G
I couldn't have said it/asked for better @Cross_Marian ! I miss the traditional dungeons so much and aside from what they did with Zelda herself and the odd few other things, I absolutely hate BOTW. I've not even played it BUT I've read up on it a LOT and seen plenty of it too ofc and I am a veteran of Zelda since Ocarina Of Time back in my childhood and I HATE this new direction the series is going in, it's completely betraying it's roots! It's trying to imitiate the open world sandbox fads/trends of gaming for the past so many years now, especially Rockstar and Ubisoft ofc but also Souls-like games and such.
Zelda was some of the most compelling, atmospheric, escapist, fantastical, emotional, thought provoking experiences I've ever had and DECADES later I still literally reminiscence on almost every Zelda game I've played and definitely the ones I've completed too especially!
I watch videos on OOT here and there, as well as some on Majoras Mask, Wind Waker, Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess and to see the series take this direction makes me extremely sad, disappointed, feeling betrayed and angry.
Skyward Sword was heavily flawed but I still loved it so much, that was my last Zelda game unless you can count Hyrule Warriors which I also loved?
I could write an essay on all the things wrong with BOTW, things I cannot overlook/forgive unlike the other games and why I absolutely refuse to buy and thus play it but I won't. This is one of the reasons I didn't get a Switch and stopped supporting Nintendo, it's so disheartening. BOTW getting a straight up sequel that looks identical is really not helping either, since when did Zelda get numbered sequels?
I heard Monolith Soft the developers of Xenoblade were involved with BOTW and that seems to help explain the direction BOTW has taken I guess too?
Sounds like Shadow of the Tomb Raider but for Zelda lol. Ironically Tomb Raider can be a psuedo-Zelda-like experience somewhat too? Also definitely sounds like Far Cry too? At least from 3 onwards?
I've seen horror clips of players getting killed due to lightning strikes and rain on cliffs in BOTW. VideoGameDunkey has a hilarious video on his experience with it lol:
It's funny, MM seems like the most bleak game for the Zelda series narratively, atmospherically and what not BUT BOTW takes the prize for most bleak Zelda game gameplay wise? I mean I guess it fits with how dark the overall Zelda stories and lore are and how they involved a never ending war/conflict and struggle but this feels like it's taken up to 11, it's just too much imo.
I've always preferred hand crafted levels, stories and even games overall. We're moving more and more towards "randomly generated games" as with the MASSIVE obsession with random loot, random level generation, perma death/rogue-likes, random mutators and so on in games and that's fine for people to enjoy that ofc, but a well established, beloved, long running series shouldn't be trying to jump on the bandwagon and insult it's legacy and loyal fanbase to follow current mainstream gaming culture trends.
I LOVED the dungeons in the Zelda series as you may have already guessed. The Forest temples of OOT and TP were amazing imo, to this day, they still blow my mind with their creativity, fun factor, atmosphere and such! Same with the Temple of Time in TP at least too imo. TP probably had the most fun gameplay and dungeons overall?
Fire Temple in OOT can GTFO though LMAO! It was really cool in environmental design and atmosphere but an absolute pain to play in some parts at least imo. People give the Water Temple so much hate in the "mainstream" but I've always really enjoyed it (although I love water and watery environments especially in games so I'm biased anyway lmao) but the series has had such interesting, unique, charismatic, iconic, memorable, atmospheric, fun etc dungeons.
Spirit Temple in OOT is another one I really enjoyed, Shadow Temple was absolute nightmare fuel with so much to speculate on, especially with Kakariko Village and Under The Well itself too. Great Deku Tree was fun, unique and a creative, impactful beginner dungeon.
Speaking of Twilght Princess too, this still gives me absolute chills too!:
(Beware for your ears though, awful/staticky audio quality especially at higher volumes!)
I do have to say though, BOTW had a brilliant trailer for when it was being revealed and really made me curious and feel for Zelda as she was crying like that!
Jeez, I ended up writing an essay anyway and didn't even write why I hate BOTW specifically but it's not exactly unique/unknown criticisms of it either!
:cantseeme:
I couldn't have said it/asked for better @Cross_Marian ! I miss the traditional dungeons so much and aside from what they did with Zelda herself and the odd few other things, I absolutely hate BOTW. I've not even played it BUT I've read up on it a LOT and seen plenty of it too ofc and I am a veteran of Zelda since Ocarina Of Time back in my childhood and I HATE this new direction the series is going in, it's completely betraying it's roots! It's trying to imitiate the open world sandbox fads/trends of gaming for the past so many years now, especially Rockstar and Ubisoft ofc but also Souls-like games and such.
Zelda was some of the most compelling, atmospheric, escapist, fantastical, emotional, thought provoking experiences I've ever had and DECADES later I still literally reminiscence on almost every Zelda game I've played and definitely the ones I've completed too especially!
I watch videos on OOT here and there, as well as some on Majoras Mask, Wind Waker, Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess and to see the series take this direction makes me extremely sad, disappointed, feeling betrayed and angry.
Skyward Sword was heavily flawed but I still loved it so much, that was my last Zelda game unless you can count Hyrule Warriors which I also loved?
I could write an essay on all the things wrong with BOTW, things I cannot overlook/forgive unlike the other games and why I absolutely refuse to buy and thus play it but I won't. This is one of the reasons I didn't get a Switch and stopped supporting Nintendo, it's so disheartening. BOTW getting a straight up sequel that looks identical is really not helping either, since when did Zelda get numbered sequels?
I heard Monolith Soft the developers of Xenoblade were involved with BOTW and that seems to help explain the direction BOTW has taken I guess too?
Sounds like Shadow of the Tomb Raider but for Zelda lol. Ironically Tomb Raider can be a psuedo-Zelda-like experience somewhat too? Also definitely sounds like Far Cry too? At least from 3 onwards?
I've seen horror clips of players getting killed due to lightning strikes and rain on cliffs in BOTW. VideoGameDunkey has a hilarious video on his experience with it lol:
It's funny, MM seems like the most bleak game for the Zelda series narratively, atmospherically and what not BUT BOTW takes the prize for most bleak Zelda game gameplay wise? I mean I guess it fits with how dark the overall Zelda stories and lore are and how they involved a never ending war/conflict and struggle but this feels like it's taken up to 11, it's just too much imo.
I've always preferred hand crafted levels, stories and even games overall. We're moving more and more towards "randomly generated games" as with the MASSIVE obsession with random loot, random level generation, perma death/rogue-likes, random mutators and so on in games and that's fine for people to enjoy that ofc, but a well established, beloved, long running series shouldn't be trying to jump on the bandwagon and insult it's legacy and loyal fanbase to follow current mainstream gaming culture trends.
I LOVED the dungeons in the Zelda series as you may have already guessed. The Forest temples of OOT and TP were amazing imo, to this day, they still blow my mind with their creativity, fun factor, atmosphere and such! Same with the Temple of Time in TP at least too imo. TP probably had the most fun gameplay and dungeons overall?
Fire Temple in OOT can GTFO though LMAO! It was really cool in environmental design and atmosphere but an absolute pain to play in some parts at least imo. People give the Water Temple so much hate in the "mainstream" but I've always really enjoyed it (although I love water and watery environments especially in games so I'm biased anyway lmao) but the series has had such interesting, unique, charismatic, iconic, memorable, atmospheric, fun etc dungeons.
Spirit Temple in OOT is another one I really enjoyed, Shadow Temple was absolute nightmare fuel with so much to speculate on, especially with Kakariko Village and Under The Well itself too. Great Deku Tree was fun, unique and a creative, impactful beginner dungeon.
Speaking of Twilght Princess too, this still gives me absolute chills too!:
(Beware for your ears though, awful/staticky audio quality especially at higher volumes!)
I do have to say though, BOTW had a brilliant trailer for when it was being revealed and really made me curious and feel for Zelda as she was crying like that!
Jeez, I ended up writing an essay anyway and didn't even write why I hate BOTW specifically but it's not exactly unique/unknown criticisms of it either!
:cantseeme:
The biggest fault was that they "ignored" the core aspect of the Zelda games, the dungeons and the special items.
Zelda botw was great step and now they can combine the best of both.
I have play botw and I think the game is fine. This combat is great but better than other Zelda games. Enemies are smarter than normal zelda games. lyon battle are more fun to me.
Nice artwork style for me.
What I dislike in this game is
- you need 120 for hearts and stamina. Too much collection stuff for me. But you can use guide to find out.
-999 seeds to find
-bad horse control and you need to find good horse for better control , I gave up the horse stuff and start walking and air glide. Darksiders 1&2 have smooth horse control gameplay for me.
- rain day like it is in the rainforest
That is my opinion on this game.
Nice artwork style for me.
What I dislike in this game is
- you need 120 for hearts and stamina. Too much collection stuff for me. But you can use guide to find out.
-999 seeds to find
-bad horse control and you need to find good horse for better control , I gave up the horse stuff and start walking and air glide. Darksiders 1&2 have smooth horse control gameplay for me.
- rain day like it is in the rainforest
That is my opinion on this game.
G
Yeah I can agree on that. I really hate the weapon degradation system and how much easier it is to die and such. There are some really cool unique new ideas and gameplay interactions and such though.
I do appreciate Zelda getting a massive fully open world finally, I've always wanted that since OOT and I suppose the franchise did need to evolve somewhat? I was fine with it as it was, I hated the motion controls of SS and TP on Wii but I would have been happiest if they just kept making more great, typical Zelda games tbh.
The dungeons were definitely the biggest issue by far , completely agreed. I don't know much about the lack of special items in it but that sounds about right and unsurprising unfortunately.
I also hated Calamity Ganon apparently just being a cloud like Galactus (sigh) from the Fantastic Four Silver Surfer movie? I've not seen more of the game beyond that so not sure if he's just like that or has a physical form or something?
I heard your horses can die in BOTW which is something I extremely hate already too.
I feel TP is closest to how BOTW is and maybe that was the prelude/prototype for BOTW ultimately? I remember hearing rumours of how TP's world would take 45 MINTUES to run from one side to another but I think it then dropped to 15 mins? LMAO!
I love the new Princess Zelda too though, I didn't like her at first but she's really grown on me and might be my new favourite Zelda out of all the previous ones!
Thanks for your fair response anyway!
:cheers:
That's definitely fair too. Smarter enemies is definitely appreciated too, I like that a lot. Combat does seem far better too.
Yeah, that is the same issue the Batman Arkham games had too, literally hundreds of Riddler Trophies to find, that is excessive! I hate stuff like that! It shouldn't get too high a number, but remain a reasonable amount and then they are fun to get! I love collectibles when they aren't so overwhelming in amounty and variety too even. Donkey Kong 64 was one of the worst offenders of this by far.
The 999 seeds thing though, that is INSANE! Don't you get a literal massive pile of crap/shit/poop for finding them all too?! That's what I've heard anyway?
Bad horse control? That sucks! I love horse riding in Zelda!
Yeah I see the rain does cause a lot of pain in BOTW, it really seems like random yet vindictive BS by the developers lol.
I do appreciate Zelda getting a massive fully open world finally, I've always wanted that since OOT and I suppose the franchise did need to evolve somewhat? I was fine with it as it was, I hated the motion controls of SS and TP on Wii but I would have been happiest if they just kept making more great, typical Zelda games tbh.
The dungeons were definitely the biggest issue by far , completely agreed. I don't know much about the lack of special items in it but that sounds about right and unsurprising unfortunately.
I also hated Calamity Ganon apparently just being a cloud like Galactus (sigh) from the Fantastic Four Silver Surfer movie? I've not seen more of the game beyond that so not sure if he's just like that or has a physical form or something?
I heard your horses can die in BOTW which is something I extremely hate already too.
I feel TP is closest to how BOTW is and maybe that was the prelude/prototype for BOTW ultimately? I remember hearing rumours of how TP's world would take 45 MINTUES to run from one side to another but I think it then dropped to 15 mins? LMAO!
I love the new Princess Zelda too though, I didn't like her at first but she's really grown on me and might be my new favourite Zelda out of all the previous ones!
Thanks for your fair response anyway!
:cheers:
Post automatically merged:
That's definitely fair too. Smarter enemies is definitely appreciated too, I like that a lot. Combat does seem far better too.
Yeah, that is the same issue the Batman Arkham games had too, literally hundreds of Riddler Trophies to find, that is excessive! I hate stuff like that! It shouldn't get too high a number, but remain a reasonable amount and then they are fun to get! I love collectibles when they aren't so overwhelming in amounty and variety too even. Donkey Kong 64 was one of the worst offenders of this by far.
The 999 seeds thing though, that is INSANE! Don't you get a literal massive pile of crap/shit/poop for finding them all too?! That's what I've heard anyway?
Bad horse control? That sucks! I love horse riding in Zelda!
Yeah I see the rain does cause a lot of pain in BOTW, it really seems like random yet vindictive BS by the developers lol.
The thing is, Nintendo needed to go this direction with open world in my opinion. They always wanted to make a game purely focused on adventuring and exploration, ever since Zelda 1. Can I blame them? Totally not since I also seeked a vast world of Hyrule ever since I saw WW's Hyrule. There is a reason why I played +300h on BotW. TP is probably the closest when it comes to BotW's overworld and interestingly enough, TP's dungeons are also the largest and most fitting when it comes to BotW worldbuilding.
Just look at the Forest Temple in TP:
There's even a video about this dungeon which sums up how huge it is, the first dungeon!
This dungeon isn't just like a giant tree or sth similar like that (ie. Great Deku Tree in OOT and Forbidden Woods in WW), it is actually the depth of the entire forest. There are outdoor locations in which you see the entire forest too.
I know there are people disliking how large TP's dungeons are but this is the magic of its dungeons, they are deeply connected to the theme'd locations! While you could explore Dodongo's Cavern (OOT), TP's Goron Mines is actually the entire death mountain. You basically climb from the bottom to the top to reach the boss room, with many indoor and outdoor rooms as well. There was also an entire sky city being a dungeon. I really like TP's dungeons.
So when I saw the vast world of BotW, my expectations were automatically significantly higher than before since I automatically expected a lot of gigantic theme'd dungeons from this game. Unfortunately, none of that happened. We saw the worst 4 dungeons of the entire Zelda series, they are not even tied to actual theme'd locations, just plain and boring. Don't let me start on the "bosses". Y'all remember this location:
This is the entrance to the Spring of Courage. This location was first shown at the Game Awards 2016 - and I got baited hard since I thought "Shit, this really looks like a dungeon entrance, AWESOME!"... which turned out to be an entrance to a random ass shrine.
Anyway, imo BotW is the correct direction, you can go where you like? You can just climb that random mountain over there? That's possible in BotW. Or that random forest or lake? No problem, well except for the lake since swimming requires stamina (!!!)... But the game didn't put any limits to you. BotW's Hyrule definitely demonstrates how it'd look like if you were allowed to explore Wind Waker's Hyrule to every angle - and it's an awesome feeling. Furthermore, I don't agree with the Ubisoft open world comparison, there are no quadrillion question marks basically showing you where you have to go in the overworld. You have to find out what to do by yourself. That's the magic of the pure exploration and adventuring of BotW. However, I don't think it's also wise to make everything optional. Although the "You can directly go to the final boss" seems cool at the first thought but I quickly realised that everything feels and IS OPTIONAL which portrays an actual lack of story - because a story have to follow a linearity somehow, otherwise you cannot capture story plots as well as it is planned. Thus, while BotW's open world formular clearly helped its overworld, it didn't really help the story and overall world building - the enemies clearly demonstrate it as well as the story.
The story itself is basically the past, you have to find the pictures to find out about the story - which is absolutely optional once again. Don't forget, a story does not have to be very deep or thoughtful in order to function properly, story locations such as travelling through villages, cities, locations or even dungeons already tells a story. It's obvious that you cannot bring up subplots like in TP or even SS since it wouldn't function with BotW's design decision.
I don't know how they'll fix these issues in the sequel but with Ganondorf's revival, I think we might get the chance to see a more linear and less optional story, with theme'd dungeons, again. Besides, the world is vast and I get that it's not really wise to use powerful overworld soundtrack like TP Hyrule Field for BotW, which you would basically hear for several hours but that does not really excuse the lack of soundtracks as well when it comes to the overworld. I get that they're capturing the feeling of capture by those few piano tracks, however, Genshin Impact clearly demonstrates that it can be done differently as well, perhaps even better tbh.
At the end, I didn't want to rant about BotW that much but I wrote huge paragraphs about its flaws... yep, it's weird but I like BotW but also dislike a few things about this game which I cannot ignore anymore. But since BotW is the very first big step when it comes to a beautiful explorating and adventuring Hyrule, I can understand these flaws, especially if the devs had difficulty developing these... Well, that's why they probably cut 6 entire dungeons due to this reason? Seriously, I'm literally confused about the entire direction of future Zelda games. Will they solely focus on adventuring and exploring while cutting old elements like traditional items and dungeons? Or not???
What do y'all think @Bakazuki Bakainu @Cross_Marian @Buusatan94 @Tyki_Mikk @AkainuTheGrimReaper @Fleet Admiral Lee Hung?
Well, since the sequel I completely understood the decision of the team to make Calamity Ganon as a force of nature instead of an actual antagonist - because it is. It wouldn't wonder me if Calamity Ganon is just Phantom Ganon on steroids.
Just look at the Forest Temple in TP:
There's even a video about this dungeon which sums up how huge it is, the first dungeon!
This dungeon isn't just like a giant tree or sth similar like that (ie. Great Deku Tree in OOT and Forbidden Woods in WW), it is actually the depth of the entire forest. There are outdoor locations in which you see the entire forest too.
I know there are people disliking how large TP's dungeons are but this is the magic of its dungeons, they are deeply connected to the theme'd locations! While you could explore Dodongo's Cavern (OOT), TP's Goron Mines is actually the entire death mountain. You basically climb from the bottom to the top to reach the boss room, with many indoor and outdoor rooms as well. There was also an entire sky city being a dungeon. I really like TP's dungeons.
So when I saw the vast world of BotW, my expectations were automatically significantly higher than before since I automatically expected a lot of gigantic theme'd dungeons from this game. Unfortunately, none of that happened. We saw the worst 4 dungeons of the entire Zelda series, they are not even tied to actual theme'd locations, just plain and boring. Don't let me start on the "bosses". Y'all remember this location:
This is the entrance to the Spring of Courage. This location was first shown at the Game Awards 2016 - and I got baited hard since I thought "Shit, this really looks like a dungeon entrance, AWESOME!"... which turned out to be an entrance to a random ass shrine.
Anyway, imo BotW is the correct direction, you can go where you like? You can just climb that random mountain over there? That's possible in BotW. Or that random forest or lake? No problem, well except for the lake since swimming requires stamina (!!!)... But the game didn't put any limits to you. BotW's Hyrule definitely demonstrates how it'd look like if you were allowed to explore Wind Waker's Hyrule to every angle - and it's an awesome feeling. Furthermore, I don't agree with the Ubisoft open world comparison, there are no quadrillion question marks basically showing you where you have to go in the overworld. You have to find out what to do by yourself. That's the magic of the pure exploration and adventuring of BotW. However, I don't think it's also wise to make everything optional. Although the "You can directly go to the final boss" seems cool at the first thought but I quickly realised that everything feels and IS OPTIONAL which portrays an actual lack of story - because a story have to follow a linearity somehow, otherwise you cannot capture story plots as well as it is planned. Thus, while BotW's open world formular clearly helped its overworld, it didn't really help the story and overall world building - the enemies clearly demonstrate it as well as the story.
The story itself is basically the past, you have to find the pictures to find out about the story - which is absolutely optional once again. Don't forget, a story does not have to be very deep or thoughtful in order to function properly, story locations such as travelling through villages, cities, locations or even dungeons already tells a story. It's obvious that you cannot bring up subplots like in TP or even SS since it wouldn't function with BotW's design decision.
I don't know how they'll fix these issues in the sequel but with Ganondorf's revival, I think we might get the chance to see a more linear and less optional story, with theme'd dungeons, again. Besides, the world is vast and I get that it's not really wise to use powerful overworld soundtrack like TP Hyrule Field for BotW, which you would basically hear for several hours but that does not really excuse the lack of soundtracks as well when it comes to the overworld. I get that they're capturing the feeling of capture by those few piano tracks, however, Genshin Impact clearly demonstrates that it can be done differently as well, perhaps even better tbh.
At the end, I didn't want to rant about BotW that much but I wrote huge paragraphs about its flaws... yep, it's weird but I like BotW but also dislike a few things about this game which I cannot ignore anymore. But since BotW is the very first big step when it comes to a beautiful explorating and adventuring Hyrule, I can understand these flaws, especially if the devs had difficulty developing these... Well, that's why they probably cut 6 entire dungeons due to this reason? Seriously, I'm literally confused about the entire direction of future Zelda games. Will they solely focus on adventuring and exploring while cutting old elements like traditional items and dungeons? Or not???
What do y'all think @Bakazuki Bakainu @Cross_Marian @Buusatan94 @Tyki_Mikk @AkainuTheGrimReaper @Fleet Admiral Lee Hung?
Well, since the sequel I completely understood the decision of the team to make Calamity Ganon as a force of nature instead of an actual antagonist - because it is. It wouldn't wonder me if Calamity Ganon is just Phantom Ganon on steroids.
The thing is, Nintendo needed to go this direction with open world in my opinion. They always wanted to make a game purely focused on adventuring and exploration, ever since Zelda 1. Can I blame them? Totally not since I also seeked a vast world of Hyrule ever since I saw WW's Hyrule. There is a reason why I played +300h on BotW. TP is probably the closest when it comes to BotW's overworld and interestingly enough, TP's dungeons are also the largest and most fitting when it comes to BotW worldbuilding.
Just look at the Forest Temple in TP:
There's even a video about this dungeon which sums up how huge it is, the first dungeon!
This dungeon isn't just like a giant tree or sth similar like that (ie. Great Deku Tree in OOT and Forbidden Woods in WW), it is actually the depth of the entire forest. There are outdoor locations in which you see the entire forest too.
I know there are people disliking how large TP's dungeons are but this is the magic of its dungeons, they are deeply connected to the theme'd locations! While you could explore Dodongo's Cavern (OOT), TP's Goron Mines is actually the entire death mountain. You basically climb from the bottom to the top to reach the boss room, with many indoor and outdoor rooms as well. There was also an entire sky city being a dungeon. I really like TP's dungeons.
So when I saw the vast world of BotW, my expectations were automatically significantly higher than before since I automatically expected a lot of gigantic theme'd dungeons from this game. Unfortunately, none of that happened. We saw the worst 4 dungeons of the entire Zelda series, they are not even tied to actual theme'd locations, just plain and boring. Don't let me start on the "bosses". Y'all remember this location:
This is the entrance to the Spring of Courage. This location was first shown at the Game Awards 2016 - and I got baited hard since I thought "Shit, this really looks like a dungeon entrance, AWESOME!"... which turned out to be an entrance to a random ass shrine.
Anyway, imo BotW is the correct direction, you can go where you like? You can just climb that random mountain over there? That's possible in BotW. Or that random forest or lake? No problem, well except for the lake since swimming requires stamina (!!!)... But the game didn't put any limits to you. BotW's Hyrule definitely demonstrates how it'd look like if you were allowed to explore Wind Waker's Hyrule to every angle - and it's an awesome feeling. Furthermore, I don't agree with the Ubisoft open world comparison, there are no quadrillion question marks basically showing you where you have to go in the overworld. You have to find out what to do by yourself. That's the magic of the pure exploration and adventuring of BotW. However, I don't think it's also wise to make everything optional. Although the "You can directly go to the final boss" seems cool at the first thought but I quickly realised that everything feels and IS OPTIONAL which portrays an actual lack of story - because a story have to follow a linearity somehow, otherwise you cannot capture story plots as well as it is planned. Thus, while BotW's open world formular clearly helped its overworld, it didn't really help the story and overall world building - the enemies clearly demonstrate it as well as the story.
The story itself is basically the past, you have to find the pictures to find out about the story - which is absolutely optional once again. Don't forget, a story does not have to be very deep or thoughtful in order to function properly, story locations such as travelling through villages, cities, locations or even dungeons already tells a story. It's obvious that you cannot bring up subplots like in TP or even SS since it wouldn't function with BotW's design decision.
I don't know how they'll fix these issues in the sequel but with Ganondorf's revival, I think we might get the chance to see a more linear and less optional story, with theme'd dungeons, again. Besides, the world is vast and I get that it's not really wise to use powerful overworld soundtrack like TP Hyrule Field for BotW, which you would basically hear for several hours but that does not really excuse the lack of soundtracks as well when it comes to the overworld. I get that they're capturing the feeling of capture by those few piano tracks, however, Genshin Impact clearly demonstrates that it can be done differently as well, perhaps even better tbh.
At the end, I didn't want to rant about BotW that much but I wrote huge paragraphs about its flaws... yep, it's weird but I like BotW but also dislike a few things about this game which I cannot ignore anymore. But since BotW is the very first big step when it comes to a beautiful explorating and adventuring Hyrule, I can understand these flaws, especially if the devs had difficulty developing these... Well, that's why they probably cut 6 entire dungeons due to this reason? Seriously, I'm literally confused about the entire direction of future Zelda games. Will they solely focus on adventuring and exploring while cutting old elements like traditional items and dungeons? Or not???
What do y'all think @Bakazuki Bakainu @Cross_Marian @Buusatan94 @Tyki_Mikk @AkainuTheGrimReaper @Fleet Admiral Lee Hung?
Well, since the sequel I completely understood the decision of the team to make Calamity Ganon as a force of nature instead of an actual antagonist - because it is. It wouldn't wonder me if Calamity Ganon is just Phantom Ganon on steroids.
Just look at the Forest Temple in TP:
There's even a video about this dungeon which sums up how huge it is, the first dungeon!
This dungeon isn't just like a giant tree or sth similar like that (ie. Great Deku Tree in OOT and Forbidden Woods in WW), it is actually the depth of the entire forest. There are outdoor locations in which you see the entire forest too.
I know there are people disliking how large TP's dungeons are but this is the magic of its dungeons, they are deeply connected to the theme'd locations! While you could explore Dodongo's Cavern (OOT), TP's Goron Mines is actually the entire death mountain. You basically climb from the bottom to the top to reach the boss room, with many indoor and outdoor rooms as well. There was also an entire sky city being a dungeon. I really like TP's dungeons.
So when I saw the vast world of BotW, my expectations were automatically significantly higher than before since I automatically expected a lot of gigantic theme'd dungeons from this game. Unfortunately, none of that happened. We saw the worst 4 dungeons of the entire Zelda series, they are not even tied to actual theme'd locations, just plain and boring. Don't let me start on the "bosses". Y'all remember this location:
This is the entrance to the Spring of Courage. This location was first shown at the Game Awards 2016 - and I got baited hard since I thought "Shit, this really looks like a dungeon entrance, AWESOME!"... which turned out to be an entrance to a random ass shrine.
Anyway, imo BotW is the correct direction, you can go where you like? You can just climb that random mountain over there? That's possible in BotW. Or that random forest or lake? No problem, well except for the lake since swimming requires stamina (!!!)... But the game didn't put any limits to you. BotW's Hyrule definitely demonstrates how it'd look like if you were allowed to explore Wind Waker's Hyrule to every angle - and it's an awesome feeling. Furthermore, I don't agree with the Ubisoft open world comparison, there are no quadrillion question marks basically showing you where you have to go in the overworld. You have to find out what to do by yourself. That's the magic of the pure exploration and adventuring of BotW. However, I don't think it's also wise to make everything optional. Although the "You can directly go to the final boss" seems cool at the first thought but I quickly realised that everything feels and IS OPTIONAL which portrays an actual lack of story - because a story have to follow a linearity somehow, otherwise you cannot capture story plots as well as it is planned. Thus, while BotW's open world formular clearly helped its overworld, it didn't really help the story and overall world building - the enemies clearly demonstrate it as well as the story.
The story itself is basically the past, you have to find the pictures to find out about the story - which is absolutely optional once again. Don't forget, a story does not have to be very deep or thoughtful in order to function properly, story locations such as travelling through villages, cities, locations or even dungeons already tells a story. It's obvious that you cannot bring up subplots like in TP or even SS since it wouldn't function with BotW's design decision.
I don't know how they'll fix these issues in the sequel but with Ganondorf's revival, I think we might get the chance to see a more linear and less optional story, with theme'd dungeons, again. Besides, the world is vast and I get that it's not really wise to use powerful overworld soundtrack like TP Hyrule Field for BotW, which you would basically hear for several hours but that does not really excuse the lack of soundtracks as well when it comes to the overworld. I get that they're capturing the feeling of capture by those few piano tracks, however, Genshin Impact clearly demonstrates that it can be done differently as well, perhaps even better tbh.
At the end, I didn't want to rant about BotW that much but I wrote huge paragraphs about its flaws... yep, it's weird but I like BotW but also dislike a few things about this game which I cannot ignore anymore. But since BotW is the very first big step when it comes to a beautiful explorating and adventuring Hyrule, I can understand these flaws, especially if the devs had difficulty developing these... Well, that's why they probably cut 6 entire dungeons due to this reason? Seriously, I'm literally confused about the entire direction of future Zelda games. Will they solely focus on adventuring and exploring while cutting old elements like traditional items and dungeons? Or not???
What do y'all think @Bakazuki Bakainu @Cross_Marian @Buusatan94 @Tyki_Mikk @AkainuTheGrimReaper @Fleet Admiral Lee Hung?
Well, since the sequel I completely understood the decision of the team to make Calamity Ganon as a force of nature instead of an actual antagonist - because it is. It wouldn't wonder me if Calamity Ganon is just Phantom Ganon on steroids.
Regardless, the Zelda franchise didn’t reach his full potential with botw. I hope they take the best aspects from both formulas.
Botw:
A great open world, the gameplay, the physics, the little shrines
+
TP:
great and big dungeons, special items
The special items were replaced with the abilities of the Champions, that was alright but we need something new. Maybe a mixture
I want a deeper story for Ganondorfs character.
Zelda had a good characterisation in botw.
Maybe we will get one for Ganon or Ganondorf in the sequel
The dungeons are not the core aspect of Zelda. Neither is the puzzle solving or the special items.
The core aspect of Zelda is delivering players a sense of adventure, a sense that they are exploring a living and breathing world, and not playing a video game. Everything present in Zelda from combat to dungeon crawling to puzzles, is only there to cause the player to engage with the adventure in specific ways, but the core aspect of Zelda is exploration.
This is why I think dungeons like the Forest Temple/Arbiter’s Grounds/Snowpeak Ruins stand out among fans: because they aren’t just random puzzle-areas thrown into the game world for no reason at all, but are actually areas that feel like they serve a logical purpose inside of the world itself and have a legitimate reason to exist inside of a real world.
This is where I think the cry for theme’ddungeons come from, as theme’d dungeons are not only more memorable than the Divine Beasts (which themselves are still pretty good dungeons), but theme’d dungeons also feel like they are built-in to the world itself and have a legitimate reason to exist in the world (for the most part).
But this is why BOTW focused so hard on it’s open world, because it was trying to nail the sense of adventure that Zelda is all about. My biggest criticism of BOTW (I said it somewhere on this thread lol) was the sense I got as soon as I left the initial cave you start off in. I felt like when I could look upon the entire game-world itself immediately, then the upcoming exploration was just a formality and thus my sense of adventure diminished.
For adventure in video games to work, there has to be an element of mystery, an element of not knowing where I’m going or what I’m going to be doing next. By having such a “flat” open world that is almost entirely visible from most heights, I feel like BOTW lost its sense of mystery and it’s sense of exploration diminished as a result.
If I can see a giant open field in its entirety, I don’t have to set foot on every inch of that giant field to feel like I’ve explored it.
What I want from BOTW2 is a less visible explorable world. Something more akin to Dark Souls or Hollow Knight, a heavily vertical world that feels like I can actually get lost inside, and that I have no idea where I’m going next or what new sights I will come across. The game looks more vertical, but again the entire open world from the few shots I’ve seen still appears to be mostly visible, but I’m hoping for more elaborate secret/hidden areas to surprise me.
The core aspect of Zelda is delivering players a sense of adventure, a sense that they are exploring a living and breathing world, and not playing a video game. Everything present in Zelda from combat to dungeon crawling to puzzles, is only there to cause the player to engage with the adventure in specific ways, but the core aspect of Zelda is exploration.
This is why I think dungeons like the Forest Temple/Arbiter’s Grounds/Snowpeak Ruins stand out among fans: because they aren’t just random puzzle-areas thrown into the game world for no reason at all, but are actually areas that feel like they serve a logical purpose inside of the world itself and have a legitimate reason to exist inside of a real world.
This is where I think the cry for theme’ddungeons come from, as theme’d dungeons are not only more memorable than the Divine Beasts (which themselves are still pretty good dungeons), but theme’d dungeons also feel like they are built-in to the world itself and have a legitimate reason to exist in the world (for the most part).
But this is why BOTW focused so hard on it’s open world, because it was trying to nail the sense of adventure that Zelda is all about. My biggest criticism of BOTW (I said it somewhere on this thread lol) was the sense I got as soon as I left the initial cave you start off in. I felt like when I could look upon the entire game-world itself immediately, then the upcoming exploration was just a formality and thus my sense of adventure diminished.
For adventure in video games to work, there has to be an element of mystery, an element of not knowing where I’m going or what I’m going to be doing next. By having such a “flat” open world that is almost entirely visible from most heights, I feel like BOTW lost its sense of mystery and it’s sense of exploration diminished as a result.
If I can see a giant open field in its entirety, I don’t have to set foot on every inch of that giant field to feel like I’ve explored it.
What I want from BOTW2 is a less visible explorable world. Something more akin to Dark Souls or Hollow Knight, a heavily vertical world that feels like I can actually get lost inside, and that I have no idea where I’m going next or what new sights I will come across. The game looks more vertical, but again the entire open world from the few shots I’ve seen still appears to be mostly visible, but I’m hoping for more elaborate secret/hidden areas to surprise me.
I'd love to see one day in the Legend of Zelda an antagonist similar to SkekMal the Hunter from the Dark Crystal franchise, an incredibly persistent, agile and powerful hunter hunting either Link or Zelda or both and who'd be more than a match for Link without any magic but just with his physical abilities and skills alone.
