Incline The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for Wii U and Switch

[RapineDel]

I've tried to get into this game a few times, played around 25 hours and it just doesn't do it for me, not sure what I'm missing that the "best game ever" crowd are seeing. Maybe it's because I've felt let down by every game since Gothic 1 and 2 when it comes to an open world.

The world is just too boring with not enough reason to bother exploring. I feel like the over world was a missed opportunity as it could've been so much better if the stamina/health increases were tied to things you find in the over world through puzzles etc. Having the actual fun, interesting content hidden in shrines is also stupid as it made the overworld just another hub to pad the gameplay while I look for them.

There's other useless additions like horses. What possible reason have you got to use one when once you unlock the towers you can just glide to any destination you want, again undermining any exploration. I'll pick it back up eventually to finish the 'dungeons', finish the shrines and beat the game but I was left underwhelmed. Again I feel like everyone who loves it can't have played Gothic 2 NOTR as it's a step down in every department with its open world design.

 

[ultra loser]

It's the usual story faggotry where people think having a story or focusing on story heavily elevates a game over others.

But it does, if I wanted to press some buttons without a reason I could do that without a video game.

 

[Bigg Boss]

These faggots that compared BotW to Skyrim:

You have no clue what you are talking about. Comparing BotW to Skyrim and then name dropping Link to the Past as superior makes you look like a butthurt faggot, when you then quote Ocarina of Time right afterward. That was when the series took a shit on open world. Goddamn pieces of shit burning in eternal fire while Daemons fuck your eyeholes. The Goddess Hylia frowns in your general direction. Couldn't mention Windwaker huh faggots? No, you mention Ocarina of Time because you played it when you were tweeelllveee.

You can tell which assholes LOVE Skyrim for sure. They are the same cunts that love to dress their character up in Hentai Kitty outfits while they stroke their little cocks to Argonian Wet Nurse 2: The Quaffering.

 

[imweasel]

Casual Codexers sure do get mad when someone criticizes their bland and shallow popamole, in this case Zelda-Skyrim.

 

[sullynathan]

There's other useless additions like horses. What possible reason have you got to use one when once you unlock the towers you can just glide to any destination you want, again undermining any exploration.

This isn't undermining exploration. It is a common sense thing that in an open world game you would (or should) have multiple modes of transportation, a horse being one of them. It's also a 3D Zelda thing to have a horse, there is nothing gained by removing a horse in the game. Even you seem to realize it by pointing out gliding from a tower, but when you're on the ground you aren't gliding but walking which is better with a horse. Horses only become a problem when they're ridiculously worse to handle than the standard mode of transportation, walking. You see this in every TES game that has a horse.

Nothing in your sentence explains why this would undermine exploration, you just traded one form of traversal (gliding) over another (riding a horse) to get to the same locations.

 

[taxalot]

Although I knew they were in the game, I never, ever used a horse in the entire game. The only drawback of that was what I was pretty confused for a couple of minutes while facing the final boss.

 

[RapineDel]

There's other useless additions like horses. What possible reason have you got to use one when once you unlock the towers you can just glide to any destination you want, again undermining any exploration.

This isn't undermining exploration. It is a common sense thing that in an open world game you would (or should) have multiple modes of transportation, a horse being one of them. It's also a 3D Zelda thing to have a horse, there is nothing gained by removing a horse in the game. Even you seem to realize it by pointing out gliding from a tower, but when you're on the ground you aren't gliding but walking which is better with a horse. Horses only become a problem when they're ridiculously worse to handle than the standard mode of transportation, walking. You see this in every TES game that has a horse.

Nothing in your sentence explains why this would undermine exploration, you just traded one form of traversal (gliding) over another (riding a horse) to get to the same locations.

I don't know about you, but for me in a game with exploration often it is about the journey and not just the destination, you find things along the way, something curious catches your eye and your plans change. The tower and gliding system allows you to just skip all that and pretty much fly wherever you need to at any given time. There's a huge leap between riding a horse to essentially increase your run speed compared to being able to land anywhere on the map at any given time.

 

[sullynathan]

I don't know about you, but for me in a game with exploration often it is about the journey and not just the destination, you find things along the way, something curious catches your eye and your plans change. The tower and gliding system allows you to just skip all that and pretty much fly wherever you need to at any given time. There's a huge leap between riding a horse to essentially increase your run speed compared to being able to land anywhere on the map at any given time.

Then why don't you just not glide from point A to B if it is impeding on your sense of exploration?

 

[RapineDel]

I don't know about you, but for me in a game with exploration often it is about the journey and not just the destination, you find things along the way, something curious catches your eye and your plans change. The tower and gliding system allows you to just skip all that and pretty much fly wherever you need to at any given time. There's a huge leap between riding a horse to essentially increase your run speed compared to being able to land anywhere on the map at any given time.

Then why don't you just not glide from point A to B if it is impeding on your sense of exploration?

You can't look at it that way, that's like saying you should play any modern game without the mini map and you'll get that old school experience like Morrowind etc. It doesn't work because the game hasn't been designed that way. Including a feature like that shows that they don't value the overworld all that much, I may give it a go in the near future when I'm done with some other Switch games but I really wasn't feeling it from what I played. Its an overrated game that gets a free pass on a lot of things because it's a Zelda title.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

This nitpicking about gliding undermining exploration is ridiculous. When you are gliding to an objective you can appreciate a bunch of other points of interest too and deviate to them, just like you do when you are on foot exploration. Using it for strictly going from point A to point B it's just your decision. Gliding isn't just for traveling faster, also it allows you to overfly and recon an entire area. That said, you can't see everything the landscape offers from just the towers (Towers that you must find and climg first to unlock them). You usually can see some shrines, barns, cities and some great fairy fountains. But the rest is left to be found. There is a lot of content hidden that you must discover exploring the map from different perspectives.

All this without considering that climing to an higher place to look easily the landscape and orientate yourself is crucial in real exploration. This is one of the core gameplay elements of the game, very related to the climbing.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

The Legend of Zelda ... leaps and bounds better than Zelda-Skyrim IMO.

You know what makes your post retarded?
It's the fact BotW is pretty much a conversion of the first Zelda to 3D.
This is something that was discussed in this very thread some 5 pages ago.

I feel like the over world was a missed opportunity as it could've been so much better if the stamina/health increases were tied to things you find in the over world through puzzles etc.

Did you even play game?
The Health and Stamina upgrades are received by exploring the world and solving puzzles.

There's other useless additions like horses. What possible reason have you got to use one when once you unlock the towers you can just glide to any destination you want,

That's simply not true.
While you can cover a lot of ground trough gliding (specially in high vertical areas) you still can't reach a big portion of the map by that means alone. The most immediate example being the Hyrule Central Plains. An extensive region that connects to all other regions, where the chances to use the glider are very limited (due the terrain) and traveling by foot is very dangerous (specially the closer you get to the castle) since it's a very open area with a high concentration of enemies. To top it off the Tower of that region is very far from any point of interest in the surrounding area and due to the terrain where the tower is located, you can't glide far away from it. As such horses come very very handy when traveling there. And this situation is not a rare occurrence.
Also to cover a lot of ground with the glider you need to jump from high places, which obviously involves traveling and climbing there. Something that is very time and resource consuming - and pretty dangerous in more distant areas from the starting point.
Horse travel is both fast, useful, efficient and safe. Sure you can complete the whole game without ever using a horse or any other mount, but there's also nothing to be gained by removing them from the game.

Again I feel like everyone who loves it can't have played Gothic 2 NOTR as it's a step down in every department with its open world design.

I completed Gothic 1/2, Morrowind and Fallout New Vegas. And I think BotW simply is a good open world game. Not as good as those 3 (and no one here ever said that), but still a good open world game and a step in the right direction for Nintendo.

I don't know about you, but for me in a game with exploration often it is about the journey and not just the destination, you find things along the way, something curious catches your eye and your plans change.

And BotW is all about this philosophy.
It was discussed in this thread how the outcome of the player's journey (in your own words the destination) in this game is most of the times just completely disappointing, because there's no proper reward in the end for your efforts. Which stands in stark contrast with how spectacular the journey there is.

The tower and gliding system allows you to just skip all that and pretty much fly wherever you need to at any given time. There's a huge leap between riding a horse to essentially increase your run speed compared to being able to land anywhere on the map at any given time.

EDIT: TheHeroOfTime already answered this for me, while I was writing this post.
I just like to add how in every single tower of the game there's no point of interest nearby, so they pretty much serve only has a way to recon the area and prepare for the journey ahead.

You can't look at it that way, that's like saying you should play any modern game without the mini map and you'll get that old school experience like Morrowind etc. It doesn't work because the game hasn't been designed that way.

You can complete the entire Main Quest and all the more unique Side Quests without the use of the mini-map or the quest compass.
This is one of the reasons guys like me, TheHeroOfTime and Delterius praised the game at all.
Because it's one of the very rare AAA games in the 10 last years to actually get things right.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

The person comparing BotW to Skyrim reminds me of those Budweiser Real Men of Genius commercials. This one is for you, good sir:

Combat:
Skyrim has a simplistic combat system where 90% of the time, you spam left mouse button, and whoever has a higher damage/health combo wins. BotW, on the other hand, has challenging enemies, timing based counters such as perfect dodge and perfect guard, slo-mo bullet-time for ranged, physics based combat options, mounted combat (melee and ranged). If you really master perfect guard, it is very similar to Dark Souls combat, with you having to learn each enemy's patterns.

Exploration:
Skyrim had one environment, the frozen north. BotW has an entire continent, with frozen mountains, tundras, deserts, jungles, plains, swamps, and forests. BotW had more interesting ways to get around and explore: paraglider, foot, climbing, horse/mount, boats. The world interactivity in BotW is about 400 times higher, making exploration more interesting as well. Unlike Skyrim's copy-pasta dragaur dungeons, BotW is filled with interesting unique things.

Intelligent gameplay:
Skyrim had puzzles that were insulting. BotW actually has interesting logical puzzles in shrines and mega-beasts.

Story:
Chosen one, you are a dragon too! BotW, on the other hand, a very touching story, even if it's not really the strength of the game.

Graphics:
Skyrim looks like crap cause Gamebryo. BotW looks very nice, especially for a Switch/WiiU title.

Now a Gothic 1/2 comparison to BotW is more interesting. I would say BotW has better combat and exploration (and obviously graphics), but G1/2 had better atmosphere, dialogues/quests, faction system, settlements, NPC AI, and character development.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Half the people offering opinions on this game did not play it, instead choosing to watch Youtube videos while rolling new DnD characters.

 

[RapineDel]

Now a Gothic 1/2 comparison to BotW is more interesting. I would say BotW has better combat and exploration (and obviously graphics), but G1/2 had better atmosphere, dialogues/quests, faction system, settlements, NPC AI, and character development.

BotW isn't an RPG so mentioning that it does better factions etc. is pretty much null and void. BotW might have better combat but it isn't a fair comparison either because for it's time, Gothic's combat was excellent and despite being more action focused combat it still had an RPG element in that you got better as you skilled up, this isn't the case in BotW. I really don't understand how BotW has better exploration. The 120 shrines around the world are straight out of a Bethesda title (in that you hike around looking for them), the korok seeds are insanely boring once you realise pretty much any potential secret is just going to be one of those which really kills the sense of discovery or wonder. Also the towers are in view so it becomes a checklist of finding every tower, climbing it to get fast travel, how is this not dull?

One thing I'll mention is the shrines themselves are actually great fun and the highlight of the game for me, the reason I'll go back to it is I do want to see the dungeons and shrines as they're absolutely worth playing through, it's the rest of the game that felt like a letdown.

In Gothic 2, there is fast travel but you actually have to work through interesting content to have access too it, the items of teleportation actually have to be found through exploration and you feel accomplished after finding the. The towers are just a system taken from Ubisoft games and are lazy design.

 

[sullynathan]

because for it's time, Gothic's combat was excellent

this is a lie, please stop repeating it.

there is fast travel but you actually have to work through interesting content to have access too it

Not all of them, you are given many of them because the game knows fast travel is important.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Sure, 120 Shrines is a lot and could be filler if each one was not designed so well, plus nobody makes you do 120 of them, which is why you get golden shit when you do. Skyrim is boring fucking shit with shit dungeons why is this being brought up? Are you Bethesda employees? Is this Todd Howard?

 

[Talby]

Skyrim is simply a superior version of Breath of the Wild, and given that Skyrim is now available for the Nintendo Switch, the choice is obvious. Buy Skyrim Remastered for Nintendo Switch today!

Spoiler

 

[imweasel]

The Legend of Zelda ... leaps and bounds better than Zelda-Skyrim IMO.

You know what makes your post retarded?
It's the fact BotW is pretty much a conversion of the first Zelda to 3D.

Wut? You can't be serious.

BotW doesn't have a single fucking labyrinth or really even a single sub boss. Hyrule castle only fits that description in a very distant sense.... but you can spend dozens of hours doing stupid mundane shit that The Legend of Zelda didn't have, like hiking to one of the 120 different stupid shrines to solve a puzzle or by collecting >200 korok seeds.

BotW is simply an open-world herpa derp collectathon and hiking simulator in the mold of Skyrim, where you spend 95% of the time walking/climbing/gliding around the overworld to do the same mundane shit over and over.

 

[RapineDel]

because for it's time, Gothic's combat was excellent

this is a lie, please stop repeating it.

there is fast travel but you actually have to work through interesting content to have access too it

Not all of them, you are given many of them because the game knows fast travel is important.

When you're given them it makes sense however, it's from an ally in town or from an NPC who needs you, there's not just a random tower in the middle of nowhere. Most people who hate Gothic's combat don't understand it, I'm not saying it holds up really well in a world post Dark Souls but for early 2000s action RPG combat I can't think of much better whereas I can certainly think of better combat then BotW (don't get me wrong, it's fine but it's nothing special).

 

[sullynathan]

Most people who hate Gothic's combat don't understand it

Most of us who have a low opinion of piranha bytes combat because we have played the repeated piranha bytes combat games and played games with far superior combat.

Please do not throw around the "action rpg of its time" shit because there are multiple games in the same time period with far superior combat and encounters.

Seriously play fucking devil may cry that released a few months after gothic. Play severance & onimusha that released a month or two before it. Play jedi knight 2 that released a few months before gothic 2.

It's not much of a point when you're ignorant to the games superior to gothic but well versed in games with better combat than breath of the wild.

 

[RapineDel]

Most people who hate Gothic's combat don't understand it

Most of us who have a low opinion of piranha bytes combat because we have played the repeated piranha bytes combat games and played games with far superior combat.

Please do not throw around the "action rpg of its time" shit because there are multiple games in the same time period with far superior combat and encounters.

Seriously play fucking devil may cry that released a few months after gothic. Play severance & onimusha that released a month or two before it. Play jedi knight 2 that released a few months before gothic 2.

It's not much of a point when you're ignorant to the games superior to gothic but well versed in games with better combat than breath of the wild.

Not really sure what hack and slash titles have to do with an ARPG. I'm talking about combat in the context of an ARPG not combat in general and I think Gothic struck a fine balance given it allows for player skill but not to the point where your upgrades don't matter which Dark Souls is a bit guilty of.

Anyway BotW is not an RPG, its an action adventure set in an open world so none of the comparisons should be RPG related, we're talking about the world and exploration above all else and I'm yet to hear how Breath of the Wild does this better then Gothic.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Also Enclave, Rune, Drakan and etc.
Literaly dozens of better action games with better melee combat.

 

[J1M]

The person comparing BotW to Skyrim reminds me of those Budweiser Real Men of Genius commercials. This one is for you, good sir:

Combat:
Skyrim has a simplistic combat system where 90% of the time, you spam left mouse button, and whoever has a higher damage/health combo wins. BotW, on the other hand, has challenging enemies, timing based counters such as perfect dodge and perfect guard, slo-mo bullet-time for ranged, physics based combat options, mounted combat (melee and ranged). If you really master perfect guard, it is very similar to Dark Souls combat, with you having to learn each enemy's patterns.

Exploration:
Skyrim had one environment, the frozen north. BotW has an entire continent, with frozen mountains, tundras, deserts, jungles, plains, swamps, and forests. BotW had more interesting ways to get around and explore: paraglider, foot, climbing, horse/mount, boats. The world interactivity in BotW is about 400 times higher, making exploration more interesting as well. Unlike Skyrim's copy-pasta dragaur dungeons, BotW is filled with interesting unique things.

Intelligent gameplay:
Skyrim had puzzles that were insulting. BotW actually has interesting logical puzzles in shrines and mega-beasts.

Story:
Chosen one, you are a dragon too! BotW, on the other hand, a very touching story, even if it's not really the strength of the game.

Graphics:
Skyrim looks like crap cause Gamebryo. BotW looks very nice, especially for a Switch/WiiU title.

Now a Gothic 1/2 comparison to BotW is more interesting. I would say BotW has better combat and exploration (and obviously graphics), but G1/2 had better atmosphere, dialogues/quests, faction system, settlements, NPC AI, and character development.

Yeah, but Skyrim had resolutions above 720p.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

BotW doesn't have a single fucking labyrinth or really even a single sub boss.

Yep Bigg Boss was rigth when he said you guys didn't even played the fucking game.
Please tell me what this is:

Spoiler

As for the the rest of your post, I'll just quote myself since this has already been discussed.

Twiligth Princess was the last good Zelda game that followed the LttP/OoT formula.

BotW doesn't follow that formula that's why some of you think it's not a Zelda game. What you don't know is that BotW tries to go back to it's roots, namely the first ever Zelda game. Why? Because the first Zelda game like BotW was trying to be a completely non-linear game. Like BotW you could go anywhere from the start, you could complete any area/dungeon in the order you saw fit, and you could most of the times surpass it's obstacles in multiple ways.
Meaning that BotW is the first Zelda game in a very long time to have player agency.

Ya sure it's not as tight as the other Zelda games that follow the formula, and there problems (when I got time I will make a review), but the game is still great, innovative and the fact it doesn't follow the formula is for the most part a very good thing. In fact BotW IMHO is just the best open world game to have come out since New Vegas. Something which is fucking astonishing considering it was made by Nintendo who was almost no experience making games like these.

Yeah, but Skyrim had resolutions above 720p.

You could have Skyrim run at 12k it will still look like shit. Same can't be said for BotW.

 

[J1M]

I wouldn't know, I haven't played Skyrim. Would be nice if Nintendo made 60fps games though.