I've been gaming since the NES in 85, BotW is my all-time favorite game. The problem I have in most open world games is most of the exploration/collecting is worthless. I recall Black Flag, collecting musical notes, and what did I get for it? My crew sang a different song, nothing more. Elder Scrolls the player literally can pickup plates, cups and other worthless garage.

What BotW does really well is all the collectibles/discoveries matter. Weapons break, finding new weapons have an impact. Since weapons break, finding Korok seeds have a major impact. Shrines expand hearts (enemies are tough) and stamina (needed for exploration). Food is required to survive the environment. Speaking of which, different clothes for different environments, clothes are not just aesthetic, about time.

Everything in BotW was considered during the development, as opposed to most open world games where random crap is just tossed in the game so the developer could claim 100 hours.

And most open world games are still linear at heart.  Sure the player can go off the beaten path, but to move the story forward the player most go back on the path and do so in a linear fashion (see Horizon).  BotW isn't just open world, but non linear, given the player can elect to experience the story in any order....  or heck, the player doesn't even have to see any of the story.  BotW actually has freedom of choice, it isn't an act like most games put on.

The shorter version is the game is a strong 101.8 out of 100.

I give it a 96.5 personally. There is a lot of great stuff in the game, but too much water.

We should clearly use a scale of 0 to 1 quintillion zillion trillion billion million.

I see this is a joke thread but at least remove the score from your signature where you gave it a 5/5 to make it at least a bit more believable. :D :D

Not finished yet, but pacing in the beginning is a bit too loose for my preference which meant it took me a while to really get into it. Enemy difficulty is all over the place. Climbing and potion making can become a slight chore. Shrines can feel a bit too souless/repetitive compared to traditional dungeons. Weapon breakage system is way to heavy handed. Literally went through 7 swords in one battle, that aspect just isn't fun or realistic. The element of newness that comes with new tools is missing a bit.

Overall love it though, I see why it gets the praise. The open world is always doing something to steal my attention. The presentation is gorgeous as well. Easy to forget its running on the Switch.

I played it on a 92" screen with 5.1 surround system, so I give it a 97.1

BotW kept me going for 170 hours and is the only game where I completely refrained from using fast travel and never felt like I wanted to use it. I didn't get to the 'starter village' until 60 or 70 hours in since I went in the other direction first. Which is why I can't give it a perfect score, since although I had tons of seeds, there's only one dude to expand your inventory and 8 slots is very limited for 70 hours with the low weapon durability.

(It could have used some beefier HW, blown up to 92" gave it a pretty soft image, but was very immersive)

I think you made a mistake, let me rephrase you:

 “Too much rain ”

Definitely a 96.95/100 i guess.

*walks backward*

In all seriousness, the game is indeed overrated ( a lot of room for improvement) as all the other games on any top 10-20 list are. But it is the best overrated game I have played in the past 20 years or so.

I will say this one more time: if Nintendo gives us more dungeons that resemble the amazingly well designed Hyrule Castle, my score will go up from a 9.0 to a 9.2.

I can't imagine playing BOTW on a Lite