Game Rant - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
This game has been on my mind for some time, and I figured I’d write about it to get it off my mind. The Legend of Zelda games are my favorite among all the video games I’ve played (my experience may be skewed as I stick to Nintendo almost like it's my religion) and Breath of the Wild (BotW) is one exception. I’m not going to spend time discussing what was great about the game—most everyone already knows the risks and successes of BotW (open world!)—and while a good number also already know what wasn’t so great, I’m still going to rant about what I disliked because I want to. This is not going to be all negative, since I’m taking what I disliked and considering how it could be improved in the sequel Tears of the Kingdom.
Enemies
The variety in the enemies is somewhat lacking. There are buff Yiga and lean Yiga, variously-sized Guardians, and variously-colored Bokoblins, Keese, Octoroks, Lynels, etc. I consider there to be 14 general categories of enemies (not including the variations of Ganon) including the undead versions of monsters. The main issue I have with enemies is that BotW seems to rely on reskinning. It makes things somewhat stale. Not only that, but when traveling and going places you know what kind of enemies you’ll be facing. If you’re going to the volcano area, expect fire Keese and Chuchus. If you’re going to the snowy area, expect ice versions of the same enemies. If there’re crude camps or skull-shaped rocks, expect Bokoblins, Lizalfos, and/or Moblins. Go inside a shrine, expect Guardians. This may be hindsight bias, but it felt too easy to identify what enemies I’d be fighting at any given time. Pattern recognition isn’t necessarily a bad thing and it’s great when a game teaches you its patterns. BotW just felt like the pattern of enemies (their appearance, not their fighting styles) was too transparent. Where I felt it most was while traveling the roads and seeing an unnamed traveler and thinking This person is part of the Yiga clan and being right every time. Having the same bosses in the way of Ganon 4 times also wasn’t great. Granted, each had different moves and attack patterns, but the 4 Ganons weren’t exactly unique so…
Items
Durability of weapons is an obvious grievance, and its impact left any and all weapons feeling unremarkable. Even rarer weapons like the elemental ones weren’t exciting. Whenever I found a new weapon all I thought was This is going to break and not Oh cool, new weapon! This hit hardest when acquiring the champions’ weapons, especially because they were worse than weapons I already had.
With the addition of limited inventory space and a plethora of weapons being offered (if you’re a bona fide collecting nut like me), oftentimes I simply discarded the more unique weapons. Giving up a Flameblade because of a torch (they’re uniquely helpful for some puzzles), a Korok Leaf (also uniquely helpful including for some sailing), and a soup ladle (that one’s just fun to have, much like other novelty items like the wooden mop) leaves me disappointed rather than the way I’m supposed to be feeling—which is likely excited or accomplished. It’s not really a big loss, though, since there’s always another Flameblade I could pick up somewhere else. Except that is also part of the problem. Weapons being discardable, replaceable, and non-unique defies one of the key elements of a Zelda game. That element is the uniquely helpful aspect of weapons and their use toward progression (which, ironically, happen to be closest matched with the two items I already mentioned in the way of the torch and Korok Leaf which are also both pretty easy to obtain).
Armor did a bit of a better job since the different sets were unique and gave particular abilities. Armor also didn’t break, which was fantastic, and it could be upgraded. If weapons could get such treatment, like the Gilded Sword in Majora’s Mask or the various item upgrades in Skyward Sword, the sequel to BotW could be something truly special.
Story
This one is difficult to critique since BotW doesn’t actually have a story. Okay, okay, there is a story, it’s just… most if not all of it already happened. Link’s upbringing training as a swordsman, Zelda’s science-minded study of the world and her struggles with finding her magic, and the champions’ individual lives all already happened. What’s left is fixing/undoing the damage and defeating Ganon. It’s like starting a story at the final chapter. That leaves little-to-no character development and a limited general sense of progression beyond the dungeons. If there was endgame content, that’d be interesting. But there isn’t any endgame content. It also doesn’t help that the most accomplished the story had me feeling was in the DLC. As for the side characters, all around they’re forgettable. Well, except for maybe that creepy flower lady.
Exploration
This one’s the big one and where my ranting goes full-throttle. Exploration encompasses all the previous sections and I’ll get to why, because each of them contribute in some way to exploration. Exploration is what Zelda is to me. My bias is I started playing with Wind Waker and I loved the sense of exploring a vast ocean. So, given BotW had an expansive open world I must’ve loved it, right? At first and for some time I did. Then, slowly, a grim realization dawned on me. I was seeing new places, and each was lovely to see. So, too, was finding new shrines, new Koroks, new items… Wait, I thought. No I’m not. I’ve seen these shrines, these Koroks, and these items all before. I’m not discovering anything.
I couldn’t say whether it was Korok #144 or shrine #61 or my 1,202nd weapon breaking that made me realize it, but I did and it deflated me. It’s somewhat unfair to say I wasn’t discovering anything as the puzzles were (typically) new, but that’s how it felt. Atmosphere went a long way in making things feel the same. For example, the aesthetic difference between any given shrines is there is none. Their layout changes, sure, but they all look the same and have the same music. In the overworld, between deserted roads and deserted/dilapidated buildings there also isn’t much difference in the atmosphere. This may be the drawback of such a large world where sameness can be more apparent, since there are admittedly more hubs than any other Zelda game.
On the topic of sameness, I’ve already touched on why the same enemies and the same items make the game feel stale. This contributes to the overall feeling of exploration. When you know what enemy you’re going to be facing wherever you go, there’s less of a thrill. Likewise when you know what weapons, shrines, and Koroks you’re going to come across. This turns the thrill of exploration into something along the lines of a feeling like you’re doing a job—well, that’s a bit too harsh, maybe it’s more of something like a routine. Enjoyable, but largely expected. This then leaves the thrill of at least progressing the story…if only there was enough story through which to progress.
On the topic of progression, and to expand a bit further on the use of items to progress as a staple of Zelda gameplay, items don’t help you progress. Fine, that’s not entirely true, but it’s not entirely untrue either. Better weapons help beat enemies faster, a cooked hearty durian could be the difference between a successful battle and a game over, and the set of climbing armor can help scale an otherwise unscalable wall (if lacking any cooked endurance foods). Though, at the end of the day, what really counts and what progression in the game really comes down to is the player’s skill. A pot lid can be just as effective as an Ancient Shield in the right hands. That can be fun and thrilling in its own way, but it again cheapens the necessity of items. And, you may have noticed from the previous examples, each category of item (weapons, food, armor) can do the job when one category is lacking. That, also, can be nice in the way of having options, but it takes away the uniqueness of items. All right, what I’m getting at here is that there is no equivalent item in BotW to, say, the Hookshot. Or the Skull Hammer. Or the Lantern. Or the Gust Bellows or Beetle. Like I said, items that help progression are a staple in Zelda gameplay and no single item in BotW progresses you to an area you couldn’t go before. That’s the other drawback of an open world game—there is no mystery of a zone or potential secret area you come across but can’t find a way to enter. There are no unlockable areas. You can go anywhere once you complete the Great Plateau opening.
If you’ve read this far you may be peeved at me because I’ve neglected to mention the Sheikah Slate and Paraglider as unique and progression items. True, the Sheikah Slate provides a variety of cool abilities that does help with progression, and so does the Paraglider. Only, both of these items you get at the very beginning of the game. These aren’t items you unlock later and have a sense of achievement for obtaining. The game from the get-go gave away the sole items that were worthy of actively seeking out in the world, to discover, and to explore for. I think it’s somewhat unfair to compare games, but it’d be disappointing if Wind Waker not only gave the sail after the opening but also every other key item needed (eg, bombs, the Hookshot, the Grappling Hook, etc.). What purpose, then, would there be to go to Dragon Roost or Forest Haven or any of the other dungeons?
Hmm, I feel like I’m forgetting something. Story, items, enemies… ah, characters. Side characters and side quests. I mentioned that side characters are largely forgettable, and no wonder I forgot to expand on them until now. With uninteresting or unremarkable characters comes even less of a reason to explore. Granted, no one could ever really know none of the characters were interesting until after they explored, but that leaves an expectation for something interesting ruined, dashed, mangled, synonyms. Speaking of utter disappointment, I’d like to describe the worst experience I had with BotW. I was in the early exploration stages of the game, wandering around the Hateno area. I looked up and saw a mountain. I want to climb it I thought. So I did. And as I climbed, my anticipation grew. I saw there was something interesting on that mountain. My emotions were seemingly gratified when I came across a corrupted dragon! I must save it! So I did. I battled the corruption on the dragon throughout a series of stages in an overworld fight(!) until finally that glorious beast gave a cry of relief. The corruption was gone. I returned to the mountaintop and a sacred, heavenly voice then told me to strike the dragon with an arrow to receive a gift. So I did. Lo, I obtained a scale of the dragon. Okay, I thought tentatively. What does this do for me? And then the heavenly voice returned, telling me to place the scale in the pool on the mountainside. So I did. And lo, a mysterious door in the mountain opened, revealing an inner cavern with a shrine. There’s something important in there! I thought eagerly (I had yet to grow jaded from the banality of shrines) as I ran over and descended into it. I waited until the interior was revealed to me. A single chest was directly ahead just before the monk who would offer me a spirit orb. THERE’S SOMETHING IMPORTANT IN THERE! With my anticipation at an all-time high, I raced to open the chest. It was… a Frostspear. No. That’s not all, is it? I slowly paced to the monk and began to talk with him. He congratulated me and gave me the spirit orb and sent me on my way. That… really was all, wasn’t it? A limited-use weapon? I hit the pause button, saved, and closed out of the game.
That was the most interesting side quest in the entire game and it left me with a pervasive distrust with the rest of the game after. That experience, in a word, sucked. On the bright side(?) my expectations were lowered considerably so my disappointment for following rewards was expected. I guess there was that. Anyway, the only other notable side quest involved Hudson and building a town which was sort of neat. It’s too bad he was even more unremarkable than most of the other unremarkable characters, as helping him not only do that but get married would’ve been even more rewarding.
I liken exploration to the carrot-and-stick metaphor minus the stick. When you take the carrot away, there’s not much incentive to do much of anything or go anywhere. Past Zelda games did it wonderfully. This one, not so much. If Tears of the Kingdom addresses the issues—by having unique enemies, having unique and worthwhile items that can be upgraded uniquely, having an actual worthwhile story, and having worthwhile exploration—well, gee willikers, that’d sure be something swell.
