wavebeem
27 reviews liked by wavebeem
This review contains spoilers
they really should just commit to making a musical at this point
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Following up on remake's worst tendencies, the rest of disc 1 of final fantasy 7 is turned into a low stakes road trip game. Seeing the 7 party banter and have fun is enjoyable, it was my favorite part of this game, but it comes at the cost of making this game's pacing bizarre. Every town the party exclaims "let's hang out for a bit and have some fun!" even though all they've been doing is hanging out and having fun the entire game. Another downside to the hanging out is the character writing is way less consistent in this game than in Remake. Remake’s characterization of everyone was rock solid and well done, whereas stuff like Tifa and Aerith forming the weird Anime Girl Hivemind in most scenes they share here was really awkward. The additions of Elena, Yuffie, and Cait Sith were all really well done though, those three really shine in this game.
Every open world section between towns is completely cut off and unrelated to the rest of the game, and unlike FF’s last open world game, party interaction or dialogue is completely absent unless you’re on a sidequest. The maps are filled with Tasks to do, and none of it matters or even gives you much besides some light combat challenges or minigames (though the game is not in short supply of these, wow). Chadley and Mai are the only two characters in 90% of the open world, and while they’re fun, the world feels so strange and empty the entire game.
Despite my slight disappointment with the open world though, nearly all of my negative feelings on this game are centered on its story. Despite all of the fuss of the last game, this game rarely deviates from final fantasy 7’s plot, and even when it does it quickly snaps back into line, seemingly afraid you’ll actually have anything interesting to ponder during the 100+ hours it’ll ask of you.
Every emotional scene of the original is recreated here, but always with a terrible twist. Barret and Dyne are having a deeply emotional confrontation, the fight is compelling, the voice acting is well done, the scene is working BUT WAIT the camera pans from Barret clutching Dyne’s body to Palmer the goofy Shinra man in a dumb mech for a comedy boss fight in the middle of the cutscene for absolutely no reason. The return to Dyne after the fight as if the moment could still possibly work was so insane I set the controller down to just sit, stunned, for a minute. After a massively protracted dungeon, Red XIII is finally learning the truth about his father, the statue sheds a tear, the music is swelling, and the camera swings to the side to reveal an unhinged tribal caricature ghost man who opens the wall to lead you to a new dungeon about how the Cetra are now racist and so we can give the black materia Lore instead of it being part of the very obvious metaphor of the original.
These twists are all leading to The Moment though, the one everyone’s been debating about since Remake came out, Are They Going To Kill Aerith Again? And to answer that question, awful MCU brainrot has been introduced, with a new AU timeline where Zack is around (though it amounts to basically nothing) and Sephiroth 2 from the last game trying to combine the multiverses to ensure the plot of final fantasy 7 happens as it did originally (for some reason???) and fighting Cloud at a different edge of creation from the last game, and blowing a Sephiroth boss form from the end of 7 for good measure. All of this culminates in Cloud saving Aerith, but the game saying “just kidding” and killing her anyway. Even the scenes after her death are ruined by cutting the burial altogether, a completely baffling move.
In the end, I’m walking away from Rebirth with a bad taste in my mouth, but I still had fun throughout. Despite the open world feeling strange and the game feeling much too long, the gameplay part was pretty fun! Several of the minigames were engaging, the open world was good looking, andTriple Triad 2 Queen’s Blood was genuinely really fun. I really enjoyed the battle system this time too, it clicked way better for me this time than it did in Remake. It’s no FF13 ATB but it’s pretty good. It’s just a shame about the rest of it.
(Also, this is mostly a consequence of the game not being static detailed backgrounds anymore but FF7 has some truly incredible backgrounds, and shinra manor and the forgotten capital were some of the strongest in the original game. Rebirth shinra manor being one floor and a characterless basement and the forgotten capital being two screens long and filled with dementors from the last game was deeply disappointing compared to the remarkable atmosphere the original backgrounds had.)
((also holy shit 3D brawler is the hardest thing in the game by a huge margin, i think that minigame is evil))
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Following up on remake's worst tendencies, the rest of disc 1 of final fantasy 7 is turned into a low stakes road trip game. Seeing the 7 party banter and have fun is enjoyable, it was my favorite part of this game, but it comes at the cost of making this game's pacing bizarre. Every town the party exclaims "let's hang out for a bit and have some fun!" even though all they've been doing is hanging out and having fun the entire game. Another downside to the hanging out is the character writing is way less consistent in this game than in Remake. Remake’s characterization of everyone was rock solid and well done, whereas stuff like Tifa and Aerith forming the weird Anime Girl Hivemind in most scenes they share here was really awkward. The additions of Elena, Yuffie, and Cait Sith were all really well done though, those three really shine in this game.
Every open world section between towns is completely cut off and unrelated to the rest of the game, and unlike FF’s last open world game, party interaction or dialogue is completely absent unless you’re on a sidequest. The maps are filled with Tasks to do, and none of it matters or even gives you much besides some light combat challenges or minigames (though the game is not in short supply of these, wow). Chadley and Mai are the only two characters in 90% of the open world, and while they’re fun, the world feels so strange and empty the entire game.
Despite my slight disappointment with the open world though, nearly all of my negative feelings on this game are centered on its story. Despite all of the fuss of the last game, this game rarely deviates from final fantasy 7’s plot, and even when it does it quickly snaps back into line, seemingly afraid you’ll actually have anything interesting to ponder during the 100+ hours it’ll ask of you.
Every emotional scene of the original is recreated here, but always with a terrible twist. Barret and Dyne are having a deeply emotional confrontation, the fight is compelling, the voice acting is well done, the scene is working BUT WAIT the camera pans from Barret clutching Dyne’s body to Palmer the goofy Shinra man in a dumb mech for a comedy boss fight in the middle of the cutscene for absolutely no reason. The return to Dyne after the fight as if the moment could still possibly work was so insane I set the controller down to just sit, stunned, for a minute. After a massively protracted dungeon, Red XIII is finally learning the truth about his father, the statue sheds a tear, the music is swelling, and the camera swings to the side to reveal an unhinged tribal caricature ghost man who opens the wall to lead you to a new dungeon about how the Cetra are now racist and so we can give the black materia Lore instead of it being part of the very obvious metaphor of the original.
These twists are all leading to The Moment though, the one everyone’s been debating about since Remake came out, Are They Going To Kill Aerith Again? And to answer that question, awful MCU brainrot has been introduced, with a new AU timeline where Zack is around (though it amounts to basically nothing) and Sephiroth 2 from the last game trying to combine the multiverses to ensure the plot of final fantasy 7 happens as it did originally (for some reason???) and fighting Cloud at a different edge of creation from the last game, and blowing a Sephiroth boss form from the end of 7 for good measure. All of this culminates in Cloud saving Aerith, but the game saying “just kidding” and killing her anyway. Even the scenes after her death are ruined by cutting the burial altogether, a completely baffling move.
In the end, I’m walking away from Rebirth with a bad taste in my mouth, but I still had fun throughout. Despite the open world feeling strange and the game feeling much too long, the gameplay part was pretty fun! Several of the minigames were engaging, the open world was good looking, and
(Also, this is mostly a consequence of the game not being static detailed backgrounds anymore but FF7 has some truly incredible backgrounds, and shinra manor and the forgotten capital were some of the strongest in the original game. Rebirth shinra manor being one floor and a characterless basement and the forgotten capital being two screens long and filled with dementors from the last game was deeply disappointing compared to the remarkable atmosphere the original backgrounds had.)
((also holy shit 3D brawler is the hardest thing in the game by a huge margin, i think that minigame is evil))
Titanfall 2
2016
had a fun time with this one!
the level design in this game is really creative and fun, letting you do stuff that just feels Fucking Cool, and the mech segments are neat too, letting you play around with a bunch of different loadouts and switch between them as you find them on the fly
that platforming is never that hard but it always feels fantastic and so fun, especially once you start trying to do fancy moves mid wall-kick
the story in this game is Nothing, but thats fine because its just a vehicle to have you flirt with your mech via action movie quips and do great levels which is what really matters here anyway
the level design in this game is really creative and fun, letting you do stuff that just feels Fucking Cool, and the mech segments are neat too, letting you play around with a bunch of different loadouts and switch between them as you find them on the fly
that platforming is never that hard but it always feels fantastic and so fun, especially once you start trying to do fancy moves mid wall-kick
the story in this game is Nothing, but thats fine because its just a vehicle to have you flirt with your mech via action movie quips and do great levels which is what really matters here anyway
Alan Wake II
2023
After over a decade since enjoying the first Alan Wake, and having recently played Control (about which I was very lukewarm), I was skeptical about Alan Wake II. A lot about taste can change in a decade, and so much about Remedy's most recent game rubbed me the wrong way.
I am really glad I gave this game a chance!
Alan Wake II totally nails the atmosphere and a bonkers layered story that somehow manages to be follow-able, with a cast of sympathetic characters who have a surprising amount of depth. The game is visually stunning and weaves between real-time in-engine rendering and "FMV" style cutscenes seamlessly -- it's the kind of thing you might expect to be jarring but it feels completely natural. The FMV cutscenes are truly something special and are probably my favorite part of this game.
And I won't spoil it, but the "Initiation 4" chapter is one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time.
Since I played Control very recently, I couldn't help but note the contrast in the character writing. Where Control's characters were (for the most part) boring, or in the case of Jesse, annoying as hell, Alan Wake II was a breath of fresh air. Alan and Saga are both characters I enjoyed getting to know better (and by the way, I have a hard time thinking of another game where you play as a mom). There's no "well THAT just happened"-style quips here.
Don't get me wrong, Alan Wake II is at least as bonkers (if not more so) as Control, and it's goofy as hell. But its characters take the world seriously, and I never felt like they were winking at the camera asking me to GET A LOAD OF THIS.
Despite my distaste of much of Control, I did enjoy the tie-ins to the FBC, and I'm intrigued to see where Remedy takes their expanded universe in the future.
The story feels like a bit of a pretzel - you get the gist of it through one playthrough, but there's so much going on here and it feels so layered that I could see a second playthrough being quite rewarding.
Now for the not-so-great, I do have a few complaints with the game.
Firstly, the gameplay isn't actually very fun. It's not BAD, it's just... pretty mid? Nothing very exciting, and the difficulty feels very off in my opinion. After a couple of hours I decided to turn the game down to "story" difficulty, expecting the fights to be trivial. Strangely, bosses still have a surprisingly large health pool on story mode and it's still pretty easy to die during a boss fight. The regular enemies can be taken down in 1 or 2 hits on story mode, which feels correct, but I'm not sure what's going on with the boss fights. It makes me wish they had included the granularity that Control's difficulty settings have. That said, I appreciate that combat isn't such a big part of this game.
As I said earlier, the game is visually very beautiful, but it's also very DARK. Combined with the fact that there isn't a mini-map (there is a map but it has to be opened full-screen), navigating some of the levels can be a little confusing, and I did get lost in some of the game's maze-like areas because of this.
My final bone to pick here is that the game is graphically demanding. I played on an RTX 3080, which is a pretty decent card, but even at 720p on the lowest settings (which still look amazing) my framerate dipped pretty regularly. It's a minor complaint for me because it was still completely playable but I really wish it hadn't been the case.
In the big picture though, I'm only taking a half star off for my complaints because I enjoyed it so much. Alan Wake II was a fascinating genre-mixing experience that does things I've never seen before in a video game, and it does them successfully.
I am really glad I gave this game a chance!
Alan Wake II totally nails the atmosphere and a bonkers layered story that somehow manages to be follow-able, with a cast of sympathetic characters who have a surprising amount of depth. The game is visually stunning and weaves between real-time in-engine rendering and "FMV" style cutscenes seamlessly -- it's the kind of thing you might expect to be jarring but it feels completely natural. The FMV cutscenes are truly something special and are probably my favorite part of this game.
And I won't spoil it, but the "Initiation 4" chapter is one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time.
Since I played Control very recently, I couldn't help but note the contrast in the character writing. Where Control's characters were (for the most part) boring, or in the case of Jesse, annoying as hell, Alan Wake II was a breath of fresh air. Alan and Saga are both characters I enjoyed getting to know better (and by the way, I have a hard time thinking of another game where you play as a mom). There's no "well THAT just happened"-style quips here.
Don't get me wrong, Alan Wake II is at least as bonkers (if not more so) as Control, and it's goofy as hell. But its characters take the world seriously, and I never felt like they were winking at the camera asking me to GET A LOAD OF THIS.
Despite my distaste of much of Control, I did enjoy the tie-ins to the FBC, and I'm intrigued to see where Remedy takes their expanded universe in the future.
The story feels like a bit of a pretzel - you get the gist of it through one playthrough, but there's so much going on here and it feels so layered that I could see a second playthrough being quite rewarding.
Now for the not-so-great, I do have a few complaints with the game.
Firstly, the gameplay isn't actually very fun. It's not BAD, it's just... pretty mid? Nothing very exciting, and the difficulty feels very off in my opinion. After a couple of hours I decided to turn the game down to "story" difficulty, expecting the fights to be trivial. Strangely, bosses still have a surprisingly large health pool on story mode and it's still pretty easy to die during a boss fight. The regular enemies can be taken down in 1 or 2 hits on story mode, which feels correct, but I'm not sure what's going on with the boss fights. It makes me wish they had included the granularity that Control's difficulty settings have. That said, I appreciate that combat isn't such a big part of this game.
As I said earlier, the game is visually very beautiful, but it's also very DARK. Combined with the fact that there isn't a mini-map (there is a map but it has to be opened full-screen), navigating some of the levels can be a little confusing, and I did get lost in some of the game's maze-like areas because of this.
My final bone to pick here is that the game is graphically demanding. I played on an RTX 3080, which is a pretty decent card, but even at 720p on the lowest settings (which still look amazing) my framerate dipped pretty regularly. It's a minor complaint for me because it was still completely playable but I really wish it hadn't been the case.
In the big picture though, I'm only taking a half star off for my complaints because I enjoyed it so much. Alan Wake II was a fascinating genre-mixing experience that does things I've never seen before in a video game, and it does them successfully.
Pseudoregalia
2023
why are the wall kicks so hard dude what the hell
Remnant II
2023
The storytelling is a bit uneven throughout, but up until the final chapter I was convinced this game was going to be a game of the year contender for me. However, the last chapter is a serious dip in gameplay and it actively sucks the fun out. I know there's an implication with Souls inspired games that you must get good to progress, but the final chapter throws out all that you've mastered. Instead it's just abrasive and unrewarding, both literally and in the narrative payoff sense.
Gnosia
2019
I love GNOSIA. I love the vibes, the mystery, and the characters, who are all unique and fun. I loved gradually gaining bits of information to see how the characters tie into the mysteries.
Even got a couple of great, explicitly non-binary characters (notably, the player can also play as non-binary).
I almost didn't take a chance on this, as I'd never gotten into any games categorized as "roguelite", and the concept doesn't generally appeal to me. I feel that there's narrative utility in the repetitive gameplay loop, in really feeling the situation wear on the player. For me, it was a somewhat immersive aspect.
For anybody who enjoys this gameplay despite the repetition, this game has a lot of replay value. After one full playthrough, I'm still coming across a lot of new things. It's kind of amazing.
The computer AI is "smart" and well designed (as a single-player social deduction game necessitates). Catching subtle hints based on NPC behavior is fun, as well as developing one's own strategy in order to influence the NPCs (lying gave me such intense anxiety though, LOL). The different characters each have unique ways of behaving in different situations, and varying inherent (and circumstantial) affinity towards other characters, including the player.
I wish they would allow for a multiplayer mode (separate from the story)!! I would love to play simultaneously with both the computer AI, and a friend.
I also wish I could casually spend more time with the characters. There's so much to work with here!
Cotori's lovely artwork, and the unusual music are the perfect dressing.
It's exciting to see such a cool game come from such a small development team.
Even got a couple of great, explicitly non-binary characters (notably, the player can also play as non-binary).
I almost didn't take a chance on this, as I'd never gotten into any games categorized as "roguelite", and the concept doesn't generally appeal to me. I feel that there's narrative utility in the repetitive gameplay loop, in really feeling the situation wear on the player. For me, it was a somewhat immersive aspect.
For anybody who enjoys this gameplay despite the repetition, this game has a lot of replay value. After one full playthrough, I'm still coming across a lot of new things. It's kind of amazing.
The computer AI is "smart" and well designed (as a single-player social deduction game necessitates). Catching subtle hints based on NPC behavior is fun, as well as developing one's own strategy in order to influence the NPCs (lying gave me such intense anxiety though, LOL). The different characters each have unique ways of behaving in different situations, and varying inherent (and circumstantial) affinity towards other characters, including the player.
I wish they would allow for a multiplayer mode (separate from the story)!! I would love to play simultaneously with both the computer AI, and a friend.
I also wish I could casually spend more time with the characters. There's so much to work with here!
Cotori's lovely artwork, and the unusual music are the perfect dressing.
It's exciting to see such a cool game come from such a small development team.
Gnosia
2019
raqio is gender
Without Uchikoshi I would never get to experience an anime girl with pink hair explaining Jung's theory of the collective unconscious.
Overall really enjoyed this game. A good story with good twists and didn't feel overly convoluted, and one of the best uses of a flow chart I've personally experienced. It actually felt significant to see these different possibilities play out, although as I always tend to feel with these types of games I did begin to grow tired of working my way through similar feeling content just to get to the end. Some of this is alleviated by a great cast who I was very invested in.
I have to ding the game in a few areas. Again, the flowchart means repeating some of the most annoying content (for me this is stuff like the action sequences - I can only sit through so much of the same joke). The somnium sequences were a bit hit or miss for me, and wow the performance issues on the Switch got quite frustrating. But it really speaks to the quality of the story that I eagerly powered through all of that to get the conclusion to the mystery.
Overall really enjoyed this game. A good story with good twists and didn't feel overly convoluted, and one of the best uses of a flow chart I've personally experienced. It actually felt significant to see these different possibilities play out, although as I always tend to feel with these types of games I did begin to grow tired of working my way through similar feeling content just to get to the end. Some of this is alleviated by a great cast who I was very invested in.
I have to ding the game in a few areas. Again, the flowchart means repeating some of the most annoying content (for me this is stuff like the action sequences - I can only sit through so much of the same joke). The somnium sequences were a bit hit or miss for me, and wow the performance issues on the Switch got quite frustrating. But it really speaks to the quality of the story that I eagerly powered through all of that to get the conclusion to the mystery.
More Breath of the Wild, warts and all.
The skinner box grind is still entertaining enough and I ended up completing more of the game (90% of shrines) than I expected given how little they did to address issues I had with BotW - lackluster dungeons, storytelling, and progression systems all remain. But it's impossible to deny the charm of even a phoned-in Zelda title.
I think my bitterness is more a reflection of Aonuma's claim that this is what the future of Zelda games looks like. It's neat enough and it has mass appeal, but the "every solution is valid!" nature of open-ended puzzle design in these BotW-era Zelda games means there's fewer "a-ha!" moments in finding intended puzzle solutions (not that any of the puzzles are remotely challenging anyway). So much of the game is (still) defined by the dominant strategy of climbing and gliding everywhere - and for being such a long game it's pretty sad that there's less modulation in your traversal and puzzle solving abilities than earlier Zelda titles. I just need to accept that Nintendo will never make a dungeon with the complexity of Stone Tower Temple again - especially not now that Zelda sells more copies than Mario. This is not a franchise to do weird experiments with, anymore.
The skinner box grind is still entertaining enough and I ended up completing more of the game (90% of shrines) than I expected given how little they did to address issues I had with BotW - lackluster dungeons, storytelling, and progression systems all remain. But it's impossible to deny the charm of even a phoned-in Zelda title.
I think my bitterness is more a reflection of Aonuma's claim that this is what the future of Zelda games looks like. It's neat enough and it has mass appeal, but the "every solution is valid!" nature of open-ended puzzle design in these BotW-era Zelda games means there's fewer "a-ha!" moments in finding intended puzzle solutions (not that any of the puzzles are remotely challenging anyway). So much of the game is (still) defined by the dominant strategy of climbing and gliding everywhere - and for being such a long game it's pretty sad that there's less modulation in your traversal and puzzle solving abilities than earlier Zelda titles. I just need to accept that Nintendo will never make a dungeon with the complexity of Stone Tower Temple again - especially not now that Zelda sells more copies than Mario. This is not a franchise to do weird experiments with, anymore.
The good:
-The map is huge, and it's packed with content.
-Most of the new mechanics like fusing and recall are very fun to use.
-Exploring the islands was very fun and easy to do.
-Creating your own machines is fun, and it offers thousands of possible inventions. Despite the battery being a big problem, the huge amount of freedom the developers give you to create your machines is great, and I wish most of the game gave you this much freedom.
-It has a way better final boss and story than BOTW.
-The new abilities offer a lot more uses compared to BOTW.
-Obtaining extra parts to build machines is very quick and easy.
-You can fuse several solid objects and items with your shields like bombs, springs, mine carts and a miniature flamethrower which you can also use while shield surfing to give you several new ways to travel.
The bad:
-Combat wise, Link feels very stiff and hard to control. Several boss fights boil down to flurry rush spamming.
-Traversing on land takes way too long. Most of your time is going to be spent running with a stamina bar that depletes in 3 seconds with a character that runs and walks very slowly.
-The majority of the weapons break in 10 to 25 swings.
-Unlocking anything in this game takes way too much time and effort. It also requires you to do a lot of uninteresting side quests and grinding.
-There are a lot of unskippable cutscenes.
-It's so tedious to complete quests, mainly because it revolves around a lot of back and forth location wise.
-The hitboxes on most enemies are way bigger than they look.
-If your bond meter with your horse isn't maxed out, your horse is going to occasionally steer away from where you are moving. The horses can't teleport near you, they will only run towards you if you're very close to them, and they refuse to jump off any cliff that is 5 feet tall and higher.
-Link easily ragdolls from most enemies and bosses attacks, making fights very tedious. Ragdolling becomes an even bigger annoyance whenever you're trying to fight a dragon without a bow, since most of their attacks will knock you to the ground.
-Even though creating your own machines makes exploring easier, it still requires you to grind a lot to upgrade your battery capacity and to unlock most of the machines, since the first options they give you are too slow and inconsistent for traversal.
-Shrines were too easy most of the time.
-The camera is mostly awful when fighting a singular enemy, and it's even worse when fighting multiple enemies. The targeting system doesn't help much either because of how it constantly focuses on the wrong enemy and because of how it turns the camera to the side, making it difficult to backflip to avoid attacks.
-Despite the story being better, Ganondorf is still a very bland villain, since most of his character revolves around hatred and vengeance.
-The amount of weapons, shields, and bows you're able to hold is so little that it revolves around constantly fusing whatever weapon and item you can find, making it very repetitive. Upgrading your inventory is easy at first but becomes very long and tedious the more you upgrade since each inventory upgrade is divided into weapons, shields and bows, and each upgrade further increases the price by one korok seed. You can only obtain one extra inventory slot per upgrade.
-Exploring caves is such a drag because of the insane amount of boulders that cover most of the caves. You also need to use weapons that are fused with rocks to be able to destroy it, which revolves around breaking several of your weapons and constantly fusing the new ones that drop from inside the boulders with nearby rocks.
-Outside the main story, the characters are very bland and forgettable.
Even though I wrote a lot of criticism about this game, I honestly had fun when I wasn't being forced to grind for hours and hours. I just think that the developers should've given the player a more consistent way to travel near the beginning of the game. For example: In Elden Ring they give you a horse in the beginning of the game that doesn't get tired, runs quickly, can jump in the air, can teleport to you and follows anything you tell it to do. Another problem that even Elden Ring suffers is annoying upgrade systems that slow down the pacing of the game by a lot. Finally, I just think that the fun and tedium are constantly at odds with each other until you put in like 60+ hours to unlock most things.
-The map is huge, and it's packed with content.
-Most of the new mechanics like fusing and recall are very fun to use.
-Exploring the islands was very fun and easy to do.
-Creating your own machines is fun, and it offers thousands of possible inventions. Despite the battery being a big problem, the huge amount of freedom the developers give you to create your machines is great, and I wish most of the game gave you this much freedom.
-It has a way better final boss and story than BOTW.
-The new abilities offer a lot more uses compared to BOTW.
-Obtaining extra parts to build machines is very quick and easy.
-You can fuse several solid objects and items with your shields like bombs, springs, mine carts and a miniature flamethrower which you can also use while shield surfing to give you several new ways to travel.
The bad:
-Combat wise, Link feels very stiff and hard to control. Several boss fights boil down to flurry rush spamming.
-Traversing on land takes way too long. Most of your time is going to be spent running with a stamina bar that depletes in 3 seconds with a character that runs and walks very slowly.
-The majority of the weapons break in 10 to 25 swings.
-Unlocking anything in this game takes way too much time and effort. It also requires you to do a lot of uninteresting side quests and grinding.
-There are a lot of unskippable cutscenes.
-It's so tedious to complete quests, mainly because it revolves around a lot of back and forth location wise.
-The hitboxes on most enemies are way bigger than they look.
-If your bond meter with your horse isn't maxed out, your horse is going to occasionally steer away from where you are moving. The horses can't teleport near you, they will only run towards you if you're very close to them, and they refuse to jump off any cliff that is 5 feet tall and higher.
-Link easily ragdolls from most enemies and bosses attacks, making fights very tedious. Ragdolling becomes an even bigger annoyance whenever you're trying to fight a dragon without a bow, since most of their attacks will knock you to the ground.
-Even though creating your own machines makes exploring easier, it still requires you to grind a lot to upgrade your battery capacity and to unlock most of the machines, since the first options they give you are too slow and inconsistent for traversal.
-Shrines were too easy most of the time.
-The camera is mostly awful when fighting a singular enemy, and it's even worse when fighting multiple enemies. The targeting system doesn't help much either because of how it constantly focuses on the wrong enemy and because of how it turns the camera to the side, making it difficult to backflip to avoid attacks.
-Despite the story being better, Ganondorf is still a very bland villain, since most of his character revolves around hatred and vengeance.
-The amount of weapons, shields, and bows you're able to hold is so little that it revolves around constantly fusing whatever weapon and item you can find, making it very repetitive. Upgrading your inventory is easy at first but becomes very long and tedious the more you upgrade since each inventory upgrade is divided into weapons, shields and bows, and each upgrade further increases the price by one korok seed. You can only obtain one extra inventory slot per upgrade.
-Exploring caves is such a drag because of the insane amount of boulders that cover most of the caves. You also need to use weapons that are fused with rocks to be able to destroy it, which revolves around breaking several of your weapons and constantly fusing the new ones that drop from inside the boulders with nearby rocks.
-Outside the main story, the characters are very bland and forgettable.
Even though I wrote a lot of criticism about this game, I honestly had fun when I wasn't being forced to grind for hours and hours. I just think that the developers should've given the player a more consistent way to travel near the beginning of the game. For example: In Elden Ring they give you a horse in the beginning of the game that doesn't get tired, runs quickly, can jump in the air, can teleport to you and follows anything you tell it to do. Another problem that even Elden Ring suffers is annoying upgrade systems that slow down the pacing of the game by a lot. Finally, I just think that the fun and tedium are constantly at odds with each other until you put in like 60+ hours to unlock most things.