Breath of the Wild is Good But Its Over Rated

I know this is going to be a controversial post, and before I get into things, Breath of the Wild is still a good game. There are some things it does extremely well, like exploration and interacting with the environment. But there's serious flaws with Breath of the Wild that brings it from it's over-hyped levels to more of a "good/great" game level. I'll be making a lot of comparisons to Xenoblade Chronicles X. Xenoblade Chronicles X was made in large part by the same people who made Breath of the Wild. And while they're both very different games, they share a lot in common with exploration, how each game handles letting you explore, etc.

Climbing & Paragliding

These two skills easily break the game. Exploration is such a key component of Breath of the Wild, you're given a huge map, and the game more or less just throws you into it, letting you explore and go nearly anywhere you want. Overall, this would be great, but from the tutorial area, the first thing you learn is the shortcut to exploring isn't running around and taking in the scenery, it's climbing and paragliding from a high point to the next point of interest. I found myself quickly discovering the best way to explore was to climb up a the highest area I could, look around for something interesting, then paraglide to it. This meant I skipped a lot of stuff on the ground. No doubt I missed lots of enemy bases to fight, shrines, etc. But it was by far the fastest way to get to places.

Xenoblade Chronicles X handled this differently. You didn't get the ability to "fly" in the game and cover huge distances until around 20 to 30 hours into the game. This left you running around on foot. It made you feel like the world was absolutely massive and it helped make you feel like things really were hopeless, and you were just one little person in a huge world trying to fix things. You can cover a lot of ground with Breath of the Wild's paraglider from a high point. And you get the paraglider right away. So instantly, Breath of the Wild's huge map suddenly feels smaller than it is. Breath of the Wild really missed out on making the player feel like they are insignificant in a world destroyed by Ganon. It would have been much better if the paraglider was something you unlocked and earned after some time in the game.

Besides climbing cutting down on exploration, it also took away a lot of challenge. After beating Breath of the Wild, I lost count of the times I avoided a challenge by simply climbing around. I'm not one to usually avoid challenges in games, but Breath of the Wild encourages you to avoid challenges because of the durability system (more on this later).

I was able to skip huge parts of the final castle by climbing around obstacles.

Lack Of Progression

Xenoblade Chronicles X handled progression amazingly well. You start out weak. It's an RPG so you start at level 1, and you see level 50 monsters close to your base. You level up and you finally get strong enough to explore that area. You felt real progression. And getting strong enough to finally beat those monsters that one shot you when you made a wrong step earlier felt absolutely rewarding and great.

In Breath of the Wild, there's not much holding you back from exploring most of the map. Enemies are generally constrained into bases, with not that many free roaming threats, besides things like guardians. This means there's not much threat in exploring, outside of the castle. I found myself not feeling like I had to work towards getting gear to explore areas like in Xenoblade. Yes, that is there, you need proper clothing to explore the tundra, for example. But acquiring that gear usually isn't too difficult. I managed to handle a lot of the cold areas by carrying a flame sword I found in a shrine.

And yes, the fact that your weapon being hot provides heat is a really clever and innovative idea, the way those things are gotten isn't something you work towards. It's something I stumbled on. Which didn't feel like I earned the ability to explore the tundra. I stumbled upon it.

Speaking of stumbling on things, I accidentally found the Master Sword. Previous Zelda games always made it feel like getting the Master Sword was some sort of huge event and huge trial. But it was pretty easy and it didn't feel like it was something I worked for.

Weapon Durability

Breath Of the Wild feels like it should have been an RPG. A lot of the problems in Breath of the Wild could have been solved by making it an RPG. But it's an action game instead. A role playing game lets you level up, and what the player can do and where they can go can be limited by what their level is. If the game designers don't want you to explore an area when you're level 10, they fill it with level 50 monsters.

Breath of the Wild didn't have that luxury. You are free to explore anywhere, and other than Lynels and strong guardians, most enemies aren't going to be that much of a threat. In order to stop players from getting extremely strong weapons and then having absolutely zero challenge in battles for the rest of the game, durability was introduced. This means the more you use a weapon, the closer it gets to breaking, until it breaks forever. Well, except for the Master Sword, which has a cool down period if you use it too much. But it's actually not the strongest weapon in the game.

This was done to stop players from having overpowered weapons and never losing them. But, what happens is around mid game, you end up with some very strong weapons, and no more room to store weapons. You'll come across enemies, and it's entirely possible you'll break one of your good weapons, and end up with a weaker weapon from the encounter. So, you lose your progression of getting stronger in the game, and you spend time defeating enemies to get worse gear. Why fight enemies then? You can just avoid battle, even climb around the most of the time

Lack of Dungeons

There are only 4 dungeons, and they're not very big. They depend mostly on solving a few puzzles, there's very little exploration. They don't feel epic or like you're diving into something big and scary. They feel like you're in a small room with some puzzles. This is a well known shortcoming of Breath of the Wild, so no point in beating a dead horse.

Worse, the dungeons aren't even necessary. They basically only work to make the final battle easier by lowering Ganon's health.

Empty Over world Filled With Shrines

There wasn't that much incentive to explore. You can climb around most danger, and some enemy battles aren't even worth fighting because you'll end up with worse gear than you started. And since there's no RPG elements, how strong you are basically depends entirely on the gear you have. Most of the world is filled with shrines, small rooms with puzzles or battles against enemies. These shrines were designed to be a reward for exploring. But they all have the same art style. No longer are you in the fire temple, water temple, etc. You're in another shrine that looks the same but has one or a couple of puzzles to solve.

Your reward is an orb you can use to increase your stamina, which lets you climb more, or to increase your health. After a while, you have enough stamina to climb anything you need to, and you have enough hearts to make it through battles. So you have no reason to do shrines. Why explore then? There's not really a reason.

Classic RPGs would have you return to the same points over and over again to grind for gear. Not in Breath of the Wild. Exploration wasn't as rewarding as it could have been. Playing Xenoblade, when you got to a new area, it felt you like entered a new world. Breath of the Wild had some very interesting areas, but they were very conservatively done. Grasslands, tundra, desert.

Ganon Battle is Disappointing

Maybe I am just getting old and played too many Zelda games, but the final battle was too easy. Most of it was just "aim at the glowing spot." In fact the final part, I don't want to spoil, but it felt entirely like one of those "do something very simple and watch something flashy" types of battles. Very disappointing. I remember struggling with final Zelda battles as recent as only a few years ago with Wind Waker HD. I don't mean to brag, but I beat the final boss in Breath of the Wild on my first try. I was even hanging out with a friend, we were both underwhelmed.

In Conclusion

This is just to focus on why Breath of the Wild is over rated. It's still a great game and does so many things right. But it's important to see where Breath of the Wild falls short. I still enjoyed the game enough to complete it and did have some fun. But it could have been so much better. Settling for how Breath of the Wild is now and holding it in such high regard will only prevent future Zelda games from being better.

I know this post was pretty negative. I want to reiterate I do like Breath of the Wild and it is a good game. But it's over-rated and it definitely has some short comings and large problems with it. Hopefully we can see these things fixed in a future Legend of Zelda game. Going open world like Breath of the Wild did was an interesting direction for Zelda games to move towards. I hope we see more, but the idea needs to be refined.