A Biased Review Reloaded - Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in Review One Year Later

[vivster]

RolStoppable said:

nitus10 said:

Personally, I think the review you have given is pretty good but that said the mention of a lack of a female character is not important. What is important is "Slarvax's" mention of the weapon durability mechanic.

I have seen reviews where the weapon durability is to be lauded and in others condemned. Personally, I don't have any issue with weapon durability and think it does add a more realist feel to a game if it is done correctly and IMHO it is not done correctly at least in the early stages of this game.

Pausing a game in the middle of a fight to change weapons because your last one broke is just busy work and breaks the immersion (the Souls games don't allow pausing). This would be acceptable if this type of thing happened once but multiple times during the same fight is not acceptable.

Games like the Souls series and The Witcher 3 (just to name a few) have the concept of weapon degradation and the requirement of weapon maintenance which is very easy to do since you can use repair kits in the field or visit a blacksmith as a priority when entering a town.

You need to pause the game in Breath of the Wild to heal yourself. Since nobody has mentioned this as immersion-breaking in the three weeks since its release, I don't buy into the argument that changing your weapon is immersion-breaking one bit, because consistent logic is not present. This is why the argument of immersion-breaking reeks of desperation to find flaws in Breath of the Wild and why I put it on the same level as criticism from feminists/social justice warriors. Treating such arguments with respect would give the impression that there is merit to them, but there won't be respect coming from my side if the other side is the first one who isn't respectful. You reap what you sow.

I know why there's no consistent logic on the topic of immersion-breaking gameplay. It's because people realize that consistent logic would expose how ridiculous their argument is. People are free to complain about the weapon durability in Zelda, but I am free to ignore problems that do not exist in my reviews. I am not going to address hypothetical problems that somebody somewhere might have, because I neither want to waste my or the readers' time. Regarding the weapon durability in Breath of the Wild we've had people play the game for a full two weeks with no major complaints before all of a sudden it became something that needed to be talked about. If it truly had been a problem, then it would have been talked about from day one because it's a gameplay mechanic that is present throughout the entire game and not something that is only introduced way down the line. And yes, I assign higher value to the opinions of people with first hand experience than those people who haven't played the game. It's the latter group that is responsible for the majority of complaints and concerns, that shouldn't be forgotten.

Wow, that's probably the worst post I have ever read from you on here. You usually seem to employ logic in your arguments.

Absense of vocal criticism does not imply the lack of a problem. You're basically insinuating that people lied about their issues with the game just because you couldn't hear the complaints in the early days that were drowned out by mindless praising. That is one reason why you didn't hear about certain complaints and the other would be that early voices are the ones more inclined to give the game a pass because it's one of their favorite franchises. People who are not that infatuated with the franchise would naturally pick up the game later and not necessarily on day one.

BTW I have been complaining about these issues since day one and got labeled as Nintendo hater for it. Weapons breaking is a stupid mechanic that nobody would have complained about if it was absent from the game. Going into the menu during fights is stupid because it could be easily done with quick menus. The fact that there are easy objective solutions for the problems that would improve experience for one group and not affect the other proves that they are problems stemming from poor game design.

That said you are of course entitled to your opinion and it does seem that the vast majority of players does not mind the brought up issues. That's also absolutely fine.

My problem with your post is however your insinuation that just because a majority does not aknowledge certain issues that it doesn't exist and even worse basically claiming that everyone who does complain does so out of disingenuity. You can write in your review whatever you want and it's fine, but don't go around actively disavowing other people's complaints.