2017/5/9: Nintendo Switch: 1-2-Switch, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

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VideoGameCritic
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2017/5/9: Nintendo Switch: 1-2-Switch, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Postby VideoGameCritic » May 9th, 2017, 9:55 pm

Finally some Switch reviews! Let's see some feedback.
More on the way this week!

Also want to extend a big thank you to Mark Jewell for providing the new Switch graphics for the mobile site!

eneuman96
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Re: 2017/5/9: Nintendo Switch: 1-2-Switch, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Postby eneuman96 » May 9th, 2017, 10:48 pm

Ironically, I think Breath of the Wild, in spite of being nothing short of amazing for the most part, has a number of flaws that hold it back from being an A+ game in my book. I wish there weren't so many enemies that kill you in one hit without warning until you get the dozens of Spirit Orbs necessary to get enough max health for them to kill you in two hits. I opted to prioritize stamina over health because it's very frustrating to ALMOST get to the top of a cliff before falling to your death. I absolutely cannot stand the rain making cliffs slippery to climb, and although I'm fine with the durability system, I wish each weapon didn't break quite so quickly. A meter indicating how many hits they can take would be a welcome addition instead of the game only telling you when they're just about to break.

Just about everything else in the game is damn near perfect, which makes the aforementioned blemishes more noticeable than they would be otherwise but also more forgivable because of how much of a joy it is to explore every nook and cranny of every area. Paragliding never stops being satisfying and this game manages to make you get excited whenever you see the color orange in the distance. I like how the concept of the shrines means you can generally skip the ones you find overly difficult and just make sure to find more instead. The game's sheer creativity, especially considering it's part of a 30-year-old franchise, is extremely refreshing considering how cookiecutter AAA titles tend to be. It'll hopefully be seen as a revolution for both Zelda and open-world games, and unlike the latest Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed campaign, I can safely say I'll be revisiting this game for years to come.

So yeah, it may have some flaws, but holy crap is it good otherwise.

Oh, right, and I just remembered 1-2-Switch exists too.

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BlasteroidAli
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Re: 2017/5/9: Nintendo Switch: 1-2-Switch, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Postby BlasteroidAli » May 9th, 2017, 11:51 pm

Two okay games.. interesting to hear your theories on 12 switch.. for me they should have released a new wario ware instead...
zelda looks good...though not a reason to spend 329 pounds...

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Rookie1
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Re: 2017/5/9: Nintendo Switch: 1-2-Switch, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Postby Rookie1 » May 10th, 2017, 6:19 am

I would give BotW as solid B. Its a great game, no doubt, but it very shallow in terms of actual substance that matters to anything you do. Like I said in my thread, nothing in the game matters. You can start the game, walk to the end boss and kill him with little effort. The Devine Beasts are also super bland. Solve 5 puzzles, kill a boss, done. They were like beating a Rubix Cube that only had 4 squares on each side.

Im curious to see what the expansion DLC does, but from what I have seen thus far it doesnt add much to the actual game itself.

I reeeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllyyyyyyy hope they change thing up so I can have more than one save slot. For me, there is zero replayability because I am not deleting my saved game.

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Re: 2017/5/9: Nintendo Switch: 1-2-Switch, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Postby VideoGameCritic » May 10th, 2017, 7:54 am

I disagree about the Divine Beasts being bland. I mean, first you have to disable the thing, but you're not done. Then you have to enter the thing and figure out a bunch of puzzles. And THEN you have to face the REAL boss inside, and they are scary.

As for the save slots, what if you just started the game with a different profile?

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ptdebate
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Re: 2017/5/9: Nintendo Switch: 1-2-Switch, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Postby ptdebate » May 10th, 2017, 8:19 am

Critic, I am 100% with you on your Breath of the Wild A+ score.

While perhaps having a couple of flaws, this game is so far above the rest of the industry that there is unlikely to be anything like it for some time.

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Re: 2017/5/9: Nintendo Switch: 1-2-Switch, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Postby Gentlegamer » May 10th, 2017, 8:50 am

My review for 1-2-Switch would be: "Not a video game. No rating"

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Rookie1
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Re: 2017/5/9: Nintendo Switch: 1-2-Switch, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Postby Rookie1 » May 10th, 2017, 9:18 am

VideoGameCritic wrote:I disagree about the Divine Beasts being bland. I mean, first you have to disable the thing, but you're not done. Then you have to enter the thing and figure out a bunch of puzzles. And THEN you have to face the REAL boss inside, and they are scary.

As for the save slots, what if you just started the game with a different profile?


I felt like there was no challenge with them. The puzzles were pretty easy, and the bosses were all the same. Just different looking Gannons. They didnt need to go through a traditional route with them, but adding some enemies in them and some actual challenges along with bosses that were unique and not gannon would have been way better IMO.

The one thing that really irked me about them is that you didnt need to do them. And if you did do them, it didnt add much to the game. You know, in other Zelda games you get special items that assist you through the game. Here you got specialty weapons that werent great, and in the end, Gannon is just as beatable without the beasts as he is with them.

I dunno, after I had beet it I was just underwhelmed in that I didnt feel immersed in the game. I was in control, doing things, but it wasnt like I was the avatar in the middle of this massive story. I was just jumping off mountains and running through fields looking for shrines. I had no attachment to anything because nothing really mattered in the game. I didnt have that sense of "oh. man! look at how crazy death mountain looks, I wonder what that area is going to be like!?" like I have had with other games. Why? Because I didnt have to go to death mountain.

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Re: 2017/5/9: Nintendo Switch: 1-2-Switch, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Postby BanjoPickles » May 10th, 2017, 12:02 pm

Now that I've finished the main game (having plowed through 92 of the shrines), I can say that it is in the top three of the entire franchise! Having said that, I did have some issues:

1). The stupid rain/lightning that rendered climbing impossible! This wouldn't have been so bad if the developers didn't mistake Hyrule for friggin' Seattle! Nothing takes you out of the game more than stripping down to your boxers, and waiting for the rain to stop (one time, I waited seven minutes! That's insane!)

2). A lack of memorable dungeons. I loved the micro-dungeon approach, but it would have been nice to see some actual Zelda-esque dungeons with real enemies! The Divine Beasts, and the shrines, seemed entirely too empty!

3). The bosses. Rookie is right in that the game lacked memorable boss encounters. Even two weeks after finishing the game, I have forgotten the few boss encounters, while the encounters from Zelda 1-3, Link's Awakening, and Ocarina of Time are permanently etched into my mind.

4). Those. Stupid. Guardians!

5). Horse back riding is an absolute hassle!

Even with those flaws, I think that the game deserves an A+ because it is such an experience! From a gameplay perspective, though, I would take a game like, say, Dark Souls or Bloodborne over BotW because I think that the actual combat is more thought out and the boss/enemy encounters in those games, much like the Zeldas of yore, are permanently etched into my mind (The Nameless King!!!).

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ptdebate
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Re: 2017/5/9: Nintendo Switch: 1-2-Switch, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Postby ptdebate » May 10th, 2017, 2:16 pm

BanjoPickles wrote:Now that I've finished the main game (having plowed through 92 of the shrines), I can say that it is in the top three of the entire franchise! Having said that, I did have some issues:

...

2). A lack of memorable dungeons. I loved the micro-dungeon approach, but it would have been nice to see some actual Zelda-esque dungeons with real enemies! The Divine Beasts, and the shrines, seemed entirely too empty!

...

5). Horse back riding is an absolute hassle!

Even with those flaws, I think that the game deserves an A+ because it is such an experience! From a gameplay perspective, though, I would take a game like, say, Dark Souls or Bloodborne over BotW because I think that the actual combat is more thought out and the boss/enemy encounters in those games, much like the Zeldas of yore, are permanently etched into my mind (The Nameless King!!!).


Agreed that Bloodborne/Dark Souls are superior to BoTW from a purely combat/boss encounter standpoint. I would say that a lot of the innovative thinking in BoTW comes through in the world design and the overall balance of the systems with variables like exploration, weather, etc. BoTW is just staggering in terms of its scale. Dark Souls, while perhaps a technically better-designed game, doesn't feel like a massive world to discover (even though what is there to discover is quite interesting).

The dungeons don't bother me that much, but I'm not as big on dungeons as other Zelda fans. I'm not sure where you took issue with horseback riding, but then again, I didn't use the horse that much but instead relied on my paraglider for transportation.


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