| Veknoid_Outcast said: Glad you enjoyed it! Yes, it's unlike Zelda 1992-2013. No, I don't think that's a bad thing per se. I mean, I adore A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and The Wind Waker. I love that modern Zelda formula where you get a particular item in a themed dungeon, and with that item defeat the dungeon boss. It's a great formula that's made The Legend of Zelda the best video series of all time. But a Zelda game doesn't need to conform to that standard to be great. The strength of BotW comes from its emergent gameplay, and from the way it encourages players to experiment with tool sets, enemy AI, and the game's physics and chemistry engines. It's all about freedom: freedom to experience a story or skip it; freedom to finish the dungeons; freedom to explore optional shrines; freedom to cook, or hunt, or collect, or ride a horse into the sunset. BotW's dungeons and boss fights are on the weak side -- minus Hyrule Castle, which is spectacular -- but it makes up for those flaws in so many other ways. |
I totally agree with ignoring the standard to achieve a new, unique experience. My only complain with Breath of the Wild is that it neglects the standards way too much, becoming greater but abandoning elements that not only would have given it more identity, but more variety as well. It reminds me of Resident Evil 4, a fantastic game that ignored the standards of the franchise whose name it carried. It broke conventions to achieve a superlative experience, but one that felt way too detached from Resident Evil itself, almost feeling like a totally different game.
The strength of BoTW works better the more you ignore Zelda's standarized elements. This is not even a Link Between World's case scenario, where at least you're required to do clever usage of the same item/2D gimmick within unique dungeons, and approach every dungeon in your own fashion. This is a case of a game that never really knows the player's position and thus repeats every single thing because of the freedom given to the player, which causes as a result dungeons that are almost the same, bosses that looks and perform almost the same, and commentary from the heroes that are almost the same. I love how Zelda asks "remember me?", because it's completely possible to forget that Zelda is somewhere in this world, entirely. There's not the same sense of urgency to save her as there was in Ocarina of Time after Sheik's revelation.
Not to mention, freedom is heavily limited when tackling the game's main scenarios sans Hyrule Castle. The game indeed works the best when you're on your own, exploring the land and trying to ignore dungeons, which is something weird to say about a Zelda game.
