Your profile on Switch :)I've just bought BoTW for my new switch Lite, absolutely loving it !
how do you find out how many hours you've put into a game ?
Or you could try new weapons, since they will probably be better than the ones you have (and perhaps also better suited for a specific task). Or try to fight using your powers instead of using weapons (which IMO is quite a fun challenge).
Or you could learn the different systems available in the game to conquer the elements. There are sooo many options available for a single task. If you try everything you will be able to go anywhere.
It seems to me like you don't like exploration.As a game the first, like, six hours were the best part of the experience. The Plateau, where you were constantly wondering what you'd see or experience next.
After that, it becomes the same exact shit over and over again ad nauseum until you get bored and give up.
Pretty much every Zelda game is like that.the only flaw in this otherwise flawless game for me, is that once you beat ganon and come back, he's right there again ready to be beaten.
I would've loved to engage in a post ganon-world in that game
Eh
I stopped playing it due to open world fatigue. The irony is that I played the original as my first video game experience when the Nintendo was released in 85 or 86. Zelda has a special place in my heart, but I just couldn't take botw.I just finished BOTW, and it's the first Nintendo game I've played in many, many years.
In the beginning it took a couple of hours to get into it, but once I got to Kakariko I was HOOKED. I couldn't wait to come back and continue exploring, having those little joys with the regular new discoveries the game gave you. I couldn't wait to get to the next area and the next villages.
For the next 50 hours or so I continued to stay hooked, but then after I was 2 divine beasts in and had done half the map, the wonder really started to wear off. The joys become fewer and fewer, with longer and longer periods of struggling to stay engaged while I waited for something new to happen. The game unfortunately started to become a drag for these long periods.
I've seen a lot of fuss about how BOTW is the best open world ever etc. but honestly I started to dread reaching new towers. It may not reveal loads of map markers like other open world games, but it effectively did the same thing by revealing all these named locations that you would have to go to and trundle around while looking for something interesting. For me it didn't really escape the open world trappings that people claim to hate so much.
Usually the only thing waiting for you at these locations was yet another repetitive af Korok "puzzle" (that's being generous). Very occasionally you would find an actually novel area.
After the last divine beast I'd had enough suffering through wandering around aimlessly and just wanted the game to be over. Now, you could say that I brought this upon myself by exploring unnecessarily, but the problem is you don't always know which areas will have something interesting before you actually get there. I'm also the type of person to want to see everything the game has to offer. To the game's credit it does a decent job of directing you to some of the most interesting places through dialogue.
In the end I got 130 hours out of the game and I guess I only left with 3 areas unexplored, so maybe I don't have a right to complain, but looking back for the second half many of those hours weren't very enjoyable. I really wish there had been more of a story to hook me in, and the main quest was strangely unfulfilling. I also feel like having more complex side quests that really expanded upon the lore/characters would have made the exploration really rewarding.
I don't regret playing BOTW (and it's still a great game), but I should have just stuck rigidly to only the central POIs, occasionally venturing out to see the obviously different places on the map.
Probably the biggest disappointment for me was the lack of any dungeons, and no, I don't regard the beasts as dungeons but rather large glorified shrines.
Honestly, I agree with everything in your post. This is my main issue with BOTW. Hope BOTW2 improves on that aspect, dramatically.Agree with OP. I put in between 130-135 hours and I completed nearly everything there was to do in the game, minus collecting every Korok seed and upgrading all armor to 100%.
I will say that the first 15-20 hours of the game was amazing. Exploring the Plateau region and then the surrounding region below. However I found that quickly after the 15 hour or so mark, the experience started to become very repetitive and boring. It got to a point that once I had seen one or two shrines, I had seen them all. Seen one horse stable? Seen them all and so on. Each new area that I explored was exactly the same as the previous area in terms of activities awaiting me. I love exploring in games, but not if it's just for the sake of it. What the game was missing was a reason, a direction or sense of reward for going out of your way and trekking around the map.
Oh, and why is swimming tied to a stamina meter? I can't remember whether the Zora tunic gave Link unlimited stamina while swimming but the stamina meter really zapped the fun out of it. Furthermore, why is Link not able to swim underwater? We can quite clearly see the underwater sea life and whatnot, so it's not like it was with WW due to aesthetic reasons. Perfect opportunity to explore a network of underwater caves.
There are over 70 side quests in BOTW with the vast, vast majority of it being pointless filler and fetch quests. I would have preferred 10 side quests in total as long as they had some substance, a story to tell. Something that makes it feel like its set in its own self-contained Universe and is worthwhile to undertake.
Probably the biggest disappointment for me was the lack of any dungeons, and no, I don't regard the beasts as dungeons but rather large glorified shrines.
For such a large and expansive open world, this was the perfect opportunity to set up secret dungeons littered throughout the map. I remember trekking deep into the Hebra mountain regions until I came across a massive wooden door like structure which needed to be broken down by forming a giant snowball. I thought this would have been a perfect location for the start of an Ice dungeon. What did I find instead? Yet another shrine. There was also a similar example in the Faron Woods area too. They really dropped the ball there.
BOTW made me appreciate the past Zelda games that much more. I'd rather have a smaller world which feels like it was carefully hand crafted with history, character and a story to tell rather than large expanses of nothing which feels like it was created through a terrain generator.
Having said that, I wouldn't have put 130 hours into BOTW if I didn't enjoy it somewhat. I enjoyed it as a game but as a Zelda game for me, it ranks right at the bottom.
Funnily enough, I'm actually somewhat excited for BOTW2 if only because they can improve here. My hope is that for all the praise they've seen this game receive, they also take a lot of the criticisms on board too and hopefully build upon that in the sequel.
I think the regular shrines were dungeon replacements. Just like regular dungeons from the past games they contained fights, puzzles and secrets. The only difference being their bite sized nature but considering the Switch is both a home console and a portable, doing a shrine while riding on a train was a perfect bite sized complement to the long expansive exploration of the surface.
Horizon was my sweet spot. Perfect map size, perfect pace of exploration and levelling up. Great diversity and character in each region. The story unfolded as you explored. I never did get the DLC to finish it off but then again the snow covered regions were the least interesting to me.Although Horizon was criticised for it, I felt it's side content was about right in quantity, but it fell down in other areas.
What about maybe 20-30 unique themed shrines like a ghost mansion, an old windmill etc on top of 8 full fledged dungeons? I think that would be the sweet spot.But it didn't need to be either/or. Maybe cut down on the number of shrines in favour of some tradtional dungeons, because let's face it, a good number of the Shrines were very similar in nature, some of them were literally, walk into the shrine and collect the blue orb, complete. I feel Shrines should have been treated as more of a supplement or addition on top of the traditional dungeons. My hope is that for the sequel they ditch the shrines altogether and just focus on 8-10 fully fledged dungeons.
What about maybe 20-30 unique themed shrines like a ghost mansion, an old windmill etc on top of 8 full fledged dungeons? I think that would be the sweet spot.
I don't mind weapon degradation mechanics if they're not too aggressive and there are ways to repair - now there may well be ways to do this
But it didn't need to be either/or. Maybe cut down on the number of shrines in favour of some tradtional dungeons, because let's face it, a good number of the Shrines were very similar in nature, some of them were literally, walk into the shrine and collect the blue orb, complete. I feel Shrines should have been treated as more of a supplement or addition on top of the traditional dungeons. My hope is that for the sequel they ditch the shrines altogether and just focus on 8-10 fully fledged dungeons.
This was the point where I took a second look at what I was doing and asked myself if I really liked the formula, and that's where it started to go downhill for me. I think particularly it was my disappointment about how simple the Divine Beasts are. They're still a highlight of the game, as there are only 4, each has unique atmospheric music and a unique boss, but that's the Zelda standard for dungeons. It's missing the pacing of a true Zelda dungeon in which you stumble upon weird obstacles and feel overwhelmed by the maze-like feel of the place and all its floors, until you unlock a door with a Small Key face the mini-boss and get the item that rocks the house. And I get it, they tried something different this time, part of it for creative reasons and another out of obligation to the new principles they had established - that you can do whatever you want at any time, therefore the lack of designed progression dictates that no Divine Beast can require specific items or skills you would have to go out and unlock, and the game also insists on you having the tools you need at the outset, so those are all you need anywhere.
That wouldn't be good.
Firstly, as the post mentioned, you lose that commute friendly "I have 15 minutes available for a shrine on the train, let's do one". Second, their purpose is not just a small challenge, they also act as extremely convenient warp markers, again vital for bite sized gaming. Third, all shrines are not equal, there were a crop of specially denoted shrine quests, done so in order to set them apart from the standard shrines you found in the field. It is also worth noting that the "blessing" shrines where you pick up the orb was usually the result of a puzzle to overcome in the field, where the shrine was merely the full stop of the task you were attempting to best.
They did supplement traditional with dungeons, which the Divine Beasts were. There were not 8 - 10 of these, but there were 5, which isn't far off.
4 of these beasts would barely scrape together a single traditional labyrinth styled dungeon from say TP for example.
They can't be old style dungeons because of the way the game is designed. Link sucks to control when confined. Shrines bypass this by taking Link to a big open area to perform in. The divine beasts themselves are very open, less of a labyrinth and more of a large interconnected space. The master sword trials also provide you with a focused by still free playground to get stuck into. Everything has been centred around the open air and traversal, which is why a lot of puzzles and scenarios spill into that situation rather than being forced underground.
The best example of Link controlling like ass inside is inside the Yiga clan base. Luckily, you can cheese it with Revali's Gale and bypass the interior mainly
The best way to play BotW is to just not worry about seeing everything
I actually found that it's best to just use everything you have and not worry about it breaking. Breaking isn't bad, it's an opportunity to use something else. Because I always used my weapons without fear of them breaking, I was free to enjoy them more. I wasn't punishing myself by using them. Am I wasting my fire rod by burning that bokoblin in the grass? Should I make an updraft by burning this dry grass to fly up and do something cool or should I be saving it for when the game "wants" me to use it? Who cares, it's fun and engaging and I'll pick up something else later! Much better than just carrying a bunch of weapons waiting for the "appropriate" time to use them, which is never. They just end up being Jpegs in my inventory then.Sure, I could keep trying new weapons. I'm finding lots, I've tried a nice variety of spears and clubs and swords etc but my issue is they all eventually break. I'm not overusing melee, I've used my powers a chunk of the time to fight stuff and there have been many good moments like that time I used stasis to fire a bomb barrel into some bad guys, or rolled some rocks down a hill or used a bomb to blow a load of guys off a cliff; but I like the melee too for the most part, it's fairly meaty and the enemies react nicely and sometimes you want to just slap some dudes that are in your way and move past and I've found it gradually more of an annoyance that all weapons (I assume!) break. For me, it just disincentivises (is that a word?!) finding new weapons and makes me want to horde the better ones. There is no thrill to finding a new better weapon at the moment because I know it won't impact on my playstyle and if I use it and enjoy it then it will be taken away.
I agree. Its a fun game but eventually I just got tired of it.
I had way more fun towards the end of my playthrough when I had enough skills and equipment to fight pretty much everything.
Huh, that's a really interesting coincidence. That's actually when I quit playing BotW.For the next 50 hours or so I continued to stay hooked, but then after I was 2 divine beasts in and had done half the map, the wonder really started to wear off. The joys become fewer and fewer, with longer and longer periods of struggling to stay engaged while I waited for something new to happen. The game unfortunately started to become a drag for these long periods.