Sunnyfish
Unpopular opinion, I know. Personally, I didn't like it. I think it is incredibly overrated and far from the best Zelda title.
It looks beautiful and has it's fun moments (hence the 2 stars) but is overall a mediocre experience.
My main beef is the durability mechanic. It is simply not fun, adding nothing but tedium and frustration. There is nothing you can do to improve the situation either. You can't get a salve or something to reinforce your weapons to make them last longer. They make it worse by requiring you to have certain elemental weapons, but they break before long. There are cool thematic weapons you get that are really coo-oh, they're gone now. It feels awful when they break. I get they want to promote weapon diversity. I get that. There are better ways than constantly punishing you just for playing the game. The Master Sword wasn't even immune to this, having to recharge after a few swings. It made combat something best avoided.
My second beef is that everything you do is "blink-and-you-miss-it". All the puzzles are so bloody short. All the dungeons are so bloody short. All the shrines are so bloody short. Seriously, the Deku Tree in OOT felt longer than anything in BOTW. You can't have fun doing any of the puzzles because you are done so quickly.
My third beef is the stamina meter. "Hey, explore this huge world! Just keep in mind that this stamina meter is going to hold you back every step of the way." Climbing is already crazy slow and the STA meter just makes it boring. You have to climb everywhere, basically. The horse system is pretty cool but functionally useless as the horses can't climb. You also need to basically be up your horse's behind to get them to come to you too. OOT felt like it had a better horse and world-exploration system, and it didn't have much.
My fourth beef is the world. It was so bloody empty. "You can climb that mountain in the distance!" Yeah, but there probably won't be anything up there. Combine this with the horrible stamina system and the useless horses and BOTW turns into a terrible walking simulator.
My fifth beef is the dungeons. I covered them being short as heck, but they are also pretty boring. All 4 of them have the exact same basic layout and same overall puzzle. There is also no big chest grab. The boss fights are fun, but it doesn't make up for how short and boring the dungeons are. The first time I went through one of the dungeons, I thought the boss was a sub-boss. I was crazy disappointed when it teleported me outside after that and called the dungeon done. You can't even go back into them!
Overall, I was super letdown. I bought all the hype about it being the best Zelda game ever made. I think it belongs somewhere down on the Zelda game list near the CD-I games to me. It isn't quite that level of bad, but it is close. I've been a huge Zelda fan since my first video game at age 6: ALTTP. BOTW is a bad, mediocre Zelda game and I really hope Nintendo keeps producing what made Zelda famous. Fine, they can make BOTW-type Zeldas since people seem to love them for some reason, but I hope they keep making the good Zelda games alongside.
It looks beautiful and has it's fun moments (hence the 2 stars) but is overall a mediocre experience.
My main beef is the durability mechanic. It is simply not fun, adding nothing but tedium and frustration. There is nothing you can do to improve the situation either. You can't get a salve or something to reinforce your weapons to make them last longer. They make it worse by requiring you to have certain elemental weapons, but they break before long. There are cool thematic weapons you get that are really coo-oh, they're gone now. It feels awful when they break. I get they want to promote weapon diversity. I get that. There are better ways than constantly punishing you just for playing the game. The Master Sword wasn't even immune to this, having to recharge after a few swings. It made combat something best avoided.
My second beef is that everything you do is "blink-and-you-miss-it". All the puzzles are so bloody short. All the dungeons are so bloody short. All the shrines are so bloody short. Seriously, the Deku Tree in OOT felt longer than anything in BOTW. You can't have fun doing any of the puzzles because you are done so quickly.
My third beef is the stamina meter. "Hey, explore this huge world! Just keep in mind that this stamina meter is going to hold you back every step of the way." Climbing is already crazy slow and the STA meter just makes it boring. You have to climb everywhere, basically. The horse system is pretty cool but functionally useless as the horses can't climb. You also need to basically be up your horse's behind to get them to come to you too. OOT felt like it had a better horse and world-exploration system, and it didn't have much.
My fourth beef is the world. It was so bloody empty. "You can climb that mountain in the distance!" Yeah, but there probably won't be anything up there. Combine this with the horrible stamina system and the useless horses and BOTW turns into a terrible walking simulator.
My fifth beef is the dungeons. I covered them being short as heck, but they are also pretty boring. All 4 of them have the exact same basic layout and same overall puzzle. There is also no big chest grab. The boss fights are fun, but it doesn't make up for how short and boring the dungeons are. The first time I went through one of the dungeons, I thought the boss was a sub-boss. I was crazy disappointed when it teleported me outside after that and called the dungeon done. You can't even go back into them!
Overall, I was super letdown. I bought all the hype about it being the best Zelda game ever made. I think it belongs somewhere down on the Zelda game list near the CD-I games to me. It isn't quite that level of bad, but it is close. I've been a huge Zelda fan since my first video game at age 6: ALTTP. BOTW is a bad, mediocre Zelda game and I really hope Nintendo keeps producing what made Zelda famous. Fine, they can make BOTW-type Zeldas since people seem to love them for some reason, but I hope they keep making the good Zelda games alongside.