It's a better Breath of the Wild purely for the fact that it's a sandbox with more interesting toys to play with. Everything I like and dislike about Breath of the Wild applies here.
The reused surface map is lame, there's no getting around that for me. I felt no sense of discovery walking through the world of this game. It's the same map with new repeated content. It's all the same stuff as Breath of the Wild like Korok seeds and sidequests and such, but didn't I already do enough of this in the last game? Why do I have to do the same grinds again? The new shrines and dungeons are the same as before, samey and poorly integrated into the world. It all works well enough, but frankly it's boring and I was hoping to see less busywork. Reusing maps can work, it's just that nothing here is fundamentally different from Breath of the Wild.
The sky and depths are cool aesthetically, but they don't really add a lot. I almost wish the depths didn't have lightroots since they kinda take away the edge and danger. The gloom effects are cool at least, mechanically and aesthetically. The aesthetics in general are a strong suit and look more interesting than the Sheikah stuff.
Fuse is an interesting idea, but in practice it's kind of awkward and forces you to pause the game to use weapons even more than Breath of the Wild did. Ideally there should've been some kind of favorites hotbar or something instead of just the entire inventory. Once again, the game gives you way too many resources for the weapon durability to be anything more than a nuisance. It really should've been removed or reworked this time around.
Ultrahand alone almost carries the game. But the issue is that you need to farm ore in the depths to go get random parts from gacha machines in the sky, which is quite tedious and boring. I wouldn't mind it so much of the depths and sky were more interesting to explore, but they're both rather barren. You basically only go there for this stuff, which makes it feel like a chore. The battery charge, even at max, feels so short. Objects despawn after walking just a little bit away. Maybe they made it this way to better balance the mechanic, but the most effective creations are usually rather simple and take few resources to autobuild. As a result, I never felt the desire to be creative or experiment.
Then I tried playing it on Yuzu with infinite stamina, infinite weapon durability, and infinite battery, and wow - what a difference that all makes. Suddenly I was having a lot of fun creating all sorts of contraptions and experimenting with the physics system. It's true that games are built around limitations, and those limitations can breed creativity. Personally, I would rather be limited by this game's tools and engine themselves than by arbitrary resource farming. Maybe I'm lazy, but I don't care.
The reused surface map is lame, there's no getting around that for me. I felt no sense of discovery walking through the world of this game. It's the same map with new repeated content. It's all the same stuff as Breath of the Wild like Korok seeds and sidequests and such, but didn't I already do enough of this in the last game? Why do I have to do the same grinds again? The new shrines and dungeons are the same as before, samey and poorly integrated into the world. It all works well enough, but frankly it's boring and I was hoping to see less busywork. Reusing maps can work, it's just that nothing here is fundamentally different from Breath of the Wild.
The sky and depths are cool aesthetically, but they don't really add a lot. I almost wish the depths didn't have lightroots since they kinda take away the edge and danger. The gloom effects are cool at least, mechanically and aesthetically. The aesthetics in general are a strong suit and look more interesting than the Sheikah stuff.
Fuse is an interesting idea, but in practice it's kind of awkward and forces you to pause the game to use weapons even more than Breath of the Wild did. Ideally there should've been some kind of favorites hotbar or something instead of just the entire inventory. Once again, the game gives you way too many resources for the weapon durability to be anything more than a nuisance. It really should've been removed or reworked this time around.
Ultrahand alone almost carries the game. But the issue is that you need to farm ore in the depths to go get random parts from gacha machines in the sky, which is quite tedious and boring. I wouldn't mind it so much of the depths and sky were more interesting to explore, but they're both rather barren. You basically only go there for this stuff, which makes it feel like a chore. The battery charge, even at max, feels so short. Objects despawn after walking just a little bit away. Maybe they made it this way to better balance the mechanic, but the most effective creations are usually rather simple and take few resources to autobuild. As a result, I never felt the desire to be creative or experiment.
Then I tried playing it on Yuzu with infinite stamina, infinite weapon durability, and infinite battery, and wow - what a difference that all makes. Suddenly I was having a lot of fun creating all sorts of contraptions and experimenting with the physics system. It's true that games are built around limitations, and those limitations can breed creativity. Personally, I would rather be limited by this game's tools and engine themselves than by arbitrary resource farming. Maybe I'm lazy, but I don't care.
QuiB
12 days ago