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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Breath of The Wild Now The Best Selling Zelda!!

well deserved my favorite Zelda game ever..did not think I would end up loving a Zelda game more than OOt



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They took a bold approach and it paid off. Congrats!



Mar1217 said:

Admit though, Battletoads is going to be the next one :P

Its going to take a lot to move me from Zelda. I just hope Battletoads is a good game, it doesn't have to be GOTY for me. Just a refresher for one of my favourite franchises of all time. For now Zelda is untouchable. Well deserved too.



Vini256 said:
HoloDust said:

I don't find open-world to be bad per se, after all first Zelda was open world, I've been playing and liking open world games for some 30+ years...and anyone who knows me around here has a fair impression of what I think of Aonuma and his approach to Zelda. Yet I found this specific implementation of open world just plain bad and pointless, so much that I got bored of it after 10 or so hours and had to muscle through the game (only interesting area for me was Gerudo town).

This is indeed, unfortunatelly, mass market Zelda that follows lot of bad trends that became popular over the last decade or so. But I'm fairly old and I have seen lot of IPs that I liked a lot go down that road - in the end, you just learn to let it go and find something else...with a little bit of hope burried somewhere deep that sometime in the future maybe things will change for the better for IP you liked so much.

Well, BotW was basically my introduction to open-world games, so other games may do it better. In any case it really tainted my view on those types of games.

@bold, the biggest issue I have in Zelda's case is that 3D Zelda was pretty much its own thing, there really aren't other franchises out there with that exact same gameplay style. There's a bunch of one-offs like Okami, Sphinx and from what I hear Darksiders (Kind of), but that's it. Beyond Good and Evil was the closest I ever got to the same "feel" as Zelda, but the sequel is going in the complete opposite direction of the original game too, so there's nowhere to go. It's the same for fans of old-school Tomb Raider from what I've seen/read around the internet.

Open world games come in many flavors - after all, they've been really, really old, going all the way back to first Ultima (which influenced Zelda, not that many would ever admit it) and Elite. I always liked them, if done properly, and some of them are my favorite games of all time - this is why BotW was so dissapointing, its open world is quite average at best - which would be tolerable somewhat, at least for me, if there was enough dungeons and things to do.

Unfortunately, I'm one of those old-school Tomb Raider fans as well who despises reboot - plus Fallout 1/2 fan who doesn't like one bit what Bethesda did to Fallout - so Zelda is, for me, in the end, just another victim. Yet, out of 3, chances are Zelda is most likely to change significantly again, so there's at least that.



contestgamer said:
Roar_Of_War said:

You do realize that most Zelda dungeons are Portal for toddler, just a bit longer than most of BOTWs dungeons, right?

Gameplay wise, there’s nothing special about dungeons from OoT, TP or SS in comparison to BOTW dungeons. Butthurt Zelda fans over BOTW tend to highly overrate past game dungeons simply because they were longer or had better aesthetics/atmosphere. The fact that they’re long and look visually interesting doesn’t make them play any better. Most dungeons are actually very, very simple. Including the bosses, too. 

I like dungeons in Zelda and all, but lets be honest here, BOTW dungeons aren’t a farcry from past games. They’re just shorter and revolve around a ‘moving the dungeon’ mechanic, but the puzzles and tasks really aren’t any worse. Heck, its way better than OoT’s 300 block and torch ‘puzzles’ in most of its dungeons.

 I just replayed MM and the dungeons are a million times more complex than botw and frankly way  better than Portal. You need to replay those n64 games dude. Where is stone tower in botw or portal?

The first dungeon is terrible and tedious, the 2nd is the same, the third is the same, Stone tower is literally the only good dungeon in that game lol

ironically, all of BOTW’s dungeons are similar to Stone Tower in some ways due to the divine beast gimmick. Just shorter and less tedious.

And Majora’s Mask is probably one of the few exceptions where the dungeons are SLIGHTLY complex. Tedious and boring, but slightly complex. Every dungeon in OoT, TP and SS are incredibly simple, just stretched out longer and visually interesting. Majora’s Mask fans tend to agree that the dungeons are the worst part of that game as well.

Admit it, most Zelda dungeons are overrated due to how ‘long’ and ‘cool looking’ they are. The puzzles themselves are just as simple as BOTW divine beasts at best or even MORE simple at worst. The only times you get stuck is when you can’t find a chest or a switch, not because of a head scratching puzzle or any sort of complexity.



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Roar_Of_War said:
contestgamer said:

 I just replayed MM and the dungeons are a million times more complex than botw and frankly way  better than Portal. You need to replay those n64 games dude. Where is stone tower in botw or portal?

The first dungeon is terrible and tedious, the 2nd is the same, the third is the same, Stone tower is literally the only good dungeon in that game lol

ironically, all of BOTW’s dungeons are similar to Stone Tower in some ways due to the divine beast gimmick. Just shorter and less tedious.

And Majora’s Mask is probably one of the few exceptions where the dungeons are SLIGHTLY complex. Tedious and boring, but slightly complex. Every dungeon in OoT, TP and SS are incredibly simple, just stretched out longer and visually interesting. Majora’s Mask fans tend to agree that the dungeons are the worst part of that game as well.

Admit it, most Zelda dungeons are overrated due to how ‘long’ and ‘cool looking’ they are. The puzzles themselves are just as simple as BOTW divine beasts at best or even MORE simple at worst. The only times you get stuck is when you can’t find a chest or a switch, not because of a head scratching puzzle or any sort of complexity.

I disagree. I played BOTW last year and replaced OOT and MM this year on 3DS. And the primary thing that I missed in BOTW and that I enjoyed in both OOT and MM are the dungeons. Honestly it's what makes the games for me. Not finding a chest/key as you put it seemingly in a derogatory light is one of the aspects that makes those dungeons so awesome. It took me probably 5 hours to find a invisible key in the corner of a room in the shadow temple and thats one of the most memorable moments I had. (many moments lol)



I agree the dungeons are Breath of the Wild are, even if they’re short and there are only a few, still fun and clever due to the physics puzzles, but to now suddenly dismiss previous dungeons as being overrated because they actually in hindsight lacked any complexity is an exaggeration.

The Forest Temple, Water Temple, Stone Tower, Tower of the Gods, Arbiter’s Grounds, Ancient Cistern and Sky Keep are top notch level design. Some of the 2D dungeons as well. The top 3D Zelda dungeons easily beat any of the dungeons in BotW. Luckily though, they were still fun enough and the game nailed everything else. I agree the DLC dungeon was great.

I hope they manage to merge the traditional thematic dungeons with their items into the BotW framework for a future game somehow.



mZuzek said:
Roar_Of_War said:

The first dungeon is terrible and tedious, the 2nd is the same, the third is the same, Stone tower is literally the only good dungeon in that game lol

ironically, all of BOTW’s dungeons are similar to Stone Tower in some ways due to the divine beast gimmick. Just shorter and less tedious.

And Majora’s Mask is probably one of the few exceptions where the dungeons are SLIGHTLY complex. Tedious and boring, but slightly complex. Every dungeon in OoT, TP and SS are incredibly simple, just stretched out longer and visually interesting. Majora’s Mask fans tend to agree that the dungeons are the worst part of that game as well.

Admit it, most Zelda dungeons are overrated due to how ‘long’ and ‘cool looking’ they are. The puzzles themselves are just as simple as BOTW divine beasts at best or even MORE simple at worst. The only times you get stuck is when you can’t find a chest or a switch, not because of a head scratching puzzle or any sort of complexity.

So tell me what exactly about BotW is complex. Nothing? Yeah, that sounds about right. I can't think of a single thing in the entirety of BotW that is complex, in fact that's the reason the game is so good: because it manages to make everything seem simple and easy to understand.

Complexity doesn't mean quality. Zelda dungeons were never the most complex stuff ever (though there are some that are quite tricky, such as the Water Temple, Stone Tower Temple, Lakebed Temple, Sky Keep and more), but they were interesting and fun. They were an essential part of what makes Zelda itself, even dating back to the original NES game. I don't dislike BotW at all and I think the excessive hate on its dungeons is a little unjustified, but it is true that they're simply not a replacement for what the previous games had. I commend BotW for featuring loads of physics-based puzzles, because they feel quite natural and intuitive, but ultimately it did lead to 4 incredibly short and easy dungeons which are also sadly devoid of any thematic variety. Thankfully, the DLC Final Trial was an amazing dungeon which managed to bring with it some truly clever puzzles and took longer than 20 minutes. But overall, it is an aspect in which the game is lacking when compared to the likes Ocarina of Time or Skyward Sword.

Edit: also, I still think there's plenty of value in BotW's dungeons. Vah Naboris is particularly great, and it left me an amazing impression as it was my first one. The use of darkness in Vah Rudania was pretty interesting. And Vah Medoh, while an absolute joke of a dungeon, is thematically cool.

My entire point is that BOTW and past Zelda dungeons are all simplistic. What even isthe point of your first paragraph? I never said BOTW was complex, my point is that past Zelda games aren’t much, if at all, better in dungeon complexity. BOTW dungeons are short, and thats the primary difference, aside from having less of them.

Past Zelda dungeons arr just longer and look visually interesting. Gameplay wise, most of them aren’t better than divine beasts. A lot of older Zelda’s like OoT, in fact, have boring block pushing puzzles and torch puzzles littered everywhere. I see nothing there better than BOTW.

What’s better about past dungeons? Longer and aesthetics. That’s about it save for a few cool ones here and there. Not a single one of you has been able to tell me ‘why’ past dungeons are better from a gameplay perspective, aside from longer + more + visually. I’d like to hear it, cuz I certainly don’t see it. I am talking about batting average, of course SOME past Zelda dungeons stand above some others, but I’m talking about the majority.

This isn’t to completely dismiss past Zelda dungeons, only in comparison to BOTW dungeons are they overrated. 

Last edited by Roar_Of_War - on 18 August 2018

Hope it keeps selling, more people need to play this game.

For me it’s probably the best game I’ve played in about 20 years (or more). I bought this and a Switch on releaseday and even if this would have been the only game I got for the switch it would have been worth the price to me. (In other words I would have been happy with a single game console, that only played BotW, for the price of a Switch + BotW)



It's the only game that makes me consider buying a Switch. Either way, congrats.