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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild | Review Thread

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Why did this rivalry between Zelda fans and Horizon fans develop?

First party games, both open world, both coming out around the same time, both involved ruined worlds with robots patrolling them, and a mix of ancient and futuristic technology.

When Zelda was about to be rerevealed at E3, there was fanxiety that Horizon's impressive graphics and gameplay demos would make Zelda look underwhelming after all the wait.
 

Nepenthe

Member
Why did this rivalry between Zelda fans and Horizon fans develop?

From my limited observations:

- Both are hyped open-world games with interesting game systems (HZD's intense robot hunting and trapping to Zelda's marriage of Minecraft, physics, and moment-to-moment discovery) to stand out, and releasing within a week of each other.

- Zelda was the GAF underdog due to the hardware gap, delays, the presumed Zelda bias in critics ("SS got good reviews so good reviews for BotW will mean nothing"), and the constant thread of criticism being that it was actually doing nothing new at all.

- Zelda fans took umbrage with this and started firing back by noting things like awkward cut scenes and in general leaning hard into the series' pedigree.
 

LotusHD

Banned
From my limited observations:

- Both are hyped open-world games with interesting game systems (HZD's intense robot hunting and trapping to Zelda's marriage of Minecraft, physics, and moment-to-moment discovery) to stand out, and releasing within a week of each other.

- Zelda was the GAF underdog due to the hardware gap, delays, the presumed Zelda bias in critics ("SS got good reviews so good reviews for BotW will mean nothing"), and the constant thread of criticism being that it was actually doing nothing new at all.

- Zelda fans took umbrage with this and started firing back by noting things like awkward cut scenes and in general leaning hard into the series' pedigree.

I dunno about Zelda being the GAF underdog lol

As tiring as it is hearing about the silly complaints and "concerns", HZD had it far worse imo
 
Both wield bows, both have post-apocalyptic settings where machines roam around, both have plots that presumably revolve around finding out what happened in the past, both are open world games, etc.

But most importantly... They released close to one another.

First party games, both open world, both coming out around the same time, both involved ruined worlds with robots patrolling them, and a mix of ancient and futuristic technology.

When Zelda was about to be rerevealed at E3, there was fanxiety that Horizon's impressive graphics and gameplay demos would make Zelda look underwhelming after all the wait.

From my limited observations:

- Both are hyped open-world games with interesting game systems (HZD's intense robot hunting and trapping to Zelda's marriage of Minecraft, physics, and moment-to-moment discovery) to stand out, and releasing within a week of each other.

- Zelda was the GAF underdog due to the hardware gap, delays, the presumed Zelda bias in critics ("SS got good reviews so good reviews for BotW will mean nothing"), and the constant thread of criticism being that it was actually doing nothing new at all.

- Zelda fans took umbrage with this and started firing back by noting things like awkward cut scenes and in general leaning hard into the series' pedigree.

Huh. Somehow I never even knew this fan rivalry had developed until I noticed some sniping in recent threads. Guess it makes sense, but I question why one game being "better" than the other matters so much to some people.
 

Nepenthe

Member
I dunno about Zelda being the GAF underdog lol

As tiring as it is hearing about the silly complaints and "concerns", HZD had it far worse imo

=P I tend to presume that Nintendo fans on here are outnumbered by everyone else as a consequence of the market shifts, and thus even strong hype is still coming from a relative minority. That, and Zelda has a history of baggage with its past titles in terms of arguments over whether or not they're good, while Horizon Zero Dawn is a fresh IP and more modern-looking game. I never went into too many Horizon threads, but what I saw seemed a lot more harmonious
until Zelda was mentioned.
 

LotusHD

Banned
Huh. Somehow I never even knew this fan rivalry had developed until I noticed some sniping in recent threads. Guess it makes sense, but I question why one game being "better" than the other matters so much to some people.

We do it with everything: games, sports teams, etc.

=P I tend to presume that Nintendo fans on here are outnumbered by everyone else as a consequence of the market shifts, and thus even strong hype is still coming from a relative minority. That, and Zelda has a history of baggage with its past titles in terms of arguments over whether or not they're good, while Horizon Zero Dawn is a fresh IP and more modern-looking game. I never went into too many Horizon threads, but what I saw seemed a lot more harmonious
until Zelda was mentioned.

I mean, it's even #1 on GAF's most anticipated game of this year. From my perspective, a Horizon thread could never go on for too long without Zelda being brought up and derailing it. And before the reviews, constant talk about how the developers' past works were mediocre, that the story would be lacking, etc. Whereas Zelda threads would have much longer stretches without people worrying about what HZD was doing, usually because everyone was just too hyped to care.
 

Realeza

Banned
Isn't the game close to 99 at this point? Holy shit, every review that has come out since the game hit 98 has been a 10/10.
 

Nilaul

Member
Wrong thread.

Waiting for it to reach 99.

How Nintendo broke the internet

XDS0zgi.png
 

Hindl

Member
The other thing with Zelda and Horizon is that both take from Far Cry in different ways. Horizon takes the overall template used by Far Cry and other open world games for it's structure, while Zelda takes the systems found in Far Cry and expands them dramatically. Add in the other stuff people have mentioned and I thought the comparisons were apt on an academic level. The only issue is when fanboys took it to the next level to shit on each other. And to be fair Zelda fans were the instigator a lot of the time
 

opricnik

Banned
Jesus Christ, 64 reviews on Metacritic but still holding at 98 points. That's insane.

These negative user reviews give me life though. So many copy-pasted "reviews", so many people calling out Nintendo's bribes, so many people freely admitting that they don't plan on playing the game before rating it, it's delicious to look at.

Metacritic user reviews: Somehow less useful than Steam user reviews.


User reviews are useless but paid reviews are?

yeah cool.
 

DrArchon

Member
User reviews are useless but paid reviews are?

yeah cool.

If Nintendo was paying for good reviews, we'd be seeing way better scores for 1-2-Switch.

And I'd trust anyone who's played a game for money over someone that hasn't played it and doesn't plan to.
 
User reviews are useless but paid reviews are?

yeah cool.

Yeah ok that's not what he's saying. He's talking specifically about sites like Metacritic, on which games often get brigades from fans of other games or consoles who give troll reviews to purposely bring down the score of the game. When Titanfall launched on XBox One for instance, it had a score in the 5s when it's obviously above that - it was a lot of Playstation owners giving fake scores. Similarly, this is the highest rated game in a long, long while, so it is attracting a lot of attention from people who may not even be planning to play it.
 
If Nintendo was paying for good reviews, we'd be seeing way better scores for 1-2-Switch.

And I'd trust anyone who's played a game for money over someone that hasn't played it and doesn't plan to.
I think he meant steam reviews. Which requires you to pay (and play a bit) for the game in order to review it. As I think that's how it works. Never really use steam all that much

I'm metacritic. Anybody could review a game.
 
From my limited observations:

- Both are hyped open-world games with interesting game systems (HZD's intense robot hunting and trapping to Zelda's marriage of Minecraft, physics, and moment-to-moment discovery) to stand out, and releasing within a week of each other.

- Zelda was the GAF underdog due to the hardware gap, delays, the presumed Zelda bias in critics ("SS got good reviews so good reviews for BotW will mean nothing"), and the constant thread of criticism being that it was actually doing nothing new at all.

- Zelda fans took umbrage with this and started firing back by noting things like awkward cut scenes and in general leaning hard into the series' pedigree.
Lol, BOTW was the Number 1 most anticipated game on this board. Horizon was the underdog here with constant attacks on the GG devs. Maybe ""hating"" on the Switch but not Zelda.
 
So, I'm about to start playing - now how do I do this update?

Is it automatically detected once I'm connected to the internet, or do I put the game in first?

Sorry to sound like such a noob on this, but it is a new system and I just want to make sure I do it properly before I play :)
 

Nepenthe

Member
So, I'm about to start playing - now how do I do this update?

Is it automatically detected once I'm connected to the internet, or do I put the game in first?

Sorry to sound like such a noob on this, but it is a new system and I just want to make sure I do it properly before I play :)

You have to have an Internet connection first. Once established, put the disc in and it'll be detected automatically. Assuming you have a good connection, shouldn't take too long. Mine was around 15 minutes the whole way through.
 
You have to have an Internet connection first. Once established, put the disc in and it'll be detected automatically. Assuming you have a good connection, shouldn't take too long. Mine was around 15 minutes the whole way through.

Thanks for the information and also for the time estimate!
 

kunonabi

Member
The other thing with Zelda and Horizon is that both take from Far Cry in different ways. Horizon takes the overall template used by Far Cry and other open world games for it's structure, while Zelda takes the systems found in Far Cry and expands them dramatically. Add in the other stuff people have mentioned and I thought the comparisons were apt on an academic level. The only issue is when fanboys took it to the next level to shit on each other. And to be fair Zelda fans were the instigator a lot of the time

I saw garbage coming from horizon people first especially with it being more progressive since female link didn't happen.
 
Any chance of getting 99 on metacritic? The salty would be glorious.

It would need a few more 10's to accomplish that.

While I hope it does hit 99, it's unbelievable this day and age that it is even at 98! You might as well say based on the number of 10's already, that it's at 99 ;)
 
Similarities between the two games. But while they're fighting over which is better, I get to enjoy both. ��

Same.
There's too much infighting about what's best or better rather than simply what's good or great on their own. This reminds me of the Okami vs. Twilight Princess debates a decade ago. Today they're both remembered fondly and no one cares they were released the same year. Comparing them accomplished nothing.

User reviews are useless but paid reviews are?

yeah cool.

Hmm, let me put on my tinfoil hat to deeply ponder your rebuttal.
 
It is unbelievable that it manage to get a 98 after 64 reviews. True accomplishment of a series many felt needed a change.

They set the bar high for themselves.
 
Mighty impressive, have fun y'all. I just started to play my first Zelda, Ocarina of Time, then I will play Majora's Mask, until I buy the Switch this Fall/Holidays.
 

FZZ

Banned
99's a pipe dream. I'm just pulling for it to maintain 98.

never say never fam

64 reviews rn

looking at the average for Nintendo reviews it tends to end around 83-84 reviews

a solid amount of 10s would put this game to a 99
 

-tetsuo-

Unlimited Capacity
So the clerk doesn't know which game people buy these days ? Looks dubious, he's the one taking the money. Then again, Horizon launched earlier so maybe it makes sense.

With 60 million PS4 already out, Horizon will sell a lot more anyway so I can see why he believes that. ;)

Have you never seen the Simpsons?
 

MTC100

Banned
Review Number 64 (if that isn't a great number, what is?) was another perfect score, another 100, this time from digitalspy. Now we have 39 perfect Scores :)
 

ksamedi

Member
People have to understand why fanboyism arises, particularly when it comes to video games.

- People have limited resources, and therefore have to choose their game systems selectively.

- People want to feel vindicated that they made the correct choice, and therefore will do anything they can to justify their decision. They search for information that vindicates their decision and disregard information that doesn't.

- Deriving from this feeling, it arises in some people that the other side is the enemy. They develop feelings of animosity. Anything good that happens for the enemy is an assault on them personally. Some of these people will criticize the other side when they can, some others will actively troll the other side. Ultimately, attacking the other side derives from the feeling of insecurity about how they spent their limited resources.

- Additionally, there are some people who root against the other side (Nintendo in particular) because they hope they will stop making their own consoles, which will lead to them developing games for their console of choice. Ultimately, this is a selfish consideration, but at least a rational one.

Did you just make up your own theory about fanboyism ?
 

MTC100

Banned
I'm getting too much enjoyment out of those user reviews on metacritic.

This hobby is full of manbabies.

And they're putting quite the effort into it, I think there are some that even create new accounts just to downvote Zelda and some of the 0-1 Reviews are just hilarious:

funftx66.jpg
 

Fledz

Member
For those of you worried about graphics and performance, this was me:

1st Hour - "Oh man, you can definitely notice the lack of AA. Frames could be a bit better in some spots. Colours look a bit washed out. It's good but man, imagine this at 1080p with AA and better FPS :eek:

By around hour 3 or 4: "This game is fucking amazing. Who gives a shit about AA or washed out colours, it looks amazing, it plays amazing, it feels amazing. Wow"

Genuinely that much of a swing. I can totally see why reviewers have seen past some of the hardware limitations because I certainly have. I can see myself falling in love with this game in no time and I bloody impulse bought it this morning!

Re performance, it seems better to me than the preview videos that I've seen in recent weeks. Day 0 patch might not be perfect but it looks to have done something. I only played docked by the way, will test handheld when I inevitably get kicked off the TV lol
 

dlauv

Member
Jesus Christ, 64 reviews on Metacritic but still holding at 98 points. That's insane.

These negative user reviews give me life though. So many copy-pasted "reviews", so many people calling out Nintendo's bribes, so many people freely admitting that they don't plan on playing the game before rating it, it's delicious to look at.

Metacritic user reviews: Somehow less useful than Steam user reviews.

You don't have to own or have played the game to review on Metacritic. Such an investment tends to keep people more honest.
 

Servbot24

Banned
For those of you worried about graphics and performance, this was me:

1st Hour - "Oh man, you can definitely notice the lack of AA. Frames could be a bit better in some spots. Colours look a bit washed out. It's good but man, imagine this at 1080p with AA and better FPS :eek:

By around hour 3 or 4: "This game is fucking amazing. Who gives a shit about AA or washed out colours, it looks amazing, it plays amazing, it feels amazing. Wow"

Genuinely that much of a swing. I can totally see why reviewers have seen past some of the hardware limitations because I certainly have. I can see myself falling in love with this game in no time and I bloody impulse bought it this morning!

Re performance, it seems better to me than the preview videos that I've seen in recent weeks. Day 0 patch might not be perfect but it looks to have done something. I only played docked by the way, will test handheld when I inevitably get kicked off the TV lol

The bolded is me all the time. Life is great when you play video games for the love of video games rather than the love of tech specs.
 
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