I think Breath of the Wild has a fantastic narrative... there I said it.

It does.

There is plenty of room to interpret, I'll give you that. Very different than narrative however.

A lot of the landscape probably 80% are just recycled though :/ so it's boring to try thinking of what happened here

I came in here to agree with the thread title, but then I read the first sentence of the OP and now I'm ready to go home.

So it has ruins in the landscape and that means it has a good story? Sorry, that's not what story means to me.

It's okay.

It's got the best in the series, imo.

I've always said, if the actual game started with the memories and Ganon winning was the big mid game twist, the story would be acclaimed even though it'd be the exact same.

It's biggest problem was storytelling, not the story itself

It has a great world that tells a story yes, but the actual 'story' it presents is lacking. Pretty much anything interesting that ever happens happened before calamity ganon, and is only shown in tiny bits a pieces through flashbacks. You dont get enough time with characters to delve deep into what there like. Hell they dont even voice every main character for some reason.

Uh, it certainly does have a lot of diegetic and contextual story.

But that's not much or a terribly good story. Weakest aspect of a great game.

I disagree, and I think your argument is poor. It's the worst aspect of the game and is one of the reasons it is not deserving of being a GOAT game.

Yeah.

People confuse "narrative" with "story" often. Breath of the Wild does a pretty exceptional job with the former even if the latter falters a bit.

I agree wholeheartedly OP. It is pretty damn masterful and a rare thing indeed to pull this off. It's something that should be recognized as an achievement in gaming.

There is like zero narrative/story. Even the environments, you get zero info on why things are the way they are. I like the game, but it's got less story than No Man's Sky.

Agreed, since you're focusing on the environmental storytelling and not the actual plot narrative. I loved finding things like the ruined Lon Lon Ranch, the mud-filled soldier encampment outside the Lost Woods, and the battlefield outside Hateno Fort.

If the next game can introduce more unique setpieces like that (and fewer generic ruins and burned houses) and use them to show a sense of time and progression, I think that could be a really interesting hook. Especially if there's just a touch of text (more descriptive place names, readable signposts, etc.) to provide lore and context for the things we're seeing, without getting too deep into exposition like a game like Skyrim might.

violent said:

There is plenty of room to interpret, I'll give you that. Very different than narrative however.

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This.

The world-building is great. The actual storytelling is decidedly rote.

I hated basically everything about BOTW except for the look of the open world and Link/Zelda's design so I'm with you.

That said idgaf about the narrative in any zelda game.

I think it's better than people give it credit for, but "fantastic" may be going a but too far.

NotLiquid said:

Yeah.

People confuse "narrative" with "story" often. Breath of the Wild does a pretty exceptional job with the former even if the latter falters a bit.

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What's the difference? A narrative is a spoken story, right?

Most Zelda games do world building through their environment design. Just check out TP, OOT and Majora. But they also have an actual story.

BotW has a cool narrative, but imo it's also one that is a low-hanging fruit. Post-apocalyptic world where story is implied through old remains is well-trodden ground. I enjoyed it a lot, but I wouldn't say that aspect of the game is remarkable. I think Wind Waker had a much more unique and fleshed out take on the idea.

Not to mention you can't ignore the cutscenes which may be the worst in the franchise.

It certainly has the best kind of story a fully open world game can have. Love the flashbacks and the characterization of Zelda is easily a highlight.

It uses environmental storytelling rather well. Kinda similar to Souls games.

I do agree it probably has the best story in any Zelda game, people often cite Twilight Princess for that but if you actually analyze the story it's full of massive plot holes and obvious twists. BotW's story is a lot more open to interpretation so it feels a lot less cliche than every other Zelda story.

That said I don't really think it was a great story next to other series, again, like Dark Souls for example.

It ressembles Super Metroid a lot in that aspect: not much told but a lot evocated in the environment. It's a clever game in many ways.

I disagree that Breath has a good narrative or story on a lot of levels. Your argument in particular that the "environment tells a good narrative"... because it has ruins? Man, I don't really like Bloodborne/Souls games either but one of their strengths is that they can tell a good narrative with their environment/item descriptions.

It could have had one. It was certainly setting up a great story. Sadly it didn't do anything with that setup.

Also I hate the "memories as story" gimmick. Why can't we just play the time period that the memories are from?

Phendrift said:

It's got the best in the series, imo.

I've always said, if the actual game started with the memories and Ganon winning was the big mid game twist, the story would be acclaimed even though it'd be the exact same.

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Yeah, except that sort of happened in OoT and Link to the Past already.

Hieroph said:

Also I hate the "memories as story" gimmick. Why can't we just play the time period that the memories are from?

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Prequel bait (I hope)

I don't think it has a good narrative at all, in fact I think it has one of the worst narratives in the series.

In no way does Breath of the Wild come close to the minimalist yet deep story telling of games like Bloodborne and Hollowknight which both use their worlds to tell a story to much greater effect...and the bits of more focused narrative you would get felt slapped on at best to me

Hieroph said:

Also I hate the "memories as story" gimmick. Why can't we just play the time period that the memories are from?

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because there's this whole other thing called "game design" going on.

If this was Skyward Sword, we would've. But playing through the linear narrative in BotW's memories wouldn't work with the full freedom it gives.

It most certainly does not, honestly everything is disjointed about it. Characters, pacing, the actual story, everything is barebones and what is there is awful in a lot of areas

i think it has fantastic storytelling, but narrative might not be the best word

Poised Turtoise said:

In no way does Breath of the Wild come close to the minimalist yet deep story telling of games like Bloodborne and Hollowknight which both use their worlds to tell a story to much greater effect...and the bits of more focused narrative you would get felt slapped on at best to me

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Now if we were talking music... then I would 100% agree. BotW has insanely great music, among the best in gaming history. Fans got that one way wrong.

The flashbacks were a really interesting take on non-linear storytelling in an open-world.

You mistake lore for story.

takriel said:

You mistake lore for story.

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+1

Zelda's character arch is great but that is as far as I'll praise the story. I really hope we'll get another game with the same engine/world but with a better story. BotW needs a Majora's Mask treatment.

One of my favorites is looking at hateno fort, there is an npc that tells you a battle was fought there, but you can actually see the fort with all the deactivated guardians that where disabled while trying to break into the fort, how the fort itself was barely standing and they were using wood pillars on some parts of the wall. It makes me want to know more about that battle.

Story != narrative != lore

Phabh said:

The flashbacks were a really interesting take on non-linear storytelling in an open-world.

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Conceptually, sure. In execution, no. They were fumbled badly.

Yes, I liked the BOTW story and how it was told.

I can't agree. Perhaps in the context of Zelda games.

I thought the game actually started out strong from a narrative perspective as so much was shrouded in mystery. But after the exposition dump at the end of great plateau, it never really recovers.

XandBosch said:

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What's wrong with that? Hollow Knight's lore through environmental storytelling is fantastic.

I'd agree that overall its narrative is better than any Zelda game's.

dharmapolice said:

In fact, I believe it to tell the best "story" of all the Zelda games- not particularly through descriptive language, but rather the landscape, architecture and remnants of the old world that exist throughout Hyrule. There is a lot said in the game without being said, there is a lot of thought put into the structures and decays of the world, and the exploratory nature of the game combined with the disjointed and fragmentary re-piecing of the protagonists memory and his connection with the world offers up a very fulfilling and ultimately personal narrative journey for the player.

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Completely agree. It seems many people have a very narrow definition of story having to be spoon fed to them via staged drama. But in BOTW - which is a game about history and changing it - much of the story is told non-narratively. There's no heavy handed cutscene or dialogue regarding that field with a 100 year old battleground full of dead guardians (until the final memory), but it very much contributes more to meaning in the game than any cutscene would.

Very much like how great films 'show don't tell', great game stories allow you to play the story, instead of 'story' only being things that happen when you can put the controller down.

I mean, it does.