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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Is Breath of the Wild really that good?

20 hours in and I still feel like I'm on vacation. The game feels so free and yet so tight. It's weird, no game has done these two things before. This is how I want all future adventure games to be.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

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And the problem with that is that a 10 as apposed to maybe a more "fair" 9 shifts 1 point, but a 0 or 1 shifts it 8 or 9. That basically explains all their is to know as you now need nine 10's to appose the one 0 to come to the "fair" 9. This is purely hypothetical as I'm not far along enough to score it.



Wyrdness said:
Nem said:

That kind of thing is preference. Please don't feed the other guy that just wants to be annoying.

If we couldnt tell wether a game is good or not in good part by just watching footage, we should all be buying the Slaughtering grounds cause who knows... it might be good?! It's a dumb logic.

The's a difference between  telling whether a game is good or not and figuring out how good a game is, the latter is something that requires actual hands on play with especially with a game with as many things to do in it as BOTW. Believe me what you've seen in any video is not even close to half the things in the game so he's right in that sense even more so as the game is one that rewards players for literally playing in any way they want like someone has just mention, so watching a video of someone else playing how they want will never give you the full picture.

That is perfectly fine. I'm sure it is a good game. What i said is that it isn't comparable in innovation to Ocarina of time, and i think that's undeniable. 

Btw i do have the game now and i still think that. It's just the hype talking to say otherwise. Sweet game for now, though i'm not fond of items that break.



Mummelmann said:
Wyrdness said:

8-10 hours is not a lot of time as far as this game is concerned, some people have taken 5 hours just to get off the plateau while many haven't even been to the first village in their first 15.

I've played most of the big open world games in the last decade, there's no need to teach me how they work and I know full well that 8-10 hours is not a lot in games like these. My point was merely that the portion I did play was outside of the Plateau and I had access to the world (and some pretty decent gear as well). But even one hour with any title will show things you enjoy and things you don't enjoy that much. Overall, I love the direction they've taken with it, both in mechanics and visuals, but I've never played a perfect game, not even close, and this is yet another notch on the wall as far as that's concerned.

Some of the things that I didn't enjoy; the painstaking climbing of vantage towers to unlock the map, using stamina and not being able to climb all day is cool, climbing slower than any other character in any game ever is not so cool. Weapon breakage; again, I like the concept a lot, it adds depth and challenge, but most weapons break really, really quickly, absurdly so, I met one enemy (a fire-spitting lizard type mob) who cost me three weapons alone and that's just a bit ridiculous imo. The world is huge and completely open but I found it quite empty-looking, there are huge, open spaces with nothing in them, they seem to have limited the assets and favored more square miles over dungeons and/or points of interest, and even vegetation, like many, many open world games before them (Horizon has much the same problem). While the visuals are fantastic, the pop-in is really severe, especially when you're flying around with the leaf, as I flew into a village, not even half the assets and NPC's were loaded until I was 15-20 yards away, this takes a lot of immersion and charm out of an open world for me and is a sign that the ambition may have reached farther than the hardware would comfortably allow (mind you, I've not seen it in handheld mode). Camera; like most open world 3rd person games, fighting groups of enemies is hard, mostly due to the camera, Zelda is no exception, rocks, trees and other enemies get in the way and I'd like to be able to zoom out a little bit for bigger fights (but, again, this is a widespread problem in open world games).

Things I did enjoy; breakage and overall survival elements are awesome, you need protective clothing against both cold and heat and you can harvest and use so many things out in the world for crafting. The small details everywhere, like when you shoot an animal with flaming arrows, the meat is cooked, when your enemy whacks around his burning spear and scorches the grass in circles around him, even hindering his buddies by setting the vegetation ablaze. The controls are really good, my main gripe was aiming the bow close up, the enemies seemed fast compared to Link's turning circle, but this is likely down to settings. The visuals are gorgeous, I love the style and Hyrule looks as inviting as ever while still holding these few places that scare you away as well. The insane openness, this is the main area where other developers should take notes, invisible barriers and other nonsense (*cough* "return to the map or have your game loaded" *cough*) like ships shooting missiles on you or a huge shark biting your ass off to keep you in the right corrider, this defeats the purpose of having an open world to begin with. I'd go so far as to say that Breath of the Wild is the most open game I ever played in my life, and that's something you have to love! The music; it's sublime, of course, and I felt a shiver run down my spine when I got the spirit stone in the shrine (I did the puzzle with the rolling rock in the labyrinth) when the familiar "reward music" tune played, the score is modern and different, yet familiar, like Hyrule itself, it's amazing!

Look, I need more time to pass any sort of judgement, and while the drawbacks section here is as large as the posivite, that doesn't reflect my actual feelings on the title, I just feel like being thorough seeing as how a lot of gamers seem to think that it either has no negatives, or that if you point one out, you simply haven't played the game. This is probably why I find negatives in open world games; there are usually quite a few, even in the biggest productions, and it has become a hallmark of the genre, Zelda is not different in that regard. It does some things exceptionally well, it does some things exactly like everyone else (cooking and eating food is old, old, old, old news and climbing towers to unlock the map is also ridiculously overused) and it does some few things a little bit worse than other games (insane breakage that ruins the flow for me in its current state, massive pop-in).

It's challenging and fun and looks and plays great and it's obviously a fantasic game, but I answered the OP to the best of my ability after only a short session at work (one of the kids got a Switch from his parents on friday). More precisely towards Wyrdness; the implication that I don't understand how open world games work is just flat out wrong, and the reason why I can point out some flaws is that I do understand how they work and have a ton of material and experiences to compare it with. And while it's obvious that this is a fantastic game, it was equally obvious to me that I could not have agreed with a 98/100 score based on my time, and even if I discover a lot more positives along the way, there is likely to be negatives as well, and this was the OP's question "Is Breath of the Wild really that good?". My answer is "probably not for most, at least for me, but it is really amazing".

PS: I've never in my life played a game that I would score 98/100 and only a handful that I would give 90/100 or more.

PPS: OP, no one title is worth buying a console for, in my opinion. I've never done that and never will.

Man that's a lot, I have only one comment though, cook more and some of you problems will go away lol, I mean it's a pretty big part of the game.  I'm not going to tell you how to cook and I suggest not watching videos or look things up either, blackout is the best way to play this game after all.



kappie1977 said:
maxleresistant said:

 "I understand that for a Zelda game it's great. But if you look at it as a next gen game, it isn't" 

That is just not true at all. On a graphical standpoint, yes it's not  as refined as a PS4 and One game, of course. But everything else is on par or better than the greatest games of this gen.

You'll see for yourself

I think you are correct. But maybe I should have mentioned, in my opinion of next gen gaming. Which is for me, very good graphics, physics, very stable and high frame rates, much bigger worlds then what is done in current gens etc etc. In that term I don't think this is the case for the new Zelda game, maybe only on the world size it could be on par. But as I tried to make clear, is that important for this type of game? No it isn't, even in the period when the first Zelda game came it was not the best graphical game but I enjoyed the game much more then alsmost all others. (except for Rygar NES edition, which I enjoyed even more )

I think at this point the word next gen means next gen lol, you are talking current gen. My counter argument is, not trying to start any war, just purely based on numbers, if graphics were all that mattered, Horizon would probably score a 15/10(of course, could be better on PC, but meh,) but it didn't, it's an 8.8/10. As a matter of fact, Nier: Automata, which is more in line with what you might be talking about, has a 9/10 so far, which, is higher than Horizon. I'm not asking you to change your mind, just a little time to give it some thought.



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BraLoD said:
Squall_Leonhart said:
I had considered getting a switch to play Zelda but the game prices here in he UK are ridiculous, £59.99 for Zelda and £39.99 for 1-2 Switch is shocking...

Lulz, the Switch is being sold for around $1000 here and Zelda for +$100 xD

OMG fuck Brazil's gaming prices, I feel for you guys.



Nem said:
Wyrdness said:

The's a difference between  telling whether a game is good or not and figuring out how good a game is, the latter is something that requires actual hands on play with especially with a game with as many things to do in it as BOTW. Believe me what you've seen in any video is not even close to half the things in the game so he's right in that sense even more so as the game is one that rewards players for literally playing in any way they want like someone has just mention, so watching a video of someone else playing how they want will never give you the full picture.

That is perfectly fine. I'm sure it is a good game. What i said is that it isn't comparable in innovation to Ocarina of time, and i think that's undeniable. 

Btw i do have the game now and i still think that. It's just the hype talking to say otherwise. Sweet game for now, though i'm not fond of items that break.

It introduces a new level of depth a bit later in the game, gives you more variety and really think about how you want to use your weapons, it's not going to be for everybody, but after getting used to it, I actually kinda like it. This game is definitely the hardest 3D Zelda game to date by far, and I have no problem with that, once the hardest difficulty comes out, I'll probably play the game again from scratch. If I die this much now on normal, holy shit lol....



I was not very exited about the game at first but 5 discoveries upgraded my score so far:

1. Entering Hyrule castle early left a huge and very positive impact. Highly recommended.
2. There seem to be some very sad NPC backstories, Majora's Mask style. NPCs seem to have a life and react to the weather.
3. You seem to be able to upgrade and modify almost anything.
4. It is very Zelda-like and offers more (hidden) Zelda content and Minigames then any Zelda before
5. Destroying a large Guardian before entering the first village felt amazing

This game creates the most detailed and most believable open world that I have ever seen. But it took me more than 30 hours to realize that.



dahuman said:

Man that's a lot, I have only one comment though, cook more and some of you problems will go away lol, I mean it's a pretty big part of the game.  I'm not going to tell you how to cook and I suggest not watching videos or look things up either, blackout is the best way to play this game after all.

Haha, yeah, I like to be thorough. As I've noted though; most of the problems are common in open world games (empty stretches, pop-in, for instance). And I realize that I've only scratched the surface of the game. I was really impressed overall though, especially the level of freedom is mindblowing compared to any other game I've ever played and I hope other developers are taking notes here! Oh, and its best feature by far over Horizon; save when you bloody want to! No more being reloaded and thrown back to the nearest bonfire, losing thousands of XP and lots of loot, wasting time in an open world is not something you want to do... This should be standard in all open world games, all of the PC-centric titles treat this as a part of the genre, being able to save exactly when you want to, having quirky saving mechanics only serves to frustrate the player, I know I certainly hate it.

I don't like to use guides or watch videos on how things are done, if the game is well made, you can figure out the mechanics through context and trying, I don't want to play a game to min-max according to stats and mechanics, I want to play the way I want to play and build a character that I made, not some nerds making a guide to becoming OP, one way or the other.

I'm waiting at least a year or so to get my Switch, I don't buy consoles first year, it's not worth the prices or the hassle and the libraries are tiny in the beginning. Honestly, I'm also a bit worried about the various issues the Switch seems to have, even if the fail percentage is small, better to wait for them to be ironed out through hardware fixes and patches (and more features wouldn't kill me either).



Now that I've spent some time delving deeper into the game and exploring much further beyond the Great Plateau, getting more aquainted w/combat, cooking, tactics, etc.. I'm enjoying it MUCH more. I'd probably put it at roughly a 9.3 now. It's like Breaking Bad - starts out "good" and just keeps elevating in greatness the farther it goes.. I was frustrated at how much I was instantly dying at first but part of the fun of the game is you learn from your mistakes and slowly improve in various ways, until you overcome. Won a couple epic boss fights today that had my heart racing..



 

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