The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild GOTG

Karl wrote:

the eponymous bollock wrote:

Karl wrote:This is a 200 hour game if you want to see and do every little thing.

Closer to 300 hours would be my guess.

Im at 170 hours and haven't hit 50% yet.

Cool! Are you going for 100% completion, or just going to keep playing 'til you get bored? Either way, I'll be genuinely interested to hear how long it takes you.

Karl wrote: that the cleverest mini-boss in the game hangs out in the middle of nowhere:

Karl wrote:

Fries. Wedges. Crisps? wrote:Cheers for the replies all...

Hi Dan. I felt like I wanted to add my perspective on this game for you, because it's probably my favourite game ever.

(This is essentially a review, so no major spoilers, but it gives away a tiny bit about how the game is structured.)

I was thinking about how to explain Breath of the Wild to someone who didn't know much about it. In some ways it's a highlight reel of the best ideas from previous Zeldas: it has The Wind Waker's sense of exploration, the nostalgia of Twilight Princess, the adventure of Ocarina of Time, non-linearity which was attempted in A Link Between Worlds but turned up to 11 in this game, and a respect for player agency that hasn't really been part of the series since The Legend of Zelda. Its narrative is in some ways more polished than previous entries, but still revolves around the familiar tropes, amusing characters, and colourful locales that form a big part of every game in the franchise.

But it also works hard to subvert tropes that have become stale. The tutorial zone is based on exploration and trial-and-error, not railroaded interactions with 'helpful' NPCs. The dungeons have been deconstructed into their constituent puzzles and mini-bosses, scattered around Hyrule -- this leaves 'classic-style' dungeoneering as something you do much more occasionally, not as the meat of the game. And up until now we haven't had a difficult Zelda since Majora's Mask, but this one is really very hard. (If you spend hours seeking out & upgrading better equipment then you get to feel a little more like the indestructible hero of earlier games, but by that point you've really earned it.)

Then they looked around at other top-quality games - the world-building of The Elder Scrolls, the combat of Dark Souls, the oppressiveness of STALKER... and, yes, Ubisoft radio towers - and liberally cherry-picked them, but polished into distinctly Nintendo mechanics.

This game has some of the best narrative, the best puzzling, the best exploration, the best locales, and the best combat of any Zelda game. And yet the game respects you enough - is modestly designed enough - that it doesn't really force you to engage with any of those elements at all. There are hilarious NPCs and heart-warming sidequests that you needn't meet or visit, stunning vistas that the game will never direct you towards, and without spoiling anything let me tell you that the cleverest mini-boss in the game hangs out in the middle of nowhere: an area you probably won't go to, unless you decide to follow a side-quest you're never forced to do and might never even hear about.

It's an incredible experience - I would rank it as the best adventure game of all time - but obviously it's not perfect (nothing is!) and of course I have niggles with it. My largest disappointment was in the few 'proper full on boss fights' in the game: I'm almost done with the game and the full-bosses up until now have been a bit weak and bland. Not awful, for sure, but they fell flat compared to previous games, and I probably enjoy fighting this world's mini-bosses more. Saying that, I think it says a lot that 'decent but not excellent' is what I mean by 'disappointment' in the context of this game. It doesn't have any elements or mechanics at all which are actually bad. I still have high hopes for the final boss, which I'm going to tackle once I submit this post (wish me luck!).

I've been thinking about why or how anyone could dislike the game, and I guess fundamentally open world games aren't everyone's cup of tea, and you really have to approach Breath of the Wild with some self-awareness about what you find fun. For instance, to find every collectible in the game you'll have to play like an ordnance survey cartographer, and if that doesn't sound fun to you then it's down to you to not do that. This is a 200 hour game if you want to see and do every little thing, and for me I would imagine that it gets a bit stale; it's a 100 hour game if you let yourself get frequently distracted by exploration and side-quests, and for me I think this is where the best experience is going to be had; it's a 30 hour game if you stick to beaten track and follow the main story quests fairly closely, and for me that would certainly be a very tight experience but at the expense of missing out on lots of the little details, background stories, and (to use a Bosman term) 'context' that make the world such a joy to exist in. That's all for me, but for you there's of course no right or wrong way to approach it: it comes down to your tastes and your preferences. Know what you like & pursue that play-style.

I've spent 120 hours on this game. I'm squaring up to the final boss and I'm going to do it tonight. I could easily spend 20 or 30 more hours looking for puzzles, beating mini-bosses, upgrading my kit... but the game is a bit like a delicious all-you-can-eat buffet: I think you have a responsibility to yourself to stop eating when you're full, lest you make yourself ill and ruin your evening. It's been incredible, absolutely fantastic, the best 120 hours of my gaming career... and I'm full up now.

I'm sure when the DLC comes out I'll be jumping straight back in and revisiting this weird, exciting, heart-warming, awe-inspiring, wonderful world. I'm looking forward to it already.

rudderless wrote:

Karl wrote:

Fries. Wedges. Crisps? wrote:Cheers for the replies all...

Hi Dan. I felt like I wanted to add my perspective on this game for you, because it's probably my favourite game ever.

(This is essentially a review, so no major spoilers, but it gives away a tiny bit about how the game is structured.)

I was thinking about how to explain Breath of the Wild to someone who didn't know much about it. In some ways it's a highlight reel of the best ideas from previous Zeldas: it has The Wind Waker's sense of exploration, the nostalgia of Twilight Princess, the adventure of Ocarina of Time, non-linearity which was attempted in A Link Between Worlds but turned up to 11 in this game, and a respect for player agency that hasn't really been part of the series since The Legend of Zelda. Its narrative is in some ways more polished than previous entries, but still revolves around the familiar tropes, amusing characters, and colourful locales that form a big part of every game in the franchise.

But it also works hard to subvert tropes that have become stale. The tutorial zone is based on exploration and trial-and-error, not railroaded interactions with 'helpful' NPCs. The dungeons have been deconstructed into their constituent puzzles and mini-bosses, scattered around Hyrule -- this leaves 'classic-style' dungeoneering as something you do much more occasionally, not as the meat of the game. And up until now we haven't had a difficult Zelda since Majora's Mask, but this one is really very hard. (If you spend hours seeking out & upgrading better equipment then you get to feel a little more like the indestructible hero of earlier games, but by that point you've really earned it.)

Then they looked around at other top-quality games - the world-building of The Elder Scrolls, the combat of Dark Souls, the oppressiveness of STALKER... and, yes, Ubisoft radio towers - and liberally cherry-picked them, but polished into distinctly Nintendo mechanics.

This game has some of the best narrative, the best puzzling, the best exploration, the best locales, and the best combat of any Zelda game. And yet the game respects you enough - is modestly designed enough - that it doesn't really force you to engage with any of those elements at all. There are hilarious NPCs and heart-warming sidequests that you needn't meet or visit, stunning vistas that the game will never direct you towards, and without spoiling anything let me tell you that the cleverest mini-boss in the game hangs out in the middle of nowhere: an area you probably won't go to, unless you decide to follow a side-quest you're never forced to do and might never even hear about.

It's an incredible experience - I would rank it as the best adventure game of all time - but obviously it's not perfect (nothing is!) and of course I have niggles with it. My largest disappointment was in the few 'proper full on boss fights' in the game: I'm almost done with the game and the full-bosses up until now have been a bit weak and bland. Not awful, for sure, but they fell flat compared to previous games, and I probably enjoy fighting this world's mini-bosses more. Saying that, I think it says a lot that 'decent but not excellent' is what I mean by 'disappointment' in the context of this game. It doesn't have any elements or mechanics at all which are actually bad. I still have high hopes for the final boss, which I'm going to tackle once I submit this post (wish me luck!).

I've been thinking about why or how anyone could dislike the game, and I guess fundamentally open world games aren't everyone's cup of tea, and you really have to approach Breath of the Wild with some self-awareness about what you find fun. For instance, to find every collectible in the game you'll have to play like an ordnance survey cartographer, and if that doesn't sound fun to you then it's down to you to not do that. This is a 200 hour game if you want to see and do every little thing, and for me I would imagine that it gets a bit stale; it's a 100 hour game if you let yourself get frequently distracted by exploration and side-quests, and for me I think this is where the best experience is going to be had; it's a 30 hour game if you stick to beaten track and follow the main story quests fairly closely, and for me that would certainly be a very tight experience but at the expense of missing out on lots of the little details, background stories, and (to use a Bosman term) 'context' that make the world such a joy to exist in. That's all for me, but for you there's of course no right or wrong way to approach it: it comes down to your tastes and your preferences. Know what you like & pursue that play-style.

I've spent 120 hours on this game. I'm squaring up to the final boss and I'm going to do it tonight. I could easily spend 20 or 30 more hours looking for puzzles, beating mini-bosses, upgrading my kit... but the game is a bit like a delicious all-you-can-eat buffet: I think you have a responsibility to yourself to stop eating when you're full, lest you make yourself ill and ruin your evening. It's been incredible, absolutely fantastic, the best 120 hours of my gaming career... and I'm full up now.

I'm sure when the DLC comes out I'll be jumping straight back in and revisiting this weird, exciting, heart-warming, awe-inspiring, wonderful world. I'm looking forward to it already.

Great post. Enjoyed reading this.

Jordan UK wrote:

rudderless wrote:

Karl wrote:

Fries. Wedges. Crisps? wrote:Cheers for the replies all...

Hi Dan. I felt like I wanted to add my perspective on this game for you, because it's probably my favourite game ever.

(This is essentially a review, so no major spoilers, but it gives away a tiny bit about how the game is structured.)

I was thinking about how to explain Breath of the Wild to someone who didn't know much about it. In some ways it's a highlight reel of the best ideas from previous Zeldas: it has The Wind Waker's sense of exploration, the nostalgia of Twilight Princess, the adventure of Ocarina of Time, non-linearity which was attempted in A Link Between Worlds but turned up to 11 in this game, and a respect for player agency that hasn't really been part of the series since The Legend of Zelda. Its narrative is in some ways more polished than previous entries, but still revolves around the familiar tropes, amusing characters, and colourful locales that form a big part of every game in the franchise.

But it also works hard to subvert tropes that have become stale. The tutorial zone is based on exploration and trial-and-error, not railroaded interactions with 'helpful' NPCs. The dungeons have been deconstructed into their constituent puzzles and mini-bosses, scattered around Hyrule -- this leaves 'classic-style' dungeoneering as something you do much more occasionally, not as the meat of the game. And up until now we haven't had a difficult Zelda since Majora's Mask, but this one is really very hard. (If you spend hours seeking out & upgrading better equipment then you get to feel a little more like the indestructible hero of earlier games, but by that point you've really earned it.)

Then they looked around at other top-quality games - the world-building of The Elder Scrolls, the combat of Dark Souls, the oppressiveness of STALKER... and, yes, Ubisoft radio towers - and liberally cherry-picked them, but polished into distinctly Nintendo mechanics.

This game has some of the best narrative, the best puzzling, the best exploration, the best locales, and the best combat of any Zelda game. And yet the game respects you enough - is modestly designed enough - that it doesn't really force you to engage with any of those elements at all. There are hilarious NPCs and heart-warming sidequests that you needn't meet or visit, stunning vistas that the game will never direct you towards, and without spoiling anything let me tell you that the cleverest mini-boss in the game hangs out in the middle of nowhere: an area you probably won't go to, unless you decide to follow a side-quest you're never forced to do and might never even hear about.

It's an incredible experience - I would rank it as the best adventure game of all time - but obviously it's not perfect (nothing is!) and of course I have niggles with it. My largest disappointment was in the few 'proper full on boss fights' in the game: I'm almost done with the game and the full-bosses up until now have been a bit weak and bland. Not awful, for sure, but they fell flat compared to previous games, and I probably enjoy fighting this world's mini-bosses more. Saying that, I think it says a lot that 'decent but not excellent' is what I mean by 'disappointment' in the context of this game. It doesn't have any elements or mechanics at all which are actually bad. I still have high hopes for the final boss, which I'm going to tackle once I submit this post (wish me luck!).

I've been thinking about why or how anyone could dislike the game, and I guess fundamentally open world games aren't everyone's cup of tea, and you really have to approach Breath of the Wild with some self-awareness about what you find fun. For instance, to find every collectible in the game you'll have to play like an ordnance survey cartographer, and if that doesn't sound fun to you then it's down to you to not do that. This is a 200 hour game if you want to see and do every little thing, and for me I would imagine that it gets a bit stale; it's a 100 hour game if you let yourself get frequently distracted by exploration and side-quests, and for me I think this is where the best experience is going to be had; it's a 30 hour game if you stick to beaten track and follow the main story quests fairly closely, and for me that would certainly be a very tight experience but at the expense of missing out on lots of the little details, background stories, and (to use a Bosman term) 'context' that make the world such a joy to exist in. That's all for me, but for you there's of course no right or wrong way to approach it: it comes down to your tastes and your preferences. Know what you like & pursue that play-style.

I've spent 120 hours on this game. I'm squaring up to the final boss and I'm going to do it tonight. I could easily spend 20 or 30 more hours looking for puzzles, beating mini-bosses, upgrading my kit... but the game is a bit like a delicious all-you-can-eat buffet: I think you have a responsibility to yourself to stop eating when you're full, lest you make yourself ill and ruin your evening. It's been incredible, absolutely fantastic, the best 120 hours of my gaming career... and I'm full up now.

I'm sure when the DLC comes out I'll be jumping straight back in and revisiting this weird, exciting, heart-warming, awe-inspiring, wonderful world. I'm looking forward to it already.

Great post. Enjoyed reading this.

Yep. Agree with everything you've said. I'm a Zelda fan and have played ever 'home' console release (and all of the ones on DS and 3DS) and what this game lacks in the tightly crafted dungeons of, say, Skyward Sword, it more than makes up for in exploration / overworld and play mechanics.

deathofcows wrote:Skyward Sword being my (controversially) favourite Zelda game,

Pretty much the same feeling as the other beasts. A couple of interesting if simple ideas all done and dusted far too quickly. Took about 30 mins. It would have taken 20 if I'd not been dicking about on the top bit trying to work out why the columns were there and why I inexplicably couldn't climb them. Boss was the same. Just so uninspiring. Shoot with bow. Hack with sword. Getting an updraft to slow mo is fun. In the same way it's fun every other time I do that.

Minty14 wrote:So, i was going to get a Switch while in Japan to save money, but they're sold out here too. So, I was considering picking this up for Wii U (I'll now get a Switch around Mario Odyssey time most likely). But, I see it's now shot up to around £60 in most places and Amazon doesn't indicate that they'll get any more stock.

Do I suck it up and splash out £60? Or do i risk waiting and hope the price goes down?

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:Look at the fruit. Make the three trees match.

Ad7 wrote:Cross post from the Facebook thread:

> master sword get!
> gets told not to use it

That whole area is really pretty

Floex wrote:Talking about Shrines, is there an actual reason for getting them all?

No spoilers pls.

the eponymous bollock wrote:I've never seen someone so determined to not enjoy a game as TWA.

How can you go to Hebra for the first time and have your takeaway be annoyance that you temporarily have too many items

The Watching Artist wrote:...It's almost like I cant be critical of this game and the positive things I've said get ignored...