Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)

Tell us about games you are currently playing. "Quick hit" reviews.
User avatar
Retro STrife
Posts: 2531
Joined: August 3rd, 2015, 7:40 pm

Re: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)

Postby Retro STrife » January 2nd, 2019, 10:20 am

I'm finally joining the fray, as I recently bought a Wii U and started playing Breath of the Wild. Right now I'm still in the Great Plateau, but I've explored every nook and cranny of it, and finished the first 3 shrines, and played like 5-10 hours. I'm really enjoying it so far, and I even get a little addicted in spurts. It's one of those games that I can play for a few hours straight without getting bored, which is a feat for me. I'll definitely keep playing it awhile longer. Two counterpoints though: (1) I almost always like Zelda games early on...the problem for me is that they drag on too long and become monotonous.. We'll see if BotW finally improves on that issue. Finally eschewing the old "beat 8 temples" formula should help. (2) Although I'm really enjoying the game, I've yet to get the feeling that I'm playing one of the greatest games of all time. So it has yet to overcome my theory that the gaming media's "Zelda bias" results in every Zelda game being overhyped. We'll see how I feel as I put more time into it, though.

User avatar
Retrology
Posts: 438
Joined: July 17th, 2015, 2:45 am

Re: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)

Postby Retrology » January 29th, 2019, 3:53 pm

After conquering three Divine Beasts and a lot of shrines, I can safely say this is the best game I've ever played. It's done what no other Zelda game has for me and has encouraged me to see as much of it as possible and to beat the game. For the first time I feel motivated to beat a Zelda game.

The dungeons have been criticized for being too easy, but I think they're a lot of fun without the tedium from previous Zelda games. And using as many weapons as you can for the boss fights while watching them deplete adds urgency and intensity to the fights. The side quests are loads of fun too and the game has made collecting items super easy. Personally, any game I've played before sucks in comparison because this might be the best one I'll ever play.

A couple hot takes in here? Probably. But this is a game I return to more excited than the last time I played every time. Once I got past the learning curve, I was hooked and overwhelmed by how good Breath of the Wild is.

Voor
Posts: 1555
Joined: April 14th, 2015, 8:08 pm

Re: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)

Postby Voor » August 10th, 2020, 11:12 am

I’m about 6 hours in and have really enjoyed it so far. I’ve never been into exploring The game worlds, but this one has really intrigued me. I still don’t get suckered into side quests though, Lol.

A couple of annoyances. I appreciate the logic and urgency behind weapons breaking, but bows breaking too? I found myself in a beast with lots of weapons and arrrows but all my bows were broken. Had to travel to a spot to fight enemies to get some back. Kind of aggravating.

Too many critical Instant death hits. I’ve always sucked at 3D combat, so this is an area of weakness for me and it’s kind of sucking the joy out of the game right now. I’m stuck on the water beast boss, who admittedly doesn’t seem to hard, but I still get hit....

User avatar
ActRaiser
Posts: 1544
Joined: April 8th, 2015, 12:38 pm

Re: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)

Postby ActRaiser » August 10th, 2020, 3:00 pm

Voor wrote:I’m about 6 hours in and have really enjoyed it so far. I’ve never been into exploring The game worlds, but this one has really intrigued me. I still don’t get suckered into side quests though, Lol.

A couple of annoyances. I appreciate the logic and urgency behind weapons breaking, but bows breaking too? I found myself in a beast with lots of weapons and arrrows but all my bows were broken. Had to travel to a spot to fight enemies to get some back. Kind of aggravating.

Too many critical Instant death hits. I’ve always sucked at 3D combat, so this is an area of weakness for me and it’s kind of sucking the joy out of the game right now. I’m stuck on the water beast boss, who admittedly doesn’t seem to hard, but I still get hit....


Eh, you may want to start exploring first and start getting your heart count up. Once you get a lot of those, everything else will start to be super easy. Sure, you can find fruit and cook to make the going easier to either give yourself more hearts temporarily or increase your hitting strength. But, the simplest option, keep exploring and then once you're a bit more hardened then take out the creatures that are 1 hit killing you. Until then, stay away. Also, as you're exploring find the fairy. She'll "harden" your armor which again makes things easier. This game is so big don't feel bad about looking online for a map for where things are located. Else, you may not find things that make it easier. The other thing I'd recommend is finding the climbing gear. Get those as soon as possible as it increases your climbing speed. Getting to the tops of hills and gliding allows you to explore much faster and again avoids enemies until you have more hearts. It's kind of a neat gaming loop, the more you explore the better you get. You'll find lots of spaces that will kill you. Mark it and then come back later when you're stronger. It's also kind of the games way to gate you from going places you may not be ready for yet. Just because you can attack an enemy doesn't mean that you should if that makes sense.

Voor
Posts: 1555
Joined: April 14th, 2015, 8:08 pm

Re: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)

Postby Voor » August 10th, 2020, 5:54 pm

Thanks I appreciate that and that’s actually good news, since exploring has been by far the most fun at this point. I only have 5 years but some orbs I can exchange for more hearts, so I’ll look around for places to do that and invest in some armor.

Is there a “preferred path” to the beasts? It seemed like the game was nudging me in one direction, but I don’t know if that’s true or if I just happened to be going that way.

User avatar
Retro STrife
Posts: 2531
Joined: August 3rd, 2015, 7:40 pm

Re: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)

Postby Retro STrife » August 11th, 2020, 10:24 am

Update to my post above....

For years, I've blasted the Zelda franchise for being the most overrated series in gaming. They're good games, don't get me wrong. But with its sacred status, the games have always defied criticism and get showered with 10's by every critic under the sun--despite the fact that the series did nothing to make any real innovation since Ocarina of Time. God forbid you give Skyward Sword a 9 instead of a 10, you might as well pack up your Wii and go live in a cave somewhere. No other series (except maybe Mario) receives that level of biased treatment. But the fans of the series don't annoy me - it's the gaming media that annoys me.

Anyway... I do that preface as set-up, to say that Breath of the Wild is the best Zelda game I've ever played. Even having beaten the classics like Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, and Ocarina of Time, I would say that Breath of the Wild is my favorite for sure. Was it given preferential treatment by critics like every other Zelda games? Sure - critics were terrified to give it less than a perfect 10 and face backlash from fans. (Some of the 10's were genuine, but come on, I refuse to believe that every critic thought it was perfect...) Still, this game is one where I can give those scores a pass. Nintendo finally innovated the series and moved in forward, and ditched the tired formula of the past. And it's so much better for it.

But, altogether, I only played BotW for about 15-20 hours. So why did I quit it fairly early? Well, I got sidetracked by Horizon Zero Dawn. Horizon Zero Dawn and Breath of the Wild are extremely similar games in their open world structure and concept (btw, they came out the same week, so the similarities are probably mostly coincidence), but I opted to stick with HZD because of the storyline, more mature themes, and a bit more RPG elements. No regrets at all, I loved HZD. But credit to BotW for returning my faith in the Zelda series after years of hate toward its sacred status.

User avatar
ActRaiser
Posts: 1544
Joined: April 8th, 2015, 12:38 pm

Re: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch)

Postby ActRaiser » August 11th, 2020, 12:28 pm

Voor wrote:Thanks I appreciate that and that’s actually good news, since exploring has been by far the most fun at this point. I only have 5 years but some orbs I can exchange for more hearts, so I’ll look around for places to do that and invest in some armor.

Is there a “preferred path” to the beasts? It seemed like the game was nudging me in one direction, but I don’t know if that’s true or if I just happened to be going that way.

I think it encourages you to go counter clockwise. But, I'm pretty sure on my second way through I kind of did it a bit lopsided and then back up to the top. If things are too hard, don't keep trying, break off and explore some more. That's the game telling you, you're not ready. You may need to figure out how to cook the right ingredients to harden yourself and prepare extra food to recover while in battle. The game gets easier as you go which is a bit counter intuitive.


Return to “Now Playing”