Recalibrating The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The holidays are here and Nintendo is enjoying its second straight fantastic holiday season. The Switch was recently confirmed as the fastest selling console of this generation and its black friday sales numbers broke records.
It’s almost impossible to remember that only two years ago Nintendo seemed to be in its final throes. The Wii U was unceremoniously put out to pasture after what could generously be called a disappointing life cycle. It was doomed in part due to Nintendo’s failure to market it properly (how long did it take before you actually knew what a Wii U was?) and it’s inability to attract third party developers. The Wii U was so unsuccessful many speculated Nintendo’s next console would be its last. And Nintendo was leading up to that console with… no real details surrounding what the console was; which would make it difficult to market and attract third party developers. Nintendo seemed rudderless, doomed to repeat the failures of the Wii U before wimpering out into Sega territory.
Of course that’s not what happened. The Switch is surprisingly great. Nintendo ultimately did pour some money into marketing it properly and the Switch offers a legitimate advantage over it’s competitors, which makes it attractive to gamers and developers alike. It’s certainly been helped by a steady stream of killer games. Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Smash Bros, Pokemon, and Octopath Traveler have kept Switch in the spotlight, bolstered by ports of great games like Doom and Dark Souls. But the game that’s given the Switch the biggest push was probably the one it launched with: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Breath of the Wild was given near universal praise when it launched, securing perfect review scores from everyone not named Jim Sterling (who gave it a 7/10 and subsequently received DDoS attacks from hackers to temporarily shut down his website — because if there’s one thing the internet is, it’s reasonable). The latest Zelda holds the 4th highest Metacritic score of all time, is already the best selling Zelda game, and has an endless horde of devoted followers. Like everyone else, as soon as I got a Switch I couldn’t wait to play through BotW, and I did… and honestly… Jim Sterling was probably too generous.
In the few instances where BotW’s faults are discussed, it’s always prefaced with something to the effect of “Breath of the Wild is definitely a great game, but…”, but I’ve played through Breath of the Wild. I’ve completed the main quest line, I’ve completed a ton of the side quests, I’ve conquered the Divine Beasts, obtained the Master Sword, defeated Ganon, and unlocked every memory, and here’s the thing: it’s not a great game. It’s not even a good one.
Let’s start with some of the game’s most tangible flaws:
- The dungeons aren’t anything special, there aren’t very many of them, and they’re all kind of the same
- The bosses aren’t anything special, there aren’t very many of them, and they’re all kind of the same
- The story presentation is completely disjointed
- The controls are irritating (why do you have to take your thumb off the move stick to access the weapon wheel?)
- The weapon durability system is comically broken
These are the largely non-controversial faults of the game, the things even Breath of the Wild’s fans generally don’t dispute. Unfortunately, in an action-adventure game these are critical flaws – things make it all but impossible to have a great experience. It’s like a car that gets 11 miles to the gallon and has a top speed of 55 miles per hour. It doesn’t matter how great the interior is, that’s not a 10/10 car.
Unfortunately, what I’ve listed above doesn’t even touch on the biggest issue I have with the game: there is no sense of progression. In order to make the game uncompromisingly open, there are no items that allow you to access new areas. No scales, no gauntlets, no boots, no hookshot. Since you can go anywhere right from the start, there’s nothing you ever receive that allows you to go somewhere you couldn’t before (you get a couple of shorcut-helpers in the form of scaly armor and a pseudo flying ability, but that’s as good as it gets).
To make matters worse, every weapon and shield in the game will break after a certain number of uses. Not break as in “I need to go get this repaired”, break as in it’s gone forever. There is no way to repair weapons and all of them will permanently disappear after you use them enough (except the Master Sword… which will run out of ammo… yes really).
The cherry on this dirt-sundae? Everything is optional. Everything. The 4 Divine Beasts? Optional. Obtaining the Master Sword? Optional. Actually playing through the last dungeon instead of swimming up waterfalls to skip it? Optional. Every mission in the game is just a side quest. You’re never really doing anything important.
Combine the fact that nothing you get will ever allow you to access a new area, none of the weapons you find are anything more than temporary help, and everything you do is optional, and it’s not much of an exaggeration to say 40 hours in you can look back across Hyrule and think “I’m exactly where I started. I’ve done nothing that matters, I can’t go anywhere I couldn’t before, and I still don’t have any long term weapons.”.
Breath of the Wild feels like a giant demo. A product the dev team brings to their boss a year before launch and presents as a concept.
“Ok, we’ve done some really good work here. The engine is incredible, it’s so adaptive and allows for so much freedom. Look how big we can make the world. We’ve got the skeleton of a weapon durability system, interactive weather, it’s all here. The dungeons are just placeholders for now, there’s a lot of empty space, and the controls aren’t worked out yet, but if you’ll bear with us I think you can really see the potential we’ve got here.”
I think Nintendo bit off more than they could chew with BotW. It was years delayed and I get the feeling it still wasn’t anywhere close to being done, but they had to launch with Switch or there might not have been a future for Nintendo to launch it at all. That’s ok, honestly. If that’s the case, I get it. Nintendo’s hand was forced and out of necessity they released an unfinished product. It’s underwhelming, but it does make me excited to see what the next Zelda will be like. With momentum behind them, time to work, and a great concept game in BotW, Nintendo could make the next Zelda truly a generation defining game.
I’m just shocked so many people feel like Breath of the Wild is that game. I’ve read every review and I just don’t get it. From discussions about how the empty space is important to articles suggesting that waiting for rain to pass is a good part of the game, people are just completely head over heels in love with Breath of the Wild and I can’t even begin to understand why.
When I started this article I thought I’d make more comparisons to other Zelda games, but suffice it to say I think Ocarina of Time’s Forest Temple is better than the entirety of Breath of the Wild. The original NES Zelda was incredibly open, like BotW, but still managed to have tougher dungeons build on what you had learned in the easier dungeons, something Breath of the Wild whiffs on completely.
Whether you loved Breath of the Wild or you’re stuck here with me, disappointed and confused, I think we’re all on the same page in hoping the next Zelda enhances what we saw in BotW and gives us a truly great game.
