**UPDATED** Zelda BotW WiiU (Final Thoughs) SPOILERS

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Rookie1
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**UPDATED** Zelda BotW WiiU (Final Thoughs) SPOILERS

Postby Rookie1 » March 3rd, 2017, 4:11 pm

UPDATED #2

Having just beat this game and getting all the shrines, my problem is that I dont really care if I play it anymore. 95% of it was just wondering around finding stuff. There wasnt much of a story, or much going on at all. There was just a giant sandbox to play in. The beasts were super easy to complete, and it was the EXACT SAME thing in each one. None of the Gannon bosses were really a challenge. Furthermore, why did each boss need to be Gannon? There are so many they could have chosen from. Pretty lame if you ask me.

What really detracts from the replay value is that there is only one save state. Im not going to delete all my progress. WTF is that all about? I was told I could create a new account and switch between accounts to play different BotW save files, but that is stupid AF!

The one thing that really blows about this game is that nothing matters within it. None of the main story, none of the side quests, none of the shrines, nothing. You can (and people have already done it) start the game, walk to the final boss and beat him (them). You dont have to do to anything. So whats the point? You dont need the Master Sword or Hylian Shield or any of the abilities on the Sheika Phone, no armor, no horses, nothing. None of it matters. You can literally pick up a crappy weapon, a crappy shield and beat the game. Like seriously, Calamity Gannon is supposed to be this horrible super-power that destroyed Hyrule and all of the beasts and link and everyone else 100 years prior with little effort. Then link wakes up and destroys him in his boxer briefs with a bako-sheild and a rusty claymore? Its hilarious.

Granted, there were things in past Zelda games that didnt matter, like the gold skultuals for example or the eye of truth, but those felt like they expanded on the game-play and the narrative within the world you were playing. It didnt matter if you didnt get them, but if you did it added to the story around you. Whereas in BotW, I complete some weird shrine and get a thing. Or a random task and get thing. Or smash in the head of random enemy for a thing. It doesnt add to anything. Nothing you do adds to the story, and none of the items you collect matter. Even in the original Zelda game you needed the Master Sword to kill Gannon. You needed to complete all of the dungeons to progress through the game. You needed to collect the Tri-Force pieces. You needed to do certain things to beat it. In BotW you dont. You dont have to complete the Devine Beasts, you dont have to complete all the shrines, you dont have to get the Master Sword

I dont know what the DLC will bring to the table, but unless they plan on heavily expanding the story, its just going to be more inconsequential extras that have no bearing on anything except what someones personal tastes are. Do I want to play the game in Tingle's suit (yes thats a new DLC thing) or do I want to play it in only boxer-briefs with a tree branch from a weapon and a barrel lid for a shield?

Its a great game, but I feel there are better Zelda games out there. Its not even in my top 3. I could play LttP over and over and over and never get board. Same with OoT. BotW, I dont know if I would be willing to invest all that time in to it again.

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UPDATE #1

Ok, so I have played through a bit more. Just got through the first major town, have completed several shrines, and am on to the next.

I will say that this game is very very reminiscent of the first NES game. It is linear in nature, but you can do whatever you want in any order pretty much. The objectives are clear, and you can pick up lots of side missions from talking with individuals you meet.

This game is a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. I have deviated off the path and explored quite a bit. It is really easy to get over you head, and the further away from the mission objective you get it becomes very apparent that you are not well equipped. It feels pretty organic, like the map is layered in terms of difficulty. I would say I have died at least 30+ times now just exploring things lol.

I have seen others complaining about framerate issues, but I dont see anything of concern. I dont have an eye for that stuff though, so maybe its just me, but this game runs super smooth. It was designed for this console, so it makes sense that it would run well on it.

Some minor nitpicks. It feels like you do a ton of walking. Walking for days. Going from one objective to the next can take quite a while sometimes, and that feels a bit monotonous. Given that some of youre objectives are sometimes spaced so far apart, you are going to spend more time walking than anything else. You can get a horse, which we already saw back in 2012 (so not a spoiler), but even with that it still takes a while to get where youre going. Now, you can discover things that makes it easier to travel, kind of like how skyrim does it, so that adds to the exploration factor but that still takes a ton of time to do. Getting health and stamina increases also seems tedious. I dont know if it will stay like that through the entire game, but its a sh!t load of work just to get one extra heart. Your stamina is also a bit of a drag at times. Just doing a simple task like swimming is hindered by it, and it gets frustrating.

A +/- are the weapons. Weapons require strategy. In past Zelda games you just get a weapon and smash anything that comes in to view. You can do that in this game, but you risk loosing the fight by doing so. Seems like good weapons are scarce and hard to hang on to as of right now. Think fake Bigoron's sword in OOT.

One thing I forgot to mention was the environment. Its quite amazing. Every blade of grass moves on its own. You can see the wind blowing and how it effects them. its pretty incredible. The elements change your surroundings too. When it rains, some mechanics change. When it snows you shiver. When its hot, you sweat. Everything has an effect in some way. If you get caught in a big storm, well, I will let you find that out for yourself. Again, I cant say enough about the quality of this game.

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What an ordeal it was to get this game. I pre-ordered it on Amazon the day it went up. Checked my pre-order two weeks ago and it had been deleted, placed a new order, then when I was on another forum this morning I saw someone say their Amazon order was delayed for no apparent reason. I checked my order, and it was delayed until the 9th. WTH? So I canceled my order, and drove to best buy to get it. Also picked up an eshop card so I could get the DLC.

So I am a massive Zelda fan, but I can call a spade a spade. I thought Skyward Sword was garbage. Also wasnt a fan of Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks. With that said, I have been drooling over this game since its initial reveal, what? 5 years ago now? Wow! So I am going in to this game with some pretty high expectations.

I have just completed the first shrine trial, and will only be giving my opinion up until that point.

I know everyone is wondering about the graphics. Well, they look pretty dang good. I dont know what the Switch will enhance, but for a WiiU title I will say they are pretty beautiful. I really love the graphic style of the game, its a mix of cell shade and photo realism. Pretty cool. I saw some early comparison shots that made the WiiU version look murky and muddled with a terrible draw distance, but thats not the case at all. The graphics are sharp, and the draw distance is fine. You can see all the way across Hyrule with no problem and even make out minor details from a great distance. The game also looks great (and dare I say even a little better?) on the gamepad and the transition from the tv to the gamepad is flawless (who needs that silly Switch thing anyways?) I dont know how people spot frame rate issues, but I havent noticed anything of concern as of yet. I know skyrim would stutter sometimes, but I havent had anything like that happen yet.

Ok, so on to the gameplay. The controls are amazingly tight and intuitive, though I had a little learning curve getting used to the triggers while attacking. R1 acts as a way to equip your melee weapon, but if you hit it again it throws it. So I kept throwing my weapon during a fight by accident. You do have the option to invert your axis, which is nice. I can not play a game without inverted axis. You can also disable motion controls, which is even better. The game throws you right in to things. No long expositions, or forced tutorials. You just start, and can pretty much go and do whatever you want. The map system is cool, as well as the tech you get to use it. The inventory is a tiny bit clunky and could be tightened up a bit, but its not bad. I really like how you can pick pretty much anything up and have multiple of items, weapons, and gear. Fighting is also pretty solid, and s basically the same as the rest of the zelda games in recent years. Toggle to lock, and the kill! I heard they built a new physics engine for this game, and from little that I have seen from it so far, it is really cool.

On to load times. I purchased the DLC before loading the game, which took maybe 3 seconds to download. When I started the game there was a update already waiting to be downloaded. It did give me the option to skip it, however, but I decided to download it. It took about 10 minutes and gave me a server error at first. Not sure what the update did, but whatever. In game, the load times are absolutely minimal. The game started right up in to the gameplay, I didnt even notice anything loading. Going in and out of caves and shrines is instantaneous. I died to see what would happen and the game loaded from my last auto-save (which I had no idea the game was doing mind you) and took maybe 5 seconds to load up a new game! Such a welcome thing going from skyrim where if you die it takes 25 minutes to load a new game. I hate that!

Some other cool things are climbing. Thats major! You can climb anything, anywhere, any time. And its flawless. Link now has stamina, so his running, climbing, and swimming are now dictated by that. You can mix things to make potions, kind of like skyrim. You can pick up enemy weapons and armor. There is voice acting that sounds really good (FINALLY!) Exploration is key. Much like the original NES game, you can do whatever you want pretty much right when you start. Just from exploring the surrounding area of where you start, I found some cool items. Oh, and something major, no background music. Just ambient nature sounds most of the time. I love that! As I said earlier, Link can now sprint. He can also jump which is cool. You can also see all the gear he has equipped, whether its on his back or hanging off his belt. Everything has a place.

Ok, so whats bad. Well, they dont use the gamepad for anything. No map view, no inventor view, its does nothing. Its a waste, especially since the first item you get in the game i pretty much tailor made for the game pad. I mean, it really boggles my mind why this wasnt added for the WiiU. Total waste if you ask me.

The DLC chests. Just junk. Nothing that even matters to the game. So if you want to wait until the actual expansions come out before you buy it, you wont miss out on anything.

So thats all I have up to the point I am at. The game looks beautiful, and you can tell great care was taken in making it. Its the quality 1st party stuff that nintendo used to be known for. It really is. I cant wait to invest many hours of my life in to it.
Last edited by Rookie1 on May 3rd, 2017, 7:55 am, edited 2 times in total.

ESauce
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Re: Breath of the Wild WiiU (initial thoughts) SPOILER FREE

Postby ESauce » March 3rd, 2017, 5:25 pm

Thanks for the impressions. I've got the rental on the way from Gamefly. Hopefully it's here Monday.

One thing I'm a little concerned about. If you want to just get to the next plot point, dungeon, whatever, is your objective clear? From some of the reviews I've read it seemed like you just wander until you get to a point of interest. They all heaped praise on it for that but I don't have the free time to spend 100+ hours on a game and I'd like to be able to beat this one sometime in my lifetime.

Reviews of Metal Gear Solid 5 led me to buy that one, and it is a ton of fun but there's no way I'm ever beating it. I'm a little worried this Zelda will be the same. People seem blown away by the new direction of this Zelda, but I seem to be in the minority that prefers linear games. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see the innovation, but I thought Skyward Sword was fantastic and innovated on the Zelda formula far more than it got credit for.

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Rookie1
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Re: Breath of the Wild WiiU (initial thoughts) SPOILER FREE

Postby Rookie1 » March 3rd, 2017, 5:32 pm

ESauce wrote:Thanks for the impressions. I've got the rental on the way from Gamefly. Hopefully it's here Monday.

One thing I'm a little concerned about. If you want to just get to the next plot point, dungeon, whatever, is your objective clear? From some of the reviews I've read it seemed like you just wander until you get to a point of interest. They all heaped praise on it for that but I don't have the free time to spend 100+ hours on a game and I'd like to be able to beat this one sometime in my lifetime.

Reviews of Metal Gear Solid 5 led me to buy that one, and it is a ton of fun but there's no way I'm ever beating it. I'm a little worried this Zelda will be the same. People seem blown away by the new direction of this Zelda, but I seem to be in the minority that prefers linear games. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see the innovation, but I thought Skyward Sword was fantastic and innovated on the Zelda formula far more than it got credit for.


As of right now, everything has been clear. In fact, the last thing I did in the game was a sort-of tutorial explaining how to find where youre going and plot your points on the map. I dont know if that will last through the entire game, but Its been very clear as of right now. This game doesnt hold your hand like the others do, so it may get a little more exploration based later on.

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Re: Breath of the Wild WiiU (initial thoughts) SPOILER FREE

Postby VideoGameCritic » March 3rd, 2017, 7:52 pm

Thanks for taking the time to write this - very interesting! And thank you for keeping it spoiler-free! Very considerate!

Voor
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Re: Breath of the Wild WiiU (initial thoughts) SPOILER FREE

Postby Voor » March 3rd, 2017, 9:58 pm

Awesome. I'm not really interested in the Switch, but I have been thinking hard about getting a Wii U. I would grab this right away.

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Re: Breath of the Wild WiiU (initial thoughts) SPOILER FREE

Postby Atariboy » March 3rd, 2017, 11:40 pm

My Amazon order doesn't arrive until the 9th. :(

Rookie1 wrote:Ok, so whats bad. Well, they dont use the gamepad for anything. No map view, no inventor view, its does nothing. Its a waste, especially since the first item you get in the game i pretty much tailor made for the game pad. I mean, it really boggles my mind why this wasnt added for the WiiU. Total waste if you ask me.


It was actually there early on, but removed.

The producer said that he felt like glancing down to the gamepad screen to view your map or manage your inventory took the gamer out of the experience, even though that feature was universally praised with the Wind Waker and Twilight Princess HD remasters by fans and the media.

Since it's hard to understand the superiority of hitting the start button to freeze the action just to bring up a menu on your tv, the real reason is likely that they didn't want this version to be able to be perceived as superior in some way over the Switch version, and killed it off in order to make for a more equal experience between platforms.

That's because on the Switch, there is of course no way to play the game on your television while using the Switch touch screen as a 2nd display. Switch is a single screen experience any way it's enjoyed, unlike the Wii U or the last two Nintendo handhelds.

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Rookie1
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Re: Breath of the Wild WiiU (initial thoughts) SPOILER FREE

Postby Rookie1 » March 4th, 2017, 5:41 am

Atariboy wrote:My Amazon order doesn't arrive until the 9th. :(

It was actually there early on, but removed.

The producer said that he felt like glancing down to the gamepad screen to view your map or manage your inventory took the gamer out of the experience, even though that feature was universally praised with the Wind Waker and Twilight Princess HD remasters by fans and the media.

Since it's hard to understand the superiority of hitting the start button to freeze the action just to bring up a menu on your tv, the real reason is likely that they didn't want this version to be able to be perceived as superior in some way over the Switch version, and killed it off in order to make for a more equal experience between platforms.

That's because on the Switch, there is of course no way to play the game on your television while using the Switch touch screen as a 2nd display. Switch is a single screen experience any way it's enjoyed, unlike the Wii U or the last two Nintendo handhelds.


i figured it was something like that. i have stayed away from all press for the game so i didn't spoil it. its tailor made for the wii u gamepad though, such a shame they removed that feature. being able to glance down at it would have been so much better.

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Re: **UPDATED** Breath of the Wild WiiU (further thoughts) SPOILER FREE

Postby DaHeckIzDat » March 7th, 2017, 9:43 am

Would you recommend playing this game with the normal Wii U controller, or a pro controller? I tried playing Twilight Princess HD with the normal controller, and it felt wrong.

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Re: **UPDATED** Breath of the Wild WiiU (further thoughts) SPOILER FREE

Postby Rookie1 » March 7th, 2017, 1:19 pm

DaHeckIzDat wrote:Would you recommend playing this game with the normal Wii U controller, or a pro controller? I tried playing Twilight Princess HD with the normal controller, and it felt wrong.


I dont own a Pro Controller, but considering the gamepad is worthless in this game, you could use the Pro and not miss out on anything. Personally, I like the gamepad. It feels very comfortable.

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Re: **UPDATED** Zelda BotW WiiU (Final Thoughs) SPOILERS

Postby Rookie1 » May 3rd, 2017, 7:59 am

updated OP


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