How Breath of the Wild 2 Can Rectify BOTW's Fundamental Flaws

How Breath of the Wild 2 Can Rectify BOTW's Flaws - BOTW is lauded as the greatest game of all-time, but is fundamentally flawed. BOTW 2 can rectify this.

[HeisenbergX]

What are you kidding me ?? this game is flawless how dare you point out these imaginary fundamental flaws. 🤬

[Zeldafan64]

Apparently some people can't tell the difference between sarcasm and legit anger.

[mikeslemonade]

Breath of the Wild is the worst 3D Zelda. The only correct move they can make is not make a sequel to the tech demo ladened game.

[bouzebbal]

B....bbb....but botw is the best game of all time?!!
Most overrated of all time more like!!!
First zelda game I didn't even finish.. If I have to pay the sequel it means I have to buy a switch, a console I'm not a fan of in the first place.. They really have to go back to old recipe.. Keep the open world, but give me at least some real dungeons with different end bosses..

[neutralgamer1992]

What a Nintendo game with flaws you must be joking s/

I guess you don't have the biased tinted glasses most reviewers wear when reviewing Nintendo games or cardboard boxes

[TeamIcoFan]

Oh so now we're allowed to say BOTW has flaws and is overrated?

[TK-66]

You've always been able to say it. If you're saying you were silenced for criticising it years ago then maybe your criticism just didn't stand up to scrutiny.

[knickstr]

I remember pointing out the same flaws that this article states in multiple articles on multiple sites and got downvoted and ridiculed every time.

[Teflon02]

Yup, I called out all this games flaws from the get go and people were shitting on my comments. Despite me owning and having the game completed. For me the game wasn't a great game and was serverly overrated with the flaws that it had. The flaws it had couldn't add up to such hiigh scores. It's ridiculous. I'm a big Zelda fan too. The game was soo flawed. But had alot of great ideas. Just not implemented good. But I don't expect most issues to be fixed because these ppl don't know how to keep it real and criticize where due. To make sure the devs know what to improve on

[-Foxtrot]

You do though, if you call it you get told either...

"You didn't play it"

"You are a Sony / Microsoft fanboy"

"You are a Nintendo hater"

"You don't know good games"

It's one of them

[Kosic]

I remember being called all sorts of names for stating botw to me was a 6/7 sort of game. It was ok, but it lacked a lot and I rushed the remaining 5 hours because I was losing interest.

For the 2nd, remove the weapon breaking thing, less open world, go darker on the storyline, do bigger dungeons, and not these silly physic puzzle devine beasts (they were terrible and so short). Something like OOT sort of lay out would be nice. I'd like a dungeon to be 30-60 mins in length not something I finished in 10mins.

[Jin_Sakai]

Every time game a game gets phenomenal reviews it’s overrated according to some. It has flaws and It’s not perfect, but no game is

[King_Noctis]

Yes, because if one publication talk about it, then the other publications must jump on board to get the immediate clicks.

[-Foxtrot]

Isn't that the Nintendo effect?

Once the sequel comes out or is announced people can call out the previous games flaws more.

It wasn't until Breath of the Wild was announced you could speak freely about Skywards Swords issues.

[EmperorDalek]

Plenty of people have been saying that since it released, especially on here. Not sure what you're on about.

[Neonridr]

flaws for sure.. overrated is a bit of a stretch considering it won GOTY by so many publications.

[IamTylerDurden1]

You would think the game was virtually flawless judging by the 97 Metacritic score. Both RDR2 and BotW got away with things that other games don't.

[TK-66]

Such as? I can name a fair few highly rated games that had similar flaws, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you've got something more nuanced.

[carcarias]

Yeah, it's bizarre how some sites get so caught up in the hype.

I was on a site the other day that said they wouldn't be scoring RDR 2 on pc because they couldn't bring themselves to play through it again and didn't want to be in a position where they might give it an 8/10. They said they couldn't go through the mediocre gameplay for 60 hours without the story to prop it up. They also said the mission structure was bloated and the narrative repetitive.

Yet what score did they give it originally? 9/10. They said it was Rockstar's most engaging game yet and only had a few minor flaws. Mediocre gameplay, poor mission structure and repetitive story don't sound like little flaws, imo.

[EmperorDalek]

Red Dead Redemption 2 is the highest quality game out there, it deserved its scores.

[WGAF]

@Tyler
Can you elaborate these flaws?

[-Foxtrot]

For Zelda Breath of the Wild?

Story was weaker or just lacking

Hardly any enemy variation

No epic meaty dungeons with unique themes and puzzles

No memorable NPCs

Side quests were pretty weak

The music wasn't up to score compared to past games

Lacking amazing boss fights, even the end fight was pretty average to other games

Weapon breakage, says it all

Lifeless world

Basically most things which made past main line Zelda games...Zelda games. Past games did it better in most areas and when it came to reviewing the game no one mentioned this. Any other game which gets a sequel, journalists will bring up the last game to show what it's done better or worse but for BotW no one did this and just made it out they did everything better.

[TK-66]

@-Foxtrot

To link into @TylerDurden1's claim, many of these are things that other highly praised game have gotten away with.

1. Multiple highly praised games have had lacking stories over the years
2. Game had roughly 20 different enemy types (excluding Color variation and bosses)
3. Dungeons is a valid criticism, but alone not enough to make a dent
4. Memorability is subjective
5. Side Quests were average and line with most high scoring games in the genre. Not specific to botw
6. But there were some decent tracks. However, claiming this is something the game got away with like Tyler said is false. It was identified pretty early on.
7. Another recent GOTY contender had lacking boss fights; GOW got a pass on it, so BotW is not on the receiving end of any double standards.
8. Will return to in detail further down as most cant actually justify this point substantively.
9. I would have to call the world of GoW and Horizon lifeless by this logic. There were enemies, items, resources, merchants, stables, a few encounters and mounts scattered throughout. I can name numerous high scoring games that have gotten away with that level of "lifeless" so it's not valid to Tyler's point.

Weapon breakage is not a valid criticism if all you're raising is that weapons broke. Even if you get more specific, and said it was the rate at which they broke it would not be enough to justify as a flaw. The system was completely fine as you could easily find multiples of the same weapon, get the master sword which regenerated, mark locations of certain enemies carrying weapons and farm them after the blood moon, so this criticism isnt pointing to a flaw in the game. At best you can say you personally dont like it, but that wouldn't justify it as a flaw.

Removing it would also remove part of the throwing mechanic. When a weapon breaks after making contact with an enemy from being thrown it deals much more damage. That adds depth to the gameplay. Your best line of criticism would be to suggest a crafting system that follows a similar formula to the cooking system. When weapons break they drop random parts required to build a new version of that weapon. You can mix parts to create a weird and unwieldy sword, or do the same to discover the recipe for an even better sword. I think these two paragraphs dent the idea of "says it all" being enough to to validate the argument of this being inherently flawed.

"but for BotW no one did this and just made it out they did everything better."

No, flaws were pointed out. The general argument made by critics was that they felt what flaws they could raise didn't detract from the overall experience. A highly praised game is never flawless, and the narrative of special treatment doesnt hold up well under scrutiny. Not enough at least to show this game is drastically worse than what the reviews would generally imply.

[rainslacker]

I think the Nintendo fan boys made it out to be flawless more than the reviews.

I think every game has flaws. How critical those flaws are vary, and sometimes they aren't really a problem at all.

[carcarias]

This article is a bit sensationalist and relies on a premise that I don't think is true to begin with. Regardless of the meta-score, I don't read too many opinions stating it's their GoaT. In fact, for many Zelda fans, it's quite divisive.

[esherwood]

Botw has jaded me to Zelda period. I seriously wonder what reviews it would have got if it wasn’t a Zelda title. Guess I’m just an outlier though because I thought it was ridiculously boring

[porkChop]

"BOTW is lauded as the greatest game of all-time"

What? One of the best games of the generation? Yeah. *One* of the greatest of all time? Sure, I mean it really comes down to personal preference and what you got out of the experience. For me personally, it's one of my personal favourite games ever. But the absolute greatest game of all time? I haven't seen many people claim that, even the die-hards. Many Zelda fans took issue with the changes to the formula, even if they really loved the overall game.

As someone else pointed out, this is straight-up sensationalism. You're presenting a distorted version of the truth, and that creates a weak foundation for your op-ed. Don't do that.

[Veneno]

Some have said it's the best Zelda of all time which right there is a bold claim. It's my second favorite.

[BadElf]

Same big open world. Bigger.
More things to see/explore.
More things to collect. Not just seeds.
Temples.
More food options.

[Veneno]

I really liked the physics based puzzle elements of the dungeons. But if they brought back the traditional dungeon traversing and boss battles and somehow mixed the two together you'd have a dam near perfect game right there.

I played on Wii U so I definitely want better performance haha. Don't know how the Switch version runs. I don't have one.

They need to make the weapon system more fun. I've never enjoyed weapon break. Dark Souls fixed it . So should Zelda.

[NonPartisanGamer]

This article’s main complaint was that BotW was too unlike a traditional Zelda game and even it didn’t execute that new vision perfectly, it is what I enjoyed most about the game. It strayed from the mostly predictable Zelda formula, the art style was amazing and it offered a sense of exploration unmatched by any of its predecessors. But for the love of God, let the weapons in the sequel last more than 4 hits.

[shaenoide]

-memorable dungeons.
- memorable bosses
- less useless walking
- no Korogu.
-No useless (far top big) OW

What I remember from BOTW ? Spending more time walking than doing something meaningful.

[Neonridr]

Any game has flaws, at least mechanically there was nothing wrong with the game. The things people have issues with can easily be addressed and solved. I am looking forward to Nintendo taking the really good stuff from BOTW and improving the areas that needed extra polish. Just make it darker.

[Exvalos]

Article is spot on, I've been saying all these things for years but malnutritioned incels, kept trying to put me down and say the game is perfect and is the greatest game of all time. All this new game needs is a Link with a personality, a coherent story, the amazing music that Zelda is known for (especially the hyrule theme.) And for the love of all god, get rid of the weapon breaking and bring the dungeons back.

[Neonridr]

I'm ok with weapon breaking and durability, just give us a blacksmith or something so we can repair them.