LTTP Breath of the Wild IS another OoT moment

[Mekanos]

It's a very good game. The game mechanics, combat, exploration all work really well together and it's enjoyable to see what things you run into. I had fun bumping into a trial island and even made a thread about it. I wish it was better about incentivizing exploration as although the Shrines are fun, I feel like there should be more rewards than that. A sequel could also expand the "core" dungeons into something much more meaningful as well.

It didn't blow my mind or become my favorite Zelda or anything (Majora's Mask and Ocarina Of Time will probably always remain on the throne), but I put in 50 hours into it and feel like I had my fair share of fun. I have high hopes for the sequel.

 

[Leo]

By having a tool that let them see in real time where people walked on the map while playing during development. Aonuma once talked about how he had dozens of people play the game and track their movement. So when 10 out of 12 people chose one direction, they created a point of interest in a different direction to see if people chose more diverse paths. They did this over and over again, and it shows. You constantly see something new to get sidetracked.

It's the best open world ever created from traversal, over points of interest and verticality to general scale. The way you always see multiple objectives from everywhere is fantastic.

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Yeah, as I just said in a post above, I suspected as much, it's clear how important it was for them to think carefully about where and when people would go and it clearly shows.

It's a level of care and focus on a seemingly unimportant aspect that you rarely see and it's one of the things that set it apart from the rest.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

The only redundant shrines are the battle ones which are not that frequent. From my experience, the puzzle ones just get better and more complex, and, as yourself, I also wonder how is that possible since their order is completely random and personal.

The only answer is that the team thought about the world design very carefully and managed to scale the challenge with no barriers at all. Of course, you could go straight to Ganon's Castle and have a huge difficulty spike, but most players won't do that, so what would they do? Figuring that out and translating that into a landscape was probably the biggest challenge the devs had with this game and, in my opinion, they did it devilishly well.

Another thing to consider is that exploration also pays off simply by giving you new interesting landscapes. Some of the views you get are amazing, the environments are different and varied and that isn't just a cosmetic aspect, it also affects gameplay because the climates are different, in some areas it rains more often than others, you can find different wildlife and materials on them, etc.

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The weather and level design are good yeah, though the rain sucks at times. Puzzle Shrines account for 70 of the 120 shrines, with a lot of them being mindlessly easy, and every single one looking and sounding the exact same. This is the majority of the Zelda gameplay I loved the series for, so to see it reduced to load-in puzzle rooms that almost feel user generated really threw me off, and spending hours to find a good one (there are some great ones) is just demoralizing.

 

[Spinluck]

Incredible game.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

The weather and level design are good yeah, though the rain sucks at times. Puzzle Shrines account for 70 of the 120 shrines, with a lot of them being mindlessly easy, and every single one looking and sounding the exact same. This is the majority of the Zelda gameplay I loved the series for, so to see it reduced to load-in puzzle rooms that almost feel user generated really threw me off, and spending hours to find a good one (there are some great ones) is just demoralizing.

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What the game needed more of is moments like the aligned trees on the snowy mountain, where you find a giant dragon on top of it and fight it. I didn't mind that the shrine that opened up after the fact only contained a chest.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

I wanted it to be and the scale and sense of adventure was amazing but I just felt at the same time the world felt lacking.

Like there wasn't too much I actually obtain and as such by the end I had a shallower feeling than OoT gave me.

 

[hussien-11]

No, I beat the game with most of the content. The world seemed like they made it so big that they had to pad it out with a lot of filler.
The pacing and progression are busted, particularly if you go to the Gerudo area first which had the toughest boss, then go around the map hoping the next shrine isn't another trial of combat or that you wont find another cloned enemy camp to actively avoid.

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Filler? Sorry but no. Maybe you just don't care enough about gameplay. You had endless things to do: cooking, collecting the album, shrines, gathering resources, solving Kass puzzles, playing minigames, discovering treasures, clearing enemy camps, "the island", getting better gear and weapons, buying a house, help building a city, discovering a maze, dealing with a secret shop, battling tough enemies, collecting seeds which are puzzles themselves, exploring the beasts, doing side quests, dealing with the weather... and many, many more!

Never felt the sense of adventure in the same way before or after.

 

[Uncle Squingis]

It was magical at first, but the more I played the more sour I grew on it.

 

[DrDeckard]

Easily game of the gen

 

[Weiss]

It successfully pioneered a new take on Zelda, it just didn't hit the landing quite as well as Ocarina of Time did, and the formula needs some massaging before it becomes perfect.

 

[Taurus]

Game of the generation for sure.

Personally, playing BotW for the first time compares to playing Super Mario Bros, Super Mario 64, aLttP or OoT for the first time. Gaming memories that I will never forget.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

Filler? Sorry but no. Maybe you just don't care enough about gameplay. You had endless things to do: cooking, collecting the album, shrines, gathering resources, solving Kass puzzles, playing minigames, discovering treasures, clearing enemy camps, "the island", getting better gear and weapons, buying a house, help building a city, discovering a maze, dealing with a secret shop, battling tough enemies, collecting seeds which are puzzles themselves, exploring the beasts, doing side quests, dealing with the weather... and many, many more!

Never felt the sense of adventure in the same way before or after.

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Korok seeds were often about as stimulating as the easy moons in Mario Odyssey where you pick up a boulder or move a cube, same with a lot of the Shrines being a waste of time. Enemy camps were mostly the same through the whole game. Getting better gear was an endless loop of breaking them on the same few enemies and replacing them, then they get stronger stats and those enemies get palette swapped versions to compensate and it continues until its just better to avoid enemies altogether.

Its not that there aren't interesting or challenging elements, its that half the time you're just running around doing menial shit or holding forward to scale a cliff face and occasionally stopping to regain stamina. It very much reminds me of what they did with Mario Odyssey in that there are good moons, but then there are a shitload of rudimentary ones to fill space and make beginner players feel accomplished (only much more severe in Zelda)

 

[Deleted member 59109]

I wouldn't put it on the same level, and I never even played OoT when I was younger. The dungeons and bosses in BotW are just such a huge downgrade from those of other Zeldas, especially one like OoT, and it's open to a fault, where there's literally no sense of progression or even that there's any story happening. Most of the time is spent wandering around without any context and doing random things or stumbling across a shrine, enemy camp or korok seed which is identical to the dozens you've seen before. The world of BotW itself is great, easily the best of any Zelda game, and the art style is also incredible, but they can't quite overshadow the game's other glaring flaws. OoT is like a 9.5/10 game, BotW an 8.5.

 

[Moist_Owlet]

It's fine. The story is bad.

 

[NHarmonic.]

I have seen lots of criticism about the game but this is a first.

How is the world barren, every little nook and cranny has something, exploration NEVER goes unrewarded. It's actually impressive, I catch myself thinking "how the hell did these guys know I was gonna pass through here and put this here for me?". Be it shrines, Korok seeds, minibosses, hidden chests or enemy camps, there is always something to find. I'm sweeping the map front to back precisely because it always pays off.

I supposed the rewards could be more meaningful and varied as they get samey at some point (except for shrines, which only get better), but I haven't seen any other game being better at this yet.

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And then you start seeing the same minibosses, the same korok challenges, the same suspicious rock over a mountain peak, the same enemies and bandit camps. By the time i entered the 40th shrine i was already tired.

 

[Blader]

I'm almost 30 hours in on my first playthrough, and I do like it -- though it didn't really start to click for me until maybe 10 or so hours -- but I also feel like a lot of this game is wasted on me. I enjoy unlocking towers and doing shrines, but have really no interest in doing so many of these side quests or exploring every nook and cranny for every single collectable. Over 900 Korok seeds? I've gotten about 4 of them, entirely by accident, and that's how I plan to find any more. lol

There's just so much to the game -- not just in terms of places to go or things to do, but also things to figure out (cooking different combinations of ingredients, or resting at inns to get extra hearts which I did not even know was a thing) that I often can't help but feel like, as much as I'm doing so far, I'm not getting the full effect of the game because so much of it is optional.

 

[Deleted member 437]

Its a great physics playground for sure.

I didn't last too long in it personally. About 20 hours? Beat 2 dungeons.

I need some sort of story or narrative to hook me. This had almost nothing. Just wandering around.

And Link, as usual, is this mannequin that I control with no personality. Just exists.

I think they could really improve those 2 areas personally.

 

[No42.05W70.2]

BoW has great aesthetics but bad design. OoT is still a standalone achievement in gaming. The combination of music, art, pseudo sandbox structure that had the perfect scale and ratio of open/empty space to crafted environments, the perfect transitions from field->town->dungeon, is still unique in the franchise.

 

[bionic77]

No game can be the best for everyone. Different people want different things out of games.

But I have never played a game that gave me the sense of discovery and adventure that I got from playing BoTW. Especially for the first 50 hours when I was still figuring out the main secrets of the world.

I don't think they can replicate that in the sequel but I will be very happy to be proven wrong.

 

[JaseMath]

I'd love an OoT/BotW hybrid. Proper dungeons and a respectably-sized open world (BotW is just too big).

 

[night814]

The fact that almost three years later people are still GUSHING about the game should tell you everything you need to know.

I still think about it all the time after three play throughs. Very excited for the sequel.

 

[eXistor]

I think it's just that with such an ambitious game it's hard to do. Not to say OoT wasn't ambitious, quite the opposite, but you can clearly see where BotW struggled with content, even with the long development time. I'm confident that now that the physics, artstyle and general world design are already done, they can focus on stuff like dungeons, bosses and enemy variety more.

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Exactly my thoughts. It's a very ambitious title, but a lot of the groundwork has been laid and they should be able to implement the things lacking in BotW. I hated the shrines myself; they feel just like they are: teleporters to a separate puzzle-room. I would love smaller dungeons integrated organically into the world and more inside locations in general. The temples in BotW felt like such a waste. I was so excited when I came across that temple in the woods in the south only to find out you couldn't actually go inside it and all there was to find was another cookie-cutter shrine. They do this a lot in BotW.

That's not to say BotW doesn't do some genius things; its exploration and sense of adventure is wonderful and that's something that was woefully lacking in more recent titles. At any ate, I'm very excited to see what they've cooked up for the next one.

 

[Ryouji Gunblade]

I hope the sequel is another Majora's Mask moment.

I want them to expand the mechanics and make the characters matter even more. Maybe up the stakes.

 

[Something Creative]

I'm playing through the Trial of the Sword right now and got to the middle trials where it's pitch black except for whatever light you can conjure up with a torch or fire arrow.... *chefs kiss*

The sequel is going to be something.

 

[Deleted member 56580]

Botw effectively brought some cool stuff in regards to meteo conditions and environmental interaction / exploration

everything else was some beyond boring stuff. its also the most cheesable Zelda ever created

 

[Deleted member 59109]

BoW has great aesthetics but bad design. OoT is still a standalone achievement in gaming. The combination of music, art, pseudo sandbox structure that had the perfect scale and ratio of open/empty space to crafted environments, the perfect transitions from field->town->dungeon, is still unique in the franchise.

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Agreed, I really don't think OoT gets enough credit for this type of thing.

 

[Zen Hero]

Yeah I totally agree with all your points, OP!

I'm happy for Nintendo that they were finally able to create a Zelda game that truly surpassed OoT in renown. I think you could argue that some of the games after OoT were technically better games... but none of them really attained the same "it" factor. Finally the series gets to step out of OoT's shadow.

Anyway, for me, I'll go so far as to say I think that BotW is by far the best Zelda game, and I've played nearly every mainline entry since the first game. I always thought the first game in particular had something special that the later games in the series were never able to capture again, until BotW finally did. It's a certain simpleness and raw sense of adventure, I think.

 

[fersnake]

not even close, i had a blast playing it but no, those moments i had in OoT are never comming back, i came with open mind to play BoTW and love it but it lacks so many things a zelda game should have.

 

[ToTheMoon]

There were times when I was playing Breath of the Wild where I almost felt uncomfortable with how good it was. That isn't a feeling I get often, and I'm not sure any game has made me feel it with the magnitude that Breath of the Wild did.

 

[Abdulrahman]

Breath of the Wild IS another OoT moment

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Not. Even. Close.

 

[Linde]

yeah I could agree with that
hopefully botw2 is a majoras mask moment

 

[Giever]

There is some very cool gear that lets you swim up waterfalls or lets you climb during rain for example. I'm not saying it's perfect mind you, but weapons that break were never a problem for me.

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I don't believe there's any gear that lets you climb during rain. There is gear that makes climbing easier, which, in turn, makes climbing during rain more manageable, but nothing that just stops you from sliding or anything like that.

 

[Hybrid Rainbow]

Not. Even. Close.

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This. OoT and MM shit on BotW from great heights IMO.

 

[Adathir]

I don't think it holds anywhere near the weight that OoT does. When that game came out it was basically the first of it's kind and pioneered what a 3d Zelda could be and influenced a lot of other games.

BotW while being a good game, is one of many large open world games that we have had the past 5 years. It certainly has some uniqueness inherent in being a Zelda title, along with more physics based game play and the aesthetic of the world itself is quite nice. It is one of the best Switch games, but it takes a lot more than that to be on the same level as OoT.

 

[PonyStation]

You walk around a barren world with bits and bobs strewn about. No real sense of progression outside seeing hearts and stamina get larger. All challenge is mitigated by being able to carry many heals. Parry system is incredibly easy as well. Then you have the chopped up story that IS interesting, but so incredibly short. Not to mention a bland final dungeon and a laughable final boss that is made EASIER if you did the intended story beats.

A few outstanding shrines and genuinely cool events aside, there are many games to me better than it the year of it's release, more if you bring in the entire generation.

I know I'm in the minority, not only am I someone who didn't care for BotW, but I'm someone who doesn't care for it while also not being bothered by breakable weapons. I'm also more of a Majora's Mask/Ages/Seasons guy when it comes to Zelda. The team is so incredibly talented, that their best work comes when they have more time to put pieces in play, rather than making the pieces AND putting them into play.

I'm hoping BotW2 is a Majora's Mask moment. It definitely seems that way based on the darker direction the initial trailer seems to imply the series is heading in for this iteration

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My favourite Zelda games are the 2D games Ages/Seasons/MinishCap, but they were also all made by Capcom. Unfortunately for us, I don't think they're going to get another crack at the series

 

[giapel]

I think the difference is that while BOTW feels like it can be improved in a number of ways and will almost certainly be surpassed by BOTW2, OOT remains the pinnacle of its genre. To this day even Nintendo's best haven't managed to surpass its brilliance. BOTW merely sidesteps it.

Ps: BOTW is incredible

 

[AllMight1]

botw is a FUN game, not a lot of games can truly deliver that this gen

 

[BarryFishFinger]

I got bored after a few hours.

Curious that a game people laud for giving them so much choice forces you to change weapons all the time. Weapons breaking started to irritate quite quickly, I like this sword I'm using, I don't want it to break and have to go back to using this shitty club until I find something better. If I want to spend the entire game hitting enemies with a tree branch why shouldn't I be allowed?

Maybe I'm not imaginative enough, but other ways to defeat enemies didn't really grab me. There are a few heavily telegraphed moments (monsters stood at the bottom of the hill, big rocks at the top of the hill, monsters clustered around explosive barrels, monsters standing in water in lightning storms or whatever) but I never felt the wealth of combat options apparently available to me. Part of that is that I never really figured out how to upgrade my health or stamina. I found some Korok seeds, I found some tree (?) guy who took them as an upgrade I think, or was it orbs from shrines? That's how forgettable it all was for me. Either way I didn't find enough Korok seeds to do much upgrading and the shrines, after the first 10 or so we're so dull. The same visually everyone and not much of interest in them, so I had no inclination to play them when I found them so I never really got any orbs.

The environment didn't really grab me. There are some nice vistas and nice areas, but overall it felt very barren, full of the same enemies over and over again and I never felt the thrill of exploration as I felt like it was only going to be a weapon that would break or some food or something. The loot is a heavy driver for me in open world games, I like to feel like I might find something cool in this cave/behind this waterfall/whatever and I never really got that sensation in BoTW.

There was lots to enjoy, but overall I think there are any number of better open world games out there.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

Exactly my thoughts. It's a very ambitious title, but a lot of the groundwork has been laid and they should be able to implement the things lacking in BotW. I hated the shrines myself; they feel just like they are: teleporters to a separate puzzle-room. I would love smaller dungeons integrated organically into the world and more inside locations in general. The temples in BotW felt like such a waste. I was so excited when I came across that temple in the woods in the south only to find out you couldn't actually go inside it and all there was to find was another cookie-cutter shrine. They do this a lot in BotW.

That's not to say BotW doesn't do some genius things; its exploration and sense of adventure is wonderful and that's something that was woefully lacking in more recent titles. At any ate, I'm very excited to see what they've cooked up for the next one.

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I imagine they will do a lot more things like the dragon you fight on the snowy mountain. That was such a fantastic moment. First the small hints with the aligned trees on the mountain you have to follow and then you see that thing. The fight was pretty cool, too.

But yeah, whenever you found ancient structures like the forgotten temple or the snakemouth in the jungle, they were kind of a letdown.

I think the games replayability is hurt by the shrines and lack of dungeons. I replay OoT so often not only because of the perfect pacing, but the dungeons that are such a huge part of the game. In BotW after 100+ hours, I never felt the need to start a new file because I already explored everything.

 

[bane833]

The game is pure Nintendo magic we haven't had in a long time when it released in 2017.

 

[denx]

Game is magical. One of my favorite games ever.

 

[Lobster Roll]

The game is pure Nintendo magic we haven't had in a long time when it released in 2017.

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Yup. It was so profoundly groundbreaking that it shifted my perspective on what I thought "great" was or where I had always assumed the ceiling had been for Zelda games or open-world games in general. This singular game somehow reset and raised the benchmark on both of those.

 

[Tomasoares]

Good game, it's too flawed to be great, though.
There's a lot of ground for improvement

 

[NabiscoFelt]

I don't get people judging BoTW based on replayability.

Granted, I never replay games, so I don't have much context, but it seems weird to fault a game based on something it was never designed to be. The joy of BoTW is experiencing everything for the first time.

That being said, if I were to replay a game, this would be first on my list.

 

[Soul Lab]

I totally agree OP.
Botw dethroned OoT as my favorite game.

 

[Tarot Deck]

My feeling as well.

Played twice already, but I still haven't found all shrines ( I think there are 10 missing) or completed the trials ( I was playing on Master Mode)

That being said, I am fine with the time I played it.

Waiting anxiously for 2.

 

[StrangeRoboMemory]

In the top 5 games I've ever played, no doubt.

 

[the7samurai]

I keep buying and loving many Switch games but there is constantly a voice in the back of my head telling me to just turn off whatever I'm playing and turn on BotW. It's honestly a once in a lifetime type of experience for me.

 

[SuperFakerBros]

I don't know if I'd say that it's another OoT moment as that game is so absurdly influential and well balanced but I'd certainly place BotW at a similar level of quality as OoT, honestly a little higher

Korok seeds were often about as stimulating as the easy moons in Mario Odyssey where you pick up a boulder or move a cube, same with a lot of the Shrines being a waste of time. Enemy camps were mostly the same through the whole game. Getting better gear was an endless loop of breaking them on the same few enemies and replacing them, then they get stronger stats and those enemies get palette swapped versions to compensate and it continues until its just better to avoid enemies altogether.

Its not that there aren't interesting or challenging elements, its that half the time you're just running around doing menial shit or holding forward to scale a cliff face and occasionally stopping to regain stamina. It very much reminds me of what they did with Mario Odyssey in that there are good moons, but then there are a shitload of rudimentary ones to fill space and make beginner players feel accomplished (only much more severe in Zelda)

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Korok seeds are just another thing for you to explore and find as you explore the world to expand your inventory. Comparing them to the moons in Super Mario Odyssey doesn't make much sense. They're more like the Golden Skulltulas in OoT than anything else. Enemy camps didn't change too much area to area but they're not all the same and there's usually different ways of tackling each one. Not sure why there being a loop to get better weapons is a bad thing, that only encourages you to keep using your weapons and not just avoid using your stronger weapons, also, no, avoiding combat means avoiding material to upgrade your outfits as well as not being able to finish some quests or not being able to make money to buy what you may need

You could say that for any game. In a Souls game, you're just wandering around killing things, before finding a boss, and then going back to kill more things. It only feels menial because you weren't fond of the gameplay loop. You're not just climbing a mountain half the time before trying to regain your stamina. I certainly wasn't. I was constantly doing different things every time, whether that be finding a unique quest, a Great Fairy Fountain, a dragon flying around, a shrine, etc.

 

[Vidiot]

I liked it but it having the worst dungeons and boss fights in the (3D) series keeps it from being anywhere near my favorite.

If the dungeons and boss fights aren't significantly improved in the sequel I don't think it will be nearly as loved.

Also I don't want another 100+ shrines. Far too many were crap and the weren't a good substitute for the lackluster dungeons.