- I'm starting to hate this constant flinging of the term "nostalgia" in part because it implies something isn't good enough to stand on its own merit which is simply not true in BoW's case, and partly because people don't seem to realize the irony that while they try to downplay a product because of "nostalgia" they don't realize that the fact that the very term indicates that the product has SO much value and quality to some that they actually prefer a past product/brand over a modern day one.. 

- Are you sure you're talking about the same game I've played for 20 hours when speaking of its combat? It's actually quite elaborate in that you can take on enemies in a huge variety of creative ways and implement a number of different strategies using endless objects at your disposal, which is almost unheard of of many games of the modern era. There is also a great deal of varience in rewarding good technique vs bad - meaning if you implement a smart tactic in a battle you can easily and efficiently run over a mob of opponents, whereas go in swinging stupidly with little to no strategy and you'll get annihilated by some surprisingly smart and versatile ai in that same scenario.. The frequent weapon/shield breaking is an annoyance and admitedly probably occurs a bit too frequently, but it's part of the challenge of the game - and you get showered with so many weapons anyway that it rarely seems to matter. 

- Of course the game has it's flaws - virtually every game that ever existed has SOME flaws. But I think the key argument is (or at least I'D argue that - its flaws are minor compared to the vast majority of games (that I've experienced in my 25 years of gaming at leaast), or that it's so fun and so well made that its strengths far outweigh its flaws. There's also a certain subjectivity when it comes to "flaws" as is more or less true in most forms of art/entertainment..

- Zelda more than any game has a homongus amount of nostalgia, BotW can stand on its own as it is a great game but its undeniable it gets overly praized, had this been a new IP the atention and perfect scores wouldn't be like this. Also ppl wouldn't be jumping to defend anything on the game on every turn, the ammount of ppl trying to justify the durability system that has you stoping the flow of the game every 10 minutes to fidle trough bland and clustered menus is something extraordinary for example.

- The core mechanics of the combat are super simple and pretty much the same as it has been on Zelda games for ages, attack week spot till the end of times, you can approach it in different ways but you are still gona be doing the basics no matter what lots and lots of times. And the enemies are just as simple as theyve been in any other Zelda game as well, they hit hard as fck but other than that they have super basic move sets and are beyond predictible. Also combat feels slow for me, but I guess most ppl don't share that opinion and that might be because I was playing Nier automata and Horizon befor epicking up Zelda wich means I was just used to those 2 games speed.

- No doubt its fun but when you are going to review a game you can't just ignore flaws, you read most of BotW reviews youd think its the only good game ever released and that its the only game you will ever need to play.

I'm not personally expecting RDR2 to be received better than BotW, but freedom isn't an inherent indicator of quality. BotW does arguably utilise freedom better than any other AAA title, but the absence of it isn't what would hold RDR2 back. RDR is a very different type of open-world game, and will be judged by many different metrics.

You know there's a quick weapon select menu? Hold right on the D-pad to scroll though your weapons. 

The enemy AI is excellent. Enemies are highly reactive to the environment and your own actions. 

sure it's a great game, but not the only one, and many other great games will come out by the end of 2017.

So GOTY is a big question mark, like every year.

PS: if Horizon will be, I will be very happy.

And to think people were mad at it was not like Twilight Princess, lol.

I bought the WiiU version and quite frankly, it's quite a boring game. I'm not saying it's bad - but the action and actual gameplay is stretched pretty thin.

#notmyGotY

Horizon Zero Dawn is the clear choice for Game Of The Year.

Sea of Thieves and Cuphead are shaping up pretty good too.

I love how this thread was initially started to highlight some humorous aspects of playing BotW and then turned into a serious discussion over what the GotY will be.