Take away my gamer badge if you want, but Breath of the Wild didn't feel like a Zelda game to me, it felt like a Xenoblade game.

It's not a bad game at all, of course, I just don't like it as much as say, Ocarina of Time or Windwaker.

I wasn't a fan of the lack of real dungeons, the small pool of enemies and the even smaller pool of bosses (Bosses are usually my favorite part of Zelda). It all got very same-y fast.

I usually don't like to complain about graphics, but I really wasn't a fan of Breath of the Wilds art style. There was very little texture or definition to anything, which made the characters faces look like a blob of colours sometimes. I usually love cell shading too. In my opinion, Windwaker did it much better. It probably helps that Windwakers character designs complimented the style.

It also sucks that Ganon was reduced to a generic evil purple cloud without any character other then "ROAR!". He was an interesting, intelligent and intimidating character in Windwaker (I know I keep using Windwaker as an example shut up).

I kinda miss when Zelda games had that Dungeons and Dragons kind of feel to its world, with uncanny things like redeads, wallmasters and deadhands living deep in dungeons that felt like no one had set foot in them in hundreds of years.

I hope the new Breath of the Wild is at least going to have some more variety than the first one.

EDIT: Oh, and the music. The Legend of Zelda series has some of the most memorable music of all time. However, BotW went for minimalist piano tinkling with no real memorable tracks. I struggle to think of more then one. Not saying the music was bad, but again, it just wasn't Zelda. Zelda music isn't supposed to be forgettable background piano ambiance.

  • SerLava [he/him]
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    edit-2
    1 year ago

    All valid points but I know they'll have future games with the classic format of dungeons and stuff, so it doesn't irk me that this game has more bite sized stuff across landscapes. So I love it, it's either my favorite or second favorite with Ocarina- again it's hard to compare when the format is 50% different.

    I bet even Tears is already gonna have some more deluxe dungeon areas.

    Also, the thing I really loved is that they used the Zelda franchise to just suddenly butt into the open world RPG genre and just completely fix almost all the major issues with those games.

    • Artificial zone barriers? Nope
    • Hidden linearity? Nope
    • Over leveling? Nope
    • Boring travel? Nope
    • The actual experience of playing and enjoying the game being completely anathema to the plot?* Nope.

    *Looking at you GTA San Andreas, where you murder thousands of people to clear your name after being framed for a single murder.

    *Looking at you every game with an established plot time limit that just mysteriously freezes for days weeks and months while you fuck around and play with bugs

    *Looking at you every game where you need to save and/or avenge the death of your wife and daughter before you have a mental breakdown, but first let's fuck around and play with bugs

    Seriously, they literally tell you in BotW that your quest is to become a badass and to do that by leveling up basically. The thing you intrinsically want to do and which is hardly even acknowledged in a lot of RPGs.

    • glimmer_twin [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      *Looking at you every game with an established plot time limit that just mysteriously freezes for days weeks and months while you fuck around and play with bugs

      Tbf from what I recall it’s sort of implied that zelda’s seal is about to break and you should probably bear calamity ganon soonish before she gets her shit wrecked, but you can dick around for in game months before bothering lol (I know I did)

      • SerLava [he/him]
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        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Yeah that is somewhat of a time limit but they definitely establish it's been working for 100 years and that there isn't a hard time limit, she just woke you up because it's getting difficult. And then they tell you explicitly to go travel about the world and get stronger so that you can kick Ganon's ass

        A lot of games will open up with like, your kid getting hauled away or whatever and you're screaming with rage and then you dick around

        • WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]
          ·
          1 year ago

          A lot of games will open up with like, your kid getting hauled away or whatever and you’re screaming with rage and then you dick around

          me playing fallout 4
          after 6 ingame months of making settlements and collecting random crap i remembered that i had a kid lol

          • SerLava [he/him]
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            edit-2
            1 year ago

            YES and then all the voice lines are acted as if it's been 4 or 5 days

            The Bethesda games are the perfect example of all the open-world stuff that Zelda threw on its head

            • WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]
              ·
              1 year ago

              my character: "Where's Shaun you bastard!"
              me: "who the fuck is Shaun? Oh it's the kid... i thought his name was Steve"

            • Vncredleader
              ·
              1 year ago

              If you talk to Codsworth for the first time after progressing a bit the dialogue will change. The sole survivor will be less raw about their spouse, and if you progress even further they will talk about the institute stuff. It is not the same, but it is a neat touch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUM8UqSX5wE