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Complete Breath of the Wild critique from a Game Dev perspective

sanstesy

Member
What you say is true and it's why so many praise this open world. But I want to throw this out there, while you are finding interesting things to do in the world is it better than the stuff that filled zelda games before?

In past zelda games you had insane variety, totally new gameplay mechanics in every single new location. One minute you could be in a jousting match, the next riding a canoe down a river shooting arrows, or next in a mini game soaring through the air popping balloons, that's just random crap from TP. Every zelda game has tons of unique things happening.

In BOTW it's the same few korok seeds, enemy encampments that repeat, shrines are 50/50 some great and unique some are repetitive or super simple. Because you have the same abilities the entire game you really don't actually do new things that often. This world is so big it should be the most varied zelda game of all time. It should have the most unique moments, the most enemy variety, the most cities and I feel it has some of the least of all that. What it does have is the most beautiful world and great gameplay but the stuff in it could be so much better.

This is the most varied Zelda of all time, alright. You are not exactly thinking this through. The difference compared to past entries is that you aren't forced to do anything in any specific way or order because there are multiple approaches to literally everything.

That's why that one Shrine quest in the Korok forest stands out so much in how rigid it is.
 

LotusHD

Banned
What you say is true and it's why so many praise this open world. But I want to throw this out there, while you are finding interesting things to do in the world is it better than the stuff that filled zelda games before?

In past zelda games you had insane variety, totally new gameplay mechanics in every single new location. One minute you could be in a jousting match, the next riding a canoe down a river shooting arrows, or next in a mini game soaring through the air popping balloons, that's just random crap from TP. Every zelda game has tons of unique things happening.

In BOTW it's the same few korok seeds, enemy encampments that repeat, shrines are 50/50 some great and unique some are repetitive or super simple. Because you have the same abilities the entire game you really don't actually do new things that often. This world is so big it should be the most varied zelda game of all time. It should have the most unique moments, the most enemy variety, the most cities and I feel it has some of the least of all that. What it does have is the most beautiful world and great gameplay but the stuff in it could be so much better.

How does this game have the least unique moments? Or to be more clear, are you saying it doesn't rank as high as some of the other games?
 

Hero

Member
Because the flaws haven't stopped me obsessing over the game for the last week or so and overall it's still an absolutely fantastic game that Nintendo should be extremely proud of. It's the right step forward for the Zelda series, even if they lost some of the Zelda magic and polish along the way.

If I'd have to rate Breath of the Wild, I'd still give it a solid 9 out of 10. One thing that's actually very interesting to me is that I doubt I'll play the game to completion again in a very, very long time, whereas I regularly play through games like Super Metroid, ALTTP, ALBW, Links Awakening or Zelda 1 exactly because they're so well and tightly designed. You try to play them for 20 minutes and you just get hooked and don't lose interest.

With this game, the size of the world is overwhelming and large chunks of it are - for lack of a better phrase - not really worth my time. Again, I'm also not a huge fan of open world games and I do see a lot of the typical Open World Game flaws in this game as well and that openness and often times feeling a bit bored is what'll not make me come back in some time now.

It astounds me you keep comparing BotW to 2D games and not providing a single game in the open world genre to make an actual comparison between. There are plenty of screens in the 2D Zelda games where there's nothing to do and an enemy or two.
 

Rodin

Member
Your opinion is cool and all but where is this "developer point of view"? What you wrote could easily come off of any random gaffer (and it actually did... and possibly more in depth).

Anyway... I couldn't disagree more about the world being too big and/or empty. Sense of scale is especially important in an adventure, the game has tons and tons of meaningful content (not sure i have to make a list if you played it in depth) and it certainly didn't need ubisoft bloated shit to get better. In fact, even your complaint about the game falling in typical shortcomings of other open world titles totally lost me, because even when you approach two "similar" places the environment and the tools you have always allow for a different approach, which is NOT what happens in other "similar" games simply because their gameplay and level design don't usually even begin to offer you this kind of possibilities. Maybe you simply didn't bother to use them? I also don't get the comparison with 2D games lol

If anything, the achievements on level design in a world of this scale should impress you as a dev more than it does to normal users because you actually know what it means to do that stuff from the scratch.

The complaint about the game pausing when you change your weapon from the quick inventory is especially silly. It's so fun getting fucked by a Lynel while you're deciding what weapon you want to use next, right? And seeing how often they break (or how many of them you can carry with you when you expand your bag) it would be sooo well balanced if that happened 2-3 times during particularly long fights.

And finally, the part about the shrines. They have a similar look that they even bothered to justify with the lore, so it's completely believable that the basic aesthetics are the same between all of them. As a dev though you should know that Nintendo probably didn't think it was reasonable to hugely prolong development times (which were already ridiculously long) to do this, and spend more on more artists for more time, when the key aspect (the different puzzles that you could do at almost any point in any part of the world) could be done anyway.

Again, your post feels like an user being dissatisfied with some aspects of a game (of a genre he doesn't like in the first place), most of which are debatable to say the least, more than a dev chiming in on design aspects and stuff like that. I'm leaving this thread disappointed :(

What you say is true and it's why so many praise this open world. But I want to throw this out there, while you are finding interesting things to do in the world is it better than the stuff that filled zelda games before?

In past zelda games you had insane variety, totally new gameplay mechanics in every single new location. One minute you could be in a jousting match, the next riding a canoe down a river shooting arrows, or next in a mini game soaring through the air popping balloons, that's just random crap from TP. Every zelda game has tons of unique things happening.

In BOTW it's the same few korok seeds, enemy encampments that repeat, shrines are 50/50 some great and unique some are repetitive or super simple. Because you have the same abilities the entire game you really don't actually do new things that often. This world is so big it should be the most varied zelda game of all time. It should have the most unique moments, the most enemy variety, the most cities and I feel it has some of the least of all that. What it does have is the most beautiful world and great gameplay but the stuff in it could be so much better.
Oh c'mon man, i thought our discussion from the other day was getting somewhere!

And BotW is full of those minigames you mentioned.
 

lt519

Member
It's like somebody took a bunch of Portal style test chambers and scattered them across MGSV's game world. They're amazing and each one is unique so far. I've done
76
so far and I accidentally read on here that there are
120!

I've said this a couple times. The way those shrines are crafted makes it feel like Portal or Talos Principle puzzles. Especially since both those games can allow you to solve some puzzles in clever and unintended ways. Plus you've got to remember that 30+ of those Shrines are open world puzzles and gimmies once you solve the Open World puzzle.

If I had to choose between Shrines and Dungeons again I'd choose Shrines.
 
What you say is true and it's why so many praise this open world. But I want to throw this out there, while you are finding interesting things to do in the world is it better than the stuff that filled zelda games before?

In past zelda games you had insane variety, totally new gameplay mechanics in every single new location. One minute you could be in a jousting match, the next riding a canoe down a river shooting arrows, or next in a mini game soaring through the air popping balloons, that's just random crap from TP. Every zelda game has tons of unique things happening.

You are being a little dishonest. BOTW has a lot of the mini games/segments like the canoe riding and jousting match from TP. Horse racing, Shield Racing, arrow shooting mini games, gliding competitions, etc.

A lot of the things that that were emphasized in previous zelda games are done in BOTW, but they are just presented as part of the overworld, and not as a controlled mini game. Raft riding, horse fights, etc.
 
Oddly, no. While we have some pretty big projects in development, I'm not at all interested in making open-world games. There are certain systems that we might draw some inspiration from and there's one system that coincidentally is shockingly similar to a system we've been designing (down to UI layouts, etc.), but overall I don't think BotW makes us change direction in any way.

I'll always be more interested in designing with our 'fun per inch' principle, trying to make perfect experiences, perfect level designs where you'd have a really hard time trying to figure out how to improve upon it... Not saying we reached that goal just yet, but that's certainly our aspiration :)

Wow. I'm excited for your next venture then, because I love Ori, and that was a fantastic write up.

Thanks for this.
 
It astounds me you keep comparing BotW to 2D games and not providing a single game in the open world genre to make an actual comparison between. There are plenty of screens in the 2D Zelda games where there's nothing to do and an enemy or two.

Why would I need to compare it to other open world games? Yes, I think Breath of the Wild is the best open world game out there - But I'm looking at how it could be made better, I'm not interested in "But is it better than Open World Game X?".

And there is not a single section in any 2D Zelda ever made by Nintendo where all you do is to move Link into one direction for even a full minute. Yes, sometimes there are screens where you just have bushes and enemies, but the thing with 2D Zeldas is that you can move to the next screen within seconds and usually that screen then has some other secret or cool interaction possibility. There's never a moment like in BotW where I literally run into the same direction over an empty field for a few minutes. Like, ever.
 

Trace

Banned
Fantastic OP, I always enjoy reading stuff from other game devs, but not often to get to hear game devs critique other games.

I think anyone complaining about anything you said should read the OP again.

Your opinion is cool and all but where is this "developer point of view"? What you wrote could easily come off of any random gaffer (and it actually did... and possibly more in depth).

Because it's from a game developer, what else does he need to prove? Remake a shrine or two for your amusement?
 
Fantastic OP, I always enjoy reading stuff from other game devs, but not often to get to hear game devs critique other games.

I think anyone complaining about anything you said should read the OP again.

Lol what? People aren't allowed to disagree? I'm sure even the OP is fine with people disagreeing with his take.
 

Trace

Banned
Lol what? People aren't allowed to disagree? I'm sure even the OP is fine with people disagreeing with his take.

There's a difference between acknowledging what was said, and disagreeing with that, and complaining with how something was written.
 

kunonabi

Member
You are being a little dishonest. BOTW has a lot of the mini games/segments like the canoe riding and jousting match from TP. Horse racing, Shield Racing, arrow shooting mini games, gliding competitions, etc.

A lot of the things that that were emphasized in previous zelda games are done in BOTW, but they are just presented as part of the overworld, and not as a controlled mini game. Raft riding, horse fights, etc.

And most of the rewards are junk. The biggest letdown for me were the dragons. I scaled the frozen mountain on a whim, go through this really neat segment, expecting some new item or skill as a reward and it turns out to be another goddamn shrine that doesn't even have any puzzles in it. What a waste.
 

Voliko

Member
The problem of just pushing the stick and moving forward over large streches of land has been a huge problem for 3D games, especially recently, and not enough people talk about it. Was almost never problem in old 2D games and you would instantly notice a section where all you did was walk forward. Metroidvanias are most prone to this, that's why I rarely play them

I beat the game today with 60 some shrines. I'd like to play the remaining shrines, but looking for them isn't fun at this point. A lot left are tied to mundane shrine quests and some are those awful combat type shrines so I'm gonna put this game down.
 
Why would I need to compare it to other open world games? Yes, I think Breath of the Wild is the best open world game out there - But I'm looking at how it could be made better, I'm not interested in "But is it better than Open World Game X?".

And there is not a single section in any 2D Zelda ever made by Nintendo where all you do is to move Link into one direction for even a full minute. Yes, sometimes there are screens where you just have bushes and enemies, but the thing with 2D Zeldas is that you can move to the next screen within seconds and usually that screen then has some other secret or cool interaction possibility. There's never a moment like in BotW where I literally run into the same direction over an empty field for a few minutes. Like, ever.

Because what you are saying is equivalent to saying something like Bayonetta is flawed because there's too much action or it's too hectic. Your preference is not for this type of game. Which is fine but that is where your criticism comes from.
 

Charamiwa

Banned
Why would I need to compare it to other open world games? Yes, I think Breath of the Wild is the best open world game out there - But I'm looking at how it could be made better, I'm not interested in "But is it better than Open World Game X?".

And there is not a single section in any 2D Zelda ever made by Nintendo where all you do is to move Link into one direction for even a full minute. Yes, sometimes there are screens where you just have bushes and enemies, but the thing with 2D Zeldas is that you can move to the next screen within seconds and usually that screen then has some other secret or cool interaction possibility. There's never a moment like in BotW where I literally run into the same direction over an empty field for a few minutes. Like, ever.

And there isn't a 2D Zelda game where the world feel so alive, where you can approach any events with a wide variety of options that let you be this creative. So of course the worlds can't work the same.

Honestly if this conversation devolves into 2D vs 3D I'm not sure I'm interested.
 

andymcc

Banned
BOTW will end up one of the most overrated games ever. Remember Bioshock Infinite?

OOT shits on it every single day. Linear design > open-world. The only games where open-world excells is with TES and GTA.

I don't really like OOT that much but loooovd BOTW.

Bethesda open-world is definitely not to my liking but GTAV is great but I still prefer BOTW's structure.
 

Plum

Member
And most of the rewards are junk. The biggest letdown for me were the dragons. I scaled the frozen mountain on a whim, go through this really neat segment, expecting some new item or skill as a reward and it turns out to be another goddamn shrine that doesn't even have any puzzles in it. What a waste.

If you had done that and got a piece of heart instead would you feel the same?
 

Rodin

Member
There's a difference between acknowledging what was said, and disagreeing with that, and complaining with how something was written.
Did you even read the title of the thread?

And most of the rewards are junk. The biggest letdown for me were the dragons. I scaled the frozen mountain on a whim, go through this really neat segment, expecting some new item or skill as a reward and it turns out to be another goddamn shrine that doesn't even have any puzzles in it. What a waste.
The puzzle is outside tho

There were a couple of shrines you enter after doing... next to nothing outside that had no puzzles inside, but the dragons ones were definitely not amongst them. Sure they could've given you some crazy rare shit in the chest inside but it's not something that changes my perspective about that session. It was crazy awesome.

For the sequel Nintendo should pull a George Lucas prequel syndrome and fill every empty space with something.
It's would be so dense, every single frame would have so many things going on

I think by framing the thread as a critique of the game from a game developer some people were expecting some kind of unique insight that could only come from having game development experience
Yup.
 

phanphare

Banned
Because it's from a game developer, what else does he need to prove? Remake a shrine or two for your amusement?

I think by framing the thread as a critique of the game from a game developer some people were expecting some kind of unique insight that could only come from having game development experience
 

Charamiwa

Banned
And most of the rewards are junk. The biggest letdown for me were the dragons. I scaled the frozen mountain on a whim, go through this really neat segment, expecting some new item or skill as a reward and it turns out to be another goddamn shrine that doesn't even have any puzzles in it. What a waste.

What about using what this dragon drops to improve your clothing? Or make a few rupee? Or use the shrine as a fast travel point anytime you want to go up there and fool around/explore? Or just enjoying how cool that thing was? Rewards come in a lot of ways.
 

sanstesy

Member
And most of the rewards are junk. The biggest letdown for me were the dragons. I scaled the frozen mountain on a whim, go through this really neat segment, expecting some new item or skill as a reward and it turns out to be another goddamn shrine that doesn't even have any puzzles in it. What a waste.

The difference being that rewards in this game can actually be more things than just heart pieces. Rupees are not dispensable halfway through the game like in every other Zelda game because compared to past games Breath of the Wild finally has enough in loot/fairy upgrades/armour/sidequest activities to make use of them. And loot itself is also actually worth something which can be exchanged for other goods.
 

PetrCobra

Member
I don't like the idea of different outer designs for the shrines. Often I was looking for new shrines, standing on the top of a hill, looking for that one familiar object in the world around me. I need them to all look the same to do that.

But of course, more, better, bigger dungeons, enemies, quests are always welcome. As well as refined UI and stuff like that. Exactly why I hope they just take this game as a template and create the next Zelda with the exact same philosophy, only with a LOT of improvements. Bonus: won't take as long this time because they have many things figured out already.

Edit: also, "running in one direction without anything to do" actually makes the world seem believably huge, which I think contributes to the general feeling of adventure. Something I felt in DayZ when I ran in one direction for twenty minutes because I had a goal in mind and it was worth it to run all the way there.
 

kunonabi

Member
Did you even reas the title of the thread?


The puzzle is outside tho

There were a couple of shrines you enter after doing... next to nothing outside that had no puzzles inside, but the dragons ones were definitely not amongst them. Sure they could've given you some crazy rare shit in the chest inside but it's not something that changes my perspective about that session. It was crazy awesome.

Some of the challenge- free shrine lead-ins are worthy of not having anything inside but many dont and feel like a total waste.
 

phanphare

Banned
And most of the rewards are junk. The biggest letdown for me were the dragons. I scaled the frozen mountain on a whim, go through this really neat segment, expecting some new item or skill as a reward and it turns out to be another goddamn shrine that doesn't even have any puzzles in it. What a waste.

man, that was one of my favorite moments in the game. the experience itself was the reward for me.
 
And most of the rewards are junk. The biggest letdown for me were the dragons. I scaled the frozen mountain on a whim, go through this really neat segment, expecting some new item or skill as a reward and it turns out to be another goddamn shrine that doesn't even have any puzzles in it. What a waste.

Getting to the shrine itself is the puzzle and you are rewarded with 1) spirit orb 2) some side story 3) the experience.

Though some of them do have puzzles inside the shrine after you go through the trouble of finding it. Theyre both cool.

What you say is true and it's why so many praise this open world. But I want to throw this out there, while you are finding interesting things to do in the world is it better than the stuff that filled zelda games before?

In past zelda games you had insane variety, totally new gameplay mechanics in every single new location. One minute you could be in a jousting match, the next riding a canoe down a river shooting arrows, or next in a mini game soaring through the air popping balloons, that's just random crap from TP. Every zelda game has tons of unique things happening.

In BOTW it's the same few korok seeds, enemy encampments that repeat, shrines are 50/50 some great and unique some are repetitive or super simple. Because you have the same abilities the entire game you really don't actually do new things that often. This world is so big it should be the most varied zelda game of all time. It should have the most unique moments, the most enemy variety, the most cities and I feel it has some of the least of all that. What it does have is the most beautiful world and great gameplay but the stuff in it could be so much better.

But you can do all of that stuff in BoTW except you can do them almost whenever you want. There are traditional mini games and there are mini games that you make up yourself.

I wasted so much food trying to do the Legolas shooting while shield surfing at an enemy encampment. I suck at aiming while moving so I went through a lot of arrows as well. But it was so goofy and so much fun. You couldnt do stuff like this before.
 
The world is absolutely too big. I just didn't see the point in it. It's beautiful and I wouldn't really call it "empty" but you can have a huge beautiful world without it being as huge as it is in this game. It's not really some big problem I have or whatever but I can see a smaller world having a bit more focus and I would like to see dungeons worked into the world organically (and them to not be so short and similar looking).
 

Hero

Member
Why would I need to compare it to other open world games? Yes, I think Breath of the Wild is the best open world game out there - But I'm looking at how it could be made better, I'm not interested in "But is it better than Open World Game X?".

And there is not a single section in any 2D Zelda ever made by Nintendo where all you do is to move Link into one direction for even a full minute. Yes, sometimes there are screens where you just have bushes and enemies, but the thing with 2D Zeldas is that you can move to the next screen within seconds and usually that screen then has some other secret or cool interaction possibility. There's never a moment like in BotW where I literally run into the same direction over an empty field for a few minutes. Like, ever.

You are literally comparing apples and oranges. I don't know why you are choosing this 'fun per inch' metric hill to die on here. Your statement about traversing for less than a minute doesn't hold much weight when it only takes maybe what, four minutes to go from one side of the map to the other in Zelda 1.

I never said the game couldn't be better or improved, again there is no such thing as a perfect game. Your complaints and criticism don't really seem to stem from a developer standpoint though, as you are focusing on your own personal feelings on what you think is fun/not fun for an open world game and you are downplaying the strengths of the game.
 

Trace

Banned
I think by framing the thread as a critique of the game from a game developer some people were expecting some kind of unique insight that could only come from having game development experience

There isn't really any magic insight that comes from game design. If you're part of the top 1% of gamers that has thousands of posts on Neogaf and plays every AAA game out there, you're probably just as qualified as your average dev to post about stuff.
 
I keep going back and forth on the size of the map. I think for hardcore gamers like us that post on NeoGAF, sinking 3 hours a shot into exploring the map could make it tedious. Getting all 120 shrines this close after the release date is a sign of playing the game A LOT.

The flip side is that you have other types of hard core players that are literally going to Calamity Ganon ASAP. I'm sure most of those players will eventually see all 120 shrines, but not as quickly as the OP for example.

Then you have the players in the middle. I work full time and go to grad school full time, so while I'd love to play the game and just get lost in it all the time, I literally don't have that kind of time. So the game is continuously fresh even if I only get to 1-2 shrines, max 4 or 5, in a game session.

BUT! because the land is so big, sometimes I wish I could just get to the next shrine and be done with it. My gaming time is so precious, I don't want to traverse to what looks like an interesting area to "only" get a Korok seed.

I guess what I'm saying is, I can see it from multiple points of view. Overall,this is an amazing game, and everyone needs to play it....but I can see everyone's point of view on that particular aspect.
 
I think by framing the thread as a critique of the game from a game developer some people were expecting some kind of unique insight that could only come from having game development experience

Well, sorry to disappoint you if you feel like that's not the case :D

I'm merely looking at the game from my perspective as a director / designer and tried to analyze the game in order to figure out where I think the game fell short of what it should've achieved.

Most of what I've read online about BotW has just been praise and glory, but I haven't yet seen a lot of criticism with explanations as to why this or that is bad apart from people hating on the weapon degradation system (which I feel is the games smallest issue and has been dealt with fairly well all things considered). If you have, feel free to share the links :)
 

Totakeke

Member
Some of the challenge- free shrine lead-ins are worthy of not having anything inside but many dont and feel like a total waste.

Because there's multiple paths to reach a shrine.

Take the Mount Lanaryu for example. If you take the "intended route" to get there, you would pass through huge gate and a riverside pathway that looks like nothing else in the game and that's pretty majestic. Then after passing through the gate, you encounter a Lynel and also a Hinox, which could be pretty epic if you're early in the game. And then after scaling the mountain, you stumble upon and solve the problem of a majestic being.

Then you're treated to a shrine which gives you a free gift. Do you think that that was "such a total waste" then?


I actually didn't do all that and I climbed from the back near Hateno, I missed all that stuff and reached the mountain top from the back. It's part nuances of the open world design that they committed to when you can go anywhere from anywhere.
 

Thoraxes

Member
I guess the one point in the OP i'd like to address is about the shrines. While they all share a same aesthetic and are relatively interchangable (and I totally see the location variation thing as something that could be different in the future) I like that they're designed loosely enough that there are plenty of them that can be solved in multiple ways. While there are plenty of them that have a single solution, the methods of arriving at such a point wildly varies from shrine to shrine. I did one that had mechanics where I could use stasis, bombs, or ice blocks to solve it, and when my friends and I had a conversation about it, we all did that particular shrine a different way.

I also like that they have a distinct visual identity that varies depending on level of completion (discovered and conquered). Since they're Shekiah related tech, it also makes in-universe sense that that they work as fast travel points since they're all probably networked together somehow. Some of them have specific ways to approach them too, little mini-puzzles if you will. I like that sometimes some of them are basically rewards for doing cool quests in the world, or solving a vaguely worded riddle that someone in town mentioned to you. When I first did the trees one (and the other nearby, super "cool" one) I loved how I was able to scout out the whole thing with my Shekiah slate, plot a course, follow it, and subsequently make another hundred discoveries on the way to the shrine itself. Even the method of scaling the mountain changed based on how much stamina I had invested.

At the same time, I also totally see the validity in your comments about how that element of the game is designed, and how someone could critique that part of the game. Honestly though, I really like the scale and scope of the world. While it feels large, I always had the feeling that everything was always close enough to get to that it never felt too far, horse or not, which is something I didn't personally expect.
 

Crayolan

Member
What you say is true and it's why so many praise this open world. But I want to throw this out there, while you are finding interesting things to do in the world is it better than the stuff that filled zelda games before?

In past zelda games you had insane variety, totally new gameplay mechanics in every single new location. One minute you could be in a jousting match, the next riding a canoe down a river shooting arrows, or next in a mini game soaring through the air popping balloons, that's just random crap from TP. Every zelda game has tons of unique things happening.

In BOTW it's the same few korok seeds, enemy encampments that repeat, shrines are 50/50 some great and unique some are repetitive or super simple. Because you have the same abilities the entire game you really don't actually do new things that often. This world is so big it should be the most varied zelda game of all time. It should have the most unique moments, the most enemy variety, the most cities and I feel it has some of the least of all that. What it does have is the most beautiful world and great gameplay but the stuff in it could be so much better.

BotW is full of minigames though. Off the top of my head:
-Surfing minigame
-Bowling minigame
-"Golfing" minigame (and I don't just mean that one shrine)
-Superman 64 minigame (I say this jokingly, it's actually one of my favorites)
-Break the Targets, but in midair
-Horse jumping minigame

I'm sure there's others I've forgotten too. Outside of minigames BotW also has a bunch of really cool moments unlike any other Zelda game:
-Survival on Eventide island
-Navigating through the darkness in Typhlo Ruins
-Every time you use the game's physics to your advantage to do something really silly in combat is an awesome feeling. In no other Zelda game can you manipulate your enemies to getting hit by lightning.
-One of the few places in the game where you can walk into a room and immediately have like 4-5 lasers aimed at you. That "holy shit what have I done" feeling is not something I ever get out of Zelda games.
-Going to Hyrule Castle immediately. Not everyone will do this, but for those who do it's some crazy Metal Gear shit where everything is so terrifying you feel the need to sneak around and if you get spotted you gotta run because everything can kill you easily and killing anything is not realistic, at least not till you find some good gear. It's unlike anything I've done any other Zelda game and is one of the best experiences you can have with this game, at least for me.
 
Absolutely, again, this isn't me trying to bash the game or saying it's anything less than an excellent experience, but it's still a worthwhile exercise to look at where the game stumbled or failed in order to learn from that and build something better. I had an insane amount of fun with BotW, so I hope people won't just cut this down to me ranting or trying to undermine the game.

You don't like open world games as you mentioned. That is not a good base for criticize the new hot open world game.

Nonetheless I think some of your critic is true but many of your critic has only to do with your bad perception of open world games. For example OW games are about exploration and traveling from one point to another is simply part of the fun for many gamers. And your critic on fast travel is, kindly spoken, weird. You don't use fast travel to skip exploration, but skip already known paths.

Your emphasis in your developer background looks strange. Ori seems to be a well done game, but it's a relatively simple game and development effort/size is miles away from something like BotW or Witcher. The development of big games is quite different from small games like Ori.
 
I guess what I'm saying is, I can see it from multiple points of view. Overall,this is an amazing game, and everyone needs to play it....but I can see everyone's point of view on that particular aspect.

Couldn't agree more. People have been misinterpreting my criticism that it's too big as me not liking the world or the game. I fucking love the game. But it's just that big. Like overkill gigantic. And you're spot on about "only" finding Korok seeds, it's mostly the same song and dance, lift a rock, track a flower, shoot some targets, etc. And there's so many of those that it's really useless to track them down, after enough seeds that you find naturally you don't really need that much more inventory space.

Other than that you'll find a shrine with a fun little puzzle, but the design aesthetic and music becomes... well, not really bad, but aside from figuring out what each shrine is about, like the Korok seeds it's kind of the same song and dance-- oh there's a shrine, going to activate it, go in, see similar sights, hear the same music, do a little puzzle and be done with it. Despite being generally well designed, the sheer amount of them causes the repetitive aesthetic to get a little worn out.
 

phanphare

Banned
Well, sorry to disappoint you if you feel like that's not the case :D

I'm merely looking at the game from my perspective as a director / designer and tried to analyze the game in order to figure out where I think the game fell short of what it should've achieved.

Most of what I've read online about BotW has just been praise and glory, but I haven't yet seen a lot of criticism with explanations as to why this or that is bad apart from people hating on the weapon degradation system (which I feel is the games smallest issue and has been dealt with fairly well all things considered). If you have, feel free to share the links :)

no disrespect intended, I actually did glean some insight into how your development studio goes about game design which was cool

also there's tons of critique in the OT and spoiler thread. the rain has been the most unanimous critique that I've found, shrines being samey comes up a lot, disappointment with the lack of proper dungeons, could be more enemy variety, etc. though yeah I haven't seen much criticism from other gaming outlets.
 
Honestly, my beef with space to content ratio is not so much average density but how wildly it varies from zone to zone. I get that having less stuff in barren zones like the surroundings of Death Mountain and such kind of makes sense from a realism perspective, but it's still jarring to go on for minutes and find absolutely nothing, when other zones are much more packed. Shrines are particularly guilty of this, with some zones having lots of them and others nearly devoid of them.

Another thing I miss from older Zeldas are caves and subterranean areas. I get that shrines are kind of the replacement for that, but blasting a mountain side and opening a cave entrance, or lifting a huge boulder and finding a hole you can drop down into, are such integral Zelda experiences that I really miss.
 
My complaint with the open world design is the same as it was for FFXV - I can't help but feel like the game would be better with half the expansiveness. I think this is going to be a problem with open world games for a while. Going bigger is cheap compared to increasing the density and as of yet we are not "punishing" developers for it.

I totally agree about BOTW's controls. They are not as immersive as they could be. I'm sure it could be improved upon.
 

kunonabi

Member
Because there's multiple paths to reach a shrine.

Take the Mount Lanaryu for example. If you take the "intended route" to get there, you would pass through huge gate and a riverside pathway that looks like nothing else in the game and that's pretty majestic. Then after passing through the gate, you encounter a Lynel and also a Hinox, which could be pretty epic if you're early in the game. And then after scaling the mountain, you stumble upon and solve the problem of a majestic being.

Then you're treated to a shrine which gives you a free gift. Do you think that that was "such a total waste" then?


I actually didn't do all that and I climbed from the back near Hateno, I missed all that stuff and reached the mountain top from the back. It's part nuances of the open world design that they committed to when you can go anywhere from anywhere.

It still feels like a letdown regardless of the path. Instead of receiving a gift from the dragon or something else new and exciting you get yet another shrine. Exploring just stops being satisfying when almost all roads lead to one of two outcomes: shrines or korok seeds.
 

Zackat

Member
I have played for about 10 hours and haven't been captured yet. The shrines are all pretty easy. The stamina thing for running is just not fun (perfectly fine for climbing though). I noticed the camps were really similar. Not a fan of the weapon degradation. That being said, I love how the world looks with the big open areas. The colors are great. The skills you get are cool and well thought out. I had several laughs at things the NPC's said.

I'll keep playing it though and maybe it will click at some point.


I am also playing it on a Wii U which is a little rough.
 

Totakeke

Member
It still feels like a letdown regardless of the path. Instead of receiving a gift from the dragon or something else new and exciting you get yet another shrine. Exploring just stops being satisfying when almost all roads lead to one of two outcomes: shrines or korok seeds.

Well if you purely care about the end reward and not the journey, sure, the game would be pretty disappointing. Eventide Island is a prime example of that.
 
And most of the rewards are junk. The biggest letdown for me were the dragons. I scaled the frozen mountain on a whim, go through this really neat segment, expecting some new item or skill as a reward and it turns out to be another goddamn shrine that doesn't even have any puzzles in it. What a waste.

Well, specifically about the frozen mountain, the dragons
are a means to awards. If you shoot an arrow at their body they drop scales which are used to open up secret shrines, which have super rare elemental weapons (Fire, Electric, and Ice swords), and shooting their horn up front drops a shard of their horn, which is the only way to upgrade the champion tunic.
So there are pretty substantial rewards.

I do wish one of the things they would have done is made some outfit rewards. Some of the head gear and outfits sold at stores could have instead been hidden.

In general though I think people are over exaggerating how great the rewards were in previous Zelda games. What were some of the great rewards that previous Zelda game had for exploration? I remember a lot of heart pieces
 

Rodin

Member
My complaint with the open world design is the same as it was for FFXV - I can't help but feel like the game would be better with half the expansiveness. I think this is going to be a problem with open world games for a while. Going bigger is cheap compared to increasing the density and as of yet we are not "punishing" developers for it.

I totally agree about BOTW's controls. They are not as immersive as they could be. I'm sure it could be improved upon.
Your complaint kind of works with FFXV because 1) it doesn't have much meaningful content and especially 2) because traversing is shit. You just sit in a car and look at the vistas to go to objective A that directs you to B and from there you go to C, then you go back to B which tells you to report to A and you just spent 10 minutes in your car doing nothing other than changing old FF tunes at the radio that don't fit with the game's aesthetics. Fast travel isn't really an option since it takes minutes to load the game and at that point you're better off with just enjoying the pretty landscape.

Hardly the case in Breath of the Wild, where even going from a to b can be a puzzle and you find tons of compelling shit on your way to your objective.

Not sure what you mean about "immersive controls".

In general though I think people are over exaggerating how great the rewards were in previous Zelda games. What were some of the great rewards that previous Zelda game had for exploration? I remember a lot of heart pieces
I also remember a lot of complaints about that
 

Nickle

Cool Facts: Game of War has been a hit since July 2013
A lot of you are complaining that he's just biased because he doesn't like open world games, but does that mean that the open world formula shouldn't be subject to criticism? He doesn't like open world games for a reason, and he doesn't feel that BotW fixes all the problems with the open world genre.
 

sanstesy

Member
A lot of you are complaining that he's just biased because he doesn't like open world games, but does that mean that the open world formula shouldn't be subject to criticism? He doesn't like open world games for a reason, and he doesn't feel that BotW fixes all the problems with the open world genre.

It also comes to a point where your criticism of open-world games becomes kind of pointless because you actually do not like open-world games or things that other people genuinely like about them.

While The Witcher 3 is not a perfect game by any means it is also part of that group where this kind of weird criticism to its open-worldness applies.
 

Nickle

Cool Facts: Game of War has been a hit since July 2013
In general though I think people are over estimating how great the rewards were in previous Zelda games. What were some of the great rewards that previous Zelda game had? I remember a lot of heart pieces
Dungeons, items, tunic's, masks, songs, heart pieces, bomb bags, quivers, stamina upgrades, bottles, etc. Almost all of these were substantial upgrades to Link's toolset, and let him do new things.
 
Agreed with a lot of those points, though the Koroks are one of the things I'll go to bat for.
I think there is enough variety in recurring Korok puzzles (with the bonus of them never being explicitly taught to the player outside of gradually twigging that "this setup seems familiar").
The reward is two fold in that it often ensures that your trip off the beaten track got you something more than say a nice view and that the seeds themselves build towards worthwhile unlocks. It's also a rare case where having a number like 900 doesn't come across like overkill at all when you consider that it's not expected for the player to come close to collecting all of them, heck even half of them! It basically ensures that for the keen eyed players no matter where their detours take them they'll always have the opportunity to find the bits and pieces to expand their inventory.
All of that said, yes the world doesn't actually need to be a big as it is, if it were smaller I guess we'd drop at least 300 seeds?

Back to the agreement side, yes those combat shrines were a huge load of disappointment, there was a stretch of gameplay where out of the last 10 shrines I'd found at least 7 of them were all part of the combat selection, you expect cool puzzle rooms and get an enemy that was interesting the first two times and no more.

Random aside: fun per inch makes sense for Ori seeing that I was never once bothered by the lack of warp points in the original version.
 

Vidiot

Member
Huge Zelda fan here and no I don't want to kill you, I actually agree with you. I really like the game but I think it's horrendously over rated.
 

LotusHD

Banned
My complaint with the open world design is the same as it was for FFXV - I can't help but feel like the game would be better with half the expansiveness. I think this is going to be a problem with open world games for a while. Going bigger is cheap compared to increasing the density and as of yet we are not "punishing" developers for it.

I totally agree about BOTW's controls. They are not as immersive as they could be. I'm sure it could be improved upon.

Eh, I think it justified its size unlike FFXV, where you quickly realize there isn't much to find that is genuinely interesting within its open world. While BoTW on the other hand has a plethora of cool shit, which made it a non-issue for me. The spacing is also benefited from the fact that there are various landmarks, points of interests, etc. So many times I'm just roaming around, and something catches my eye, like Eventide Island for example. You also have the towers and mountains and what not that double as vantage points to pick out where you want to go next.

If everything is all much more densely packed, it probably wouldn't be a bad thing. But at the same time, the criticism of the world's size and "emptiness" is something I'll never be able to fully get behind, because there's a joy to be had in stumbling upon something cool as you traverse across such a huge world.
 
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