The Legend of Zelda Series

So I've left the Great Plateau and I'm suppose to be heading to Kakariko village. As usual, my sense of direction or lack there of has led me to the village of Hepteto I think?

Been an interesting experience for sure. Not exactly if the new design has won me over. I really love the classic Zelda formula, but so far it's been a pretty good experience so far. It's interesting for me because I've been replaying Zelda II and BotW definitely has a harder RPG formula than most Zelda titles.

The breaking weapon thing is not nearly as bad as people whine about. Almost everything seems to carry a weapon and my bigger issue is really just item management when I need to drop subpar crap for better gear. I hate scavenging for arrows though and the bow mechanics are taking a bit of getting used to. I do wish I could find more clothing option besides what's in the shops.

I think my biggest gripe at the moment is the crafting mechanics. Once upon a time, I liked crafting mechanics in game. But after it spread like wildfire through every genre known to man, it has overstayed its welcome and now feels like a chore. I've been cooking, but it's hardly my favorite thing to do and my hoarder instincts is making it hard for me to part with anything in case it might be rare.

I'm also not thrilled that bombs are infinite. They are a potent Zelda weapon and this game doesn't change that fact, but older entries usually made the finite nature of them something that kept you from spamming them. The time stop skill is also a bit broken. I wish the tablet skills had been spread out a bit farther apart and not mostly earned in the first area.

Visually, I'm digging the Studio Ghibli vibes of the games world and design. The heavy Buddhist imagery is also a nice touch. The music matches the imagery but has a bad habit of being just background noise for me. Still trying to get used to actual voice acting in the game as well.

The UI could also be better but that's likely because the game was meant to be played on the WiiU touch pad and not have everything remapped to all the buttons. Switching weapons is the worst since the scroll button is the right analog stick when my instinct is to use the shoulder buttons to scroll. I honestly feel there is too much going on with the buttons and the controls try to hard to keep you in the action when I think a less cumbersome and traditional pause/menu play mechanic would have been fine.

I have died more times to the cold than anything else in the game.

Funnily, the UI is actually identical between both games and the touch screen is never used unless you move the game entirely to the gamepad. It’s because of the Switch version that they went away from the touch controls. In the end you have a game UI that isn’t optimized for either platform lol

Glad you’re enjoying it so far! It was a bit weird for me at the beginning, but the game gradually grew on me, to the point of becoming my favorite Zelda game. I’m also a massive fan of the soundtrack, and that includes the way the game utilizes long periods of silence

Just started this back up again with BotW. I'm digging the vibe and narrative of the game. I do miss having traditional dungeons though. Finally got more clothing options and most of the map is unlocked. I have two Guardian Beasts down right now (Goron and Zora) and have started the Rito one. I have more quests unlocked than I could remember and I've largely ignored most of them unless I accidentally solve them. I've mainly been going after shrines. I easily have enough to gain the Master Sword, but I'm waiting until after I complete the guardian beast quests. Still having fun, but I don't think I'm going to be joining the band wagon sadly. The open world design just can't hold my interest for long. Not helped that I've played Elden Ring recently and that game sort of handled what I really wanted BotW to be.

So what's everyone's most controversial Zelda opinion besides not liking Ocarina of Time, the Original Zelda, and BotW? :lol:

Honestly, I never really got into Zelda games. They were exclusives to consoles I never owned so I was never part of that ecosystem, and I have no desire to play them.

I have BotW and I've given it a fair whack. It has things that are very cool and some great design choices, but I just do not enjoy playing it. The controls and UI are probably a decent chunk of that negative experience, lol.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

So what's everyone's most controversial Zelda opinion besides not liking Ocarina of Time, the Original Zelda, and BotW? :lol:

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Imagine not liking Ocarina of Time.

Atrocious take.

I don't have much left to do in this game. I man technically there is a tone of things I need to do, but only a handful of things I actually care about. Four Divine Beasts conquered, Master Sword acquired, and I have maybe 30 more shrines left. I mean there is the DLC stuff, but I would need to acquire that first. I'm thinking of just finishing the game at this point. BotW has been an interesting ride bu the burnout is real.

BotW is done, well except for the DLC I don't own.

Overall, a mixed bag for me. I definitely love the Zelda formula more than I thought I did and it was surely missed this time around. But with that said, I felt BotW brought a lot to the table I wouldn't mind keeping for future installments either. So onto my usual Pros/Cons lists...

Pros:

• The sheer size of the world and exploration was great. I love how we finally got a Hyrule that felt massive in scope for once. It was a really fun world to explore overall. Graphically, the game was gorgeous as well.
• I liked having multiple weapon types to play with. Definitely broke up the monotony of combat and enemies are generous enough to usually show up in groups brandishing every weapon type.
• I do love the addition of the Quick Fury, Slow Down Aiming, and Timed Shield Deflect skills. Gave combat a lot more depth than usual for the series and mastering them often ended up being the key to tackling the game's toughest enemy types like the Lyonels and Guardians. In fact they wound up being some of my favorite enemy types by the end.
• The Yiga clan was an interesting addition to the game.
• I actually really liked the premise of the game and the story of the Champions, Zelda, and the Fall of Hyrule. In fact this game is one of the best titles in terms of making Zelda feel like a real person and giving her some real depth for once.
• While the item first appeared in Wind Waker, the Sail is easily the best item in this game and the item I missed the most when I put this game down to play Elden Ring instead.
• Loved the Lost Woods in this game and happy to see Nintendo continue to use the superior Koroks over their boring Kokiri designs from OoT.
• I do really like the Tool selection in this game, and it's honestly the best set in the series since so much inside and outside of the shrines utilize them.
• I loved the ability to collect outfits that give you different abilities as well. At first I felt like I couldn't find any, but by the endpoint I was tripping over new ones I didn't know about.
• My favorite NPCs were easily Paya (honestly, most of Kakorikko Village) and the Benson Family Construction crew. Oh and Sidoh is a very good boy.
• I liked having the option to raise my stamina bar. In fact it was the first thing I focused on and I don't regret that decision at all.
• The Great Fairy's are amusing as usual. I still love it when Nintendo drops the elegant fairy designs for the more interesting drag queen designs. Makes them more charming for sure.
• Breakable weapons largely didn't turn out to be an issue. Nintendo was smart and used some ideas from games like SaGa where new gear is plentiful and enemies level with you to some degree so by endgame, even random Bobkin and Lizalfos enemies were just casually carrying Royal tier gear. The elemental weapons end up being a bit rare, but they're mainly mid-tier at best and Hyrule Castle has several weapons just lying around. It's definitely more of an issue in the early game, but once you just stop carrying, the system flows pretty naturally.

Cons:

• I'm not a huge fan of the shrine system. There are too many, they're too short to be satisfying, and the sheer amount of them meant the quality veered from brilliant to forgettable. Despite there being 120 Shrines, I could probably only name about five or ten that really stood out.
• I also wasn't a fan of the Divine Beasts as dungeons. The first time it was neat but each one just felt the same. Even the bosses all felt a little too similar.
• Likewise, BotW has the weakest boss selection in all of the Zelda games if you ask me. I think only Four Sword Adventure or the OP come close to being more forgettable and boring.
• This is likely the Old Fogey in me talking, but I still don't appreciate getting all of the tools right off the bat. I get that the design of the game wouldn't have worked as well, but getting all your toys from the get go feels boring to me. I prefer more Metroidvania style where you might find a place you can't access because you're missing a tool and then the joy of coming back there.
• The enemy variety in this game is the worst. While Zelda isn't exactly big on having massive monster rosters, the team could have done more to add in some more enemy types to deal with. Combat has all these cool new tools to play with but it didn't take long to get bored of Bobkins and Moblins mobs. The less said about their dull undead counterparts the better.
• Side Quests were a hit or miss bag. Did you get a nifty new piece or armor? Awesome, but 80% of the time you just got Rupees and they are not difficult to come by in this game making me largely ignore the quests.
• The Hero of the Wild outfit is awful. It takes way too long to acquire, has stupid item requirements to level up, and it's surprisingly ugly to boot.
• I am so sick and tired of the Zonai Tribe the fan theorist are all obsessed with.
• I honestly feel BotW could have used a "less is more" mentality. I can tell Monolith Soft helped make this game because it has the tell-tale signs of the Xenoblade games strengths and weaknesses. Loved the scale, but didn't appreciate the lackluster rewards and pointless quests.

The problem for me, and one of the reasons why I can see why this game wasn't well loved by traditionalist fans is that BotW's worst aspects are mostly the things Zelda is known for: Amazing dungeon design and fun boss battles. But I feel the game balances it out with all the new elements added in. So it's a mixed bag for me as I really missed the elements I loved but I enjoyed a lot of the new stuff. I think the biggest thing that hurt this game for me was starting it early this year only to get distracted by Elden Ring, which has an open world design with a classic gameplay I like that ultimately flowed and worked better. It made coming back to BotW much harder for me. What is interesting for me is that BotW gives me the same vibes as Death Stranding in that it was a game I often played more for the sake of unwinding than to sink my teeth into a meaty game experience like it's predecessors. Which is not a bad thing at all.

I am hoping that Tears of the Kingdom will compromise and merge the BotW design with more traditional Zelda design. I still want to explore and frolic through that open world Hyrule, but give me a denser meatier experience with larger more classic Zelda dungeons with my flashy bosses.