you're just waiting for like a second for him to do something, because you can't tell whether the button press wasn't registered or it's just the animation taking up so long, or perhaps he ran out of stamina again, which he does constantly.

I hated stamina in Diablo 2, like most people, and could never understand its point in action-RPGs. I suppose here it functions as a sort of mana substitute. Except, the problem is, it's wasted on sprinting and blocking as well. What this essentially means is that ever action, aside from your standard attack, requires mana. And, I might be wrong about this, but I didn't see any way to tie potions to hotkeys. I have to go into the [extremely inconvenient] inventory in the midst of a battle, because my character needs a rest after every action, like he's 80 years old. Especially after blocking an enemy attack, leaving you vulnerable to a second attack.

But out of the three classes, it seems only the warrior can block enemy attacks, which is detrimental to the flow of combat. Every hit stuns you for a moment, making you unable to retaliate or break the enemy's attack-chain, and some hits knock you down, which will take you another couple of seconds to get up, during which your character doesn't respond to any button presses. If you're a magician, it's even worse, because your own attacks leave you immovable as well. You're a ranged class that can neither aim nor move while shooting. Which means you get hit and knocked down even more, which makes the whole gameplay extremely frustrating.

Kinda had more fun as a scout, who is more nimble and can actually aim and move when shooting arrows. Replayed the same portion of the game and a little more, and was surprised to run into all the exact same enemies. I kinda thought I had this many fights because I strayed away from the road (which the game warns you not to stray from), but no, you're still ambushed by enemies like every 30 seconds. And these are mostly the same types of enemies: bandits and wolves, and they're fought in the same way every time.

So after 3 boss battles and a shit ton of random encounters, you'd think there'd be some downtime for RPGing and stuff, but nope, an escort mission. I tried to force myself to play through it and died by accidentally falling off a cliff, and that's when I finally gave up. And while this death was totally on me, the level geometry in this game is pretty bizarre in general. There was a moment earlier where I slid down from a tiny hill, and then couldn't climb back up. It was about a 50 degree angle, only about a meter long, even a child could've climbed it, but not my character.

I can't really comment much on the RPG aspects of this game, but in my short time with it I barely encountered any. I leveled up a bunch of times and purchased one skill, but that is all. The game never offered me to manage stats or created a necessity to manage loot. Perhaps I missed something because I was skipping the majority of the tutorial pop-ups, but they were so goddamn annoying. 90% of the time the things they tell you are either obvious or something you had already figured out just by circumstances. Can't really say I cared about the story either. There was a bunch of generic fantasy exposition dumped on me, but I did not notice anything interesting.

I found the graphics ugly too, despite the fact they're using the same engine as Devil May Cry 4, which is a gorgeous game.

There were exactly 2 things I liked about this game: the customization and the music. That's it. Nothing else.

Yu Suzuki made us a new Space Harrier with Panzer Dragoon combat and a psychedelic hodgepodge of asset library 3D model overkill, all scored by a bargain basement Queen tribute act, and you sit there and say there’s no good video games anymore.

Power.

Freedom is the very core of Breath of the Wild. Go anywhere, do anything. However, this also becomes the game’s greatest downfall. Having the ability to complete this game in any way, in any order, causes a multitude of problems with the progression, story, puzzles, and other central game mechanics. The inability for the developers to regulate and curate a definitive player experience leads to a jumbled, shallow, mess of a game that, while entertaining, lacks the depth of previous games in the Zelda series. The idea of a full world to explore sounds fantastic, and for many, it is. However, freedom is not definitively better than linearity. A massive open world produces many extended periods of time with simply nothing happening. However, exploration and discovery are still key parts of this game, and they’re great… right? Well, it’s not that simple. Exploring the world of Hyrule does lead to a lot of discovery— of the same thing. A shrine. Or a Korok seed. See, a major problem with the exploration in this game is that, no matter what, there are almost no surprises to what one actually discovers. Oh, a hidden cave inside of a mountain? It’s a shrine. A massive skeleton of an ancient beast? It’s a shrine. A forest cursed by some overbearing darkness? It’s a shrine. No matter what, any exploration and “discovery” leads to the same thing. The joy quickly dissipated from finding anything new as I realized it would always just be another shrine. Knowing exactly what will happen— that’s not really a discovery, is it? There’s another problem. The progression. In typical Zelda games, the player becomes more powerful throughout the game as they discover more key items that expand their moveset and abilities. In Breath of the Wild, everything is given to the player at the start of the game. The only progression in this game is obtaining more hearts and stamina, along with more powerful weapons. This creates an inherent problem with the progression— there isn’t really much at all. Nothing changes, and the game isn’t given a chance to introduce new mechanics and ideas. Personally, I feel this makes the flow of the game much less interesting and fun. Abilities aren’t ever-changing and dynamic, they are introduced at the start and become static. In fact, that’s how a lot of this game goes. The beginning is a condensed explosion of new discoveries, mechanics, and unfamiliar situations. As time goes on, however, the game becomes predictable, shallow, and boring. Some of it, unnecessary, even. Combat in this game is fun. However, it is superfluous. Other than miniboss shrines and the four painfully underwhelming dungeon bosses, fighting is almost never required. That would be fine, if fighting was at least worth doing, but it’s not. Engaging in combat results in the damaging of weapons and using of resources, all for what? The chance to obtain a single mediocre weapon from a chest? It’s just not worth it. In previous games, fighting was necessary, whether an enemy was blocking your path, necessary to kill to unlock a room, or a unique boss for a bombastic dungeon finale. In Breath of the Wild, it takes no effort or resources to just walk around encounters. Or, if you do decide to fight, just pause and heal as much as you want. There is no reason to fight, and it is, for lack of a better word, lame. Just like a lot of this game, it presents itself as a deep and engaging mechanic, when really, it is shallow and redundant.

Wisdom.

What defines the Zelda series? To some, story. To more, exploration. To me, puzzle-solving. Both inside and outside of dungeons, I believe that every aspect of the world should be looked at with a critical and creative eye to see solutions to problems. Breath of the Wild is not that. It attempts to incorporate puzzles into its open world by including shrines that dot the landscape. These shrines contain bite-sized puzzles to spice up the normal flow of exploration. Once again, though, there is a fundamental problem with this idea. Due to the fact that any shrine can be done in any order, and the requirement that they must be short, all of the shrines with puzzles inside are incredibly shallow and simple. Because of the game’s open nature, the puzzles are not able to build upon themselves and flesh out the ideas presented by the challenges. They remain as surface-level 2-minute romps that feel unsatisfying and are unable to scratch the itch I have to be stumped by a confusing, intertwining labyrinth. “But what about the divine beasts?” I hear you ask. The Divine Beasts are some of the worst excuses for dungeons in the entire Zelda franchise. The complaints that I often hear with them is that they look too similar and there are too few of them. I agree with this sentiment, especially that they all look and feel much too alike one another, creating no strong sense of identity or uniqueness with them. However, there is a much deeper problem with the Divine Beasts that I rarely hear anyone bring up: terminals. The way Divine Beasts function is that there are five separate consoles that must be activated in any order to fight the boss and finish the dungeon. In any order. That’s a problem. These terminals are just five disconnected mini-challenges that, like shrines, don’t allow for any depth or building upon of ideas. Divine Beasts don’t become more challenging or thought-provoking as time goes on, they just continue the trend of short and shallow puzzles that provide no sense of challenge. It is frustrating and disappointing. In the overworld, there are small puzzles that result in the earning of a Korok seed. 900 of them. This, of course, means that there are only a few challenges that are copy-and-pasted ad nauseam to pad out playtime. My problem with these, as well as shrines, in the world is that they are an excuse to say the world plays out like a puzzle with constant thought around every corner, when in reality, that is not the case. They are small, self-contained bits that require little thought. In fact, the world is not designed like a puzzle. Past games, yes, those games had worlds that required even a puzzle-minded brain in the overworld, because those worlds played out similarly to dungeons, even if they were not presented as such. In Breath of the Wild, the player never has to think about how to explore, rather, they just do it. There’s always a way around everything and a simple solution that does not require thought to execute.

Courage.

Throughout the Zelda series, something, or rather, someone, has always tied it together. Link. The protagonist is an essential part of this franchise, one who represents the struggles of living up to expectations and fulfilling prophecy. Link in this game is, needless to say, underwhelming. Starting off, he has amnesia at the beginning of the story, already an overused trope that can be made interesting if done properly, but in this game, it is not. What this does for Link’s character is infinitely more harm than good. He has absolutely no real intrinsic motivation that pushes him to become the hero that he is. He saves Hyrule because he’s told to by the dead king. He’s told he’s a legendary hero, but as he is now, he’s not one. He’s just an emotionless, distant character that has no personal connection to the story itself. And yes, he rarely shows any emotion that allows the player to understand and connect with him more. Compared to the last big 3D game that came directly prior, Skyward Sword, where Link had personal relationships with the other characters and had a real desire to do what he did, showing his pain when terrible things happened, his joyousness when able to bask in happiness with his loved ones, his surprise at unexpected moments, it allows his character to be much more fleshed out than just a blank nothing. In Breath of the Wild, there are themes that would be great to explore and flesh out, like the isolation of being in a collapsed society all alone. But we never see that. Link never displays any sign of internal suffering or introspection, and the supposed themes of this game are never taken very seriously because it seems that multiple cultures and societies are still flourishing. On top of that, the full story is lacking any and all pivotal moments that progress things forward. Because the game is so open, and can be completed in just over 20 minutes, it is devoid of story beats that make a game interesting. Link is told that Zelda is in trouble by the former king of Hyrule, and that’s about it. We are told, not shown, that Link was a great hero who tried to stop Ganon before. Most of the “story” takes place in flashbacks to events long passed. These don’t change anything, because they already happened. The story of this game is so incredibly minimal and lacks the unique charm that previous games had. What else is lacking is the respect and love for the franchise as a whole. The Master Sword is completely irrelevant, as it is apparently no longer necessary to seal the darkness, despite that being its main purpose. The triforce is also not important, as it’s shown in one flashback being used by Zelda and never once mentioned again. There are lore inconsistencies, surprising omissions, and changes to series staples that makes me just disappointed as a longtime fan of this series that desperately wants this game to be a special celebration of progress, rather than an abandonment of identity.

Light.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild suffers from a numerous amount of problems. It wants to be a free, open-world game, while still retaining the puzzles from Zelda games of old. This causes a split in that the game is unable to fully commit to either side, thus leaving both aspects of its identity shallow. I could go on about my nitpicks with this game. I feel its art style is not the most pretty to look at, especially compared to previous titles. It has a forgettable and disappointing soundtrack that leaves much to be desired. The side characters and NPCs are not nearly as interesting or fleshed out as past games. However, these are not the fundamental flaws that make Breath of the Wild what it is to me. In fact, there is enjoyment to be had playing this game. Breath of the Wild is addicting. I can spend several hours playing it and it only feels like minutes have passed. The act of simply playing the game was enjoyable. It wasn’t a game that tired me out or left a sour taste in my mouth, somehow. This game is addictive. Like, really addictive. When I tuned out all of my negative feelings about the game, I was able to actually enjoy it. The sound design is absolutely stellar. The gameplay loop is satisfying, albeit incredibly superficial. Is Breath of the Wild a terrible and offensive game? No. Is it a masterpiece? Not even close. Breath of the Wild is a hooking but shallow experience that, while feeling fresh and new, abandons the ideas that made Zelda so great in the first place. It is unable to go all the way with its new identity, and feels conflicted about its existence. What will this game mean for the future of the series? I can’t say. It is a foggy and concerning path that the franchise is heading down for me, but I will be there every step of the way.

Goodbye, Breath of the Wild.

Sub 3.0? Pfft, if this came out on GameCube published by Nintendo as planned this would be considered an underrated masterpiece.

This game establishes the Horizon series as the most creatively bankrupt in the Sony stable. There isn't a single mechanic in this game that hasn't been done to death by dozens of other games over the last 10 years. Every open world trope is here. The dialogue is just awkward exposition delivered by some really lifeless characters. This is the most inessential game I've played in years.

Alisa

2021

All the weirdos proclaiming that "Survival horror is back" because they're doing Dead Space but shiny, RE4 but with lighting, and bafflingly gave Bloober Team permission to remake fucking Silent Hill 2 would do well to look past the latest AAA £70 prettied up offering and see the indies who've been keeping it going for years.

Alisa rules.

if the game wasn't forcefully pre-packaged with a mediocre brawler this game would rule, however...

The only way Blinx could beat Mario was to rewind time enough to stop him from being created