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Alara317 on 27 March 2018
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potato_hamster said:

But that's the thing - it is unfair to judge an older games by modern standards in terms of things like graphics, physics, animations etc. Because they were working with the best they had at the time. But some things like game play mechanics, level design, character design, sound design, story etc.. These things are for all intents and purposes independent of the available technology of the time.

For example, let's say the next Zelda game features gameplay mechanics incredibly similar to Breath of the Wild, with one key difference, they've removed the weapon durability system featured on most weapons in the game and replaced it with the weapon durability feature similar to the one used on the Master Sword. This change is well received, and as a result, most reviewers, critics and fans consider this new game to be better than Breath of the Wild.

Is it then unfair to criticize Breath of the Wild for having a weapon durability system that now again for all intents and purposes demonstrably made the game worse? Is it unfair for anyone to say "well I wasn't too bothered by it at the time, but now that I've played this new Zelda game, I find it really hard to go back to playing BotW and not find it really frustrating".

I would say no. That weapon durability system is not at all dependent on the technology at the time. It's not like there was some hardware limitation that made the game designers decide that going through multiple weapons to defeat a strong enemy was something they had to do. They chose that gameplay mechanic. It wasn't forced on them. It wasn't the best they could do at the time. It wasn't a work around like the blood moon system, for example.

But the weapon durability system didn't make the game worse. I understand that some people don't like it, but it doesn't make the game worse. It's a conscious decision to keep you on your toes, to make you experiment and scavenge what you can. It's there to force you to appreciate certain styles and skills and added another element of survival to the game. Sure, it made no logical sense for weapons to break that quickly, but it was integrated well and was balanced properly. 

in my 250+ hours in that game, I rarely ever felt like I was running low on weaponry. I rarely got to the point where I wasn't inundated with too many weapons because while you went through them quickly, the game gave you weapons at such a pace that it was never an issue. 

Again, I understand WHY people hated the weapon durability system (and I was fully expecting to hate it myself), but in practice, it fits the survival theme of the game very well and was integrated in such a way that it's well balanced and fair. That is purely subjective, and while I respect your opinion that it sucks, it hasn't 'demonstrably made the game worse'.