This review contains spoilers
"Hey, let's take everything that makes a Zelda game great and just get rid of that stuff, yeah?"
I hate this game. I hate that this game even exists. It is a stain on the great 3D Zelda's of old. This game is fine and fun to play, but it shouldn't be called a Zelda game. If it was just called Breath of the Wild and it wasn't tied to Zelda, then yeah this game would probably be like a 3.5 or 4 stars. Let's go through the checklist of great Zelda elements this game decided to get rid of: Interesting and fun bosses, challenging and thematic dungeons, enjoyable and versatile arsenal of items, worthwhile and deep side quests, and a story you can get invested in. This game has none of those things. As soon as you meet Impa in Kakiriko village, the story is over until you kill Calamity Ganon or find some meaningless memory fragments. Oh yeah, let's also take one of the more dynamic villains in the series, Ganondorf, and just make him a big mindless robot/stink cloud. What happened to the extremely human feeling Ganondorf of Wind Waker? The mustache twirling villain of Ocarina? Heck, even the last minute appearance of Ganondorf in Twilight Princess is better. I get the main draw of this game is the open world, but it doesn't feel very alive. All you do is find Shrines, which are why this is a 0.5 and not a 0/5. At least they did ONE thing right. However, the "Divine Beasts" replacing dungeons is just ridiculous. They feel completely uninspired and each contain a Calamity Ganon Blight to fight....yay? Finally, the Shika slate abilities are mostly boring. What's better than one bomb? ANOTHER BOMB BUT SQUARE!!!! The time stop ability is fun but loses its' novelty almost instantly. Link constantly swims under the ice blocks I make and break them with his fat head. Magnesisis just sad, because it could have been so much more....luckily a better game will fix that.
I hate this game. I hate that this game even exists. It is a stain on the great 3D Zelda's of old. This game is fine and fun to play, but it shouldn't be called a Zelda game. If it was just called Breath of the Wild and it wasn't tied to Zelda, then yeah this game would probably be like a 3.5 or 4 stars. Let's go through the checklist of great Zelda elements this game decided to get rid of: Interesting and fun bosses, challenging and thematic dungeons, enjoyable and versatile arsenal of items, worthwhile and deep side quests, and a story you can get invested in. This game has none of those things. As soon as you meet Impa in Kakiriko village, the story is over until you kill Calamity Ganon or find some meaningless memory fragments. Oh yeah, let's also take one of the more dynamic villains in the series, Ganondorf, and just make him a big mindless robot/stink cloud. What happened to the extremely human feeling Ganondorf of Wind Waker? The mustache twirling villain of Ocarina? Heck, even the last minute appearance of Ganondorf in Twilight Princess is better. I get the main draw of this game is the open world, but it doesn't feel very alive. All you do is find Shrines, which are why this is a 0.5 and not a 0/5. At least they did ONE thing right. However, the "Divine Beasts" replacing dungeons is just ridiculous. They feel completely uninspired and each contain a Calamity Ganon Blight to fight....yay? Finally, the Shika slate abilities are mostly boring. What's better than one bomb? ANOTHER BOMB BUT SQUARE!!!! The time stop ability is fun but loses its' novelty almost instantly. Link constantly swims under the ice blocks I make and break them with his fat head. Magnesisis just sad, because it could have been so much more....luckily a better game will fix that.