Unless they patched up the Switch version more by now, I remember the Wii U version had better/faster loading times actually. I beat it on that platform.
Ex: Never go full contrarian ... popular can still be good. I think
Sarge and I are beating a dead horse a bit on this topic but it was good to get
Moulinoski's input here too.
Maybe playing BoTW in 2023+ isn't quite as potent as playing it in 2017... but I kind of don't think that applies either. I still think it does a lot of neat things other open world games don't really do. Some of the traversal abilities and being "open air", ie being able to climb just about every single surface in the game was really fascinating and makes you rethink your approach to so much of the entire game. Then you load up another game after and think dang, this is... different.
But the main thing to me is that by 2017, going through many 360/PS3 era open world games, I was hitting insane fatigue with the genre. Most publishers were chasing Rockstar/GTA, Bethesda/Skyrim, and the dreaded Ubisoft model (and heck I freaking loved AssCreed II, but 50 entries later...)
BoTW threw the rule book out that so many Western publishers were glued to. Yes, it has towers that function in a similar way unlocking some of the map or something, but they were still sparse and cooler than average. Yes it has a side quest menu buried somewhere in there but as Moulinoski pointed out, they're not really worth doing for any artificial reward or raising numbers. It's just more ways to engage with the world/NPC's if you wish. Extremely easy to ignore.
Beyond that, BoTW gives the player a Thanksgiving sized plate of FREEDOM. The game and UI never tells you where to go, what to do, like so many other open world games that feel like grocery shopping checklists. A lot of modern open world games aren't being played by the player, they're playing the player.
By the end of BoTW, I'd open up the map and be flooded with joy seeing that all those 100 some icons, I dropped on there manually. I was the cartographer of my own unique BoTW experience. To this day there is still no other open world game that gives me that kind of feeling in a way. The freedom of exploration in combination with customizing so much of the map and figuring out the brilliant environmental pathways was just sublime. Without words, Nintendo designed such an interestingly massive and fun world to explore. I never liked riding the horses because every 10 steps, I'd find something else I wanted to climb or jump over to.
Now is this the kind of game I want for mainline Zelda? It's still up in the air. It's not my favorite Zelda and maybe not even top 3-5. And looking at it as another separate open world game I have my nitpicks, already mentioned. But ultimately in the end I think the game more than deserves its accolades and praise.
I even got some FromSoftware vibes exploring its world at times. In that no NPC or anything was telling me things directly, but I just "felt" a sense of history and mystique to some of the locations throughout the world, the beaten down old towns and ruins, etc. Much like Ico/Shadow of the Colossus as well.
You start off with all the main abilities and the weapon durability system kind of forces you to experiment. I can see how some hate the durability stuff but I personally didn't mind it too much here. I'm conflicted on having all the main equipment out the gate though. Or that I just really missed some classic Zelda items, the hook shot and boomerang come to mind. Getting new key items/abilities is such an adrenaline rush in classic Zelda and Metroidvania's, so this was a pretty stark change from the past. But hey, you realize with BoTW's main philosophy that less can be more. Numbers, loot, and all that crap doesn't automatically make something better, so the less you have to micromanage, the better sometimes.
Elden Ring is even better in my book, dare I say it several steps up better. But I won't deny there's a chance that BoTW was maybe somewhat of an influence on FromSoftware's approach to open world. Now if Elden Ring could in turn influence Zelda a bit down the road... that might be perfection. Elden Ring still has its main sections that are even officially called the "legacy dungeons", equivalent to real old Zelda dungeons. That's really what I hope to see in the next one.
I loved the Shines concept. Sarge pointed out the main issue I had with them after awhile, the aesthetic never changes. Despite the open world having several different seasons/environments, they could have at least changed up some colors... the volcano sections? Hey here's red shrines. But nah, it's just one look from start to finish. Weird.
I'll lay out my issues again:
- Lack of enemy variety for such a huge game
- Lack of story/exposition
- Missed good classic Zelda dungeons
- Not exactly my favorite style for the music
Change and improve on these areas and I think the next one will be the better game.