I'm going to divide this Review into sections. I'm terrible at reddit formatting, so all the sections will just be in paragraph form with no big separations. There will not be any large main story spoilers. There will however be very minor ones, and i will cover those for people who wish to remain as blind as possible.
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Overall "Funness" and what the game brings to the table. (A positive review before i nitpick)
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Immersion
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The New and the Old
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Things it could be doing better.
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Final thoughts
1. I've been pretty glued to this game since I picked it up. It's been an absolute blast so far, and I'm really excited to keep playing. The game's not without its shortcomings though, but none of them really hinder overall enjoyment of the game. I'd like to also follow that up with, 10/10 is bullshit. Most of you probably already guessed that, but as far as I'm concerned, anyone who's given this brilliant but flawed game a 10/10 has their nostalgia goggles on full. I'll have my number rating at the bottom, but this game is very far from perfect. As stated previously though, the flaws don't take away from the overall experience. The colorful and varied landscapes and characters bring so much intrigue and wonder to an already mystical world, and once you pick it up, it's hard to stop. I played till 5 am just last night. I haven't held a video game and told myself "okay, i'll get here and then stop" only to keep going since I was in middleschool. There's so much to do, and the tasks presented to you are simple yet require work like any game should strive to do. Combat is spectacular. The Dark Souls-esque dodge and roll combat style fits seamlessly into the world of Zelda. There are literally 381 different weapons, and a dozen types of weapons, each with their own use in combat, and in the surrounding world. There're 161 different monsters (though some are just reskinned with variations in strength) and plenty of flora and fauna to discover as well. You can document it all and that in itself is a completionist's wet dream. Mini-boss and boss monsters are given their own wide fields to play in, so you're able to approach combat creatively and with little restriction. Do you wanna be stealthy? Get the first hit in with a critical strike? You can do that. Do you want to slap on heavy armor and charge your opponent head on with a giant fucking hammer? You can do that too. Horseback? You got it. Combat is such a joy. Puzzles are just as fun as combat in this game in my opinion. There are hundreds of small puzzles dotted all over the landscapes with rewards ranging from heart pieces to inventory expansion to apples. Yeah, apples. You get all the tools necessary to complete any puzzle in the tutorial area, so it's really up to you the order you do them in. Traveling is also handled extremely well. There's dozens of rock faces and cliffs for you to dive off of with your glider and you can get your hands on a horse pretty early on. Shield surfing is a fucking blast when available. You gotta do it on smooth terrain (not rocky) going downhill, so it doesn't come up often and it ruins the shield you use, but still fucking fun as hell. You can climb almost any surface in this game. It makes for some interesting rock-climbing sessions. There's a fast traveling mechanic that's lore-friendly, and there's a mapping system similar to that of the Assassin's Creed games. The game offers an absolute schmorgesborg of different things to do at varying levels of intensity and complexity. Even the crafting system is deceptively simple. There are so many different types of cooking and elixir ingredients with varying effects and strengths, that there's plenty to experiment with and discover. I honestly don't think anyone could NOT find at least one thing they enjoy in this game.
2. What a wonderful world! It's so wonderfully vibrant and colorful, with a plethora of sounds and character, it's really easy to get lost. Literally, if you let yourself get distracted you can find yourself wondering pretty far away from your original objective. The logic and interactions the world uses floored me originally, and they come together just as well in the final product. Things like, lighting grass on fire on a windy day can start brush fires, weapons have durability, the sneaking mechanic is pretty realistic, and you have to dress for the occasion if you're going into the freezing mountains or a scorching volcano. Different elixirs and food also help make you immune to the harsh weather. Things that should light on fire do (with the exception of npc houses of course). There are updrafts caused by heat and canyon walls and hurling boulders at enemies crushes them. This game's sandbox mechanics are implemented well and it creates a great immersion into the world.
However, there are hardware limitations that can pull you out of your immersion. If you've got the money, i recommend picking up the Switch and its respective version of the game. Although it's not safe from framerate drops, it's safer than the wii-u version. And when the frames drop, it's very noticeable. Small areas with lots going on are the biggest culprits, but you'll find the vast overworld rarely has any problems. Wait times on loading screens aren't atrocious but they're certainly not optimal. 10-15 seconds is the average on the wii-u, likely lower on the switch. Not enough to make you feel like complaining, but just long enough for your brain to reset and return you to the real depressing world for a couple seconds.
3. Many people have been saying, "This new game turns everything you know about conventional zelda on its head, it's a completely new and original experience."
https://youtu.be/-5FTJxfV3pc?t=15
This is, first and foremost, a Zelda game. There's new monsters added and a couple new mechanics here and there, but it's still the same Zelda we all know and love! Zelda's always had a vast overworld, the only difference now is that it's not unlockables that's limiting where you can and can't go, it's the levels of monsters. Anyone who says this game is completely unique hasn't played every Zelda game. Sure, there's some broken tropes, and quite a few at that, but there's an equal amount of remaining tropes. Twilight Princess had a cooking mechanic as well as different purchasable outfits, even a fast-travel mechanic that wasn't reliant on a musical instrument. You still have potions, but now you make them yourself instead of purchasing them. Fairies, heart pieces, tool upgrades, every zelda has had side-quests and Ocarina of Time didn't let you go into a volcano without protective clothing too. It's Zelda, and it may expand on existing tropes or remove them, but it's nothing new. More of a... fresh take than a different experience. It's still fun tho! Don't get me wrong, it's not stale by any means, it's just not incredibly innovative.
4. rubs hands together and cracks knuckles Alrighty, fucking, alright. Time to nitpick the SHIT out of this game. I'm gonna come out the gate swinging with the thing I hate the absolute most about this game.
Are you ready?
Are you sitting down?
Cus it's a big one.
You might not wanna buy it anymore after this.
you've been warned!
HERE WE GO:
THE VOICE ACTING IS FUCKING TERRIBLE!
...yeah, that's about the extent of the things i found wrong with the game. They're really superficial, and you only notice them if you notice them. I suggest not reading further, as what has been noticed cannot go unnoticed, but i must highlight the bad if i am to highlight the good. Alright, the voice acting is actual dog-shit. I'm almost certain they're not professional voice actors. I feel like they were wrapping up development and were like "OH SHIT WE FORGOT TO GET EVERYTHING DUBBED! GET SUSAN AND BILL FROM ACCOUNTING IN HERE!" After so many years, we finally get a named protagonist: Link, Champion of Hyrule! So much potential now swarms around the game, as we can now implement proper voice acting that doesn't bounce around proper Nouns. AND IT'S HORSE SHIT. The cutscenes aren't even that long, it's not like anyone had to stay in character for more than a minute, yet so far everyone sounds like they're reading unrehearsed off a teleprompter. Next is the music, or rather, lack thereof. The game is REALLY quiet musically. There's just not enough of it in my opinion. Music only really becomes prevalent in towns and busy areas. There's not real overworld theme, and the little bouts of piano playing you do hear occasionally last like, 10 seconds. The only way to remedy this is to constantly ride your horse, as there is horse riding music and even though it's very simplistic in nature, it's better than nothing. The questing system is also poorly implemented. It shows how unfamiliar the development team was with the idea of map markers dynamic questing. 90% of the time, a quest will only put a marker where the person who gave you the quest is, and will not put anything near your objective. The only way to tell if someone has a quest for you is by walking near them, as there are no map symbols that tell you someone with a quest for you is nearby. The whole system feels... really pointless. There's no real difference between this game's side quests and previous title's side quests, except now there's more information presented to you that doesn't do anything, which only serves to frustrate rather than help. Also, your map is completely blank starting out without anymore than an outline of the different provinces available. There's not even a name for them until perform a tedious ritual, information that probably any passerby has available is only available to you through hard work. I don't know where Hylia lake is, but I need to go there. Is there a reason i can't ask the guy who's giving me the quest for directions? Or perhaps a traveler could give me this information? NOPE. Learn it yourself through climbing through rough terrain and interacting with ancient technology, MUCH easier. The game also doesn't very obviously explain more advanced mechanics. A good example is shield surfing. I googled it immediately because i wanted to do it so bad, but I still after 15 hours haven't found anyone that has told me how to do it. There's a lot more than that, but i think I'll save it for a "Tips and Tricks" kind of thread? Yea or Nay?
5. This game is gonna be one of my all-time favorites, I can tell. I'm having much more fun than i ever did with Witcher 3 or Doom or any critically acclaimed game that's come out recently. I've had an absolute blast and highly recommend anyone pick up this game. It offers just the right mix of challenge and leisure fun. It gets a solid:
8.5/10 from me.
It can be painfully obvious at times how new this team is to developing a more open world and RPG style game, which hinders the score pretty heavily. There's a lot of wasted potential in a lot of the game too. Although the world doesn't feel "empty", it certainly feels like they could have tried harder to fit in more. PAY FULL RETAIL PRICE is my recommendation. This is definitely worth 60 bucks, but probably not worth buying a brand new console for.
Submitted March 06, 2017 at 09:46PM by DaviDeberjerack http://ift.tt/2lWiOQq
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