The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (NS) is the most successful stand alone Zelda title (not counting remasters/other versions)

[Jumpin]

HoloDust said:

curl-6 said:

I still don't see how that's "broken" since the world isn't meant to be tackled in a linear fashion. There is no "correct" path through the game, it's designed in such a way that climbing is a viable method of exploring providing the player makes sufficient investment into building up their stamina, so it works much the same as levelling up a skill in an RPG.

Same goes for the Master Sword; it doesn't matter how you get the 13 hearts so long as you get them, that's not "broken", it's simply the game giving you options. To "break" the game implies a violation of the rules; BOTW doesn't do that, it simply make the rules loose and flexible in the first place.

The shrines weren't particularly difficult, that is true, but honestly, I liked that. Nothing kills the fun for me like my progress being ground to a halt by an obtuse puzzle. The ones in BOTW were logical and intuitive enough that I never got stuck, yet every one of them was clever enough that I got a little mental buzz from solving them.

Random thought; if the next Zelda does follow the template of BOTW and does not meet your criteria, might I suggest trying out Darksiders III? That's a series that draws a lot from the Ocarina-Skyward Sword school of Zelda design, maybe that will hit the spot for you.

Not breaking the rules, but it feels to me like broken design - maybe poorly balanced world design would be more appropriate. I don't know, maybe I'm just too old, played too many open-world games and expected much more from such highly acclaimed game - actually, my open-world expectations tend to be quite high, since those are, IMO, most difficult games to pull off properly (hence, for example, I prefer Witcher 2 over 3).
Honestly, if they stick with this formula this will be 3rd IP that got wrecked for me in last 10 years (Fallout and Tomb Raider being other 2, though nowhere nearly as horrendous as Tomb Raider), so I'll just move on I guess...not to Darksiders, mind you, I tried first one, didn't like the setting...maybe I should try 2nd...

Anyway, maybe we can get back to this topic sometime in the future when (and if) From makes fully open world Souls...I think they are capable making that transition without compromising things that Souls games what they are, so that would be good comparison.

What balance aspects do you mean?

The easier to access stuff in the early parts of the game, on every path are all for the beginners, so basically, that gives you more introduction to the world. I watched my wife play Breath of the Wild, she took a completely different path than I did, had a vastly different experience, and yet it flowed like the game should have. When you explore out more, the shrines and thousands of other points of interest are spread out fairly nicely. There's no such thing as an overpowered weapon since you have a limit to what you can carry and a duration; the more usable tool-type weapons (like the hammer) have a higher durability but are less useful when attacking powerful monsters. Difficulty-wise, Breath of the Wild has the highest challenge since the NES Zelda games, easily, sure it does have some "fall off a cliff" moments, but usually, if you run into a challenge too difficult, you can escape, especially in the areas close to the starting point. But earlier Zelda games, the battles are far easier in general - and it clears out the majority of the BS "hide-n-seek" stuff where you can't progress in the game because what you need is hidden in a large area; and while Breath of the Wild is MUCH MUCH larger than other Zelda games, there's nothing critical that is going to take you hours of wandering to find while achieving nothing else; there's still the "takes hours to find" stuff, but there's LOTS of other stuff you discover to do in the meantime, and that's a major difference with past games.

Relative to other open world games? I'm not sure, my experience is limited to Ultima Online, GTA games, Assassin's Creed, Xenoblade, and a few others. Zelda took open world much further than all of those. I can't say I have played a game truly comparable outside of XCX, so I can't compare the balance, but BotW is clearly better balanced than XCX.

Unless there's some other element you're referring to?