Zelda Breath of the Wild is overrated.

[freebs2]

SvennoJ said:

freebs2 said:

The problem is (imo), lots of people are accustomed to play a game just for extrinsic rewards...and that's because most AAA titles have accustomed them play that way. ie. I complete the task -> reward -> I get to see the next piece of narrative; I finish the side mission -> I get a new rare item; I beat 500 enemies -> I get a trophy to display online...etc.

BOTW is a game designed to be played for intrinsic rewards -> the act of playing itself is the reward...in the specific case of BOTW in my experience, the act of discovery was the main reward for playing the game.

Yet as I said earlier, the fragile weapons undermine the act of discovery. Experimenting with weapons on different enemies quickly breaks that weapon.

However as a silver lining, it did encourage experimenting with environmental kills, using the environment to the best advantage and the magic tools. Yet keeping a weapon that gives of light or warmth for exploration meant giving up space for those paper weapons needed to survive while exploring. Maybe some like that kind of trade off, to me it just slows the game down.

Anyway BotW is very much a reward based game, it's all about more hearts, more grip, more inventory slots, more recipes, better gear, more enchantments, while weapons were the odd one out.

Yes, it's not black and white. Of course BOTW has some extrinsic rewards...and also other gamers have intrinsic motivators as well. I mean instrisic motivation is the main driver in BOTW, other rewards act more like accessories for your main goal. In fact hearts, grip, slots, gear are all meant to improve your ability to explore...but again it's all up to you, there is no pre determined limit for how many shrines you have to visit or how many upgrades to unlock or how many custscenes you have to watch in order to beat the game. A counter example is Red Dead Redemption 2, a game that follows a linear progression and each mission has the extrisic goal to progress the narrative.

As for fragile weapons...I don't think they undermine the act of discovery on the contrary they force you to quickly change strategy and use a different item or a different strategy to beat the enemy that you wouldn't consider otherwise...that said I'm not a fan of fragile weapons either. I understand their reason for the design choice but I think they could have found a more elegant solution to achieve the same results.