How much did you pay for it?I've played the Wii U version for about 4h now.
If anyone has questions...
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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild **SPOILER FREE** Impression Thread
- Thread starter fluffydelusions
- Start date
OrbitalBeard
Member
Sounds awesome.
Seriously. I like that the game will force me to continuously try new weapons and tactics.
It's really dynamic and adventorous. Something I barely see today.
You get quests and ofc. markers on your map but how you get there is up to you.
For example, one of the first quests makes you travel across huuuge spaces of land and it just says "get there".
There's no hand-holding nor any help, you do what and when you want it.
Every enemy drops some kind of weapon but for me it's off putting cause I will never ever try "sword xyz" on enemies because it could break.
You can see it both ways I guess.
I paid 60€ for it.
I've played the Wii U version for about 4h now.
If anyone has questions...
My only question is: Is it worth the hype?
Got stung pretty hard by MGSV and FFXV
Haha okay.
So the game really is something. I was expecting nothing and Open World is always an offputting aspect of games for me.
Simply said: I had fun and I didn't expect it
The story is interesting this far and picks up slowly. You're really just thrown into the world (which is huge, traversal at this point takes AGES). It really feels like you're travelling.
I love the general artstyle and how the world is build, there's neat details and really really interesting places to wander around.
The dungeons and shrines are superb, def. the best part of the game until now, looking forward to seeing mor.
The physic stuff is neat but can be frustrating (rolling bombs >_>) and I love climbing trees to grab apples
This game is ruthless and hard, enemies hit hard and I fell down so so often.
I don't want to spoil, but some effects look and feel really great.
NPCs react in many ways to you
I don't really like the control scheme but I will get used to it and this may be the cause I don't really like the enjoy... Evading and engaging feels kind of floaty and not that great. Add to this, that I HATE breaking weapons(it's the worst mechanic in games because it leads you to not use awesome weapons you find). But well, I've only fought a handful of types so maybe there's more to this!
The VA is okay, I would've expected more from a voiced Zelda game tbh.
And tbh. the Open World itself just is like any other Open World but it has the Zelda aesthetics to it.
What I mean by that is: Camps of enemies, "Ubisoft"-Towers, huge empty landscapes and so so many collectibles...
The performance is rough, like at times it feels like it's ~10 fps. Especially when zooming in or when something explodes it can get hard to control.
All in all it's a great game, def. go for it as a RPG/Zelda/Open World fan. But don't expect anything revolutionary - under it's hood it's a normal RPG with a huge world.
I really haven't used the inventory with touch, but I don't think it's possible because you switch TV / Pad mode by touching the Pad screen.
Ofc. they use several well known jingles again but music... mhh I'm not really an expert on Zelda music but up to this point the music is rather laid back and really good.
Great impressions, thanks.
thanks... I really missed oportunity of something simple but really usefull... I wonder if the Switch portable mode has touch screen implemented.
Hmm it's hard to tell. I myself was zero hyped for the game, but like I said, it's because of my general Open World dislike.
As a Zelda fan definetly.
As a gameplay fan, I would first try if you like the combat and the aspects of weapon switching and use of gimmicks.
Minus the Dungeons, the dungeons are awesome.
As an open world fan it's def. one of the prettier designed open worlds but has the same drawbacks as any other open world game.
FearMyWrench
Member
So the weapon durability is about just as annoying as I was expecting? Damn.
I definitely think if there's something to disappoint me about this game, it's that. Please share if it gets 'better' later in terms of weapons lasting longer.
As far as I have played, my longest lasting weapon is a steel hammer. I killed ~6-7 enemies with it and it's still not breaking.
Some swords break in 5 enemies. If you use a Club or a stick it breaks in 2-3 hits
My first bow broke in ~12-15 arrows shot.
So yeah, it's def stupid.
I've never encountered a game where weapon durability was handled badly.
If you're going to design a game with weapon durability, you're going to ensure that A) weapons found by the player continue to escalate in power, B) there are plenty of weapons to find.
So far both A and B have always been true in my experience. Yeah, if you're a hoarder or have OCD you'll want to keep your weapons pristine. But throw that out the window in exchange for a better time and embrace the scrabble for new items and it's fine.
If you're going to design a game with weapon durability, you're going to ensure that A) weapons found by the player continue to escalate in power, B) there are plenty of weapons to find.
So far both A and B have always been true in my experience. Yeah, if you're a hoarder or have OCD you'll want to keep your weapons pristine. But throw that out the window in exchange for a better time and embrace the scrabble for new items and it's fine.
I think weapon durability is only a thing in the first few hours tbh. As soon as you start getting axes and swords, you're set.
It does seem like the devs want to capture that early-journey "scrappyness". Like low-resources adventuring.
It looks like you can find weapons everywhere in BotW, I dunno, reviewers don't seem to be having a problem with it. Maybe it just takes a while to get used to.
Axes and Swords are fucked aswell.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
So even this thread isn't safe? How the fuck do people not understand what "SPOILER FREE" means?! It infuriates me. I wanted some place to discuss this game with you guys without being spoiled on something huge, but I guess that's gonna be impossible, because people are inconsiderate jerks.
(I haven't actually seen any real spoiler yet, but I saw that something was spoiled to some people on the last page.)
(I haven't actually seen any real spoiler yet, but I saw that something was spoiled to some people on the last page.)
Diprosalic
Banned
just don't click on any Zelda topics. what is there even to discuss that isn't a "spoiler" in your view?
FearMyWrench
Member
I'd be happier with it if there were some sort of game system allowing you to repair, so you could still keep a favourite weapon if you were willing to invest rupees or something into it. (a quite high price, so you're still encouraged to find new weapons at the same time)
Although this might already exist and we just don't know.
EDIT: If someone who has spoiled themselves knows this exists; I wouldn't mind a PM with a simple yes.
Although this might already exist and we just don't know.
EDIT: If someone who has spoiled themselves knows this exists; I wouldn't mind a PM with a simple yes.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Gameplay impressions, etc. I just don't want to know anything story-related, anything about villages or dungeons that hasn't been in the trailers, etc. Which is exactly the purpose of this thread. Why are you in this thread if you want to discuss those things?
I'm the kind of player who never changes weapon types once I got used to something. For example, I played Bloodborne from beginning to end almost exclusively with the Saw Cleaver and never even really tried to mess around with other weapon types.
With that in mind, weapons that break left and right are somewhat of my worst nightmare. However, at the same time I'm really looking forward to it, since for once a game will actually force me to mess around with the different weapon types it has to offer, meaning I'll see more of what the game actually has to offer. That's kind of exciting, even though it's my very own fault I usually don't play games like that. Sometimes a bit of pressure is a good thing.
With that in mind, weapons that break left and right are somewhat of my worst nightmare. However, at the same time I'm really looking forward to it, since for once a game will actually force me to mess around with the different weapon types it has to offer, meaning I'll see more of what the game actually has to offer. That's kind of exciting, even though it's my very own fault I usually don't play games like that. Sometimes a bit of pressure is a good thing.
Cuz of the weapon durability comments? You've got to be kidding.
Disable images and gifs here on GAF. I think we will be fine in this thread until the game launches. Of course, we can't predict a user commiting account suicide and spoiling something big, but other than that, we should be fine.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Uhm, no? Because of that "something" (I don't know what, since I didn't click it) people said was a "huge spoiler" on the last page. Several people reacted that way, so I'm just guessing it was something more than weapon durability.
Great plateau completed. Good time to share impressions before I move off into spoiler territory after work.
I was one of the few sceptics - one of those who hated the initial reveal. For a long time it felt like me and Capraihina (sp?) were the only two guys on here not over the moon about this new direction or the reveal trailers. On the other hand, I've been a massive Zelda fan since the first one on the NES, which was my first ever video game.
Anyway, long story short - it's awesome. It just 'plays' so good. The gameplay is very good so far, and promises to be stellar later on if they can mix and match all the various mechanics and systems already introduced in interesting ways.
The amount to which this game has shaken up the established Zelda formula is amazing, and almost all the changes are for the better. The quick opening, the runes, the open world... all of it makes sense, all of it works, all of it is fun. It actually makes previous Zeldas seem embarrassingly childlike or dinky by comparison.
The runes are the biggest deal. They are just amazingly inventive gameplay ideas, more suited to something like Mario Galaxy than Zelda yet here they are. Getting these as your main items rather than your standard Boomerang -> Bomb -> Bow -> Hookshot is hugely refreshing, and getting them so early leads to the fact that the entire game world can be designed around them. Both of these are fantastic decisions by Nintendo.
They've just gotten everything that matters right. Examples...
-Link's animation in stiff, but it's worth it because he controls so precisely.
-The UI takes a ridiculous amount of systems and makes them perfectly manageable, and makes it feel slick, responsive and fun.
-The item durability / discovery balance is absolutely perfect - it makes clearing out an enemy camp worth it, for one, while making you save and savour the good stuff you find. It encourages both exploration of the land and exploration of your tools, and ech weapon is pretty fun to use.
-Cooking is fun / works well and is actually important
-The enemies are better than they've ever been in Zelda - by far. Their animations are fantastic, the AI is super-entertaining, and they actually make a proper effort to kill you. -Even climbing, which is the kind of feature that could break most game worlds, seems perfectly balanced, responsive and fun.
Seriously, from a gameplay perspective, what more could you want?
Now the question is whether people want to hear the negatives, lol
I was one of the few sceptics - one of those who hated the initial reveal. For a long time it felt like me and Capraihina (sp?) were the only two guys on here not over the moon about this new direction or the reveal trailers. On the other hand, I've been a massive Zelda fan since the first one on the NES, which was my first ever video game.
Anyway, long story short - it's awesome. It just 'plays' so good. The gameplay is very good so far, and promises to be stellar later on if they can mix and match all the various mechanics and systems already introduced in interesting ways.
The amount to which this game has shaken up the established Zelda formula is amazing, and almost all the changes are for the better. The quick opening, the runes, the open world... all of it makes sense, all of it works, all of it is fun. It actually makes previous Zeldas seem embarrassingly childlike or dinky by comparison.
The runes are the biggest deal. They are just amazingly inventive gameplay ideas, more suited to something like Mario Galaxy than Zelda yet here they are. Getting these as your main items rather than your standard Boomerang -> Bomb -> Bow -> Hookshot is hugely refreshing, and getting them so early leads to the fact that the entire game world can be designed around them. Both of these are fantastic decisions by Nintendo.
They've just gotten everything that matters right. Examples...
-Link's animation in stiff, but it's worth it because he controls so precisely.
-The UI takes a ridiculous amount of systems and makes them perfectly manageable, and makes it feel slick, responsive and fun.
-The item durability / discovery balance is absolutely perfect - it makes clearing out an enemy camp worth it, for one, while making you save and savour the good stuff you find. It encourages both exploration of the land and exploration of your tools, and ech weapon is pretty fun to use.
-Cooking is fun / works well and is actually important
-The enemies are better than they've ever been in Zelda - by far. Their animations are fantastic, the AI is super-entertaining, and they actually make a proper effort to kill you. -Even climbing, which is the kind of feature that could break most game worlds, seems perfectly balanced, responsive and fun.
Seriously, from a gameplay perspective, what more could you want?
Now the question is whether people want to hear the negatives, lol
Thanks for the impressions! Please tell us about your negatives, as well. It's always good to have a balanced impression rather than cherry-picked positive statements.
Bucket Mouse
Member
Cheers Griss! Hit us with those negatives.
superNESjoe
Member
My only negative so far is I don't really like the controls. I'll get used to them, but they're not very conventional so it takes some time to learn.
Oh okay. What does the Gamepad display? Or is it just black screen?
superNESjoe
Member
Just a prompt that tells you to touch it to switch to game pad screen.
How so? Like certain actions linked to certain buttons you aren't used to?
Quite happy with your good impressions since I noticed your skepticism previously.
Now for the bad stuff
(Let me guess, poor textures, pop-in, dodgy framerate, emptyness, climbing is slow, travelling takes too long?)Skittzo0413
Member
Negatives please, Griss! I want to start lowering my hype a bit (if possible).
Yeah this is something that a lot of people are missing. If weapons were repairable then that would completely counter the purpose of the durability, which is to get you to treat weapons as another resource to manage, such that you need to deal with enemies creatively to conserve those resources.
It's something I'm massively looking forward to, and something that very few games in this genre have attempted.
We've seen the control scheme and it does look pretty complex. Jump and sprint are either B or X (swappable) and attack is Y. It's just very "non-Zelda" and I'm sure it'll take me a while to get used to too.
Yeah this is something that a lot of people are missing. If weapons were repairable then that would completely counter the purpose of the durability, which is to get you to treat weapons as another resource to manage, such that you need to deal with enemies creatively to conserve those resources.
It's something I'm massively looking forward to, and something that very few games in this genre have attempted.
We've seen the control scheme and it does look pretty complex. Jump and sprint are either B or X (swappable) and attack is Y. It's just very "non-Zelda" and I'm sure it'll take me a while to get used to too.
GiantBreadbug
Member
I'm the kind of player who never changes weapon types once I got used to something. For example, I played Bloodborne from beginning to end almost exclusively with the Saw Cleaver and never even really tried to mess around with other weapon types.
With that in mind, weapons that break left and right are somewhat of my worst nightmare. However, at the same time I'm really looking forward to it, since for once a game will actually force me to mess around with the different weapon types it has to offer, meaning I'll see more of what the game actually has to offer. That's kind of exciting, even though it's my very own fault I usually don't play games like that. Sometimes a bit of pressure is a good thing.
I'm actually really excited about the weapon durability system, precisely because weapons seems to break so quickly. It means everything is disposable and I'm not as likely to get attached to items. There's probably multiple solutions to any problem, and there's likely to be important tools nearby if they're really needed, so I'm not going to worry about needing things later or being efficient.
As someone who plays on the Wii U gamepad a lot, how does the game look while playing off TV? Is the UI clear enough? How do you turn it on/off? I hope there isn't some ugly touchscreen button that stays visible.
The poster removed it thankfully.
Yeah that's definitely another promising factor.
Critics have been playing the game for tens of hours and seem completely fine with the weapon durability balance.
At least, they haven't complained about it.
I know some people unilaterally hate all "breakable" systems in games so that's probably what we're hearing today.
superNESjoe
Member
Yeah pretty much. I'm gone a try swapping run and jump. Everything feels great, I just kind of fumble around with the buttons. Archery is a little weird because you hold ZR to pull out your bow, but this also immediately nocks an arrow, so if you release ZR it fires. It's quick, but has led to me accidentally shooting arrows by tapping ZR to get my bow out forgetting it immediately nocks it.
You can't switch bow or arrow types unless the bow is in your hands, so I've lost arrows just wanting to switch equipment a few times.
There's other stuff, but nothing is mechanically bad. It's all awesome, its just not laid out like a Zelda game usually is, or like a third person action game usually is. Just a tad strange to adjust to.
I'd argue that Link's animation being stiff isn't an excuse just because he's so precise to control. Simply because Snake in MGSV is super precise but mk most of his movements are far more fluid. It's been one of my only gripes is a sea of hype for me with this game. That they could have bothered with a few more transition animations.
Ah okay. Weird that you can't switch arrows while nocked. I'm not used to Zelda controls so maybe it won't be as jarring for me.
Ah okay. Weird that you can't switch arrows while nocked. I'm not used to Zelda controls so maybe it won't be as jarring for me.
TY Joe
Re swapping controls, can you actually re-bind controls in the game software or are you doing it via... other means?
I'm tempted to play with the Right JoyCon upside down (to alleviate thumb RSI) but would have to invert the face button bindings too.
Kojima is obsessed with capturing cinematic realistic qualities, so he'd prioritise making the animations as realistic and un-stiff as possible as well as being responsive.
Nintendo aren't so bothered about that (realism etc). They're all about the gameplay. I doubt they'd sink the thousands of hours it must have taken to get MGSV's animations up to par like Kojima Prod. would.
Quite happy with your good impressions since I noticed your skepticism previously.
Now for the bad stuff
Alright, let's go... Good guesses! Not all correct though.
Negatives...
-The game is a hot mess visually and technically. The IQ is shocking. I've just come from TPHD and then WWHD and while I'm not surprised that WWHD is a much better looking game than this, I am surprised that this is a huge step down from even Twilight Princess.
The textures are shocking, there's no texture filtering. From a distance, fields of grass don't render the grass and just come across as a flat green texture, which genuinely looks like something out of a PS2 title at times.
The performance is pretty horrible, with huge framerate dips whenever you encounter a ton of grass.
But most importantly, and this is hard for me to explain correctly... the world just doesn't feel 'real'. And when exploring the world is a central draw of the game, that's an issue. It doesn't look good enough to look like a real place, and nor is it designed like one. It feels like a big heightmap like WoW, and just like WoW regions just change on an imaginary line from snow to grass, grass to desert. Coming from other open world games, both on PS4 (like AC: Black Flag, GTA V etc) and even Wii U (XCX) - in all those games the beauty or immersiveness of the world as a real place was a huge part of the draw. That simply isn't the case here, and it's one of the first times I can remember where Nintendo's policy of going low with hardware power has actually negatively impacted one of their games. I know this game has a ton of different systems going on at all times but comparing it to the visual splendour of XCX is embarrassing.
However the appeal of exploring in this game is to find out what fun or inventive piece of game design you'll find next - so exploring is still fun. In fact, it's refreshing to be exploring for a different reason for once. But had they been able to make a more beautiful or coherent vision of Hyrule with the same gameplay it would have only aided the
Put it this way - I was so distracted by the visuals at first that I actually put down the controller a couple of times in the first 20 minutes and considered just waiting until I can buy a Switch. Before realising that my money was already spent so that was ridiculous. And after an hour my eyes did start to adjust. But this is an ugly game.
That's the main negative, and the only one that truly matters.
The others are
-The voice acting is shockingly amateurish. It's absolutely terrible. Zelda is just about passable. The next character you hear is either very funny or very cringeworthy.
-The shrines being divorced from the world is disappointing. The world itself seems to have very few 'puzzles' in it, and is just a lot of barren space with enemy encampments so far. This is actually a lot more fun than I expected it to be as traversal and fighting are both fun, but had the shrine gameplay been built into the world itself I would be happier. There's every chance that's the case in the rest of the game / world, but I'm not sure.
BlackProdigy
Member
so basically spoiling the end game boss is not story?
I highly doubt it would take thousands of hours to add a few more animations compared to what they've already done. I know it's not priority, but it would go a long way towards linking (heh) with the cutscenes and the fluidity with which the characters in those move.
This is all still based off of the Plateau, right?
EDIT: Your point on the world jives with the feeling I got watching all of the Plateau footage. On the other hand, a lot of the previewers who've begun exploring the rest of the world were gushing with the opposite sentiment, that the world felt better designed and more lived-in than other titles. So I'm interested in hearing your impressions develop over time.
MiamiWesker
Member
Haha okay.
So the game really is something. I was expecting nothing and Open World is always an offputting aspect of games for me.
Simply said: I had fun and I didn't expect it
The story is interesting this far and picks up slowly. You're really just thrown into the world (which is huge, traversal at this point takes AGES). It really feels like you're travelling.
I love the general artstyle and how the world is build, there's neat details and really really interesting places to wander around.
The dungeons and shrines are superb, def. the best part of the game until now, looking forward to seeing mor.
The physic stuff is neat but can be frustrating (rolling bombs >_>) and I love climbing trees to grab apples
This game is ruthless and hard, enemies hit hard and I fell down so so often.
I don't want to spoil, but some effects look and feel really great.
NPCs react in many ways to you
I don't really like the control scheme but I will get used to it and this may be the cause I don't really like the enjoy... Evading and engaging feels kind of floaty and not that great. Add to this, that I HATE breaking weapons(it's the worst mechanic in games because it leads you to not use awesome weapons you find). But well, I've only fought a handful of types so maybe there's more to this!
The VA is okay, I would've expected more from a voiced Zelda game tbh.
And tbh. the Open World itself just is like any other Open World but it has the Zelda aesthetics to it.
What I mean by that is: Camps of enemies, "Ubisoft"-Towers, huge empty landscapes and so so many collectibles...
The performance is rough, like at times it feels like it's ~10 fps. Especially when zooming in or when something explodes it can get hard to control.
All in all it's a great game, def. go for it as a RPG/Zelda/Open World fan. But don't expect anything revolutionary - under it's hood it's a normal RPG with a huge world.
I really haven't used the inventory with touch, but I don't think it's possible because you switch TV / Pad mode by touching the Pad screen.
Ofc. they use several well known jingles again but music... mhh I'm not really an expert on Zelda music but up to this point the music is rather laid back and really good.
I'm trying to figure out the it's a normal open world but still like zelda, those two things don't really mix. Zelda has amazing hand crafted level design, you said the shrines and dungeons are great so I assume that's still there. So are you saying when outside it's the usual open world stuff but when in a shrine it feels like zelda? Does it ever mix well cause I want to world to feel like zelda too.
The world not feeling like an actual place is a big disappointment, that to me is what made OoT great and TP so disappointing (those chasms everywhere felt very synthetic). The graphics, well I'm happy to be getting it on the Switch.
I think later parts have much more dense foliage though. They purposely made Great Plateau look kinda sparse so that later on you have more interesting diverse scenery.
I think later parts have much more dense foliage though. They purposely made Great Plateau look kinda sparse so that later on you have more interesting diverse scenery.
You can spell it that way.
Sorry, but this is betraying slight ignorance about game dev, especially at this scale. Adding the tiniest thing, and testing/tweaking it to the nines, can take tens of hours when you're developing at this level, and what you're suggesting would probably be more than just a "few" animations. Even then, adding a whole set of animations isn't just "it" - this includes building them, testing them, programming interruptions/checks, blending them with all the other animations, bugfixing them, tweaking them for pace/integration, checking they work artistically, etc, etc. It's a tough and time consuming job.
Please don't mention anything like this.
I'm not too bothered but others will be.
superNESjoe
Member
I'm going to second the voice acting. It's God awful. It's super amateur, and poorly directed. It feels like the lines are being read haphazardly off a piece of paper and the character themselves have zero understanding of what they're talking about. It's incredibly bad.
Zelda's VA is astonishingly awful to listen to. It's like a really bad anime dub.
Zelda's VA is astonishingly awful to listen to. It's like a really bad anime dub.
Sorry thought that was common knowledge from some of the first official previews, removed it.
SpiceMelange
Member
People really need to view durability like say, weapon ammo in Halo campaigns, ammo count is low but actual weapons rains from the sky. Yeag you could try to keep your assault rifle all level long but you will empty all of its ammo real quick. The low ammo count is how the dev inject variety into the game, as it makes you hotswap weapons constantly and thus change your tactics according to your current weapons. Take the same mindset in BotW. Don't worry that your good weapon breaks, you'll constantly get good weapons, and you'll be knee deep in more than serviceable weapons. All it's really doing is cycling what kind of weapons you currently have for variety, changing how you approach combat.
superNESjoe
Member
This basically. The way BotW is set up it'd be really boring to have the same weapon constantly. And if you do really like a particular weapon, you'll find plenty more of it.
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