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.
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.
laladotnet
1 year ago