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HoloDust on 15 May 2023
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Slownenberg said:

Yeah the people who criticize the games seem to just be people who don't like open world games or just didn't want to zelda formula to change to open world because they think of Zelda very specifically as the pre-BotW Zelda formula.

Basically everyone else that doesn't hold those biases loves BotW (and presumably TotK). BotW is definitely one of the coolest and most engrossing games I've ever played. I do love the old Zelda formula, but I think it is better for new 2D Zelda games, while 3D should stick to the open world formula which is just so much more engrossing.

So yeah I agree, the criticisms seem to be personal bias, while the compliments are more objectively based like talking about how amazing the gameplay is and how amazing the open world is and the freedom is and so on. Not to say their are valid more general objective criticisms for BotW, cuz the game ain't perfect, though hoping TotK went a long way to perfecting it.

I'd guess there are quite a lot of Zelda fans who don't like BotW formula cause they like previous 3D Zelda formula or just don't like open world games. Then there are those who like open world games and still don't like BotW formula from numerous reasons.

I can speak only for myself, open world game design is something I grew up with, been playing such games from 80s onward and they are something I always look forward to. After first BotW announcement and showcase, I was very optimistic, given that previous formula, from my POV, was quite flawed and long overdue for overhaul.

The thing is, I find BotW's open world formula to break easily after certain amount of hours and becomes quite repetitive and unrewarding for the most part. And given that I can quite easily imagine open world Zelda game that does not suffer from such problems and retains key elements (pun intended) from its rich past, I can quite easily say that, no, I don't think BotW is such a great game (physics or no physics), just like I can easily say that Skyrim, while commercial smash hit and universally praised, pales creatively compared to Morrowind or Daggerfall.