curl-6 said:
I still don't see how climbing is "broken". Typically this is used to describe something that inadvertently violates the game's rules and allows the player to do things they shouldn't be able to do; climbing in BOTW doesn't do that as it's factored into the game's design. To get even two stamina wheels means not only putting in the effort of beating shrines, but also diverting spirit orbs away from extending your health, so your character does as you put it "suffer in other areas". The second circle is 20 orbs, so that means you're sacrificing 5 hearts to complete it. If the game just wasn't your cup of tea though, that's fair enough. |
Broken in a sense, why go to trouble of making such world if you can pretty much bypass anything with a bit of climbing - even things you shouldn't be able to, like path to Zora's or Hyrule Castle. And 20 orbs is potatoes really, especially when you can rearrange health and stamina for very low price whenever you want (another broken stuff that gets you Master Sword early, and I won't even go into ridicilous "breaking weapons as incentive to experiment" koolaid mantra). Like I said, there is good way to implement climbing (I don't intend to elaborate it here, anyone with basic knowledge of something like D&D can figure it out), but BotW's way sure feels quite world breaking to me.
Puzzle shrines are incredibly easy, they all look the same, and, woopdeedo, they all give the same thing - orb. For me they are epitome of lazy design, as if they were given to interns to practice level design and in no way can replace great temples/dungeons from previous games. I never had problems with them in any Zelda, I actually like them, no matter how much I can shit on Aonuma at times, but that's mainly cause of too much focus on them alone in Zeldas, and not enough overworld stuff.
That indeed changed in BotW, but now it's unbalanced the other way around - whole time I was playing the game I had this feeiling they didn't know exactly what they wanted to make, so they've slapped several machanisms that on their own might be somewhat cool, but mixed together just don't work.
It's not a bad game by any means, I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars (I like AdventureGamers scoring system, so 3.5 reads as "A solid adventure that is generally enjoyable, though it lacks enough polish or ambition to recommend without caution"), but I sure do hope they will change plethora of things for next instalment, cause this doesn't feel like Zelda to me anymore, but a mishmash of different popular mainstream mechanisms done with Nintendo flair.
Last edited by HoloDust - on 30 April 2018
