This has got to be one of the games I wanted to play the most since its announcement. Being a huge Zelda fan throughout my teenage years, I guess it was only natural.
There's always been this sense of wonder regarding Breath of the Wild - A game I had to wait for 5 years before being able to play it, a timeframe in which I tried the most to keep away from everything (most of the things, to be precise) about the game, be it screenshots, reviews or gameplay videos.
So, after waiting for these five long years, what's my opinion after my 82 hours of playtime?
...
...Well, it was fun. Pretty fun.
And that's it. To be quite fair, that's basically all I can say when I think about it immediately.
It was a very pleasant game to be played. Pleasing to the eyes as well. Fantastic lighting engine. It was, actually, a very good adventure game, hence this four-star rating. It was solid.
But... that's really it for me.
I don't think it reached any of my expectations. It wasn't what I look for when I play a Zelda game, and it was also quite far from what I look for when I play an open-world RPG. Such a feeling led me to deliberately defeat the final boss whilst having lots, lots and LOTS of stuff left to do.
I got bored of it before of what I was anticipating.
Let me be clear, though: I think the game accomplishes it's purpose. It really felt like a "fully-fledged" (and I put it in quotes, since I believe the sequel can improve a lot in this formula) execution of the first game in The Legend of Zelda franchise. The sense of freedom, discovery, wonder... BotW is an amazing open-world adventure game, and I believe it hit the right spots of what it was trying to do.
But it didn't felt like a "Zelda" game to me, and I believe that the lack of linearity is responsible for that. Linearity in the franchise has been the responsible for it's addictive metroid-like progression, for the increasing difficulty and intricacy of its dungeons, for its worldbuiding and character development...
BotW, on the other hand, simply has a selection of 120 dungeon-like puzzles and 4 - and I emphasize: FOUR - main dungeons, all of which are disappointingly easy since it's up to the player to face them in any order. The same goes for the bosses, all of them severely lacking in the challenge department, including the final boss, a personal disappointment.
It was also less of what I expected in the character interaction department. When I look for playing an open-world RPG experience, I expect more depth in questlines, dialogues, etcetera...
The Zelda franchise has always been fairly cartoony regarding its character representations, but not even in The Wind Waker I felt it as blatantly shallow as it was in BotW. It has lots of neat moments, but nothing more than that. I never felt invested in any of its main characters and random NPCs. (Kass is awesome tho)
The combat? Fine. Fun. But also shallow as heck.
Enemy variety? Expect Moblins and Bokoblins changing colours and getting more tattooed. That's it.
I genuinely loved some parts, such as Gerudo Desert and Death Mountain, and seeing familiar motifs going around this huge world, full of ample landscapes, was a pleasure to experience.
It just didn't end up being what I expected.
It's still an amazing game, very well-made, fun, relaxing, pleasant... But I still can't see too much beyond that.
There's this sore feeling in my throat that says that it ended up being one of these overrated games. Maybe it isn't, but for me it's just this very good game that deserves to be played and enjoyed in its own right.
Not a life-changing experience, though. Far from it. At least for me it wasn't.
High hopes for the sequel, though.
There's always been this sense of wonder regarding Breath of the Wild - A game I had to wait for 5 years before being able to play it, a timeframe in which I tried the most to keep away from everything (most of the things, to be precise) about the game, be it screenshots, reviews or gameplay videos.
So, after waiting for these five long years, what's my opinion after my 82 hours of playtime?
...
...Well, it was fun. Pretty fun.
And that's it. To be quite fair, that's basically all I can say when I think about it immediately.
It was a very pleasant game to be played. Pleasing to the eyes as well. Fantastic lighting engine. It was, actually, a very good adventure game, hence this four-star rating. It was solid.
But... that's really it for me.
I don't think it reached any of my expectations. It wasn't what I look for when I play a Zelda game, and it was also quite far from what I look for when I play an open-world RPG. Such a feeling led me to deliberately defeat the final boss whilst having lots, lots and LOTS of stuff left to do.
I got bored of it before of what I was anticipating.
Let me be clear, though: I think the game accomplishes it's purpose. It really felt like a "fully-fledged" (and I put it in quotes, since I believe the sequel can improve a lot in this formula) execution of the first game in The Legend of Zelda franchise. The sense of freedom, discovery, wonder... BotW is an amazing open-world adventure game, and I believe it hit the right spots of what it was trying to do.
But it didn't felt like a "Zelda" game to me, and I believe that the lack of linearity is responsible for that. Linearity in the franchise has been the responsible for it's addictive metroid-like progression, for the increasing difficulty and intricacy of its dungeons, for its worldbuiding and character development...
BotW, on the other hand, simply has a selection of 120 dungeon-like puzzles and 4 - and I emphasize: FOUR - main dungeons, all of which are disappointingly easy since it's up to the player to face them in any order. The same goes for the bosses, all of them severely lacking in the challenge department, including the final boss, a personal disappointment.
It was also less of what I expected in the character interaction department. When I look for playing an open-world RPG experience, I expect more depth in questlines, dialogues, etcetera...
The Zelda franchise has always been fairly cartoony regarding its character representations, but not even in The Wind Waker I felt it as blatantly shallow as it was in BotW. It has lots of neat moments, but nothing more than that. I never felt invested in any of its main characters and random NPCs. (Kass is awesome tho)
The combat? Fine. Fun. But also shallow as heck.
Enemy variety? Expect Moblins and Bokoblins changing colours and getting more tattooed. That's it.
I genuinely loved some parts, such as Gerudo Desert and Death Mountain, and seeing familiar motifs going around this huge world, full of ample landscapes, was a pleasure to experience.
It just didn't end up being what I expected.
It's still an amazing game, very well-made, fun, relaxing, pleasant... But I still can't see too much beyond that.
There's this sore feeling in my throat that says that it ended up being one of these overrated games. Maybe it isn't, but for me it's just this very good game that deserves to be played and enjoyed in its own right.
Not a life-changing experience, though. Far from it. At least for me it wasn't.
High hopes for the sequel, though.