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kradeelavI sat on this post for a few years; Breath of the Wild was a darling for a while and did introduce some cool new elements in gaming, so I hope this isn't taken as mindless bashing. still planning on getting BOTW2 with the hopes it'll build on its predecessor much like MM subverted OoT's flaws.
but in the end, as a life-long zelda fan I was pretty dissapointed with BOTW, and I'm not sure if I've seen somebody vocalize the same reasons why it was a miss: ergo, this essay.
I think if I had to describe the game in one word it'd be emotionally empty.
it's obvious that nintendo paid attention to the classic skyrim was and took a lot of the gigantic overworld-and-interaction exploration from it. Food, stamina, tiny hamlets inter-spaced through a truly breathtaking "wilds" filled with monsters and various terrains. what saved skyrim for me is that you were allowed to craft your own radically unique character-life through the (shitty) storylines that were offered to you. Almost like legos - they offered you the building blocks for a general mage training, assassin training with the politics and betrayals within, but then you could build on top of that with the shorter storylines and the timing within (the overall story feeling very different if, say, you tackled the dragon bit first,
for example, I played as a jaded as hell drow butch grandma who started a new life as a criminal and then worked her way up to be a pretty controversial empire-aligned archmage that was basically the batman of that world who hated the thalmor, mostly with this this cute ex-cultist girlfriend/acolyte in tow, lol. Not at all what the creators of skyrim were obviously attempting to frame the player as (stereotypical viking dude), but there was the freedom to say "no i want this instead-" and rearrange the legos into this epicly unique and guilty-pleasure narrative as a whole.
skyrim almost had the same "too much" freedom with the world itself, but the set pieces were there to build the overall story with a "yes, and-" improv approach to make it worthwhile to spend 300+ hours in it.
BOTW didn't have that last bit because the story itself was still so railroaded with the link+zelda+ four guardians(?) story. It was either that or nothing, holding you at gunpoint. I think it could have maybe worked if the creators took a Majora's Mask approach of a radically different world, radically different themes, characters, temples, overturning conventions everywhere in this dark-mirror approach with link as the only constant (which may save BoTW2) - but there was no "yes, and-" allowance to reel in the skeptical player.
I also have issues with the poorly done shekiah visuals and tech handling; right from the start, the new ~*technology*~ pulled me out of the game, and made my reaction more "what is this fucking shitty hyilian ipad knockoff doing in zelda? who are these weirdos? why are these puzzle levels so goddamn boring visually?" versus "oh hell, cool world." in my ideal game, you'd still keep the guardians as these incredibly alien, terrifying parasitic presences that could lend one hell of a cool horror-game quality - but that'd be the only hint of the new tech.
i will say this: there was one moment in the game that gave me chills in a good way, and it had to do with the guardians.
This was earlier after the Plateau when you were still exploring while basically naked of decent weapons, along the way to Karkario, I think. wandering along a vague trail but having to be smart about avoiding monsters and actively hiding if one crossed paths with you and was too strong. Somehow I wandered into this quasi-swampy where there were plenty of old (good!) weapons laying around, and obvious hints of a long-lost battle. Raining, of course.
Out of curiosity, I looked around a little closer, still looking for decent weapons, and that's when you noticed yourself sitting in the middle of a goddamn herd of (inactive? hopefully???) guardians. The "oh jesus fuckshit-" immediate flee reaction mingled with sorrow at the lives that were previously lost in the battle was a damn fine piece of storytelling.
(Man it could have been so much better if it was just that, the labyrinths, and climbing towers. those labyrinths were rad.)
but to veer back into disappointments - then the terrible excuses of temples, oh my god, that's the final nail in the coffin.
I could have excused a more, mm, spartan? approach with the main characters, I could *maybe* ignore the ipad in exchange for the moments like above, but cool ass unique temples that linger in my dreams fifteen years later are why I play zelda games, man. WW's Earth Temple with dizzying cloying fog and the sharpness of the holy mirrors and light, every bloody temple in Majora's Masks but especially Ikana (hence username), OoT's Forest Temple and that twisty hallway leading to the almost-shrine rotting deep in the temple ...
Clearly the "shrines" were meant to fulfill part of the temple tradition with the four corrupted portable monster temple things being the other half, but I cannot tell you how much it fucking sucked to see they were the same ol' visual designs. Over and over with the bland shekiah-guardian textures and tricks and the dripping cursed goo with teeny tiny variations of the weapons. Where's the lore? Where's all the shit about the local village protecting the temple with the ancient god that could be theirs and not swapped out for a re-skinned critter from the ass crack of nowhere? I know the creators were capable of more - Hyrule Castle is exactly the vibe I had hoped the other temples would be, just, you know, visually congruent with the other environments and cultures and fully unique. four would have been just fine; MM and WW had some of the least amount of temples for older zelda games and they pulled it off flawlessly.
temples are loci, holy lodestones in zelda, and I missed that on all levels. here's hoping botw2 delvers.
postscript - if one's curious, my general feeling about 3D zelda games:
WW/MM (flawless) > OoT (timeless) >>> TP (flawed, but is a sleeper hit if you let it grow on you) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> BOTW (couldn't finish but had some neat moments) >> SS (garbage, only zelda game i gave away *and* didn't finish)
but in the end, as a life-long zelda fan I was pretty dissapointed with BOTW, and I'm not sure if I've seen somebody vocalize the same reasons why it was a miss: ergo, this essay.
I think if I had to describe the game in one word it'd be emotionally empty.
it's obvious that nintendo paid attention to the classic skyrim was and took a lot of the gigantic overworld-and-interaction exploration from it. Food, stamina, tiny hamlets inter-spaced through a truly breathtaking "wilds" filled with monsters and various terrains. what saved skyrim for me is that you were allowed to craft your own radically unique character-life through the (shitty) storylines that were offered to you. Almost like legos - they offered you the building blocks for a general mage training, assassin training with the politics and betrayals within, but then you could build on top of that with the shorter storylines and the timing within (the overall story feeling very different if, say, you tackled the dragon bit first,
for example, I played as a jaded as hell drow butch grandma who started a new life as a criminal and then worked her way up to be a pretty controversial empire-aligned archmage that was basically the batman of that world who hated the thalmor, mostly with this this cute ex-cultist girlfriend/acolyte in tow, lol. Not at all what the creators of skyrim were obviously attempting to frame the player as (stereotypical viking dude), but there was the freedom to say "no i want this instead-" and rearrange the legos into this epicly unique and guilty-pleasure narrative as a whole.
skyrim almost had the same "too much" freedom with the world itself, but the set pieces were there to build the overall story with a "yes, and-" improv approach to make it worthwhile to spend 300+ hours in it.
BOTW didn't have that last bit because the story itself was still so railroaded with the link+zelda+ four guardians(?) story. It was either that or nothing, holding you at gunpoint. I think it could have maybe worked if the creators took a Majora's Mask approach of a radically different world, radically different themes, characters, temples, overturning conventions everywhere in this dark-mirror approach with link as the only constant (which may save BoTW2) - but there was no "yes, and-" allowance to reel in the skeptical player.
I also have issues with the poorly done shekiah visuals and tech handling; right from the start, the new ~*technology*~ pulled me out of the game, and made my reaction more "what is this fucking shitty hyilian ipad knockoff doing in zelda? who are these weirdos? why are these puzzle levels so goddamn boring visually?" versus "oh hell, cool world." in my ideal game, you'd still keep the guardians as these incredibly alien, terrifying parasitic presences that could lend one hell of a cool horror-game quality - but that'd be the only hint of the new tech.
i will say this: there was one moment in the game that gave me chills in a good way, and it had to do with the guardians.
This was earlier after the Plateau when you were still exploring while basically naked of decent weapons, along the way to Karkario, I think. wandering along a vague trail but having to be smart about avoiding monsters and actively hiding if one crossed paths with you and was too strong. Somehow I wandered into this quasi-swampy where there were plenty of old (good!) weapons laying around, and obvious hints of a long-lost battle. Raining, of course.
Out of curiosity, I looked around a little closer, still looking for decent weapons, and that's when you noticed yourself sitting in the middle of a goddamn herd of (inactive? hopefully???) guardians. The "oh jesus fuckshit-" immediate flee reaction mingled with sorrow at the lives that were previously lost in the battle was a damn fine piece of storytelling.
(Man it could have been so much better if it was just that, the labyrinths, and climbing towers. those labyrinths were rad.)
but to veer back into disappointments - then the terrible excuses of temples, oh my god, that's the final nail in the coffin.
I could have excused a more, mm, spartan? approach with the main characters, I could *maybe* ignore the ipad in exchange for the moments like above, but cool ass unique temples that linger in my dreams fifteen years later are why I play zelda games, man. WW's Earth Temple with dizzying cloying fog and the sharpness of the holy mirrors and light, every bloody temple in Majora's Masks but especially Ikana (hence username), OoT's Forest Temple and that twisty hallway leading to the almost-shrine rotting deep in the temple ...
Clearly the "shrines" were meant to fulfill part of the temple tradition with the four corrupted portable monster temple things being the other half, but I cannot tell you how much it fucking sucked to see they were the same ol' visual designs. Over and over with the bland shekiah-guardian textures and tricks and the dripping cursed goo with teeny tiny variations of the weapons. Where's the lore? Where's all the shit about the local village protecting the temple with the ancient god that could be theirs and not swapped out for a re-skinned critter from the ass crack of nowhere? I know the creators were capable of more - Hyrule Castle is exactly the vibe I had hoped the other temples would be, just, you know, visually congruent with the other environments and cultures and fully unique. four would have been just fine; MM and WW had some of the least amount of temples for older zelda games and they pulled it off flawlessly.
temples are loci, holy lodestones in zelda, and I missed that on all levels. here's hoping botw2 delvers.
postscript - if one's curious, my general feeling about 3D zelda games:
WW/MM (flawless) > OoT (timeless) >>> TP (flawed, but is a sleeper hit if you let it grow on you) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> BOTW (couldn't finish but had some neat moments) >> SS (garbage, only zelda game i gave away *and* didn't finish)
