I love this game, but it's a terrible "Zelda" game. *spoilers*

Last night, I just finished getting the last shrine and got the green tunic, and after about 70 hours of gameplay, I finally realized why I'm just a little disappointed with this game.

I'll start by saying I really love this game, obviously. I think it might be one of the best games Nintendo has made in terms of scope and content, and it was very much needed after a few years of lack luster games being put out by them. That being said, I just can't stop feeling like something is bothering me with it. When I finally put on the traditional green tunic, it hit me that this game just never felt like a Zelda game. It really feels more like a Zelda themed open world game that could just as easily been a whole different series if the just changed the names of where you go and who you talk to.

Here are my main gripes about the game, some minor, some major:

1. The bosses are a straight joke. I don't know what Nintendo was thinking, but having the same boss for every "dungeon" was lazy. Extremely lazy. The first time I fought one of the blights, I was excited because it was fun, but as soon as I got to the next one and saw it was just a re-skin, I was so disappointed. I can't begin to understand why the put so much love and time into the overworld, but then just re-skinned the same boss four times and gave each one a different attack. This is my biggest problem with the game and it has nothing to do with being Zelda or not, it's just bad game design for any series.

2. The dungeons are uninspired and lazy. The all felt like chores. The only one that was fun (and I did really enjoy this one) was the Gerudo guardian. All the others had brain dead puzzles, no enemies to fight, were doable in about 20-30 minutes, and ended with a lackluster boss. I don't understand why they guardians were so much easier than even some of the moderate level shrines.

3. The story is terrible. Lets be honest, I never go into a Nintendo or Zelda game expecting Shakespeare, but this game's story isn't even as complex or engaging as Ocarina of Time or any other Zelda game. It's broken up into tiny little clips scattered around, each Champion more or less says the same line to you, ("sorry I couldn't help you then, but I can help you now!") and the characters are completely one dimensional. Look at games like Windwaker or Twilight Princess where you had characters like Midna that had motivations, fears, backstory, hidden information, comedy, etc. Then compare that to this game's most involved character, Zelda, who only monotonously complains about living up to her Dad's expectations. As with the other two, it really just feels lazy. There's almost no depth to any of it. It's as simple as "Link wakes up after big battle. Link goes and fights Ganon." That's the story and I'm not even oversimplifying it.

4. It was missing all the traditional Zelda staples. No heart pieces. No temples. No green tunic (yes, it's there, but tucked away under 120 shrines which most people won't do). Very little humor. No items.

tl;dr To really sum it all up, I loved playing BOTW. I despite all these problems, even as big as they are, I'm glad I played this game and I'm looking forward to the DLC. But I feel like this game does all the traditional "Zelda" parts horribly. It's not that I don't want a series to change, or even that this changed too much. But this game doesn't even feel like a Zelda game to me. It has almost no elements of what Zelda has been for so long.

I think anyone who gives this game a 10/10 has only played the first few hours, because there's no way a game with those flaws could be called perfect.

I thought that Wind Waker was too large of a departure from Zelda when I first played it. Too much empty sailing ocean and it just wasn't like the rest. I changed my mind. I think this is a great Zelda game, and an even better regular game.

I agree with all of your criticisms, but there's no reason to couch it as "just a bad Zelda game. Those are flaws regardless of the franchise.

No, this is a pretty fantastic "Zelda" game. Majora's Mask is a terrible "Zelda" game (although it is a truly great game in general).

akira595 posted...

1. The bosses are a straight joke. I don't know what Nintendo was thinking, but having the same boss for every "dungeon" was lazy. Extremely lazy. The first time I fought one of the blights, I was excited because it was fun, but as soon as I got to the next one and saw it was just a re-skin, I was so disappointed. I can't begin to understand why the put so much love and time into the overworld, but then just re-skinned the same boss four times and gave each one a different attack. This is my biggest problem with the game and it has nothing to do with being Zelda or not, it's just bad game design for any series.

I have literally no idea what any of this is talking about. I don't think you know what a "reskin" is, and I don't think you actually bothered to fight all of the Blights if you think they were all the same plus or minus one attack. Just because the bosses were similar visually doesn't detract from the fact that they all had vastly different attacking styles.

akira595 posted...

the characters are completely one dimensional. Look at games like Windwaker or Twilight Princess where you had characters like Midna that had motivations, fears, backstory, hidden information, comedy, etc.

"I got turned into an imp, let's get revenge on Zant" is not one-dimensional?

Plenty of the NPCs in this game are fully fleshed out. You can find random villagers with better backstory than 90% of the characters in earlier Zelda games. Just because they didn't force you to learn about their history and let you discover it on your own doesn't make the characters bad.

akira595 posted...

4. It was missing all the traditional Zelda staples. No heart pieces. No temples. No green tunic (yes, it's there, but tucked away under 120 shrines which most people won't do). Very little humor. No items.

Spirit Orbs are Pieces of Heart, right down to needing to collect four of them for each Heart Container. There were four main dungeons and plenty of smaller dungeons that add up to more than the standard eight-ish dungeons worth of puzzles. You admit in your own sentence that there's a green tunic, and even then this game was never advertised as having one. Plus, a huge number of Links don't stick to the green tunic in any game anyway. Also, you can dye your clothes in Hateno, so you can get a green tunic once you bring a tunic there. I also want to know what humor you're thinking of that existed in Twilight Princess that isn't at least matched in this game, or what you're thinking of when you say this game has "no items".



This whole post is a "wah this game is nonlinear" and "wah I can't tell the difference between different bosses if they're the same color".

FFnut posted...

No, this is a pretty fantastic "Zelda" game. Majora's Mask is a terrible "Zelda" game (although it is a truly great game in general).

akira595 posted...

1. The bosses are a straight joke. I don't know what Nintendo was thinking, but having the same boss for every "dungeon" was lazy. Extremely lazy. The first time I fought one of the blights, I was excited because it was fun, but as soon as I got to the next one and saw it was just a re-skin, I was so disappointed. I can't begin to understand why the put so much love and time into the overworld, but then just re-skinned the same boss four times and gave each one a different attack. This is my biggest problem with the game and it has nothing to do with being Zelda or not, it's just bad game design for any series.

I have literally no idea what any of this is talking about. I don't think you know what a "reskin" is, and I don't think you actually bothered to fight all of the Blights if you think they were all the same plus or minus one attack. Just because the bosses were similar visually doesn't detract from the fact that they all had vastly different attacking styles.

akira595 posted...

the characters are completely one dimensional. Look at games like Windwaker or Twilight Princess where you had characters like Midna that had motivations, fears, backstory, hidden information, comedy, etc.

"I got turned into an imp, let's get revenge on Zant" is not one-dimensional?

Plenty of the NPCs in this game are fully fleshed out. You can find random villagers with better backstory than 90% of the characters in earlier Zelda games. Just because they didn't force you to learn about their history and let you discover it on your own doesn't make the characters bad.

akira595 posted...

4. It was missing all the traditional Zelda staples. No heart pieces. No temples. No green tunic (yes, it's there, but tucked away under 120 shrines which most people won't do). Very little humor. No items.

Spirit Orbs are Pieces of Heart, right down to needing to collect four of them for each Heart Container. There were four main dungeons and plenty of smaller dungeons that add up to more than the standard eight-ish dungeons worth of puzzles. You admit in your own sentence that there's a green tunic, and even then this game was never advertised as having one. Plus, a huge number of Links don't stick to the green tunic in any game anyway. Also, you can dye your clothes in Hateno, so you can get a green tunic once you bring a tunic there. I also want to know what humor you're thinking of that existed in Twilight Princess that isn't at least matched in this game, or what you're thinking of when you say this game has "no items".



This whole post is a "wah this game is nonlinear" and "wah I can't tell the difference between different bosses if they're the same color".

This. So much of this.

I think the dungeons had a lot inspiration. The whole 'controll the dungeon' thing was very innovative and clever. And many of the puzzles were harder than in other 3D Zeldas... They are just to short, otherwise they are great.

Or do you really thing older dungeons where hard? They were longer but not hard. Mostly it was 'use item you got in every room'.

I planned to counter all the nonsense in the OP, but FFnut basically covered it. Zelda started as an open world based on rewarding exploration and thinking for oneself. This is the most "Zelda" game since Adventure of Link.

re skinned but different attacks? they are not even close to same architecture when you take the painting and leave the wire-frame, and different attacks means is a completely different mechanic and monster. TC were you a result of the Y2K glitch when everyone got wasted and made a lot of mistakes?

TC, I think you just need to try and remove those nostalgia glasses a bit.

Yes, previous Zelda games were great. But just because you remember them as great (and maybe even playing them today, its more your memories of them that make you enjoy it more than the game itself), doesn't mean this game doesn't do it better.

While visual variety of bosses and a greater quantity of larger dungeons would have been great, don't confuse that with devaluing what we got. If the puzzles in the dungeons were too easy, its maybe because you got smarter. Because it makes previous game's puzzles look like kindergarden material.

And bosses are quite distinct in attacks, and even weapons they use. Just because you are knocking them down then whacking them until they die, doesn't make them worse than the dozens of previous Zelda bosses which mostly follow this pattern: use dungeon item, damage boss with sword, rinse and repeat 2 more times. At least BOTW bosses try to put up a fight. In recent memory, only Girahim's fights in Skyward Sword stand out to me as better.

I agree on the bosses and nothing more. Would have been cool to see some unique monsters as bosses.