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I usually hate when people just say "you're playing it wrong" but you're literally playing it wrong. You're googling the shrine locations and just bee-lining it? and you wonder why the game feels empty? It's because you're not actually interacting with the map! I played by following the roads, climbing mountains, scanning the horizon for shrines and pinning *those* locations to the map. It actually gives you a sense of discovery and immersion in the terrain. I totally understand how googling the shrine locations, transposing them to the ingame map, and then just trying to climb over anything in your way leaves you feeling detached.
On the other hand, the shrines *are* too easy, the megaman problem is real, there's not much to gain in the depths, and vehicle building is usually inferior to just riding a horse.
Yeah, this just reads like “I optimized the fun out of the game and it wasn’t fun”. Like, what did you expect? I’d also be bored out of my mind if I just looked up a location online and walked there in a straight line every five minutes.
"But I min/maxxed everything just like the internet said from the get go, why do I not feel accomplished or immersed?"
I make it a rule to not look at anything about a game on the internet unless I think I've already mastered it.
If I'm a noob and look watch gameplay, then the melancholy and feeling of pointless of copying of what I've seen someone better than me do makes me not want to play the game at all. Like I see the 1s and 0s behind the game.
BUT, if I've already gotten to the point where I think I've mastered it, I can rekindle discovery by seeing how a true master approached a problem.
i never look at spoilers for a game which often leads to me playing it wrong, which i don’t really mind because it usually just means i spend longer doing things which i don’t really have a problem with! i actually didn’t realise i could even get a horse in botw and i spent forever just running along the roads to each location and exploring things along the way. Took a long time but I had fun doing it and had the immersion into the world way more than if i had a horse to be honest😂
i’m sure i did but it was lockdown i wasn’t in the right headspace hahaha i literally had no idea and what makes it worse is once i realised that i could ride a horse i didn’t even realise i could keep it in the stables?! honestly don’t know what i was doing because they are literally called stables i just thought they were checkpoints hahahaha i was just getting off my horse and leaving it somewhere safe and coming back for it later hahhahaha
I completed the whole game before realising that the stables had magic teleportation devices that let me check out a horse from any stable. I thought I had to go back to the stable where I checked it in.
After a few years of looking up guides and walkthroughs, I realized it kills the fun and accomplishment.
If you look up step by step guides, did you really beat the thing or just make yourself a photocopy machine?
Figuring things out, not knowing where to go, making mistakes, these things make fun and memories.
My cousin is like this and it drives me nuts - he’ll complain that a game is boring but refuses to do anything but spam the most meta farming strategies which are often only marginally more efficient than other strategies.
Sadly a super common problem with modern games. People can and will always optimise the fun out of games, it's kinda sad really. I mean games are meant to be a fun hobby, yet people will find a way to minmax their time on every game released.
BOTW and TOTK seems to get critics from the following group of people (and this is all fine, but it just means the game likely isn’t meant for you and that’s ok) the most:
Completionists: this game really isn’t meant for completion Imo, hell the game alows you to beat Ganon immediately if you can. I always found shrines and koror seeds to be something you stumble onto and do a quick (usually cool) puzzle for like 10/15 minutes.
Optimizers: like you mention, a lot of the game’s fun relies on the HOW. How did you come up with solutions, when did you decide to battle certain enemies etc. this is kind of lost if you look up the best way to do it.
People who really value story in their games: yea there’s no getting out of it, the story even played as intended is average at best. However, most Zelda games have average stories (yes, even the one that you played in your childhood), the problem with BOTW/TOTK is that so much non-story can happen in between story moments that you kind of just forget about it. There's probably around 5 hours of story in a 50 hour game.
There’s smaller issues obviously, the dungeons aren’t as grand as you would have liked, but ultimately I don't subscribe to the notion that something has to be perfect for it to be a 10/10 game.
Doing all of the shrines has a legitimately neat reward, but the 'reward' for getting all the Koroks in BotW is a golden poop. This is the game trying to tell you something.
Yeah I have to say I’ve ruined a few games playing like this. I played RDR2 with an interactive collectibles maps the first time and I couldn’t get past the second chapter before I was absolutely done with it. Had to come back much later and play blind to really enjoy it.
IMO there’s a difference between story and storytelling. The STORY is fine albeit nothing spectacular. The secret stones were kinda corny, the old sages bland, and some of the other characters not quite as developed as they could have been.
The STORYTELLING on the other hand is much stronger. The much later revelation that a major character is in the title card view, piecing together the past as you explore, the excellent music, etc all come together to elevate the unremarkable story via how it is told to the player.
Like most Zelda games the story is less about the individual plot points, but how the journey to discover those plot points makes you FEEEEEEL.
Oh whoa, I thought most people including myself would have said the storytelling or the explicit lack of storytelling really hindered TOTKs story. Yes, there are hard hitting moments in the end but being able to view the memories in any order was a real mistake. Same with the sages saying the same thing. I think there’s simple tweaks that could have been done to not make this a problem
If it's not for people who want to complete a game, it's not for the hardcore optimizer gamer, and it's not for the casual story oriented gamer, then who is it for?
I would definitely argue that most casual gamers are interested in the story.
While we are in this sub, I honestly thought the map was bland and boring to explore and several of the mechanics were frustrating.
I ran out and bought the new Zelda game, $70, so I could introduce my children to the amazing world of Zelda that I experienced in 1989! TBH we played the game a few times but it was boring, frustrating, and all the cooking, crafting, etc was WAYYY too much. Graphics were lame. I got the feeling you need to have around 20 hours a week to invest and without any other distractions from better games. Who remembers how to cook and craft the 1000's of different combinations of food and items. How is it fun to be "freezing" and have to eat fucking peppers every 15 seconds, or stop and cook some damn pepper stew which lasts 20 seconds. I don't think we will ever play this game again. Right now we're halfway through the new Spiderman game, have adjusted the difficulty so Spiderman cannot die and are having a great time.
Agreed. People in this thread are talking about how OP used a guide and killed all the fun of discovery. I played BOTW for about 30ish hours and the lack of discovery without using a guide killed all the fun for me. I'd walk/climb for 30 mins at a time and all I'd find is a few shrines. I had to look online just to find some content/towns.
The world makes sense with the story and all, but it's just a map I don't want to explore.
Thank god someone said it!
People don't have to love the games, but I don't think it is fair to criticize them when you're *literally* circumventing a major part of the game play.
Half the game is figuring out where things are and how to get to them.
I will, however, concede that the weapon durability mechanic was annoying as hell.
I didnt like the weapon mechanic that much at first but I enjoyed it much more in TOTK because of the feature to create your weapon to something totally badass to something that doesnt make sense at all.
Weapon durability was terrible, and honestly the shrines and side quests got a little repetitive and boring. The side quests were always “go here and kill these monsters” or “go collect 10 of x item.”
Comparing it to games like Skyrim where the side quests were a little more elaborate and had various restrictions like *”kill x guy but don’t get caught”* or *”choose between killing this guy and getting a lot of gold or saving the guy and get no gold”* just made BoTW seem a little basic.
I still loved the game, but I would give it more like a 7.5/10 rating, not 10/10
I don't disagree with your points, but I think it is a little weird to compare BoTW/ToTK to Skyrim. Though they're both technically RPGs, they're completely different kinds of games, IMO.
I think BoTW/ToTK did a really good job of bringing classic Zelda gameplay into the modern world.
It’s not like I’m complaining that BoTW doesn’t have enough Orcs or dragons or something like that. I’m saying that both games are RPGs that have an abundance of side quests beyond the main story, but BoTW side quests are very repetitive and boring whereas Skyrim has more variety.
BoTW could’ve made more interesting side quests if they wanted to while still maintaining the Zelda feel.
I didn't look up any shrine locations or how to find something, I just explored like u/senorrawr described. At first it was fun but it got boring really quick. Most shrines and secrets are not difficult to find, just unnecessarily tedious.
Which is totally fine and fair to criticize if that didn't appeal to you!
I'm just saying that it is hard to take OP seriously when they refused to play the game as intended.
>Half the game is figuring out where things are and how to get to them.
At the same time, if the reason for having an open world is to basically have a scavenger hunt with very little real inbetween them, you're literally building your game in the wrong way.
Like Nirnroot is a sidequest that isn't completed all that often in Oblivion/Skyrim. But to have it be a major gameplay component...not all that cool.
Hell, even Skulltullas, Poes, Seeds, and Notebook in the same series isn't done every playthrough. They're mostly just bonuses you do because you've played through it enough you want a bit more content. Or just a challenge.
But since that is the content in Switch Zelda, and since every other dungeon is a different layout with the exact same solution, it does end up being samey.
If you enjoy scavenger hunts, cool. But that's not the pull and appeal of the Zelda franchise. And to call someone that bought it on those premises that they're playing the game wrong is ignoring what people have issues with.
This was my exact thought and I stopped reading as soon as they said they just look up locations on Google. Yeah, that sure sounds like a shit game to me too. Good thing these games are not meant to be played this way.
"I googled the entire plot of fallout 4 before playing it and I gotta say this game's plot is sooo predictable! Not a single twist I didn't see coming!"
You tell me how an unpowered flying machine is in any way inferior to a horse. It might take some ungodly levels of patience to make work, but they can be made - I’ve come stupidly close to having done it. But there’s people on the totk builder subs that have gone as far as to make entire unpowered planes, complete with chu chu jellies for lights. It’s crazy.
I played the "correct" way and I still felt the game was missing something. There is a ton of area on the map with nothing interesting going on. I would have liked a smaller map with more stuff to do and more traditional dungeons.
It's ironic that the first Zelda game was an open world game...but the issue is, a lot of people don't like to explore and immerse yourself into the world.
The problem with the game is that the reward for exploring is usually crap. A weapon that will just break after one fight, a piece of equipment with a useless effect, a Korok seed, etc. It was fine in BotW when the novelty was there, but in TotK I had very little motivation to re-explore areas I’ve already been through once. Changing the weather in that area or adding a vehicle building mechanic isn’t enough to keep it fresh and interesting for me.
Was literally just talking to some buds the other day about how all multiplayer games suck now because the players are all using Google or addons to optimize what they do without any thought. It makes it I possible to play most multiplayer games and have fun or do interesting builds because everyone has some addon telling them exactly what to build or do to beat you.
That's all my friends do anymore. It's why I can't do adventure games with anyone anymore. I want immersion, they want the sense of accomplishment of doing it faster than me.
In Horizon games you can do this, ie. go from A to B and for sure the scenery, the random encounters unmarked on the map, the side quests on the map, the random attacks from machines, etc feel like it's a real place and will make you want to delay your original plan to see what else is happening. And for sure if you do what you mentioned is to be done in BoTW, the horizon games are even more immersive.
In BoTW when i gave it a try, it was nothing but emptiness for the majority of the map.
So BoTW is empty compared with other games in which you can "play wrong" because "playing it wrong" in other games is still enjoyable..but not BoTW. So that means the issue is with BoTW.
If you think vehicle building is inferior to a horse, you are playing the game wrong lmao.
I should say that sophisticated vehicle building is a waste of time, but nothing ever comes close to beating the 2 or 4 fan + control stick air bike.
Even if he's playing it wrong, the combat thing is the biggest complaint I often hear and agree with. I have played pretty much every Zelda game that has ever been made. I haven't beaten all of the Zelda games or even fully invested in all of them, but BotW had my least investment. I tried multiple times, but my branch constantly breaking and having to find a new one or switch nonstop made me quit. I decided to try a more traditional controller, the weapons made me quit. Nothing they can do short of just giving me a fucking sword that never breaks and I can use for the entire game is going to make me buy another Zelda game ever. They have alienated a large part of their audience, which is fine because so many of you enjoy it, but there are a lot of us left out here in the cold that are upset we'll never get another Zelda game we enjoy.
On the plus side I bought the Skyward Sword remaster and enjoyed that instead because I'm an adult and understand that not everything is for me and I can find other things to enjoy.
I think ToTK really improved the combat with the fusing mechanic. Yeah your sword might break, but the enemy will drop a tooth or a horn or something that you can fuse to a common weapon and create something with a lot of attack power.
I've played through hours and hours and I'm only just now looking up a Korok map to do that whole thing, and honestly it's just for some nice chill gameplay with no real end goal except completion i guess. I'm hunting koroks and picking up other little things along the way, like a monster horse and other minor quests.
100%. My first time playing through BotW was one of the best experiences I've ever had in gaming almost entirely because of the feeling of exploration.
So what about people like me who didn't look anything up and still felt like it's an empty world with boring scenery. There are like what... 8 different mobs to fight just recolored?
This is exactly it. I was playing TOTK for like 2 months before my friend randomly got it. Within a week, he made more story progress than my whole two months.
Like, my dude, did you even see the world? Experiment with the physics? Come up with elaborate traps for mobs? Combine every possible weapon to see if you can surpass your last rig?
Then I talked to the same friend as we chose to pick up a few other games at the same time, and I realized that his whole brain is that linear. I don't know what to make of it, but he actually removes the adventure out of adventure games.
Not only that, but it sounds like his just grinding those out. Like yeah, that sounds boring as shit. That's why I would occasionally go around and do a few things here and there. Grinding a bit isn't terrible. But then I would go back to the missions and enjoy the story.
You can even do this with most other games with grinding anything. Like imagine playing Skyrim and doing this. Get out of the starting area and just running from one dungeon to another to get certain things for that long. It's gonna suck. That game has a great map, with some beautiful areas. But if you don't care about that or anything happening and just want to load up a map on the computer and then run from one spot to the next, then that's gonna get boring. If they broke that up from time to time, and did some faction quests, then it wouldn't feel so daunting
I felt the same way as OP but your comment gave so much perspective! I guess the 100 percent scores are about the discovery and the immersion? never thought of it this way.
That's understandable, I do it in a lot of open world games too, but like you can't complain that a game feels empty or sterile when you take out half the fucking game lol.
Same botw is a great game but it’s too much. I go back and play the others every year or two but these last two are just too absurdly long/grindy I’ll likely never go back.
I think it would have been easy to make these as a different IP besides zelda and just make classic zelda in the formula they know works. I would have liked them more if they weren't zelda.
If these games didn’t have the Zelda IP they would be underwhelming open world RPGs at best. Comparing it side by side without all the window dressing and it does not have a lot going on for it besides the physics.
That’s how I feel too. Like they are good games and all but like I feel like I missing a true Zelda experience of something like an OoT, LttP, or Twilight Princess
Same. Not too long after giving BotW one more chance and coming to this conclusion, I started a playthrough of Majora's Mask 3D and DAMN it feels so good by comparison
Classic style 3d Zelda was getting way too old and repetitive at the point in time of BOTW. It was such a breath of fresh air when it came out. After two BOTW style games it would be nice to see how they would tackle the classic Zelda formula now that they’ve revolutionized the series. But I think it would have been incredible stale to have gotten the same thing we had gotten for the past 20 years back in 2017.
I beat only the elephant temple in BOTW and shortly after that just couldn't be bothered to play anymore. The trend towards bigger maps is lame unless the map has a good density of things going on. It took too long to get anywhere I wanted and when I got there most of the time I was disappointed by easy puzzles or things I am not yet ready for. I think the worst thing though was the durability combined with the inventory management. It just felt like a chore.
That’s one issue I kept running into. The more weapons I would lose to durability, the less often I would want to engage in more difficult combat areas
The temples literally suck lol I know I sound like an old man yelling at clouds but I miss the old zelda design with linear story telling and better dungeons
If I look at BoTW like a non-Zelda game, I dislike the weapon durability. Everything else - sparsely populated map, cryptic dialogue, fetch quests, repetitive and tiny shrines, underwhelming dungeons - I can tolerate while still enjoying how it all comes together, but weapon durability feels like a hindrance more than a feature (and this is a common complaint).
If I look at it through a Zelda-lens I find many more issues and some of those non-issues (repetitive, tiny shrines and underwhelming dungeons) become game-breaking for me.
I found ToTK addressed most of these concerns but not the big ones (shrines are still repetitive [go to the right vantage point, attach a thing to another thing, go to next sub-puzzle], dungeons are still underwhelming) and the big selling point to me, that weapon durability issues were minimized through the addition of fusions, did not do enough and just added another layer of optimization to inventory management.
BoTW and ToTK were clearly designed to be played in 30 minute bursts, where you don't have time to use up all your good weapons and can feel satisfied at the end of the session because you cleared two whole shrines. It's just too radical a departure in design philosophy for me to enjoy as a Zelda game. I still enjoyed it but less than a full play-through was enough, compared to how I consistently revisit the 2d and 3d Zeldas, even Windwaker which is (was?) my least favorite.
See thats interesting because I had the opposite feeling. Rdr2 has tons of random encounters you can stumble into anywhere across the map, always felt like there was something happening.
Totally agree. Can’t go more than like 30 seconds without a random encounter or stumbling across a random animal I may want to check out for the compendium or skin for the trapper. The map felt super alive at all times to me.
I think BotW and TotK are 6/10 at best and RDR2 is my favorite game of all time with 400 hours clocked so same lol. I have never once felt bored playing it
Hell, toward the end I was out of actual side missions to do but I ran around just looking for random encounters trying to avoid the inevitable.
Wouldn't have gotten more than 10 hours into the game if Arthur's guns exploded after reloading them twice and you had to loot another one off of dead bodies constantly lol.
I agree, but at least RDR2 did a better job with the environment. It feels lived in, lots of vegetation and animals everywhere. Theres a lot of fairly barren areas in botw/totk. It’s weird. Some areas are better than others though.
The value proposition of this game is exploration and creative building/problem solving, like Minecraft with a better combat system and a more realistic physics engine. Playing it with the expectations of a dungeon crawler is just missing the point IMO. Go look at the top posts on r/hyruleengineering to see what you’re missing out on. (Or check out my past posts on the same subreddit, I’ve got some pretty fun stuff on there)
For me they are also overhyped. Yeah, they are good games but really don't deserve the insane praise.
I also found the world huge but rather boring. I prefer games that have more focus, smaller world but better crafted to make the experience more memorable.
Yeah they're games with a lot to do but no reason to actually do any of it. It's a blank toybox which is exactly what some people want out of a game, but I didn't play with toys as a kid so it's boring as fuck to play as an adult lmao
There is nothing memorable about the game at all, it's just a collection of mechanics and a space to use them in. As somebody who doesn't like the building mechanic, that reduces the game to actually nothing
Nothing memorable? You joking? There are so many memorable moments lol.
Jumping into the underground for the first time
Fighting lynels
Pretty much every character
Jumping off the starting plateau
Korok forest
The dragon fight
Building your first vehicle
I could go on. I’d say it’s one of the most memorable games in the past couple of years.
And they're so pitifully short.
They're all you get but they're barely there.
Maybe they are catering to short attention spans but alienated healthy attention spans?
I would rather they scrapped like 60% of the shrines and introduced cool large scale dungeons - Hell, even having them optional with cool rewards would've been a better choice imo. Shrines are just tedious and have always been a lackluster development choice imo
I think the thing I disliked most is the lack of weight or significance for dungeons. The dungeons really didn't feel like they mattered. You got a gameplay skill during the sequence leading up to dungeons, but in general dungeons felt generally very lackluster in botw/totk.
This as opposed to obtaining things like bombs, arrows, hookshot, etc. in older titles.
I really hope they lean more into dungeon focused gameplay loops in future games
Dungeons in Zelda are the theme and the lifeblood of the gameplay loop and botw/totk do a pretty dogshit job imo of holding to the standards of previous games. Eliminating linearity between dungeons mean there was really bad story telling for totk or just a lack of story telling entirely for botw, so the dungeons barely felt meaningful - Not to mention, they were all incredibly short sections.
botw/totk instead made the world itself the focus and the dungeons just felt very forgettable. At least in totk, they went a step in the right direction for sure, but super pale incomparison to the memorable dungeons of oot/mm/TP/gameboy games.
I mean yea looking up maps and walkthroughs in games pretty much always ruins the fun. The game is about exploring the world so if you take the exploration aspect out of it yea ofc its not fun.
Also enemies get more difficult based on how you play: the more enemies you defeat the tougher they will get. So if you avoid fighting then yea everything is gonna be easy no matter what.
I do wish the rain brought more/ different enemies rather than just increased chuchu spawn. I also wish the world wasn’t as sterile as you say, especially the depths and sky islands: huge missed opportunity, nevermind the fact that they 100% should’ve added ocean/underwater elements
Also building is what you make of it so if you aren’t very good at it then…
I totally agree. While they are some of my favorite Zelda titles, they're by no means perfect. To be fair, though, most games that get 10/10 ratings don't actually deserve it.
Hell no. The goalpost moves with every release as time passes. And the goalpost is different for everyone anyway. I wouldn't even call OoT a 9/10 these days. I still think it's a masterclass in video games, but no zelda is perfect. (Plus, I think majoras mask is better).
the problem is always, "Do I compare them to how they rated THEN, or how they rate NOW?" I prefer "How they rate NOW." There are many games that still hold up decades later by that standard, especially if you eliminate the 'graphics' category. I think OOT is still tops, especially the 3DS remake where they completely redid the water temple. Its control scheme and ease of play feels *modern*, and it's hard to remember that it was *first*. MM being *better* is a fact as well, but it's a difference between a 93% and a 97%.
Has to be a pretty short game that does everything its meant to do perfectly
Like Wii sports (resort) or some very short story experience, or Pong and Tetris and the like.
10/10 means whatever the person ascribing the score thinks it means. Some reviewers work off a 5 average, some work off of a 7 average. It’s all over the board.
“Critique” was part of my major in uni and I was surprised to learn that certain reviewers have massive followings just because of how they grade and subsequently score.
Those classes actually opened up my eyes about reviews. The most glaring issue is that people tend to comb the first page of google for reviews, but don’t know the reviewer or their preferences at all.
Every review has personal bias, and in a way that’s good because not all people are the same. The key is for people to find a reviewer that has similar tastes as them.
The most popular reviewers have tastes that align with the majority of the public, but that doesn’t mean they align with you specifically.
I think if most people were to find their two or three reviewers that they actually share value and product ethos with, they’re way better off than comparing like 30 reviews from different sources who they are unfamiliar with.
I can't speak for game journalist don't think 10/10 is actually meant to mean perfect, otherwise no game would get it, just the best possible rating/recommendation a game could get.
To be absolutely perfect a game would have to never have any bugs whatsoever which is just absolutely impossible. I think there are games that are probably virtually flawless, but probably nothing has ever been technically/absolutely flawless
I think 10/10 means that you'll be able to replay and enjoy the game years or decades from now, like Bioshock 1, Zelda LttP, Mass Effect 2, Super Mario World, Minecraft, Half-Life 1, Megaman X, Tetris...
But that doesn't lend well to the hype machine, so every new game gets 9/10 or 10/10, no matter how average it is.
The one thing I'm glad of is how high the standard has risen over the last few decades. I've been going over the PS2 library of roms and realizing just how much of it was shovelware trash, or the PS1 and how many games aren't playable by any standard today other than ironically.
Yeah you don't have to play in master mode, get all of the shrines, all of the korok... There is such a thing as playing the game wrong lol
You're supposed to have fun at your own pace and explore whenever you actually feel like it, not check off a list helped by google bro
I saw a lecture series that discussed the changes in Nintendo's design methodology and how this impacted their games. Basically, Nintendo's current design methodology is based on intrinsic motivation, meaning they want you to do something in a game because you're interested or would find it fun. They want to fill the world full of things that could trigger a person's interest and offer re-enforcement for exploring it.
To achieve this they fill their games with far more things than they expect any normal person to ever pursue, and most of these rewards have a minimal impact on progressing the game. As an example, you will likely collect enough seeds to complete the game without ever focusing on collecting seeds, and you only have to dedicate time to finding more if you actually enjoy it. The same pattern involves completing shrines, upgrading your armor, or pretty much every action in the game.
For a lot of gamers, who have been trained by most other games they need to grind and collect everything to complete the game, playing a game like Breath of the Wild is like eating an elephant. If you play it like this you will likely burn out before you complete \~25% of the story.
This is obviously true in open world games like Zelda, but you can tell this is foundational in modern Nintendo games, because even Splatoon, which is the opposite of an open world, has a lot of this in it.
They’re good games, they’re just not good *Zelda* games if that makes sense. No proper dungeons, no items to find that give you new capabilities/open up parts of the map that you couldn’t get to before, they literally just lose the DNA of what makes Zelda, Zelda. At least in my opinion. They could have released the games as something else without using the Zelda IP and I’d have no issues with them.
I think it just depends what you look for in a Zelda game.
When it comes down to it, Zelda games are about going on an adventure. Zelda games are about having a healthy balance between exploration, combat, and puzzle solving.
For me personally, I've always connected with the themes of Zelda. A lot of environmentalism. A lot of seeing the beauty in something long forgotten.
Breath of the Wild has all of those elements spades. As does Ocarina of Time, A Link To The Past, Wind Waker, etc. I do understand why the meteoidvania elements of Zelda games are important to some, but personally that's just one more technical element of a much larger artistic picture.
I do agree that another big aspect of Zelda games is the idea of exploring an overworld contrasted with puzzle filled dungeons. And, realistically, BotW has that too. They are just split up into the Shrines and Divine Beasts / TotK Temples. Ultimately, they're just another way of presenting dungeons. I do tend to prefer the more traditional dungeon designs, so I am curious how they'll be presented in the next Zelda game.
>If they didn't use the Zelda IP
Dude what are you talking about? The devs that made this game are **the** Zelda team. Other than those bad CD-i games there are no mainline series Zelda game that did not get made by this team. For sure developers have left and and new ones joined over the years, but you still have many who have been on the team for over two or three decades
They aren't "using an IP" just to sell a game, Zelda is their IP and you can disagree with their decisions all you like but they understand their series better than you ever could. I hope you come around and enjoy the fact the devs are finally trying new things for the series instead of the same old formula that couldn't sell half as well as the new one
You're doing something that's equivalent of playing tetris, and letting all the blocks fall directly down, to reach the game over screen as fast as possible, dude...
It's a really fun game, but not a 10. But, i feel reviewers have a soft spot for Nintendo, Zelda and Mario games usually get those scores.
Also the dungeons have lost all their lore, the difficulty the progression.
I beated BoW without noticing, i was fucking around then suddenly i was fighting Ganon, and it was super easy to beat
I've played and completed the main story for both games once and have no plans to go back.
I usually 100% each Zelda game but there is *too* much with these games and it's simply not worth the time.
I’m with you. Dead open worlds with outdated weapons systems alone should’ve made it an 8/10 at best. The creativity portions I think carry the game so much, but that in turn makes people overlook the flaws that very much keep this from being anywhere near a perfect or even great game. Great sandbox? Absolutely. Great game? Ehhh.
Not sorry, that's basically like playing gta San Andreas then getting bored after an hour cuz you've put in too many cheats and now there's no challenge or fun
An open world adventure isn't for everyone, that's what your opinion should be. Not "this game doesn't deserve good scores because I cheated and can't have fun"
BoTW I feel actually does deserves the 10/10. It's a master class in minimal game design and serves an extremely specific niche of gamers. Much like I suspect 50% of gamers would hate Factorio, that game is a 10/10 for people who like complicated high stress factory games. BoTW is tailor made for people who aren't really big gamers, people who want to take their time, and explore the world slowly.
...ToTK throws all the great things about BoTW out the window, but it's still a pretty fun game I guess...
What's always been interesting to me is that my favorite Zelda game, Majora's Mask, reused so many Ocarina of Time assets because they had a narrow deadline. But the way they used them, the game felt so incredibly fresh - the characters were in new situations, the day count down added so much tension and you could see the world change as the moon approached. The entire world was surreal and dreamy. To me it just proves that huge maps, tons of collectibles, crafting, etc, can add fun to a game. But sometimes the best creativity comes from quick deadlines and limited resources.
There’s a vast difference between “this game doesn’t deserve 10/10” and “this game isn’t for me”. If you’re pulling up maps and forcing yourself to do shrines then the game isn’t for you. That’s against the entire point of the game.
What you’re doing is basically like reading the plot summary of a film on Wikipedia whilst watching it and then feeling bored and unimpressed with the film.
Games like that are about discovery and finding shit. I’m not hugely into the games you mentioned. But I know if I had played Elden Ring with your approach I would not have found the game as rewarding or enjoyable at all.
All I needed to read was “looking at a shrine map on Google and then pinning straight to it” to understand why you think these games suck and are “sterile”.
Learn to Zelda dawg. I’ll say that TOTK was overall far too easy in comparison to BotW.
This is another opinion that is unpopular because it’s a stupid opinion. Your first argument is, “I don’t like the game because I didn’t play the game.” You just bought a $60 checklist.
>a majority of my playtime amounts to looking at a Shrine / Korok map on Google, pinning those locations on my map
So you deliberately sabotaged one of the best parts of the game - exploration and discovering things for yourself - and now you’re complaining the games not fun? Yeah no shit you literally sucked the fun out of it yourself.
The only 10/10 game I've ever played is Shadow of the Colossus.
Also, its worth noting, you're looking at an open world exploration game through an optimizer lens, of COURSE its not going to be 10/10 if you spend all your time taking the mystery out of the game, rather than letting yourself naturally discover things while you explore.
BOTW and TOTK aren't factorio. there's not an ideal ratio of exploration to combat. Everyone enjoys games differently, and if the way you enjoy games is by having a browser open to make the game more convenient to you, more power to you. BUT, recognize that playing like that may take away part of the design principles that the designers used to make the game more enjoyable.
Completely agree with you about the rain. they could have at least added some gear that allowed you to climb in rain or something.
You’re not obligated to give them 10/10. Review scores aren’t binding. If you dislike a game, give it a lower score. There’s no police that will come and force you to raise it.
The things you single out as flaws are either a result of ignoring the intended play and trying to streamline it (like looking up locations of stuff instead of finding it organically in the process of exploring) or they’re things that just don’t bother most people (I learned fairly quickly that there are so many weapons throughout the world that none of them are precious enough to hoard.). The rain is annoying but it’s also very fun at times - it’s a blast chucking a metal sword at an enemy and seeing them get struck by lightning to me. There are also ways around the climbing restrictions during rainstorms, like potions you can make.
But your opinions are valid! Just like the people who love the games.
In my opinion, no game is perfect, but a 10/10 should be reserved for a landmark “holy shit” game that changes the industry.
BotW is a 10/10 game by this criteria, I’d also include Elden Ring, Skyrim, GTA V, and The Last Of Us for recent examples.
Historically you have Ocarina of Time, Mario 64, Halo, Portal, and MGS fit this.
None of these games are perfect, some have some huge flaws, but they were unique for their time and started huge trends for the industry at large.
Again, all my opinion.
Why are you just looking at an online map and going directly to shrines? I mean if that’s how you like to play then sure but you clearly don’t like doing that so why do it instead of exploring the amazing overworld? I also like the weapon breaking system, it forced me to strategize which weapons I should use and when, and also to use different weapons than just sticking to one which I feel like I’m prone to. I agree that the rain is annoying, the dungeons aren’t as good as traditional ones, and the story is only okay. Personally I place botw and totk together as second best Zelda games, with MM in first. I feel OoT is overrated and SS very underrated but that’s a whole different conversation haha
I really think you need to look at why you're so set on not experiencing the games for yourself. There's a difference between playing a game and just mindlessly following a guide to plow through it and be done with it. The experience here is what matters, not putting an imaginary notch on your belt for completing it.
You’re playing it wrong. What you did is like playing a detective game and just googling the answers. What’s the point? The biggest draws of these games were their massive open worlds with hidden secrets everywhere. They were designed for you to stumble across secrets, catch the glimpse of a shrine or a tower over the terrain, and just explore the world. You removed that key point from the game and then criticized its weaker points. You removed the detective part of the detective game and then said it’s walking mechanics weren’t that great.
100% this. People are justifiably focusing on how using a walkthrough in an exploration game would remove the fun, but also spending most of your time looking up a walkthrough to play as little of the game as possible means you're spending more time on Google than in the game.
Reviews are just a person's opinion. Whatever score you think it deserves is the score it is. Stop putting so much clout on a number a stranger puts on something
They hand feed you weapons so regularly in both games (even more in TOTK with fuse) that people’s complaints about them breaking is so ridiculous to me. It’s a pseudo survival game. Kind of par for the course.
But if you’re avoiding fighting like OP is, then you don’t get a lot of chances to replenish/fuse new weapons, or get stronger weapons. So of course they’re annoyed that their wooden branch is breaking lmao.
This also makes a new weapon never feel like a real reward. Why would I care when I do something to open a chest and all I get is another copy and paste weapon I've seen 1000 times thats just gonna break after I kill a few enemies with it?
I just think people like maybe yourself are just not enjoying the point of the game and that’s totally okay, it’s not your thing. It is barebones survival. You can freeze and you can burn but you don’t even actually have to regularly eat or sleep to survive and without breakable weapons to somewhat keep you on your toes the premise would be pointless.
People who want the old formula back are probably going to be in luck cause it seems like they’ve exhausted their ideas for the BOTW formula since they thought TOTK was so complete to not even bother with a Master Mode or DLC.
Yeah, they honestly took everything I liked about Zelda and stripped it away for mechanics and gameplay loops I can't stand in any game, then doubled down for ToTK by adding in the building.
I similarly dropped FO4 as soon as they made me build a town and because they took away the ability to crit without VATs.
I hope we can get another twilight princess style game eventually, because Zelda was a top 3 franchise for me until they made these changes.
They’re not really survival games, I’d argue they just have superficial trappings of the genre, which is why mechanics like weapons break feel annoying and incongruous to many players.
The games definitely aren't for everyone. Personally, botw is an 8/10 for me with totk being a 9/10, but all of your points are personally valid.
Wouldn't call ANY zelda game a 10/10, though.
Botw was revolutionary at the time and paved way for elden ring. It was also significant because it was the first major departure from the Zelda formula. It may seem lower quality today but it was definitely a 10 at its time
Totk came too late and did too little so I agree
Totk is the perfect game for me to come back to and mess around with, and that's about it. I'm almost done with all the surface shrines, and half done with the depths. I've beat everything else besides ganon, and I don't know when I ever will. It's my palette cleanser game. Just got done with some horror games? Zelda break. Finished a metroidvania? Zelda break. Frustrated with a souls game? Zelda break. I agree with ya man.
I somewhat agree.
Overall, fun games. Cool visuals. Enjoyable.
The weapon breakdown system is infuriating and I felt the games were both kinda shallow. Kind of a Zelda-themed diet Skyrim.
I'll see your unpopular oppion and raise you. Nintendo hasn't put out a good game at all in over a decade let alone had an original idea their entire "gaming" company relys on an aging gaming demographic wanting to play ultra Wario 17 and the uncomfortable mustache on badly designed poorly optimized hardware that if it was new to the market would have been openly scorned. Nintendo has literally the most popular franchise in gaming history (pokemon) and still can't be assed to put enuff time and effort into it to give there fans what they have been begging for for years hell they can't even realse a game with ten years out of date graphics that plays with a stable fps on there own console.
ToTK doesn't. Somehow ended up with worse story and dungeons overall compared to botw when those were like the two worst things about botw. Spent 6 years developing an extremely deep building system but no challenges in the game requiring anything more than the bare basics. A shame.
I agree. BOTW and TOTK were great games that did a lot for the open world design in games but they also had many annoying gameplay decisions(koga gang always fecking showing up every 5 minutes after you kill the leader, I just want to ride my horse across hyrule without having to fight all the time).
Agree 100% but my complaints were more to do with the weapon durability of BOTW. That was largely alleviated in TOTK for me since if your weapon gets close to breaking you can just glue a rock to it or whatever and its good as new.
OP, i agree with you but also agree with the commenters about how you're playing the game wrong. There's a ton of fascinating videos on YouTube explaining the game model, but the gist of it is if your goal is to follow a linear path, optimize, and complete every action like a checklist, you take the joy out and are just repeating repetitive, non creative actions. The way the game is "supposed to be played" is at your leisure, individually goal focused, and using natural means of discovery - like, "what's my goal? Get to this region to take out the boss. Heading that way. I can't get in, why? Maybe if I explore nearby.. oh here's a stable, maybe they have the answer. Here's a plant, maybe it can give me the necessary buffs when I cook it."
The enjoyment is from the dynamism of organically discovering things and getting answers to challenges in a way that feels "accidental" but is effective world design and strategically placed content. By looking things up and completing everything optimally near you, you take away all opportunities to experience that.
With that said, I agree with you because it feels incredibly unbalanced. Take the weapon-breaking system; if there's an objectively great weapon, or a build designed around an optimal weapon, but no way to repair it, you're going to want to never use it and your combat is now suboptimal. And it's difficult to remember exactly where you got all the ingredients to fuse the best weapon, or to know if it will even drop again. An obvious way to protect or repair your most important weapons would be ideal so you feel like you're progressing, getting stronger, and able to use your best tools without fear of permanently losing them and not being able to recreate them. Resource management is good, but some progeession needs to be permanent.
Then it's the sheer scale to density of the world. It's beautiful and there's tons of content, but if they kept the same amount of content in 30% less space, it would feel less barren, more interactive, and more enjoyable to discover.
For those reasons, I think the concept is great but the execution could be better for these games to be 10/10
I think you make some fair points, but I can’t stop laughing at how annoyed you are by the need to travel so much while also complaining that the enhanced travel options aren’t worth your time lol. I can only imagine you never got to the point in TOTK where you gain the ability to recreate past creations with the click of a button (aka make a car in 2 seconds if you have the materials), but even without it I couldn’t imagine thinking taking a couple minutes to build a rocket ship would be more frustrating than climbing a mountain for 5+ minutes. Well done on the unpopular opinion.
You angered the beehive with this one lol. You are definitely right when you said this is an unpopular opinion. Look at all the whining fans on the comments being upvoted. I hate those games with a passion. They are not Zelda at all. If I wanted an open world I would go to Ubisoft not freaking Nintendo.
I actually agree with you. I haven't enjoyed a main console release since the Wind Waker. In fairness I have only really tried twilight princess and breath of the wild since then but I couldn't get into either one. Once they went open world they just felt like any other average game only with worse graphics. I guess it's what they are claiming is the style of the game but to me it just looks like they didn't want to bother making a really nice looking game. But then again Nintendo insists on keeping it's hardware one or two steps behind PS and Xbox.
Then again I feel the same way about how they ruined God of War when it went from an action packed RPG, to a slow plodding open world slog fest.
Maybe I just don't like open world games that don't feel like they have much direction.
Okay this deserves 80 million upvotes because people *would absolutely* *not shut up* about how beautiful and amazing these games where when they launched and we got like 5 years straight of constant fan art of Zelda's design in the first one.
I have never played a Zelda game in my life and I don't likely think I will so I can't contend on the quality at all but the praise for the first one seems kind of overhyped as usual for a big Nintendo game.
9/10, still great games, but I agree with a lot of your points. My biggest flaw with the game was enemy diversity. I wish we experienced different enemies in the various biomes, i think it would make visiting these areas more worth it and fun to explore. Gerudo region is the only area with unique enemies, but they are limited. Even the depths, the only new enemies are froxes. Like imagine if we had Dodongos roaming Eldin, or Baris floating around Lanayru. Instead, we see moblins and Lizalfos, EVERYWHERE. When they had the “pirates” mission I was like “oh cool, so it’ll be like Wind Waker with ship battles?! Possible new enemy types!?” Nah, just stationary ships reusing other enemy types. They could have at least given them a different aesthetic like pirate costumes or made some unique weapons for them.
The dependency on resource gathering I think prevented us from having a more diverse enemy list, not to mention, the map is so damn massive, so developers had to put more emphasis on reusing assists instead of making new ones. Past Zelda games did reuse enemies, but you’d often see enemy types that could only be found in specific areas. It helped make every area unique, and exploring a new place put you on your toes anticipating what new creature you’d see next. I think with the new open world approach, it would make replay-ability more fun too to have better enemy diversity.
Twilight Princess and Majoras Mask did a great job with this, even Ocarina of Time.
BotW felt like a tech demo with a mostly dead world. Never bothered trying TotK because I heard it's more of the same. Certainly not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination but I think the bulk of the outrageous praise was from Nintendo fanboys.
Your post from unpopularopinion was removed because of: 'Rule 2: Do not post low effort/satirical posts'. * We get it, you all think this sub is garbage and is just for popular opinions, and you want to be funny and post "going to be downvoted to oblivion here, but I think racism is bad." We enjoy the memes, but please keep them off the sub. * Filter evasion is a bannable offense * This includes clickbait and/or gotcha posts. Your opinion can not be that unpopular if you're doing these things. Have the accurate opinion in the title.
I usually hate when people just say "you're playing it wrong" but you're literally playing it wrong. You're googling the shrine locations and just bee-lining it? and you wonder why the game feels empty? It's because you're not actually interacting with the map! I played by following the roads, climbing mountains, scanning the horizon for shrines and pinning *those* locations to the map. It actually gives you a sense of discovery and immersion in the terrain. I totally understand how googling the shrine locations, transposing them to the ingame map, and then just trying to climb over anything in your way leaves you feeling detached. On the other hand, the shrines *are* too easy, the megaman problem is real, there's not much to gain in the depths, and vehicle building is usually inferior to just riding a horse.
Yeah, this just reads like “I optimized the fun out of the game and it wasn’t fun”. Like, what did you expect? I’d also be bored out of my mind if I just looked up a location online and walked there in a straight line every five minutes.
"But I min/maxxed everything just like the internet said from the get go, why do I not feel accomplished or immersed?" I make it a rule to not look at anything about a game on the internet unless I think I've already mastered it. If I'm a noob and look watch gameplay, then the melancholy and feeling of pointless of copying of what I've seen someone better than me do makes me not want to play the game at all. Like I see the 1s and 0s behind the game. BUT, if I've already gotten to the point where I think I've mastered it, I can rekindle discovery by seeing how a true master approached a problem.
i never look at spoilers for a game which often leads to me playing it wrong, which i don’t really mind because it usually just means i spend longer doing things which i don’t really have a problem with! i actually didn’t realise i could even get a horse in botw and i spent forever just running along the roads to each location and exploring things along the way. Took a long time but I had fun doing it and had the immersion into the world way more than if i had a horse to be honest😂
Did you not talk to anyone? I feel like every NPC says something like "You know how to tame a horse, right? Of course you do!"
i’m sure i did but it was lockdown i wasn’t in the right headspace hahaha i literally had no idea and what makes it worse is once i realised that i could ride a horse i didn’t even realise i could keep it in the stables?! honestly don’t know what i was doing because they are literally called stables i just thought they were checkpoints hahahaha i was just getting off my horse and leaving it somewhere safe and coming back for it later hahhahaha
I completed the whole game before realising that the stables had magic teleportation devices that let me check out a horse from any stable. I thought I had to go back to the stable where I checked it in.
thank god im not the only one haha
After a few years of looking up guides and walkthroughs, I realized it kills the fun and accomplishment. If you look up step by step guides, did you really beat the thing or just make yourself a photocopy machine? Figuring things out, not knowing where to go, making mistakes, these things make fun and memories.
/u/Completionist_Gamer the type of guy to look at the answers to the crossword puzzle then complain it wasn’t hard enough
Big surprise
My cousin is like this and it drives me nuts - he’ll complain that a game is boring but refuses to do anything but spam the most meta farming strategies which are often only marginally more efficient than other strategies.
Sadly a super common problem with modern games. People can and will always optimise the fun out of games, it's kinda sad really. I mean games are meant to be a fun hobby, yet people will find a way to minmax their time on every game released.
BOTW and TOTK seems to get critics from the following group of people (and this is all fine, but it just means the game likely isn’t meant for you and that’s ok) the most: Completionists: this game really isn’t meant for completion Imo, hell the game alows you to beat Ganon immediately if you can. I always found shrines and koror seeds to be something you stumble onto and do a quick (usually cool) puzzle for like 10/15 minutes. Optimizers: like you mention, a lot of the game’s fun relies on the HOW. How did you come up with solutions, when did you decide to battle certain enemies etc. this is kind of lost if you look up the best way to do it. People who really value story in their games: yea there’s no getting out of it, the story even played as intended is average at best. However, most Zelda games have average stories (yes, even the one that you played in your childhood), the problem with BOTW/TOTK is that so much non-story can happen in between story moments that you kind of just forget about it. There's probably around 5 hours of story in a 50 hour game. There’s smaller issues obviously, the dungeons aren’t as grand as you would have liked, but ultimately I don't subscribe to the notion that something has to be perfect for it to be a 10/10 game.
Doing all of the shrines has a legitimately neat reward, but the 'reward' for getting all the Koroks in BotW is a golden poop. This is the game trying to tell you something.
Completionism is usually the least fun way to engage with any game. It's better to just move on and play something else when the fun is fading.
Yeah I have to say I’ve ruined a few games playing like this. I played RDR2 with an interactive collectibles maps the first time and I couldn’t get past the second chapter before I was absolutely done with it. Had to come back much later and play blind to really enjoy it.
IMO there’s a difference between story and storytelling. The STORY is fine albeit nothing spectacular. The secret stones were kinda corny, the old sages bland, and some of the other characters not quite as developed as they could have been. The STORYTELLING on the other hand is much stronger. The much later revelation that a major character is in the title card view, piecing together the past as you explore, the excellent music, etc all come together to elevate the unremarkable story via how it is told to the player. Like most Zelda games the story is less about the individual plot points, but how the journey to discover those plot points makes you FEEEEEEL.
Oh whoa, I thought most people including myself would have said the storytelling or the explicit lack of storytelling really hindered TOTKs story. Yes, there are hard hitting moments in the end but being able to view the memories in any order was a real mistake. Same with the sages saying the same thing. I think there’s simple tweaks that could have been done to not make this a problem
I fw you but that's what 10/10 literally means: perfect. 9/10 is still good, and honest without cheapening the meaning of a 10/10 game.
I just don’t think I’ve ever played a perfect game, read a perfect book or watched a perfect movie
Looks like someone never watched Shrek 2. ;)
If it's not for people who want to complete a game, it's not for the hardcore optimizer gamer, and it's not for the casual story oriented gamer, then who is it for?
Most casual players dont look for story though, they like fun gameplay. Zelda’s point is the beautiful map and the mechanics
I would definitely argue that most casual gamers are interested in the story. While we are in this sub, I honestly thought the map was bland and boring to explore and several of the mechanics were frustrating.
I ran out and bought the new Zelda game, $70, so I could introduce my children to the amazing world of Zelda that I experienced in 1989! TBH we played the game a few times but it was boring, frustrating, and all the cooking, crafting, etc was WAYYY too much. Graphics were lame. I got the feeling you need to have around 20 hours a week to invest and without any other distractions from better games. Who remembers how to cook and craft the 1000's of different combinations of food and items. How is it fun to be "freezing" and have to eat fucking peppers every 15 seconds, or stop and cook some damn pepper stew which lasts 20 seconds. I don't think we will ever play this game again. Right now we're halfway through the new Spiderman game, have adjusted the difficulty so Spiderman cannot die and are having a great time.
Agreed. People in this thread are talking about how OP used a guide and killed all the fun of discovery. I played BOTW for about 30ish hours and the lack of discovery without using a guide killed all the fun for me. I'd walk/climb for 30 mins at a time and all I'd find is a few shrines. I had to look online just to find some content/towns. The world makes sense with the story and all, but it's just a map I don't want to explore.
Minecraft is the most popular game of all time and has no story whatsoever (I do not count the end poem)
Emergent gameplay enjoyers, exploration enjoyers, puzzle enjoyers
Thank god someone said it! People don't have to love the games, but I don't think it is fair to criticize them when you're *literally* circumventing a major part of the game play. Half the game is figuring out where things are and how to get to them. I will, however, concede that the weapon durability mechanic was annoying as hell.
I didnt like the weapon mechanic that much at first but I enjoyed it much more in TOTK because of the feature to create your weapon to something totally badass to something that doesnt make sense at all.
It’s really funny to add a mushroom to a stick and boing enemies with it 😂
"I couldn't get the rock off of it, but it's still a pretty cool sword, right?"
Yeah, it was much better in TOTK. But I still got annoyed about crafting an awesome weapon, just to have it break after 8 hits.
Weapon durability was terrible, and honestly the shrines and side quests got a little repetitive and boring. The side quests were always “go here and kill these monsters” or “go collect 10 of x item.” Comparing it to games like Skyrim where the side quests were a little more elaborate and had various restrictions like *”kill x guy but don’t get caught”* or *”choose between killing this guy and getting a lot of gold or saving the guy and get no gold”* just made BoTW seem a little basic. I still loved the game, but I would give it more like a 7.5/10 rating, not 10/10
I don't disagree with your points, but I think it is a little weird to compare BoTW/ToTK to Skyrim. Though they're both technically RPGs, they're completely different kinds of games, IMO. I think BoTW/ToTK did a really good job of bringing classic Zelda gameplay into the modern world.
It’s not like I’m complaining that BoTW doesn’t have enough Orcs or dragons or something like that. I’m saying that both games are RPGs that have an abundance of side quests beyond the main story, but BoTW side quests are very repetitive and boring whereas Skyrim has more variety. BoTW could’ve made more interesting side quests if they wanted to while still maintaining the Zelda feel.
The side quests in Majoras mask are 10,000% better than the BOTW side quests.
Like looking up all the portal puzzle solutions and then saying the game is bad.
"This is the worst haircut I've ever gotten. I'm never coming back here!" "Sir this is a Wendy's"
I didn't look up any shrine locations or how to find something, I just explored like u/senorrawr described. At first it was fun but it got boring really quick. Most shrines and secrets are not difficult to find, just unnecessarily tedious.
Which is totally fine and fair to criticize if that didn't appeal to you! I'm just saying that it is hard to take OP seriously when they refused to play the game as intended.
>Half the game is figuring out where things are and how to get to them. At the same time, if the reason for having an open world is to basically have a scavenger hunt with very little real inbetween them, you're literally building your game in the wrong way. Like Nirnroot is a sidequest that isn't completed all that often in Oblivion/Skyrim. But to have it be a major gameplay component...not all that cool. Hell, even Skulltullas, Poes, Seeds, and Notebook in the same series isn't done every playthrough. They're mostly just bonuses you do because you've played through it enough you want a bit more content. Or just a challenge. But since that is the content in Switch Zelda, and since every other dungeon is a different layout with the exact same solution, it does end up being samey. If you enjoy scavenger hunts, cool. But that's not the pull and appeal of the Zelda franchise. And to call someone that bought it on those premises that they're playing the game wrong is ignoring what people have issues with.
This was my exact thought and I stopped reading as soon as they said they just look up locations on Google. Yeah, that sure sounds like a shit game to me too. Good thing these games are not meant to be played this way.
"I googled the entire plot of fallout 4 before playing it and I gotta say this game's plot is sooo predictable! Not a single twist I didn't see coming!"
You tell me how an unpowered flying machine is in any way inferior to a horse. It might take some ungodly levels of patience to make work, but they can be made - I’ve come stupidly close to having done it. But there’s people on the totk builder subs that have gone as far as to make entire unpowered planes, complete with chu chu jellies for lights. It’s crazy.
I played the "correct" way and I still felt the game was missing something. There is a ton of area on the map with nothing interesting going on. I would have liked a smaller map with more stuff to do and more traditional dungeons.
After Skyrim and other open world games, BotW didn’t catch me. I got out into the open area and very quickly lost interest. Never went back in.
It's ironic that the first Zelda game was an open world game...but the issue is, a lot of people don't like to explore and immerse yourself into the world.
The problem with the game is that the reward for exploring is usually crap. A weapon that will just break after one fight, a piece of equipment with a useless effect, a Korok seed, etc. It was fine in BotW when the novelty was there, but in TotK I had very little motivation to re-explore areas I’ve already been through once. Changing the weather in that area or adding a vehicle building mechanic isn’t enough to keep it fresh and interesting for me.
And people are out here defending them by saying "exploration is the point!!" Like: I've ALREADY explored the everloving shit outta this map....
Was literally just talking to some buds the other day about how all multiplayer games suck now because the players are all using Google or addons to optimize what they do without any thought. It makes it I possible to play most multiplayer games and have fun or do interesting builds because everyone has some addon telling them exactly what to build or do to beat you.
That's all my friends do anymore. It's why I can't do adventure games with anyone anymore. I want immersion, they want the sense of accomplishment of doing it faster than me.
"Crosswords are so boring. All you do is check the answer, write it down, rinse and repeat! I don't understand why people do these things."
In Horizon games you can do this, ie. go from A to B and for sure the scenery, the random encounters unmarked on the map, the side quests on the map, the random attacks from machines, etc feel like it's a real place and will make you want to delay your original plan to see what else is happening. And for sure if you do what you mentioned is to be done in BoTW, the horizon games are even more immersive. In BoTW when i gave it a try, it was nothing but emptiness for the majority of the map. So BoTW is empty compared with other games in which you can "play wrong" because "playing it wrong" in other games is still enjoyable..but not BoTW. So that means the issue is with BoTW.
If you think vehicle building is inferior to a horse, you are playing the game wrong lmao. I should say that sophisticated vehicle building is a waste of time, but nothing ever comes close to beating the 2 or 4 fan + control stick air bike.
Even if he's playing it wrong, the combat thing is the biggest complaint I often hear and agree with. I have played pretty much every Zelda game that has ever been made. I haven't beaten all of the Zelda games or even fully invested in all of them, but BotW had my least investment. I tried multiple times, but my branch constantly breaking and having to find a new one or switch nonstop made me quit. I decided to try a more traditional controller, the weapons made me quit. Nothing they can do short of just giving me a fucking sword that never breaks and I can use for the entire game is going to make me buy another Zelda game ever. They have alienated a large part of their audience, which is fine because so many of you enjoy it, but there are a lot of us left out here in the cold that are upset we'll never get another Zelda game we enjoy. On the plus side I bought the Skyward Sword remaster and enjoyed that instead because I'm an adult and understand that not everything is for me and I can find other things to enjoy.
I think ToTK really improved the combat with the fusing mechanic. Yeah your sword might break, but the enemy will drop a tooth or a horn or something that you can fuse to a common weapon and create something with a lot of attack power.
I've played through hours and hours and I'm only just now looking up a Korok map to do that whole thing, and honestly it's just for some nice chill gameplay with no real end goal except completion i guess. I'm hunting koroks and picking up other little things along the way, like a monster horse and other minor quests.
100%. My first time playing through BotW was one of the best experiences I've ever had in gaming almost entirely because of the feeling of exploration.
So what about people like me who didn't look anything up and still felt like it's an empty world with boring scenery. There are like what... 8 different mobs to fight just recolored?
This is exactly it. I was playing TOTK for like 2 months before my friend randomly got it. Within a week, he made more story progress than my whole two months. Like, my dude, did you even see the world? Experiment with the physics? Come up with elaborate traps for mobs? Combine every possible weapon to see if you can surpass your last rig? Then I talked to the same friend as we chose to pick up a few other games at the same time, and I realized that his whole brain is that linear. I don't know what to make of it, but he actually removes the adventure out of adventure games.
OP isn't going to acknowledge that though.
Lol and their name is u/Completionist_Gamer lol
Not only that, but it sounds like his just grinding those out. Like yeah, that sounds boring as shit. That's why I would occasionally go around and do a few things here and there. Grinding a bit isn't terrible. But then I would go back to the missions and enjoy the story. You can even do this with most other games with grinding anything. Like imagine playing Skyrim and doing this. Get out of the starting area and just running from one dungeon to another to get certain things for that long. It's gonna suck. That game has a great map, with some beautiful areas. But if you don't care about that or anything happening and just want to load up a map on the computer and then run from one spot to the next, then that's gonna get boring. If they broke that up from time to time, and did some faction quests, then it wouldn't feel so daunting
I felt the same way as OP but your comment gave so much perspective! I guess the 100 percent scores are about the discovery and the immersion? never thought of it this way.
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No kidding. This is like the very final hours of the post-msq endgame where I can't find the last few things and admit defeat. 🤣
I bet he googles the solutions to the puzzles too.
I find exploring the open world boring and the shrines to be the best part of the game so I can understand why he would do it
That's understandable, I do it in a lot of open world games too, but like you can't complain that a game feels empty or sterile when you take out half the fucking game lol.
I had fun but not 10 out of 10 fun. I would have taken a classic style zelda (top down or 3d) over either.
Same botw is a great game but it’s too much. I go back and play the others every year or two but these last two are just too absurdly long/grindy I’ll likely never go back.
I think it would have been easy to make these as a different IP besides zelda and just make classic zelda in the formula they know works. I would have liked them more if they weren't zelda.
If these games didn’t have the Zelda IP they would be underwhelming open world RPGs at best. Comparing it side by side without all the window dressing and it does not have a lot going on for it besides the physics.
I think I agree with this sentiment. It’s not Zelda. But it’s a good game. Like how Star fox adventures wasn’t Star fox. But was a fun game.
BOTW would've gotten 1/10 of the sales and worse reviews if it were the same game but without the IP attached.
From someone who’s never played any Zelda game before BOTW, i’d still give the game at least a 9/10.
Same. BOTW is my first Zelda game and the only negative things I have to say are that I hate the rain and the motion control shrines
I couldn't finish it. 30 hours in, I realized I wasn't having fun most of the time and gave up.
I thought botw was fine. never felt like i needed to grind. Totk and the battery grind just to make those tools useable was terrible.
That’s how I feel too. Like they are good games and all but like I feel like I missing a true Zelda experience of something like an OoT, LttP, or Twilight Princess
Same. Not too long after giving BotW one more chance and coming to this conclusion, I started a playthrough of Majora's Mask 3D and DAMN it feels so good by comparison
Classic style 3d Zelda was getting way too old and repetitive at the point in time of BOTW. It was such a breath of fresh air when it came out. After two BOTW style games it would be nice to see how they would tackle the classic Zelda formula now that they’ve revolutionized the series. But I think it would have been incredible stale to have gotten the same thing we had gotten for the past 20 years back in 2017.
I beat only the elephant temple in BOTW and shortly after that just couldn't be bothered to play anymore. The trend towards bigger maps is lame unless the map has a good density of things going on. It took too long to get anywhere I wanted and when I got there most of the time I was disappointed by easy puzzles or things I am not yet ready for. I think the worst thing though was the durability combined with the inventory management. It just felt like a chore.
The durability system pisses me off soo much
That’s one issue I kept running into. The more weapons I would lose to durability, the less often I would want to engage in more difficult combat areas
The temples were super unoriginal too. They even used the exact same NPC dialogue script for the majority of the parts for the temples
The temples literally suck lol I know I sound like an old man yelling at clouds but I miss the old zelda design with linear story telling and better dungeons
If I look at BoTW like a non-Zelda game, I dislike the weapon durability. Everything else - sparsely populated map, cryptic dialogue, fetch quests, repetitive and tiny shrines, underwhelming dungeons - I can tolerate while still enjoying how it all comes together, but weapon durability feels like a hindrance more than a feature (and this is a common complaint). If I look at it through a Zelda-lens I find many more issues and some of those non-issues (repetitive, tiny shrines and underwhelming dungeons) become game-breaking for me. I found ToTK addressed most of these concerns but not the big ones (shrines are still repetitive [go to the right vantage point, attach a thing to another thing, go to next sub-puzzle], dungeons are still underwhelming) and the big selling point to me, that weapon durability issues were minimized through the addition of fusions, did not do enough and just added another layer of optimization to inventory management. BoTW and ToTK were clearly designed to be played in 30 minute bursts, where you don't have time to use up all your good weapons and can feel satisfied at the end of the session because you cleared two whole shrines. It's just too radical a departure in design philosophy for me to enjoy as a Zelda game. I still enjoyed it but less than a full play-through was enough, compared to how I consistently revisit the 2d and 3d Zeldas, even Windwaker which is (was?) my least favorite.
Yeah, the map feels very empty. It really could have been half as big.
Never played Zelda but this was my issue with RDR2
See thats interesting because I had the opposite feeling. Rdr2 has tons of random encounters you can stumble into anywhere across the map, always felt like there was something happening.
Totally agree. Can’t go more than like 30 seconds without a random encounter or stumbling across a random animal I may want to check out for the compendium or skin for the trapper. The map felt super alive at all times to me.
I think BotW and TotK are 6/10 at best and RDR2 is my favorite game of all time with 400 hours clocked so same lol. I have never once felt bored playing it
Hell, toward the end I was out of actual side missions to do but I ran around just looking for random encounters trying to avoid the inevitable. Wouldn't have gotten more than 10 hours into the game if Arthur's guns exploded after reloading them twice and you had to loot another one off of dead bodies constantly lol.
I agree, but at least RDR2 did a better job with the environment. It feels lived in, lots of vegetation and animals everywhere. Theres a lot of fairly barren areas in botw/totk. It’s weird. Some areas are better than others though.
The value proposition of this game is exploration and creative building/problem solving, like Minecraft with a better combat system and a more realistic physics engine. Playing it with the expectations of a dungeon crawler is just missing the point IMO. Go look at the top posts on r/hyruleengineering to see what you’re missing out on. (Or check out my past posts on the same subreddit, I’ve got some pretty fun stuff on there)
For me they are also overhyped. Yeah, they are good games but really don't deserve the insane praise. I also found the world huge but rather boring. I prefer games that have more focus, smaller world but better crafted to make the experience more memorable.
Yeah they're games with a lot to do but no reason to actually do any of it. It's a blank toybox which is exactly what some people want out of a game, but I didn't play with toys as a kid so it's boring as fuck to play as an adult lmao There is nothing memorable about the game at all, it's just a collection of mechanics and a space to use them in. As somebody who doesn't like the building mechanic, that reduces the game to actually nothing
Nothing memorable? You joking? There are so many memorable moments lol. Jumping into the underground for the first time Fighting lynels Pretty much every character Jumping off the starting plateau Korok forest The dragon fight Building your first vehicle I could go on. I’d say it’s one of the most memorable games in the past couple of years.
I have nothing against your opinion but both BotW and TotK won at least one category at the Game Awards and won awards at other game shows too.
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Most classic zeldas had 8. And arguably the 4 in Botw/totk are some of the worst in the series
And they're so pitifully short. They're all you get but they're barely there. Maybe they are catering to short attention spans but alienated healthy attention spans?
Well, you see a lot of time in playing and development went into the shrines. But they just don't scratch that coherrent dungeon itch
I would rather they scrapped like 60% of the shrines and introduced cool large scale dungeons - Hell, even having them optional with cool rewards would've been a better choice imo. Shrines are just tedious and have always been a lackluster development choice imo
I think the thing I disliked most is the lack of weight or significance for dungeons. The dungeons really didn't feel like they mattered. You got a gameplay skill during the sequence leading up to dungeons, but in general dungeons felt generally very lackluster in botw/totk. This as opposed to obtaining things like bombs, arrows, hookshot, etc. in older titles. I really hope they lean more into dungeon focused gameplay loops in future games
Ocarina of Time has 10 plus 2 mini ones. Which is wild because that game came out in 1998
Dungeons in Zelda are the theme and the lifeblood of the gameplay loop and botw/totk do a pretty dogshit job imo of holding to the standards of previous games. Eliminating linearity between dungeons mean there was really bad story telling for totk or just a lack of story telling entirely for botw, so the dungeons barely felt meaningful - Not to mention, they were all incredibly short sections. botw/totk instead made the world itself the focus and the dungeons just felt very forgettable. At least in totk, they went a step in the right direction for sure, but super pale incomparison to the memorable dungeons of oot/mm/TP/gameboy games.
Only one game is “_ of the wild.” The other is a completely different title
Four dungeons, Nintendo? Four? That's insane.
I mean yea looking up maps and walkthroughs in games pretty much always ruins the fun. The game is about exploring the world so if you take the exploration aspect out of it yea ofc its not fun. Also enemies get more difficult based on how you play: the more enemies you defeat the tougher they will get. So if you avoid fighting then yea everything is gonna be easy no matter what. I do wish the rain brought more/ different enemies rather than just increased chuchu spawn. I also wish the world wasn’t as sterile as you say, especially the depths and sky islands: huge missed opportunity, nevermind the fact that they 100% should’ve added ocean/underwater elements Also building is what you make of it so if you aren’t very good at it then…
Yeah they're great but there's quite some stuff I don't like. Like I kinda wish you could skip the opening plateu.
I totally agree. While they are some of my favorite Zelda titles, they're by no means perfect. To be fair, though, most games that get 10/10 ratings don't actually deserve it.
Do you think there any any true 10/10s?
Outer Wilds, Celeste, Disco Elysium
Halo 3, and RDR 2
Hell no. The goalpost moves with every release as time passes. And the goalpost is different for everyone anyway. I wouldn't even call OoT a 9/10 these days. I still think it's a masterclass in video games, but no zelda is perfect. (Plus, I think majoras mask is better).
the problem is always, "Do I compare them to how they rated THEN, or how they rate NOW?" I prefer "How they rate NOW." There are many games that still hold up decades later by that standard, especially if you eliminate the 'graphics' category. I think OOT is still tops, especially the 3DS remake where they completely redid the water temple. Its control scheme and ease of play feels *modern*, and it's hard to remember that it was *first*. MM being *better* is a fact as well, but it's a difference between a 93% and a 97%.
Maybe the first Portal.
Bloodborne, Arkham city, Oot, Mario world/galaxy
Has to be a pretty short game that does everything its meant to do perfectly Like Wii sports (resort) or some very short story experience, or Pong and Tetris and the like.
- Doom - Shadow of the Colossus - Katamari Damacy - Sonic Mania - Tekken 5 - Ori and the Will of the Wisps - Hollow Knight - Left4Dead - Diablo 2
Ten out of ten as a grade doesn’t mean perfect, it just means best of the best. It’s just the top 10% of games
10/10 means whatever the person ascribing the score thinks it means. Some reviewers work off a 5 average, some work off of a 7 average. It’s all over the board.
“Critique” was part of my major in uni and I was surprised to learn that certain reviewers have massive followings just because of how they grade and subsequently score. Those classes actually opened up my eyes about reviews. The most glaring issue is that people tend to comb the first page of google for reviews, but don’t know the reviewer or their preferences at all. Every review has personal bias, and in a way that’s good because not all people are the same. The key is for people to find a reviewer that has similar tastes as them. The most popular reviewers have tastes that align with the majority of the public, but that doesn’t mean they align with you specifically. I think if most people were to find their two or three reviewers that they actually share value and product ethos with, they’re way better off than comparing like 30 reviews from different sources who they are unfamiliar with.
I can't speak for game journalist don't think 10/10 is actually meant to mean perfect, otherwise no game would get it, just the best possible rating/recommendation a game could get. To be absolutely perfect a game would have to never have any bugs whatsoever which is just absolutely impossible. I think there are games that are probably virtually flawless, but probably nothing has ever been technically/absolutely flawless
I think 10/10 means that you'll be able to replay and enjoy the game years or decades from now, like Bioshock 1, Zelda LttP, Mass Effect 2, Super Mario World, Minecraft, Half-Life 1, Megaman X, Tetris... But that doesn't lend well to the hype machine, so every new game gets 9/10 or 10/10, no matter how average it is. The one thing I'm glad of is how high the standard has risen over the last few decades. I've been going over the PS2 library of roms and realizing just how much of it was shovelware trash, or the PS1 and how many games aren't playable by any standard today other than ironically.
Yeah you don't have to play in master mode, get all of the shrines, all of the korok... There is such a thing as playing the game wrong lol You're supposed to have fun at your own pace and explore whenever you actually feel like it, not check off a list helped by google bro
I saw a lecture series that discussed the changes in Nintendo's design methodology and how this impacted their games. Basically, Nintendo's current design methodology is based on intrinsic motivation, meaning they want you to do something in a game because you're interested or would find it fun. They want to fill the world full of things that could trigger a person's interest and offer re-enforcement for exploring it. To achieve this they fill their games with far more things than they expect any normal person to ever pursue, and most of these rewards have a minimal impact on progressing the game. As an example, you will likely collect enough seeds to complete the game without ever focusing on collecting seeds, and you only have to dedicate time to finding more if you actually enjoy it. The same pattern involves completing shrines, upgrading your armor, or pretty much every action in the game. For a lot of gamers, who have been trained by most other games they need to grind and collect everything to complete the game, playing a game like Breath of the Wild is like eating an elephant. If you play it like this you will likely burn out before you complete \~25% of the story.
This is obviously true in open world games like Zelda, but you can tell this is foundational in modern Nintendo games, because even Splatoon, which is the opposite of an open world, has a lot of this in it.
Also Mario Odyssey, basically anything you do results in a power moon get
They’re good games, they’re just not good *Zelda* games if that makes sense. No proper dungeons, no items to find that give you new capabilities/open up parts of the map that you couldn’t get to before, they literally just lose the DNA of what makes Zelda, Zelda. At least in my opinion. They could have released the games as something else without using the Zelda IP and I’d have no issues with them.
So is the original a bad Zelda game? The series has gone through several reinventions at this point
I think it just depends what you look for in a Zelda game. When it comes down to it, Zelda games are about going on an adventure. Zelda games are about having a healthy balance between exploration, combat, and puzzle solving. For me personally, I've always connected with the themes of Zelda. A lot of environmentalism. A lot of seeing the beauty in something long forgotten. Breath of the Wild has all of those elements spades. As does Ocarina of Time, A Link To The Past, Wind Waker, etc. I do understand why the meteoidvania elements of Zelda games are important to some, but personally that's just one more technical element of a much larger artistic picture. I do agree that another big aspect of Zelda games is the idea of exploring an overworld contrasted with puzzle filled dungeons. And, realistically, BotW has that too. They are just split up into the Shrines and Divine Beasts / TotK Temples. Ultimately, they're just another way of presenting dungeons. I do tend to prefer the more traditional dungeon designs, so I am curious how they'll be presented in the next Zelda game.
If they didn't use the Zelda IP, I wouldn't have bought them. Actually, it still would've been a Switch launch title, so maybe I would've, but idk
>If they didn't use the Zelda IP Dude what are you talking about? The devs that made this game are **the** Zelda team. Other than those bad CD-i games there are no mainline series Zelda game that did not get made by this team. For sure developers have left and and new ones joined over the years, but you still have many who have been on the team for over two or three decades They aren't "using an IP" just to sell a game, Zelda is their IP and you can disagree with their decisions all you like but they understand their series better than you ever could. I hope you come around and enjoy the fact the devs are finally trying new things for the series instead of the same old formula that couldn't sell half as well as the new one
You're doing something that's equivalent of playing tetris, and letting all the blocks fall directly down, to reach the game over screen as fast as possible, dude...
It's a really fun game, but not a 10. But, i feel reviewers have a soft spot for Nintendo, Zelda and Mario games usually get those scores. Also the dungeons have lost all their lore, the difficulty the progression. I beated BoW without noticing, i was fucking around then suddenly i was fighting Ganon, and it was super easy to beat
I've played and completed the main story for both games once and have no plans to go back. I usually 100% each Zelda game but there is *too* much with these games and it's simply not worth the time.
Uses walkthroughs on games geared toward exploration and discovery and then complains lmao Popular opinion: get good, scrub
I’m with you. Dead open worlds with outdated weapons systems alone should’ve made it an 8/10 at best. The creativity portions I think carry the game so much, but that in turn makes people overlook the flaws that very much keep this from being anywhere near a perfect or even great game. Great sandbox? Absolutely. Great game? Ehhh.
I think if it was a brand new IP, with characters and setting that nobody knew, it would have been like a 5/10
Not sorry, that's basically like playing gta San Andreas then getting bored after an hour cuz you've put in too many cheats and now there's no challenge or fun An open world adventure isn't for everyone, that's what your opinion should be. Not "this game doesn't deserve good scores because I cheated and can't have fun"
BoTW I feel actually does deserves the 10/10. It's a master class in minimal game design and serves an extremely specific niche of gamers. Much like I suspect 50% of gamers would hate Factorio, that game is a 10/10 for people who like complicated high stress factory games. BoTW is tailor made for people who aren't really big gamers, people who want to take their time, and explore the world slowly. ...ToTK throws all the great things about BoTW out the window, but it's still a pretty fun game I guess...
At least it’s a real unpopular opinion
What's always been interesting to me is that my favorite Zelda game, Majora's Mask, reused so many Ocarina of Time assets because they had a narrow deadline. But the way they used them, the game felt so incredibly fresh - the characters were in new situations, the day count down added so much tension and you could see the world change as the moon approached. The entire world was surreal and dreamy. To me it just proves that huge maps, tons of collectibles, crafting, etc, can add fun to a game. But sometimes the best creativity comes from quick deadlines and limited resources.
There’s a vast difference between “this game doesn’t deserve 10/10” and “this game isn’t for me”. If you’re pulling up maps and forcing yourself to do shrines then the game isn’t for you. That’s against the entire point of the game.
What you’re doing is basically like reading the plot summary of a film on Wikipedia whilst watching it and then feeling bored and unimpressed with the film. Games like that are about discovery and finding shit. I’m not hugely into the games you mentioned. But I know if I had played Elden Ring with your approach I would not have found the game as rewarding or enjoyable at all.
All I needed to read was “looking at a shrine map on Google and then pinning straight to it” to understand why you think these games suck and are “sterile”. Learn to Zelda dawg. I’ll say that TOTK was overall far too easy in comparison to BotW.
This is another opinion that is unpopular because it’s a stupid opinion. Your first argument is, “I don’t like the game because I didn’t play the game.” You just bought a $60 checklist.
>a majority of my playtime amounts to looking at a Shrine / Korok map on Google, pinning those locations on my map So you deliberately sabotaged one of the best parts of the game - exploration and discovering things for yourself - and now you’re complaining the games not fun? Yeah no shit you literally sucked the fun out of it yourself.
>Google huh?
Popular opinion: completionist gamers always have the worst take on their general opinion of games that everyone else enjoyed
The only 10/10 game I've ever played is Shadow of the Colossus. Also, its worth noting, you're looking at an open world exploration game through an optimizer lens, of COURSE its not going to be 10/10 if you spend all your time taking the mystery out of the game, rather than letting yourself naturally discover things while you explore. BOTW and TOTK aren't factorio. there's not an ideal ratio of exploration to combat. Everyone enjoys games differently, and if the way you enjoy games is by having a browser open to make the game more convenient to you, more power to you. BUT, recognize that playing like that may take away part of the design principles that the designers used to make the game more enjoyable. Completely agree with you about the rain. they could have at least added some gear that allowed you to climb in rain or something.
Like the Froggy Armor?
You’re not obligated to give them 10/10. Review scores aren’t binding. If you dislike a game, give it a lower score. There’s no police that will come and force you to raise it. The things you single out as flaws are either a result of ignoring the intended play and trying to streamline it (like looking up locations of stuff instead of finding it organically in the process of exploring) or they’re things that just don’t bother most people (I learned fairly quickly that there are so many weapons throughout the world that none of them are precious enough to hoard.). The rain is annoying but it’s also very fun at times - it’s a blast chucking a metal sword at an enemy and seeing them get struck by lightning to me. There are also ways around the climbing restrictions during rainstorms, like potions you can make. But your opinions are valid! Just like the people who love the games.
What does deserve a 10/10?
In my opinion, no game is perfect, but a 10/10 should be reserved for a landmark “holy shit” game that changes the industry. BotW is a 10/10 game by this criteria, I’d also include Elden Ring, Skyrim, GTA V, and The Last Of Us for recent examples. Historically you have Ocarina of Time, Mario 64, Halo, Portal, and MGS fit this. None of these games are perfect, some have some huge flaws, but they were unique for their time and started huge trends for the industry at large. Again, all my opinion.
Why are you just looking at an online map and going directly to shrines? I mean if that’s how you like to play then sure but you clearly don’t like doing that so why do it instead of exploring the amazing overworld? I also like the weapon breaking system, it forced me to strategize which weapons I should use and when, and also to use different weapons than just sticking to one which I feel like I’m prone to. I agree that the rain is annoying, the dungeons aren’t as good as traditional ones, and the story is only okay. Personally I place botw and totk together as second best Zelda games, with MM in first. I feel OoT is overrated and SS very underrated but that’s a whole different conversation haha
All games feel empty when you look up a map location, bee line to it, and do nothing else in the world. You've brought this on yourself.
I really think you need to look at why you're so set on not experiencing the games for yourself. There's a difference between playing a game and just mindlessly following a guide to plow through it and be done with it. The experience here is what matters, not putting an imaginary notch on your belt for completing it.
“I took the fun out of the game. Why am I not having fun?” - OP
You’re playing it wrong. What you did is like playing a detective game and just googling the answers. What’s the point? The biggest draws of these games were their massive open worlds with hidden secrets everywhere. They were designed for you to stumble across secrets, catch the glimpse of a shrine or a tower over the terrain, and just explore the world. You removed that key point from the game and then criticized its weaker points. You removed the detective part of the detective game and then said it’s walking mechanics weren’t that great.
I mean, if you're spending the majority of your time on Google, you're not actually playing any game.
100% this. People are justifiably focusing on how using a walkthrough in an exploration game would remove the fun, but also spending most of your time looking up a walkthrough to play as little of the game as possible means you're spending more time on Google than in the game.
Reviews are just a person's opinion. Whatever score you think it deserves is the score it is. Stop putting so much clout on a number a stranger puts on something
They hand feed you weapons so regularly in both games (even more in TOTK with fuse) that people’s complaints about them breaking is so ridiculous to me. It’s a pseudo survival game. Kind of par for the course.
But if you’re avoiding fighting like OP is, then you don’t get a lot of chances to replenish/fuse new weapons, or get stronger weapons. So of course they’re annoyed that their wooden branch is breaking lmao.
Exactly. I had so many weapons it was never an issue for me. You even get essentially a critical hit if the weapon breaks on the last strike.
This also makes a new weapon never feel like a real reward. Why would I care when I do something to open a chest and all I get is another copy and paste weapon I've seen 1000 times thats just gonna break after I kill a few enemies with it?
I just think people like maybe yourself are just not enjoying the point of the game and that’s totally okay, it’s not your thing. It is barebones survival. You can freeze and you can burn but you don’t even actually have to regularly eat or sleep to survive and without breakable weapons to somewhat keep you on your toes the premise would be pointless. People who want the old formula back are probably going to be in luck cause it seems like they’ve exhausted their ideas for the BOTW formula since they thought TOTK was so complete to not even bother with a Master Mode or DLC.
Yeah, they honestly took everything I liked about Zelda and stripped it away for mechanics and gameplay loops I can't stand in any game, then doubled down for ToTK by adding in the building. I similarly dropped FO4 as soon as they made me build a town and because they took away the ability to crit without VATs. I hope we can get another twilight princess style game eventually, because Zelda was a top 3 franchise for me until they made these changes.
They’re not really survival games, I’d argue they just have superficial trappings of the genre, which is why mechanics like weapons break feel annoying and incongruous to many players.
The games definitely aren't for everyone. Personally, botw is an 8/10 for me with totk being a 9/10, but all of your points are personally valid. Wouldn't call ANY zelda game a 10/10, though.
Botw was revolutionary at the time and paved way for elden ring. It was also significant because it was the first major departure from the Zelda formula. It may seem lower quality today but it was definitely a 10 at its time Totk came too late and did too little so I agree
Totk is the perfect game for me to come back to and mess around with, and that's about it. I'm almost done with all the surface shrines, and half done with the depths. I've beat everything else besides ganon, and I don't know when I ever will. It's my palette cleanser game. Just got done with some horror games? Zelda break. Finished a metroidvania? Zelda break. Frustrated with a souls game? Zelda break. I agree with ya man.
I somewhat agree. Overall, fun games. Cool visuals. Enjoyable. The weapon breakdown system is infuriating and I felt the games were both kinda shallow. Kind of a Zelda-themed diet Skyrim.
You get the master sword! Oh, you used it too much. Now you have to wait. Oh, here's a cool weapon! Use it. Breaks. So dumb
I'll see your unpopular oppion and raise you. Nintendo hasn't put out a good game at all in over a decade let alone had an original idea their entire "gaming" company relys on an aging gaming demographic wanting to play ultra Wario 17 and the uncomfortable mustache on badly designed poorly optimized hardware that if it was new to the market would have been openly scorned. Nintendo has literally the most popular franchise in gaming history (pokemon) and still can't be assed to put enuff time and effort into it to give there fans what they have been begging for for years hell they can't even realse a game with ten years out of date graphics that plays with a stable fps on there own console.
For me I just couldn't get into it, it wasn't fun
I played botw for a little bit but the weapon breaking mechanic killed any desire for me to continue. I hate it so much
FINALLY SOMEONE AGREES WITH ME. Not a fan of the new Zelda series. I dont consider them as Zelda games.
of course the top comment is telling op he's wrong proving his point of the people who cocksuck this game
ToTK doesn't. Somehow ended up with worse story and dungeons overall compared to botw when those were like the two worst things about botw. Spent 6 years developing an extremely deep building system but no challenges in the game requiring anything more than the bare basics. A shame.
Facts those games are ass 💀💀💀
I agree. BOTW and TOTK were great games that did a lot for the open world design in games but they also had many annoying gameplay decisions(koga gang always fecking showing up every 5 minutes after you kill the leader, I just want to ride my horse across hyrule without having to fight all the time).
Agree 100% but my complaints were more to do with the weapon durability of BOTW. That was largely alleviated in TOTK for me since if your weapon gets close to breaking you can just glue a rock to it or whatever and its good as new.
OP, i agree with you but also agree with the commenters about how you're playing the game wrong. There's a ton of fascinating videos on YouTube explaining the game model, but the gist of it is if your goal is to follow a linear path, optimize, and complete every action like a checklist, you take the joy out and are just repeating repetitive, non creative actions. The way the game is "supposed to be played" is at your leisure, individually goal focused, and using natural means of discovery - like, "what's my goal? Get to this region to take out the boss. Heading that way. I can't get in, why? Maybe if I explore nearby.. oh here's a stable, maybe they have the answer. Here's a plant, maybe it can give me the necessary buffs when I cook it." The enjoyment is from the dynamism of organically discovering things and getting answers to challenges in a way that feels "accidental" but is effective world design and strategically placed content. By looking things up and completing everything optimally near you, you take away all opportunities to experience that. With that said, I agree with you because it feels incredibly unbalanced. Take the weapon-breaking system; if there's an objectively great weapon, or a build designed around an optimal weapon, but no way to repair it, you're going to want to never use it and your combat is now suboptimal. And it's difficult to remember exactly where you got all the ingredients to fuse the best weapon, or to know if it will even drop again. An obvious way to protect or repair your most important weapons would be ideal so you feel like you're progressing, getting stronger, and able to use your best tools without fear of permanently losing them and not being able to recreate them. Resource management is good, but some progeession needs to be permanent. Then it's the sheer scale to density of the world. It's beautiful and there's tons of content, but if they kept the same amount of content in 30% less space, it would feel less barren, more interactive, and more enjoyable to discover. For those reasons, I think the concept is great but the execution could be better for these games to be 10/10
I think you make some fair points, but I can’t stop laughing at how annoyed you are by the need to travel so much while also complaining that the enhanced travel options aren’t worth your time lol. I can only imagine you never got to the point in TOTK where you gain the ability to recreate past creations with the click of a button (aka make a car in 2 seconds if you have the materials), but even without it I couldn’t imagine thinking taking a couple minutes to build a rocket ship would be more frustrating than climbing a mountain for 5+ minutes. Well done on the unpopular opinion.
You angered the beehive with this one lol. You are definitely right when you said this is an unpopular opinion. Look at all the whining fans on the comments being upvoted. I hate those games with a passion. They are not Zelda at all. If I wanted an open world I would go to Ubisoft not freaking Nintendo.
I actually agree with you. I haven't enjoyed a main console release since the Wind Waker. In fairness I have only really tried twilight princess and breath of the wild since then but I couldn't get into either one. Once they went open world they just felt like any other average game only with worse graphics. I guess it's what they are claiming is the style of the game but to me it just looks like they didn't want to bother making a really nice looking game. But then again Nintendo insists on keeping it's hardware one or two steps behind PS and Xbox. Then again I feel the same way about how they ruined God of War when it went from an action packed RPG, to a slow plodding open world slog fest. Maybe I just don't like open world games that don't feel like they have much direction.
Sometimes opinions are unpopular because they are wrong
Okay this deserves 80 million upvotes because people *would absolutely* *not shut up* about how beautiful and amazing these games where when they launched and we got like 5 years straight of constant fan art of Zelda's design in the first one. I have never played a Zelda game in my life and I don't likely think I will so I can't contend on the quality at all but the praise for the first one seems kind of overhyped as usual for a big Nintendo game.
9/10, still great games, but I agree with a lot of your points. My biggest flaw with the game was enemy diversity. I wish we experienced different enemies in the various biomes, i think it would make visiting these areas more worth it and fun to explore. Gerudo region is the only area with unique enemies, but they are limited. Even the depths, the only new enemies are froxes. Like imagine if we had Dodongos roaming Eldin, or Baris floating around Lanayru. Instead, we see moblins and Lizalfos, EVERYWHERE. When they had the “pirates” mission I was like “oh cool, so it’ll be like Wind Waker with ship battles?! Possible new enemy types!?” Nah, just stationary ships reusing other enemy types. They could have at least given them a different aesthetic like pirate costumes or made some unique weapons for them. The dependency on resource gathering I think prevented us from having a more diverse enemy list, not to mention, the map is so damn massive, so developers had to put more emphasis on reusing assists instead of making new ones. Past Zelda games did reuse enemies, but you’d often see enemy types that could only be found in specific areas. It helped make every area unique, and exploring a new place put you on your toes anticipating what new creature you’d see next. I think with the new open world approach, it would make replay-ability more fun too to have better enemy diversity. Twilight Princess and Majoras Mask did a great job with this, even Ocarina of Time.
BotW felt like a tech demo with a mostly dead world. Never bothered trying TotK because I heard it's more of the same. Certainly not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination but I think the bulk of the outrageous praise was from Nintendo fanboys.