Wyrdness said:
8-10 hours is not a lot of time as far as this game is concerned, some people have taken 5 hours just to get off the plateau while many haven't even been to the first village in their first 15. |
I've played most of the big open world games in the last decade, there's no need to teach me how they work and I know full well that 8-10 hours is not a lot in games like these. My point was merely that the portion I did play was outside of the Plateau and I had access to the world (and some pretty decent gear as well). But even one hour with any title will show things you enjoy and things you don't enjoy that much. Overall, I love the direction they've taken with it, both in mechanics and visuals, but I've never played a perfect game, not even close, and this is yet another notch on the wall as far as that's concerned.
Some of the things that I didn't enjoy; the painstaking climbing of vantage towers to unlock the map, using stamina and not being able to climb all day is cool, climbing slower than any other character in any game ever is not so cool. Weapon breakage; again, I like the concept a lot, it adds depth and challenge, but most weapons break really, really quickly, absurdly so, I met one enemy (a fire-spitting lizard type mob) who cost me three weapons alone and that's just a bit ridiculous imo. The world is huge and completely open but I found it quite empty-looking, there are huge, open spaces with nothing in them, they seem to have limited the assets and favored more square miles over dungeons and/or points of interest, and even vegetation, like many, many open world games before them (Horizon has much the same problem). While the visuals are fantastic, the pop-in is really severe, especially when you're flying around with the leaf, as I flew into a village, not even half the assets and NPC's were loaded until I was 15-20 yards away, this takes a lot of immersion and charm out of an open world for me and is a sign that the ambition may have reached farther than the hardware would comfortably allow (mind you, I've not seen it in handheld mode). Camera; like most open world 3rd person games, fighting groups of enemies is hard, mostly due to the camera, Zelda is no exception, rocks, trees and other enemies get in the way and I'd like to be able to zoom out a little bit for bigger fights (but, again, this is a widespread problem in open world games).
Things I did enjoy; breakage and overall survival elements are awesome, you need protective clothing against both cold and heat and you can harvest and use so many things out in the world for crafting. The small details everywhere, like when you shoot an animal with flaming arrows, the meat is cooked, when your enemy whacks around his burning spear and scorches the grass in circles around him, even hindering his buddies by setting the vegetation ablaze. The controls are really good, my main gripe was aiming the bow close up, the enemies seemed fast compared to Link's turning circle, but this is likely down to settings. The visuals are gorgeous, I love the style and Hyrule looks as inviting as ever while still holding these few places that scare you away as well. The insane openness, this is the main area where other developers should take notes, invisible barriers and other nonsense (*cough* "return to the map or have your game loaded" *cough*) like ships shooting missiles on you or a huge shark biting your ass off to keep you in the right corrider, this defeats the purpose of having an open world to begin with. I'd go so far as to say that Breath of the Wild is the most open game I ever played in my life, and that's something you have to love! The music; it's sublime, of course, and I felt a shiver run down my spine when I got the spirit stone in the shrine (I did the puzzle with the rolling rock in the labyrinth) when the familiar "reward music" tune played, the score is modern and different, yet familiar, like Hyrule itself, it's amazing!
Look, I need more time to pass any sort of judgement, and while the drawbacks section here is as large as the posivite, that doesn't reflect my actual feelings on the title, I just feel like being thorough seeing as how a lot of gamers seem to think that it either has no negatives, or that if you point one out, you simply haven't played the game. This is probably why I find negatives in open world games; there are usually quite a few, even in the biggest productions, and it has become a hallmark of the genre, Zelda is not different in that regard. It does some things exceptionally well, it does some things exactly like everyone else (cooking and eating food is old, old, old, old news and climbing towers to unlock the map is also ridiculously overused) and it does some few things a little bit worse than other games (insane breakage that ruins the flow for me in its current state, massive pop-in).
It's challenging and fun and looks and plays great and it's obviously a fantasic game, but I answered the OP to the best of my ability after only a short session at work (one of the kids got a Switch from his parents on friday). More precisely towards Wyrdness; the implication that I don't understand how open world games work is just flat out wrong, and the reason why I can point out some flaws is that I do understand how they work and have a ton of material and experiences to compare it with. And while it's obvious that this is a fantastic game, it was equally obvious to me that I could not have agreed with a 98/100 score based on my time, and even if I discover a lot more positives along the way, there is likely to be negatives as well, and this was the OP's question "Is Breath of the Wild really that good?". My answer is "probably not for most, at least for me, but it is really amazing".
PS: I've never in my life played a game that I would score 98/100 and only a handful that I would give 90/100 or more.
PPS: OP, no one title is worth buying a console for, in my opinion. I've never done that and never will.
