| Shadow1980 said: BotW had a lot of good things going for it. The basic mechanics of the combat were good. The world was a joy to explore (though that appeal goes away once you've seen everything there is to see). The visuals were lovely. The survival mechanics and interactivity with the environments were interesting. But while the game has a solid foundation, the rest of the structure is lacking. Degrading weapons that break over time. No proper themed dungeons. Limited roster of enemy types by series standards. Heart pieces earned by completing a bunch of repetitive mini-shrines. And of course certain elements that are typical of open-world tedium, including climbing towers to be able to view parts of the world map and having to gather resources to craft things, expand your inventory slots, etc. |
I didn't touch the towers until last in each area. I don't get why they were in there, nothing but huge spoilers. And true, a lot of shrines, the 'challenge' ones in particular were nothing but repetitive filler content. However finding them and getting to them was often the reward, not so much what was inside.
As a Zelda game it does leave plenty to be desired, yet it did raise the bar for open world, physics based exploration type games. It left a bit of Zelda behind in becoming one of the best open world games in recent years. (apart from challenge scaling)
The formula to best put a linear story into an open world game has yet to be discovered. Perhaps it's only possible when AI advances enough to direct / adjust the story based on your actions, redesigning missions on the fly to fit your current experience and play style. When that's possible we'll actually get some next gen games.
