So I'm Playing Zelda: BotW

Community General Discussion
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… and having so much fun with it!

But more importantly, playing this new Zelda entry (aside from being a huge fan for the Zelda franchise), made me think of contemporary retail WoW in general in terms of innovation, iteration, and the infamous “Rule of Cool”. As such, here’s my attempt on starting a discussion on these aspects thanks to Nintendo’s latest entry to the Zelda series.

Innovation and Iteration

It’s no question that Blizzard is known for iteration rather than innovation; they are a polisher of ideas taken from other developers/video games and transformer of them under their own creative and professional hand. Well, atleast this is what’s been held up in the past. However, just because you are known for iterating within a genre doesn’t mean you cannot innovate from within your own franchise/series. This is where the latest entry of Zelda, Breath of the Wild, serves as example. The open world genre isn’t a new thing in the gaming industry, Bethesda is most known for it and even in our current gaming landscape we’ve plenty of non-Bethesda titles joining in the genre. However, Nintendo’s BotW showed us (well me) the vast potential of the open world genre yet to be untapped after all these years and brought enjoyment to the core pillar of the genre itself, exploration, mixed with a well-executed gameplay/combat loop. Finally, in terms of the Zelda franchise Nintendo took a huge leap transforming their franchise from linear dungeon crawl to, well, open-world, and are succeeding with it.

Nintendo’s accomplishment with BotW reminds me of a Blizzard I originally fell in love with way back then. Just like Nintendo went from linear dungeon crawl to open world, Blizzard in the past went from RTS to MMORPG. There was innovation in the series yet fundamentally an iteration (a fairly large one) of a pre-existing genre due to professional polishing standards. Modern WoW, while I confidently believe is still the most-played MMO to this date, doesn’t strike me as innovative at all, let alone iterative; what aspect of BfA is an improvement of what we had in the game, let’s use Legion as baseline comparison. WQs are still the same, Azerite Necklace/Power is an inherent downgrade from Artifacts, storytelling is abysmal, community-dev relations are still sh!t. These aren’t sign of a developer company praising itself for polish, these are signs of a developer company scrambling to maintain what they have built thus far.

The Rule of Cool, and How to Use It

Just like aforementioned polish of iteration and innovation (within their own franchises), Blizzard was also known for designing under the developer mindset termed as “The Rule of Cool”. We are playing a video game at the end of the day after all, visual flare is a staple and defining aspect of how video games are, doubly so in an MMORPG where enjoyment is had with your fellow community. And while the Rule of Cool is typically now seen as a bad thing for Blizzard’s development, that wasn’t always the case. Outland was cool, Northrend was cool, hell, even Argus was cool (for the most part). Yet contemporary Blizzard seems to adhere to this developer mindset at the cost of narrative/gameplay consistency when this not be the case. Going from kicking demons in space to a domestic faction war doesn’t make sense neither does having every single class in the game being a downgraded version from their Legion counterpart.

Again, I find BotW as contrasting example to current WoW’s existing aspects. The Rule of Cool is very much in play within BotW as the most starking example that comes to play is going slow motion into the air while raining arrows from above, best done in visual flare (for me atm, haven’t beat the game) where Link shoots arrows at a mechanical elephant 50 feet above in the air. The concept of raining arrows from above at an elephant robot is nonsensical at first glance but isn’t the case when Nintendo fully grips you in the immersion of BotW’s Hyrule. In both a narrative and gameplay sense, it makes perfect sense to shoot arrows at a mechanical elephant, and it’s so damn fun doing so. This is just a slow-motion archery, don’t get me started on shield surfing. Regardless, again, Nintendo shows that The Rule of Cool need not be a detriment to a game while Blizzard apparently struggles with it and arguably have been for years.

Conclusion

Let me state here that I am no means a blind Nintendo fan. I’ve not played many Nintendo games beyond Pokemon and Zelda and not even all of the titles within those franchises (for Zelda in particular only played OoT, TP, and now BotW; screw you Skyward Sword). But I can see genuine developer craftsmanship within this most recent Nintendo entry I’m playing, the same humility and care I once saw in Blizzard from years ago. That’s not to say Blizzard now lacks this aspect, but it’s not hard to pinpoint that it has lessened greatly. For me, BfA’s development cycle, lack of polish, incoherent narrative/game design, and poor customer reactions speaks to me that Blizzard is in a depression at the moment, one I hope they pull themselves out from. Just like I’ll pretty much always love Zelda, I’ll always love Warcraft, and I do hope that one day Warcraft, or WoW, will have its “Breath of the Wild” moment. In the meantime, I’ll be here still sinking hours into climbing mountains, having my weapons break, and collecting Korok poop!

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BotW is easily one of my top 15 games of all time and I’ve probably played way too many games. Wouldn’t really recommend master quest that much tho unless you’re mentally prepared for the game to be completely different.

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Lots of rumors that Breath of the Wild is getting some kind of sequel or prequel somewhat soon that will use the same engine.

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To be fair tho every Zelda game is amazing and has been a hit, so Nintendo has never really fell into a depression with the Zelda series, so they never really had a “Breath of the Wild” moment per se because all the Zelda games are amazing, wish the same could be said for WoW.

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I mean, good game…but I could’ve done without the weapon breaking mechanic…

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I’d argue if we go by sales relative to each entry of the franchise, Windwaker and Skyward Sword were definitely low points. Still, you’re correct in that the the low point of fanbase dismay (as we have in WoW) never happened with Nintendo. Still, I don’t think the comparison hurts.

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I dont think you see how crucial the weapon breaking mechanic is. Without the weapons breaking you’d be stuck with the same weapon the entire game.

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Didn’t bother me in Ocarina of Time.

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im not saying to hack your console or use an emulator (w/o owning game to dump yourself alogn with console) but BOTW has some enjoyable mods…even a Linkle one and one to make Fierce Deity GS fire enery blades like in MM.

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BOTW put me to sleep. I preferred Mario Odyssey that same year

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If weapons didnt break you’d just go straight to the Lynal with the giant metal club that does like 60 damage at the beginning of the game and you’d be able to use it for the rest of the game. I think that would really take away from the Wild aspect of the game and it would make fights less rewarding the rest of the game and maybe even annoying.

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Best game ever!

Seriously though, I love BotW :grin:

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Oh but once you get the Megaton Hammer why use anything else?

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Because weapons break it adds another layer of strategy to the combat in the game. When you get a Lynal weapon you have to think “When am I going to use it? What enemies am I going to use it on?” This becomes something even more significant when you play Master Quest because all enemies regenerate health in combat and have double health. Sure the game COULD have gone down the route where you essentially have just 1 weapon the entire game, but it would have made the game so so much more dull and all fights in the game would be pointless and you would always try to avoid fighting because fighting would be a waste of time.

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In the very short amount of time I played BotW before returning it, breaking weapons did more than anything else to discourage me from fighting.

Should I clear that enemy camp to see whats in the chest inside? Nah, that’ll just break half my weapons and the reward will probably be like two fire arrows.

Genuinely never had less fun playing a Zelda game.

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Or here’s an idea…
Enemies don’t drop weapons Link can use because he’s not trained in Advanced Lynel Warclub Combat Tactics. He’s trained in “Use the frelling weapons we gave you, idiot, you’re a knight of the realm, we gave you plenty.”

They should’ve not had the weapon breaking mechanic but different weapons that use different styles of play…

  • The balanced, all-purpose sword that’s useful for most playstyles and almost every situation.

  • The slower, harder-hitting gauntlets and boots.

  • The faster dual-scimitars with smaller attack arcs but more hits per button press.

In Breath of the Wild, what do you get? Big thing, stabby long thing, sword thing, bow. Some of them double as boomerangs.

Devil May Cry 3, yes an action game, encourages diversity in weapon use by making the weapons stand out and be interesting.

Breath of the Wild discourages diversity in weapon use because they’re all the fluffing same and only the base stats change.

It’s like saying, “oh, JRPGs encourage weapon diversity, because every time you reach a new town you buy new weapons to replace your old ones”

That’s not how that works

That’s not how any of that works

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