Note: Given the universal acclaim of this game and my rating, I did a bit of research and it was clear that the big difference is what I came in expecting from this game is very different than what I got. However for those that loved it, they wanted something different from the zelda formula and they got it.... I wanted more of the same. Before this game I only played twilight princess and have not played any other zelda games. So I was not sick of any formula. I just wanted more of the same and an open world version of twilight princess. I was looking for an adventure game with good story, dungeoning, combat, and some puzzles, what I got was a open world puzzle game. Lets dive in! I did spend 60h in this game completing all the 120 dungeons and the 12 main story quests. I don't think I would play a 3 star game for 60h in the future but this one is an exception given its universal acclaim. I really wanted to educate myself before reviewing it.
๐ฎ Platform: Switch OLED
โ Time to finish - 62.5h (All shrines and main quests)
๐Game completion - 25% - How disappointing is this? I am in the minority here because I am one of those completion types. And honestly it was one of the reason why I sunk 60h into completing all the shrines in this game. The game was fine enough for me to keep going and finish the goal I set out of completing all 120 shrines. I know nintendo is not about completions and achievements. But when you realize after 60h the game gives you a 25% completion and the rest of the 75% is locked under gathering boring 900 korok seeds, its disappointing. Again... I understand this is not Nintendo's focus but it doesn't mean I am not disappointed.
๐Graphics โ I know people LOVE this game's graphics. For me it was a hit or a miss. What I loved are the weapon and armor models. Really nice! In handheld mode it was great! However, when i started playing it on a much larger screen, 24inch docked monitor, the weird shadow shading was very hard for me to look at. My analytical mind simply could not get over the fact that the shadow/shading on a persons body is not affected by light sources around them. Overtime I got use to it but it did not blow me away. But if I only played it handheld I can see the hype.
๐ฆ Atmosphere/Music โ The game uses very minimal instruments and sound. Often is just a piano + wind. This was definitely nice and immersive as you walk through hyrule. However.... because I was moving mainly from one average dungeon to another average dungeon, I.E. not really into this game, I don't really get into it. I just wanted to get from point a to b quickly and finish this game. In contrast, it reminded me of how in death stranding I had a similar feeling of walking alone in the wilderness, however I loved it there, because I loved what i was doing there.
I also liked some town and seeing the simple people busily going about their lives. The towns felt alive and real.
๐ Main Story / Characters โ Main story is fine, but it was a lot less meaty than I remember the twilight princess game. I expected a less meaty story to some of our AAA open world titles, but honestly I was expecting a lot more than this. I just came out of paper mario before this and this story pretty much was exactly the same. The 4 people you rescue in this game are basically the star people you rescue in Paper Mario. They all give you some power to use. The main story was fine.
The main story has a very interesting mechanism, dungeons you can manipulate to reach new areas. Some are pretty easy some are not. Overall when I was moving at a good pace it was fine, but sometimes my brain could not wrap my head around the harder dungeons, and how they get manipulated. It was fine... but guess what!!! MORE PUZZLES!!!!!!!! :( There is not a single traditional dungeon in this game.
๐คบ Combat โ basically Boring, hack and slash. Lets break down combat into open world, shrines, bosses.
Open world: Most often I avoided them... the time sunk into fighting them is not rewarding. Seriously are these mobs kiting me and extending the fight and then after all that drop a 5 damage weapon!? I've even had situations where mobs kite me.... looks so smart... and then they fall off the cliff. ๐คฆโโ๏ธ
Shrine: Boring. Apart from the highest level guardian. But once you figure out the pattern they are easy.
Bosses: unmemorable. Basically land and air phases. However, the lightning boss is absolutely bonkers hard compared to the rest of the game. He pretty much one shots you, and makes you drop the weapon. I am not sure who thought this was a good idea. Dropping all your weapons for simply swinging at an enemy removes player agency in a game and you now in the middle of a boss battle have to go run around and pick up weapons!!! Worst designed boss I played in a long time.
This is a perfect time to talk about my least favorite and inconsistent, half-baked mechanism in this whole game. DURABILITY! I spent so much time managing which weapons I dropped and kept. Yey, this is now an inventory management mini game as well! Most cool weapons I had zero attachment to because they just break after a few hits. However.... my armor where I take a ton of damage never breaks. Bows break at what feels like the same rate as swords. What are these made of paper??? Anyway, there is a reason item system has some very established rules in games. Going crazy like this and being inconsistent in durability completely took me away from the game. If you are going to have weapons that look cool, people want to collect them. If they break a huge part of the game becomes uninteresting.
๐งญ Side Activities / Exploration โ This breaks down into 3, Side quests, shrines, korok seeds.
Side quests are mainly fetch quests, did a few got bored. Shrines ... where do I start.... the combat shrines are boring, the rest are puzzles. It started off interesting but when I realized there are 90+ puzzle shrines, I started to loose interest. Did I come to hyrule to solve 90 puzzles that have no relationship to the story??? Last is korok seeds. I did all korok seeds in central plain and for those people that don't want to leave hyrle and LOVE this game I can see the appeal. For me it was nothing more than annoying collecting time sink.
Cooking: I mainly used the recipes for elemental resistances, and for extra hearts. It was helpful but nothing I wanted to spend experimenting my time in. What I really needed were simple recipes and I had no reason to experiment.
Horses: Cool but since you can't B line with them... I used them very rarely except as a novelty.
Temperature management: Another annoyance. Switching armor, making potions. I did find it cool that i can use my flamesword for 1 temperature point! Apart from that, this was super annoying and really breaks down the immersion. Look at that cool place over there... is that 1 cold or 2 cold resistance..or will I burn which is different from overheating...
๐ Movement/Physics โ Good. I never found anything of an issue except perfect parry and dodge. Because combat was so boring, I really tried to spice it up by killing only with perfect dodges etc. Unfortunately I could never get the timing right. Maybe I suck, but I tried over and over again. I could not consistently reproduce it. So it wasn't worth my time anymore, when i can just hack it in 2 swings.
๐ฃ Voice acting โ Fine. I know Link is normally not present in zelda games but in this one he is COMPETELY not present. They should have just removed his model and it would have had the same effect. Harsh I know. The best voice acting is in the link memories and the story cut scenes.
๐ฅ Best thing about the game - The exploration and the one continuous feel as you walk through the world. However, pretty much every AAA title does this now.
๐ Worst thing about the game - Its a puzzle game when i wanted an dungeon adventure game. Weapon durability!
๐กFinal Thoughts:
I hope my reasons for this score make sense to people. Ultimately I wanted something else. I cannot see why more people aren't talking about the issues I see with this game. Where are all the people that see this game the way I do? If you are looking for a puzzle game play with open world play this game, if you are looking for an open world adventure game look elsewhere. Outside the main story quests you won't get it. I had the DLC and had 0 desire to touch it after finish the main game. I should have waited before I bought it. :-/ Overall what drove me is my own goal oriented nature than the game driving me to keep coming back.
๐ฎ Platform: Switch OLED
โ Time to finish - 62.5h (All shrines and main quests)
๐Game completion - 25% - How disappointing is this? I am in the minority here because I am one of those completion types. And honestly it was one of the reason why I sunk 60h into completing all the shrines in this game. The game was fine enough for me to keep going and finish the goal I set out of completing all 120 shrines. I know nintendo is not about completions and achievements. But when you realize after 60h the game gives you a 25% completion and the rest of the 75% is locked under gathering boring 900 korok seeds, its disappointing. Again... I understand this is not Nintendo's focus but it doesn't mean I am not disappointed.
๐Graphics โ I know people LOVE this game's graphics. For me it was a hit or a miss. What I loved are the weapon and armor models. Really nice! In handheld mode it was great! However, when i started playing it on a much larger screen, 24inch docked monitor, the weird shadow shading was very hard for me to look at. My analytical mind simply could not get over the fact that the shadow/shading on a persons body is not affected by light sources around them. Overtime I got use to it but it did not blow me away. But if I only played it handheld I can see the hype.
๐ฆ Atmosphere/Music โ The game uses very minimal instruments and sound. Often is just a piano + wind. This was definitely nice and immersive as you walk through hyrule. However.... because I was moving mainly from one average dungeon to another average dungeon, I.E. not really into this game, I don't really get into it. I just wanted to get from point a to b quickly and finish this game. In contrast, it reminded me of how in death stranding I had a similar feeling of walking alone in the wilderness, however I loved it there, because I loved what i was doing there.
I also liked some town and seeing the simple people busily going about their lives. The towns felt alive and real.
๐ Main Story / Characters โ Main story is fine, but it was a lot less meaty than I remember the twilight princess game. I expected a less meaty story to some of our AAA open world titles, but honestly I was expecting a lot more than this. I just came out of paper mario before this and this story pretty much was exactly the same. The 4 people you rescue in this game are basically the star people you rescue in Paper Mario. They all give you some power to use. The main story was fine.
The main story has a very interesting mechanism, dungeons you can manipulate to reach new areas. Some are pretty easy some are not. Overall when I was moving at a good pace it was fine, but sometimes my brain could not wrap my head around the harder dungeons, and how they get manipulated. It was fine... but guess what!!! MORE PUZZLES!!!!!!!! :( There is not a single traditional dungeon in this game.
๐คบ Combat โ basically Boring, hack and slash. Lets break down combat into open world, shrines, bosses.
Open world: Most often I avoided them... the time sunk into fighting them is not rewarding. Seriously are these mobs kiting me and extending the fight and then after all that drop a 5 damage weapon!? I've even had situations where mobs kite me.... looks so smart... and then they fall off the cliff. ๐คฆโโ๏ธ
Shrine: Boring. Apart from the highest level guardian. But once you figure out the pattern they are easy.
Bosses: unmemorable. Basically land and air phases. However, the lightning boss is absolutely bonkers hard compared to the rest of the game. He pretty much one shots you, and makes you drop the weapon. I am not sure who thought this was a good idea. Dropping all your weapons for simply swinging at an enemy removes player agency in a game and you now in the middle of a boss battle have to go run around and pick up weapons!!! Worst designed boss I played in a long time.
This is a perfect time to talk about my least favorite and inconsistent, half-baked mechanism in this whole game. DURABILITY! I spent so much time managing which weapons I dropped and kept. Yey, this is now an inventory management mini game as well! Most cool weapons I had zero attachment to because they just break after a few hits. However.... my armor where I take a ton of damage never breaks. Bows break at what feels like the same rate as swords. What are these made of paper??? Anyway, there is a reason item system has some very established rules in games. Going crazy like this and being inconsistent in durability completely took me away from the game. If you are going to have weapons that look cool, people want to collect them. If they break a huge part of the game becomes uninteresting.
๐งญ Side Activities / Exploration โ This breaks down into 3, Side quests, shrines, korok seeds.
Side quests are mainly fetch quests, did a few got bored. Shrines ... where do I start.... the combat shrines are boring, the rest are puzzles. It started off interesting but when I realized there are 90+ puzzle shrines, I started to loose interest. Did I come to hyrule to solve 90 puzzles that have no relationship to the story??? Last is korok seeds. I did all korok seeds in central plain and for those people that don't want to leave hyrle and LOVE this game I can see the appeal. For me it was nothing more than annoying collecting time sink.
Cooking: I mainly used the recipes for elemental resistances, and for extra hearts. It was helpful but nothing I wanted to spend experimenting my time in. What I really needed were simple recipes and I had no reason to experiment.
Horses: Cool but since you can't B line with them... I used them very rarely except as a novelty.
Temperature management: Another annoyance. Switching armor, making potions. I did find it cool that i can use my flamesword for 1 temperature point! Apart from that, this was super annoying and really breaks down the immersion. Look at that cool place over there... is that 1 cold or 2 cold resistance..or will I burn which is different from overheating...
๐ Movement/Physics โ Good. I never found anything of an issue except perfect parry and dodge. Because combat was so boring, I really tried to spice it up by killing only with perfect dodges etc. Unfortunately I could never get the timing right. Maybe I suck, but I tried over and over again. I could not consistently reproduce it. So it wasn't worth my time anymore, when i can just hack it in 2 swings.
๐ฃ Voice acting โ Fine. I know Link is normally not present in zelda games but in this one he is COMPETELY not present. They should have just removed his model and it would have had the same effect. Harsh I know. The best voice acting is in the link memories and the story cut scenes.
๐ฅ Best thing about the game - The exploration and the one continuous feel as you walk through the world. However, pretty much every AAA title does this now.
๐ Worst thing about the game - Its a puzzle game when i wanted an dungeon adventure game. Weapon durability!
๐กFinal Thoughts:
I hope my reasons for this score make sense to people. Ultimately I wanted something else. I cannot see why more people aren't talking about the issues I see with this game. Where are all the people that see this game the way I do? If you are looking for a puzzle game play with open world play this game, if you are looking for an open world adventure game look elsewhere. Outside the main story quests you won't get it. I had the DLC and had 0 desire to touch it after finish the main game. I should have waited before I bought it. :-/ Overall what drove me is my own goal oriented nature than the game driving me to keep coming back.