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potato_hamster on 13 March 2017
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sc94597 said:
potato_hamster said:

So the review came out on the 12th. That means he probably had about 3 days to complete the game (half day 9th, full 10th, 11th, half day 12th, assuming he's writing while he plays). Apparently the average completion time is around 30-35 hours (https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=38019). So if he already had 5 hours into it before the 9th (let's say), and put another 25 in over that 3 days, then would he have "rushed through the game" if he beat it in the average amount of time he take to complete the game?

To quote Jim's review:
" Enemy encounters that suck up your resources, cluttered menus that are a hassle to get through, the same old fucking cutscenes every time you open, enter, and complete shrines. Frequent interruptions when monsters respawn during a “blood moon” – the modern equivalent of Castlevania II‘s notorious “curse” text box."

I'm sorry, where does he say that the cut scene is unskippable during a blood moon? Are you sure that he got this wrong, or that you just never read it right?

The howlongtobeat isn't yet accurate. Only 81 people were polled. It took me 70 hours to beat the game, and I only have 20% of the content of the game completed after beating it. But in comparison, do you think a review in which all one does is Skyrim's main quest (https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=9859) is accurate? 

In Castlevania II you can't instantly skip the text box. You have to wait for it to finish scrolling, and it happens much more often than the blood moon (every ten minutes rather than every few hours.) The blood moon also serves a proper function (upgrades the strength of all enemies in camps.)  The comparison is flawed, and he is either being intentionally disingenous here or doesn't know anything about it. I am trying to pretend he is not disingenous and is truly ignorant about how the blood moon works. 

Another example is how he tries to chalk up difficulty to enemies being able to one-shot you and not being actually difficult. In every open-world Role Playing game there are enemies that can one-hit kill you in the beginning. BotW is no different. Very early in the game you have access to revivals though, and can be revived as many times as you have fairies and a certain skill from a dungeon. He might have missed this if he rushed through the game, but it is there. Difficulty is instead focused on parrying, dodging, countering telegraphed attacks and enacting a fury rush. The better you are at this the easier it is to kill enemies. This has nothing to do with being oneshotted, although if you rush through the game you can miss this feature. 

Here is a reddit post that summarizes all that is wrong with his review. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/5yzcw5/the_jimquisition_breath_of_the_wild_review_open/

"My two cents, I'm still waiting for a truly great critical review. I like Jim's writing style but the content here is below his usual standard. tl;dr he makes factual mistakes and ignores some genuinely questionable decisions to focus on nitpicks and reaching arguments.

One thing that needs saying, it's fine for Jim to harp on his problems with BotW even if the score is a respectable 7. With dozens of perfect score reviews available Jim doesn't really need to repeat common praise. What matters is whether his criticisms are fair and substantiated.

Factual inaccuracies always damage a review's credibility. Visited but unfinished shrines are marked as such on your map, as others have mentioned. Shrine and blood moon cutscenes can be skipped. Jim shouldn't have wasted time complaining about such non-problems, and framing your critical opinion in relation to "raving 10/10 reviews" just invites speculation about contrarianism.

There's plenty of reaching for things to dislike. The short paragraph about shrines especially annoys me because the criticisms are not only unnecessary (Jim has more substantial issues with the game) but just wrong.

  1. Shrines break immersion? Unlike most Zelda dungeons, they were designed by an intelligence for a specific purpose. Puzzles designed by sheikahs to test Link fit with the game world, whereas block/switch puzzles in a fish's belly or convenient key/door placement in enemy territory is harder to justify narratively. This small nitpick actually bothered me in previous Zeldas so it's disappointing to see Jim inconsistently criticize BotW for a positive change.

  2. Shrines break flow? On the contrary they are part of the flow. BotW, from its opening moments, establishes a routine of exploration, scavenging, discovery, and puzzle solving. If Jim doesn't like the game's structure he should have said as much instead of criticizing shrines for supposedly breaking flow, when they are a core part of it.

  3. Shrines feel like a shoehorned substitute for traditional dungeons? They are totally distinct entities with different goals. Traditional Zelda dungeons are long, labyrinthine, enemy intensive, and typically involve puzzles centered around a dungeon item. Shrines are concise, straightforward, enemy light, and surprising and innovative in puzzle design. Beasts are a closer emulation of traditional dungeons but focus more on spatial reasoning than combat and puzzles.

BotW combat is more similar to the Souls games than Jim acknowledges. Enemies are reasonably durable and very strong, but attacks are telegraphed and success in battle relies on both creativity and systems mastery. I'm sure he knows better than to put "difficulty" in quote marks so I'm not sure why he did anyway. Again it feels like reaching.

His section on stamina makes no mention of stamina extending/restoring foods, odd since Jim praised the utility of life-expanding meals. (/u/ggtsu_00 points out I missed Jim's mention of elixers. I do think Jim should have emphasized this option more because it alleviates many of his concerns, like climbing during rain or having extra stamina for travel.) He also seems not to try and understand why the system exists. If Link could run without limit or started with three stamina circles, travel would be very one-dimensional. The stamina system gives rhythm to standard travel, adds decision making and even some strategy to climbs and swims, and provides incentive for locating stables and horses. And you actually can climb in the rain, it just requires leap timing and stamina food for longer climbs. I expect good reviews to demonstrate thoughtful consideration of mechanics before criticizing them.

Performance issues are fair game of course, but Jim is the first critic I've seen to complain about draw distance specifically for the purpose of scouting out enemies. Also the first I've seen to claim enemies pop in and out of the playing field. In my playthrough the sheikah slate had fantastic range and enemy locations were stable. I'm curious whether and where others experienced these problems.

Durability gets a lot of attention and that's fine, it's a divisive topic and Jim recognizes there's another side of the argument. I also really like his amiibo hate, while not quite a problem with the game itself the whole practice is anti-consumer moneygrubbing dressed up as a line of toys.

But there are more topics critics should be covering. Is food overpowered? Are fairies too easy to farm? Are flurries and parries appropriate rewards for systems mastery or are they imbalanced given how straightforward combat becomes once mastered? Does the unusual difficulty curve work for or against the game and its pacing? Does the dark story premise mesh with the frequently lighthearted tone?

Now I personally would defend BotW here, but I would respect a critical examination that focused on these elements as they're the most questionable design aspects. But they're not usually a topic of conversation and instead detractors focus on nitpicks or non-issues. BotW is in my top five and will probably stay there, but I'm actually hoping a respected Youtube game critic makes a good negative review so we can push the debate forward."

Howlongtobeat isn't accurate because the way YOU played it and YOUR expereince differs from others.  Of course. That's all it takes. I guess Metal Gear Solid V takes 120 hours to beat because that's how long I sunk into the game before finishing the final mission, right? Give me a fucking break.  It's not like I was taking the time of the speedrunner that beat the game in less than an hour. These are people self reporting their completion times, and I have no reason to expect that to be inaccurate. Besides, if you expect reviewers to get anywhere near even 80% completion of a game before posting a review, then I can guarantee there might be a handful of Breath of the Wild reviews that might meet your criteria, if any at all.

This entire post (both your opinion, and the redditor opinion you quoted can be summed up as "I have a different opinion than Jim, therefore Jim is factually inaccurate". The closest thing to a factual inaccuracy that anyone can appear to bring up is where Jim says:

"Yes, every shrine is technically optional in the same way not rocking up to Ganon’s front door and assaulting his forces with a tree branch is – you can do whatever you like, but if you want to have a solid chance of actually succeeding, there is a proper, preconstructed way of doing things, and the proper way of handling shrines is to complete them on sight lest lose track of them – finish as many of them as possible, as close to all 120 of the bloody things as you can."

The bolded can easily be interpreted as "easily forgotten", yet because they appear on your map after discovering them, are in fact "trackable" in a sense.

But apparently this is enough for some people to claim that Jim's review is "full of factual inaccuracies". Because you can interpret one sentence in a way that might be incorrect This is laughable.