My Thoughts on Breath of the Wild (Obvious Spoilers Ahead)

[Elvis Starburst]

After finally beating the game yesterday, spending a week and almost all of my free time enjoying the game, I think it's time I threw my hat into the ring. If you're wondering why this isn't in user reviews, this is more of a point by point mish-mash than a well thought out review. Plus I wanna hear everyone else' thoughts and discuss, and nobody goes in user reviews. With that, I'll be splitting my thoughts into +Positive, =Middle ground, and -Negative points.

+ The game is beautiful. Art direction trumps graphical power in my eyes, and this game has that fact down.
+ The puzzles are very well handled. I liked a lot of them, especially in dungeons. Shrines got a bit iffy when motion controls got involved, but besides that, they felt satisfying to solve.
+ Having everything open to you, allowing you to go about tackling areas, dungeons, or situations at your leisure is great. Though, things do feel a bit less tight-nit as they did in past installments.
+ Bosses are often times quite challenging, and I had a fun time fighting all of them. Every boss tested my reflexes and skill, which I was very pleased to see. It was awkward remembering to use my slate in the middle of a fight, though.
+ Hyrule Castle is so much fun in this game. The music sets it together so well. The atmosphere is perfect. I love how big the place is! Was quite challenging to get through.
+ Your horse automatically following paths is, in my eyes, pretty nice. It lets me check out the world, or plan a little bit without having to constantly adjust my direction. It's easy to just wander off the paths anyways.
+ Despite towers being in this game like every other open world game apparently has to have, I'm glad that going to the top of one just filled the map and that was all it did. I'd be very disappointed if every sector of the map suddenly got a metric fuck-ton of icons and "activities" plastered all over it.
+ Without the need for a hero mode, enemies hit HARD and I love it. I've seen the game over screen a lot and I'm happy that it's happening in a Zelda game. The game has proven to be quite challenging because of it. Though, different enemy tactics and strategies might've benefited, rather than the damage output merely being cranked. Buuuut, this did require me to be very careful with how I handled combat, and that's well appreciated.

+= This one is in a weird spot. The music is both a positive and a middle ground. I think it's maybe a bit too minimalist at times. Overworld and dungeons could maybe use some more instruments, variety, or just more songs in general. But, the soft piano tracks I feel contrast greatly with music that is more intense (Boss/Guardian battle themes) which only adds to how powerful they can feel. When the music hits strong, it sounds fantastic and makes it feel like the Zelda we know.

= The world is huge, and I enjoy this fact. Though, a lot of it is just empty space, and it's too bad it's not packed with more little secrets other than shrines.
= Dungeons are fantastically designed, I LOVE using the dungeon itself to solve puzzles. But, sometimes they feel a bit too small/short. If I didn't get stumped at some points, they would've all been solved a bit too quickly for my tastes. They needed to be bigger, and maybe have a mini boss, or at the very least more enemies.
= To add to the above, more traditional dungeons in the world might've been fun. Maybe have those, as well as the Divine Beasts would've been a nice mix to see. As it stands, the Divine Beasts aren't quite up to par with previous dungeon designs, in my opinion.
= Boss design wasn't spectacular. Seeing the dungeon bosses all look rather similar was a bit disappointing, but it didn't bother me much once the fight got going.
= For an open world title, enemy variety is surprisingly lacking. Where are the dodongos, iron knuckles/dark nuts, flaming bubbles, or the beamos? So many classic enemies aren't here! I at least hoped for dark nuts in Hyrule Castle.
= I think the voice acting is... middle of the road. I liked the male cast a lot, and some of the female cast sound just fine. But Mipha and Zelda... oh dear. Neither of them were quite there. Awkward, strange choices.
= The amount of stamina you start out with is... damn small. Way too small. I got through the game with 2 gauges at least, but I didn't wanna go through enough shrines to make it a third.

- Weapon durability blows. Weapons need to last longer than they do. I upgraded my weapon stash, hoarded good weapons, and yet I never used a lot of them cause they were too good to use on normal enemies.
- I like my frame rates stable, and this game struggles at times. Though, I have learned elsewhere that the game runs better in handheld mode, so I assume this is due to the Switch having to upscale to 900p, which adds to the struggle.
- To add to the above, the game can outright freeze for a few moments before catching up. granted, this was in TV mode, and happened mostly when hitting Moblins with claymore/axe weapons.

Spoiler: - Big final boss spoiler

The 2nd phase final boss Dark Beast Ganon was REALLY cool, but it's too bad the fight is little more than spectacle. I only saw 1 attack, and it was really easy to deal with. It was an exciting fight regardless, but I think it could've been so much more!

So, how does everyone else feel about the above? Got anything else to add I might've missed? Also, I look forward to seeing this game's future updates. Hopefully they'll fix a few things I've listed here!

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I don't own a Switch or Breath of the Wild, but I have played the game at a friend's house, and while I can't give any opinions on the game's story, characters, etc because I don't have enough playtime to formulate opinions on that, I can give some insight into the general mechanics as well as the look and feel of the game.

Positives:

The game looks great. I really dig the art style. It's simple and clean and hits a good middle ground between Windwaker and Twilight Princess in terms of visual design. Not too cartoony, not too realistic.

The combat feels really nice. It's the best combat of any Zelda game so far. It's actually decently challenging and makes you think on your feet. The older Zelda games' combat generally just devolved into "swing your sword wildly until everything is dead, then smash pots and pick up hearts." It never really felt like you were in danger, except when fighting very specific enemies or bosses.

Negatives:

The game runs poorly. Yeah I said it. It's not the worst running game I've ever seen or anything, not by a long shot, but I'm thoroughly unimpressed by the game when it's not hitting 30fps consistently at 900p. 1080p is standard guys, if you couldn't hit that you should have gone back to the drawing board. People saying "well it runs fine in handheld mode" can fuck right off. I don't want to play a handheld, I want to play it as a console, and it should run well in both modes. Saying it runs fine in handheld mode does not excuse the poor performance in console mode. I guess this is less a fault of the game itself and more of a fault of the Switch, but considering the only alternative is playing on the WiiU, which has even worse performance from what I understand, I think it's totally fair to criticize this point.

Weapon durability sucks, nuff said.

I hate the stamina meter. I don't think it adds anything meaningful to the game, it's more of an annoyance than anything else, and I also think that it's ugly and I don't like the way it looks or its positioning on the UI. And here's the thing, I generally like action games with stamina meters. I love Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and I'm playing Nioh and liking it, and I feel that stamina management adds something to those games. I hate it in Breath of the Wild.


So yeah, those are my opinions on the game as someone who doesn't own it, and has only played it for a few hours. Take it how you will.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'd be a lot more okay with the weapon degradation if there was a way to circumvent it, like for example by performing flurries.

I hate the stamina meter. I don't think it adds anything meaningful to the game, it's more of an annoyance than anything else, and I also think that it's ugly and I don't like the way it looks or its positioning on the UI. And here's the thing, I generally like action games with stamina meters. I love Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and I'm playing Nioh and liking it, and I feel that stamina management adds something to those games. I hate it in Breath of the Wild.

Without the stamina wheel traversal would've been way too effortless. The one mechanic that makes this game is the ability to climb everything that isn't a sheika shrine, and they balance this out by tying it to your stamina. This means that while you can climb everything you still need to think strategically. 'Can I make it to the top? Are there any slanted sections where I can regain some stamina?' I've had more fun making my way up an enormous cliff and managing my stamina to do so, than I have with any combat encounter.

The stamina consumption during swimming though is way too punishing. It makes it so you never want to go into the water for fear of drowning within seconds. During climbing you can make one final jump with a sliver of stamina to try and make it to the top, or drop yourself and parachute before you hit the ground. But with simming there's no way to get out of a tricky situation, you're just fucked.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I'd be a lot more okay with the weapon degradation if there was a way to circumvent it, like for example by performing flurries.

I hate the stamina meter. I don't think it adds anything meaningful to the game, it's more of an annoyance than anything else, and I also think that it's ugly and I don't like the way it looks or its positioning on the UI. And here's the thing, I generally like action games with stamina meters. I love Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and I'm playing Nioh and liking it, and I feel that stamina management adds something to those games. I hate it in Breath of the Wild.

Without the stamina wheel traversal would've been way too effortless. The one mechanic that makes this game is the ability to climb everything that isn't a sheika shrine, and they balance this out by tying it to your stamina. This means that while you can climb everything you still need to think strategically. 'Can I make it to the top? Are there any slanted sections where I can regain some stamina?' I've had more fun making my way up an enormous cliff and managing my stamina to do so, than I have with any combat encounter.

The stamina consumption during swimming though is way too punishing. It makes it so you never want to go into the water for fear of drowning within seconds. During climbing you can make one final jump with a sliver of stamina to try and make it to the top, or drop yourself and parachute before you hit the ground. But with simming there's no way to get out of a tricky situation, you're just fucked.

I would have preferred items that aided in traversal rather than tying it to a stamina meter. Perhaps even using some kind of consumable items that you need to replenish, like needing to buy climbing rope in order to climb mountains and using it up as you go.

Or take the glider for example. Instead of tying how far you can glide to your stamina (which doesn't even make sense) have Link gather materials to make the wing of his glider larger and larger to travel longer distances.

 

[EternallyBored]

I'd be a lot more okay with the weapon degradation if there was a way to circumvent it, like for example by performing flurries.

I hate the stamina meter. I don't think it adds anything meaningful to the game, it's more of an annoyance than anything else, and I also think that it's ugly and I don't like the way it looks or its positioning on the UI. And here's the thing, I generally like action games with stamina meters. I love Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and I'm playing Nioh and liking it, and I feel that stamina management adds something to those games. I hate it in Breath of the Wild.

Without the stamina wheel traversal would've been way too effortless. The one mechanic that makes this game is the ability to climb everything that isn't a sheika shrine, and they balance this out by tying it to your stamina. This means that while you can climb everything you still need to think strategically. 'Can I make it to the top? Are there any slanted sections where I can regain some stamina?' I've had more fun making my way up an enormous cliff and managing my stamina to do so, than I have with any combat encounter.

The stamina consumption during swimming though is way too punishing. It makes it so you never want to go into the water for fear of drowning within seconds. During climbing you can make one final jump with a sliver of stamina to try and make it to the top, or drop yourself and parachute before you hit the ground. But with simming there's no way to get out of a tricky situation, you're just fucked.

Except with the stamina wheel two of the main forms of traversal are a colossal pain in the ass, running and swimming are hurt immensely with stamina that drains too fast, you mentioned swimming, but running feels way too limited by the stamina bar as well. If those were extended or changed while climbing was still effected by stamina, I could see the system making sense to limit traversal, the stamina usage for the glider seems to be pretty good too, as I've encountered few drops you can't glide most of your way through even from the beginning and if you misjudge you can just drop and redeploy to avoid damage.

As it stands, the system makes sense with climbing, but hurts both swimming and running, it's a system that really frustrates me when I am just trying to run around and explore, or backtrack in shrines when I don't even have the option of using a mount.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I would have preferred items that aided in traversal rather than tying it to a stamina meter. Perhaps even using some kind of consumable items that you need to replenish, like needing to buy climbing rope in order to climb mountains and using it up as you go.

That'd mean you'd have to spend money constantly in order to climb. This would kneecap the exploration. What makes the game so captivating and addicting is that you can just go anywhere. You are given no limitations other than you're stamina, which if you manage it well enough won't hold you back either.

Or take the glider for example. Instead of tying how far you can glide to your stamina (which doesn't even make sense) have Link gather materials to make the wing of his glider larger and larger to travel longer distances.

It makes sense in that it signifies how long you can hold on to the glider.

And honestly, after three upgrades to your stamina -- together with Revali's Gale, which you acquire after you clear the Rito dungeon -- there's few places you won't be able to get to, either climbing or gliding.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Except with the stamina wheel two of the main forms of traversal are a colossal pain in the ass, running and swimming are hurt immensely with stamina that drains too fast, you mentioned swimming, but running feels way too limited by the stamina bar as well. If those were extended or changed while climbing was still effected by stamina, I could see the system making sense to limit traversal, the stamina usage for the glider seems to be pretty good too, as I've encountered few drops you can't glide most of your way through even from the beginning and if you misjudge you can just drop and redeploy to avoid damage.

As it stands, the system makes sense with climbing, but hurts both swimming and running, it's a system that really frustrates me when I am just trying to run around and explore, or backtrack in shrines when I don't even have the option of using a mount.

Initially running felt extremely hampered, but when I realized stamina regenerates quite quickly if you don't consume it completely I didn't have too much of a problem with it. Plus, there's horses.

I will say it's kind of ridiculous that the bigger your stamina is the more time it takes to regenerate. For example, if you haven't upgraded your stamina it takes less time to recover from exhaustion than if you upgraded your stamina to twice the size, which makes no sense at all.

 

[EternallyBored]

Except with the stamina wheel two of the main forms of traversal are a colossal pain in the ass, running and swimming are hurt immensely with stamina that drains too fast, you mentioned swimming, but running feels way too limited by the stamina bar as well. If those were extended or changed while climbing was still effected by stamina, I could see the system making sense to limit traversal, the stamina usage for the glider seems to be pretty good too, as I've encountered few drops you can't glide most of your way through even from the beginning and if you misjudge you can just drop and redeploy to avoid damage.

As it stands, the system makes sense with climbing, but hurts both swimming and running, it's a system that really frustrates me when I am just trying to run around and explore, or backtrack in shrines when I don't even have the option of using a mount.

Initially running felt extremely hampered, but when I realized stamina regenerates quite quickly if you don't consume it completely I didn't have too much of a problem with it. Plus, there's horses.

I will say it's kind of ridiculous that the bigger your stamina is the more time it takes to regenerate. For example, if you haven't upgraded your stamina it takes less time to recover from exhaustion than if you upgraded your stamina to twice the size, which makes no sense at all.

It helps, but it still feels like an almost pathetically short distance, even with upgrades, the sprint distance is anemic, and reminds me of FF15's stamina bar in all the worst ways I had to get something like 4-6 upgrades just to feel like the distance was sort of acceptable rather than completely worthless. Swimming is even worse as death is attached, its also pointless as you can just spam ice blocks, making stamina worthless as you can traverse any body of water right from the start just by gliding from ice block to ice block.

Now that I think about it, Even with climbing, as a way to measure game progression it doesn't even really work that well, I was climbing wherever I wanted throughout the whole game, just chugging potions to restore stamina, I never worried about height or platforms or if I needed to jump off at any point. Even by the time I had made it off the tutorial plateau, I had enough stamina elixirs and food to climb any where I wanted. I can't really think of a single time I ran into something I couldn't climb up, even the tallest place I found required maybe 10 minutes of ingredient gathering and food preparation, sites to gather stamina mushrooms and other ingredients are super common even at the start of the game.

I just turned on my Switch to count, I am sitting on enough stamina elixirs to completely fill my bar no less than 20+ times, and there is nothing stopping me from chugging them while I am on a wall. As a way to bar early progression, its too easily broken with minimal preparation with even early game items.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I would have preferred items that aided in traversal rather than tying it to a stamina meter. Perhaps even using some kind of consumable items that you need to replenish, like needing to buy climbing rope in order to climb mountains and using it up as you go.

That'd mean you'd have to spend money constantly in order to climb. This would kneecap the exploration. What makes the game so captivating and addicting is that you can just go anywhere. You are given no limitations other than you're stamina, which if you manage it well enough won't hold you back either.

Or take the glider for example. Instead of tying how far you can glide to your stamina (which doesn't even make sense) have Link gather materials to make the wing of his glider larger and larger to travel longer distances.

It makes sense in that it signifies how long you can hold on to the glider.

And honestly, after three upgrades to your stamina -- together with Revali's Gale, which you acquire after you clear the Rito dungeon -- there's few places you won't be able to get to, either climbing or gliding.

Money tends to be near useless in most Zelda games (seriously, the only time I'm never not maxed on money is the moment after upgrading to a bigger wallet), so I'm ok with forcing the player to spend it on necessities.

Didn't know about Revali's Gale. Like I said, only have a couple hours of playtime, and I'm not sure if my friend had it unlocked at the time that I was playing so I guess my point about the glider becomes sort of moot. Having said that, your point about Revali's Gale is exactly the kind of thing that I mean when I say I would rather have traversal tied to items and abilities rather than just stamina. It's much more exciting when you get a new item/ability and suddenly more traversal options are open to you rather than just incrementally increasing your stamina until you can finally reach the top of that mountain you've been trying to climb. Maybe that's just personal preference.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Money tends to be near useless in most Zelda games (seriously, the only time I'm never not maxed on money is the moment after upgrading to a bigger wallet), so I'm ok with forcing the player to spend it on necessities.

Money in BotW is fairly rare though, at least when it comes to finding it. You can sell items that don't have an immediate use, like minerals, but even those can be used to upgrade gear. And some of the clothes you can buy, like cold resisted gear, can go for more than 600 a piece.

Didn't know about Revali's Gale. Like I said, only have a couple hours of playtime, and I'm not sure if my friend had it unlocked at the time that I was playing so I guess my point about the glider becomes sort of moot. Having said that, your point about Revali's Gale is exactly the kind of thing that I mean when I say I would rather have traversal tied to items and abilities rather than just stamina. It's much more exciting when you get a new item/ability and suddenly more traversal options are open to you rather than just incrementally increasing your stamina until you can finally reach the top of that mountain you've been trying to climb. Maybe that's just personal preference.

It's not of constant use though, you get 3 charges to use an upward draft that carry you up quite a bit, at which point it'll take about 10 minutes or so to recharge.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Money tends to be near useless in most Zelda games (seriously, the only time I'm never not maxed on money is the moment after upgrading to a bigger wallet), so I'm ok with forcing the player to spend it on necessities.

Money in BotW is fairly rare though, at least when it comes to finding it. You can sell items that don't have an immediate use, like minerals, but even those can be used to upgrade gear. And some of the clothes you can buy, like cold resisted gear, can go for more than 600 a piece.

Didn't know about Revali's Gale. Like I said, only have a couple hours of playtime, and I'm not sure if my friend had it unlocked at the time that I was playing so I guess my point about the glider becomes sort of moot. Having said that, your point about Revali's Gale is exactly the kind of thing that I mean when I say I would rather have traversal tied to items and abilities rather than just stamina. It's much more exciting when you get a new item/ability and suddenly more traversal options are open to you rather than just incrementally increasing your stamina until you can finally reach the top of that mountain you've been trying to climb. Maybe that's just personal preference.

It's not of constant use though, you get 3 charges to use an upward draft that carry you up quite a bit, at which point it'll take about 10 minutes or so to recharge.

And those are both things that were designed that way to work within the systems in place in Breath of the Wild. I'm saying that those systems are bad, and the interplay between them and the stamina meter is poorly executed, so obviously if the stamina meter was to be removed everything else in the game would be re-balanced to accommodate removing it.

Telling me "Revali's Gale doesn't work like that" doesn't make me wrong, it means that it SHOULD work differently and generally be better.

Edit: I'm reading Jim Sterling's review right now, and one of the lines in the review "Breath of the Wild is a delightful adventure, one that tries its utmost to be as big a pain in the arse as possible" really hits how I feel about the game.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Telling me "Revali's Gale doesn't work like that" doesn't make me wrong, it means that it SHOULD work differently and generally be better.

That's not what I meant be that. I mean that eventhough it's an extra aid, just like with the stamina metre, you need to manage it.

Things like this will always create a divide. Some people think these kinds of restrictions add to the game, others think they're a detriment. It's similar to the horse controls in Shadow of the Colossus.

 

[Bellvedere]

I'm not finished just yet but I'm having a great time.

Typically I'm not a huge fan of open world games and exploration for explorations sake but this is one of my few exceptions. I blame Monolith's influence because the only other game that's had me enjoy just aimlessly wandering about is XBCX.

I'm especially impressed how well the game caters to whatever crazy ideas you might be able to think up. Except for taming wolves apparently (or maybe not?). I must have spent an entire day trying to make friends with various animals however my attempts were largely futile. Also I got killed by wolves a lot.

The difficulty is good. It's easy to die but there's not really any penalty either. I do wish there was a greater variety in enemies and I miss more 'puzzle-y' bosses.

The weapon durability thing actually worked for me and I expected to hate it. Between weapons, arrows, and food/elixir ingredients there is frequently a reason to head off the path to replenish stock of things you?ll need to survive. For me, this creates a great balance between the world feeling empty and exploration feeling like a chore. For instance if I'm well stocked that lizalfos camp probably isn't worth looking at and I don't have to feel like 'missing out' by avoiding it (there?s not even exp) but if I?m running low on arrows, then it's likely worth raiding. That kind of thing.

Story so far seems pretty standard Zelda affair, perhaps more drawn out/thinly spread as a result of trying to allow greater flexibility in terms of what content is completed and when.

I think stamina is a largely pointless mechanic. I've never had a problem getting away from enemies or through environment hazards running with the just starting gauge. It just takes longer to get places. Similarly with swimming. Thanks to Cryosis, any distance is swimmable. Climbing is the only thing it could make sense for. If climbing was faster I think it would be more fun trying to navigate around cliffs. As it is, any misjudgement can cost a very long climb only to have to start from the bottom again. Better off carrying food than relying on good stamina management.

The starting area dragged on. There was very little in the way of story and it was a pretty lonely and isolated location.

I feel horses are a bit of a wasted mechanic. They can only be called from a stable or if you?ve left them nearby. I spend more time off road then on, plus horses don't work with quick travel so there doesn't seem much point to ever getting them out.

Zelda and Mipha's VA is indeed pretty bad.