Ok, so, I used PTO to request an entire week off work for this game. Thanks to having two days off naturally, that meant 9 days to play it to my heart’s content, barring a few breaks to do some friend helping and also some Bombermanning with friends.
In that time I have found and completed 77 Shrines, gotten 125 Korok Seeds, tackled 3 of the Divine Beasts, and have done every side quest that’s crossed my path in between.
I’m not done yet obviously, the game could totally screw the landing, but I think I’ve played enough of the game thus far to have a solid opinion.
This game will probably end up dethroning Majora’s Mask as my favorite game of all time. Not hyperbole, or a joke. I really feel this game is that good.
I don’t think any game is truly “Perfect” so demanding absolute perfection isn’t feasible, but damnit this game comes close. Close is not “Perfect” however so yeah, I DO have some issues with the game. I’ll get those out of the way first because they won’t take as long as the things I loved:
Stuff is hidden due to length, not spoilers. Nothing here is a spoiler beyond the VERY beginning of the game, like stuff Nintendo showed off in trailers
Cons:
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I overall am good with the inventory system and the breakable weapons (See the video I posted earlier, Arlo mirrors my opinion pretty well) but the one thing I think I have a problem with is how the game handles when you have a full inventory and try to pick up a new weapon. I’d REALLY appreciate an on-screen prompt akin to “Your Inventory is full. Would you like to drop something to make room?” and if I pick “Yes” it automatically takes me to my weapons menu, and if I pick something, it auto-drops that something and auto-picks up the new thing. As it stands, I have to walk away from the new thing, push +, scroll all the way left because usually I’m on my food, pick the weapon, pick to drop it, back out, walk back to the new thing, and then pick it up. It feels like a few steps could easily be shaved off of this is my point.
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One issue with the durability of the weapons however is that it would be nice to have an actual bar or meter telling me my weapon’s durability, like on the inventory screen or something. The only indications you have are the sparkle that tells you it’s new and unused, or the red that indicates it’s about to break… you have no indication of any of the in-between levels at all. For the early-game items like Boko Clubs and tree branches, this is kinda ok because they have such crap durability that it’s fair to assume they’re always just a hit or two away from the red… but as the game gets on and you have actually durable weapons, I’d like some way of telling their exact durability so if I come across something that’s weaker than my current sword, but is pristine, I can help gauge whether or not dropping my current thing is a good idea. Like, there are times where if my current sword is at about 75-80%, I’d probably want to keep it, but if it were ~30%, I’d probably want to drop it and swap it even if the new thing I found is weaker.
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The Rain. I don’t mind the rain as a mechanic, and I don’t mind the slipperiness or any of that. It does add an element of realism and goes to making the world feel truly alive. What irritates me is… it feels like it rains ENTIRELY too much… like, a lot… like wow. Nintendo, please nerf the freaking rain… I get in places like Zora’s domain before you do the beast it’s SUPPOSED to be raining all the time, but this happens freaking everywhere… starting a fire and camping for several hours helps… but not entirely. I’ve jumped 24 hours into the future with it before and it’s still raining… The most recent area I’ve played was Gerudo Desert and I’m kinda sad I have to leave it soon because it hadn’t rained once and that was great…
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I hesitate to call this a flaw, but I find myself missing a full grand Zelda style score. The reason I struggle with this is, I get what they were going for with the atmosphere and I actually really think it works. I like the minimalist music and I like the music that does play when it plays. I do get engrossed in the world and the sounds and the atmosphere around me……. But I miss my grand Zelda music!! I don’t want to call this a flaw because it’s not something “Wrong”, I know this is just my inner Zelda fangirl missing something I liked.
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Now, with those out of the way, time for the Pros
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The world is absolutely massive and so full of great stuff to do! This was my biggest worry about the game looking at it before release. Twilight Princess had a huge world, but did nothing good with it really… Hyrule Field felt empty, there were really only two actual “Towns” with people living in them, and one was pretty barren… This has a ton to do. There are Bokoblin camps all over the place, wild animals you have to contend with, people! There re NPCs just wandering the world who can talk to you and even get in trouble and need to be saved! This feels like a full and thriving world and it’s amazing. I think I’ve spent the most time in my playthrough just exploring everything.
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The Puzzles are engaging and fun. The decision to not do as many big dungeons and instead to split a lot of the puzzles up to the Shrines and some Overworld stuff felt risky to me, but it paid off. The Shrines have just as engaging and fun puzzles. I’ve had to move around electricity generating orbs, pick up metal bowls and carry stuff, stop time on some rolling traps to get by, or direct a raft floating down a river with well-placed Cryonis blocks. This is excellent puzzle design, and I’ve almost always felt challenged without being frustrated by it, it’s a great mix!
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So far I’m loving the story and I think it’s being handled REALLY well. They give you nuggets of story at the start, that Link has been asleep for 100 years and the great Calamity Ganon attacked and something happened and you went to sleep, and that you now have no memories and that’s it. Then, it’s up to you to seek out the story points in the form of “Memories” of Link’s. You need to go places the Sheikah slate photos say you have been to in the past and that jogs Link’s memory. You can also learn lore and information by talking to NPCs and interacting with the world. Like, Kass tells you the story of the great calamity in the form of a song if you talk to him. That’s great because it encourages exploration as well as talking to the NPCs to enrich the world yourself. This is probably the best way to handle a story in a game like this considering an engaging story is usually what you sacrifice for linearity and… I will say, tho I do like it, the story is definitely not as engrossing as say, Skyward Sword’s is, but the trade off is we get this free open non-linear world in exchange.
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Speaking of non-linear… This is the first truly Non-Linear Zelda game we’ve gotten… in a VERY Long time, I’d say Aonuma and Miyamoto’s comparisons to the original LoZ are apt. Every single other Zelda besides these two have some linearity to them. Ocarina, Majora’s Mask, Twilight Princess, hell even ALTTP have SOME Linearity. Some parts you HAVE to do before other parts… this game really doesn’t…. I suppose the 4 shrines you have to do before you can get off the Plateau is the only time this game has any real linearity, but even then you can do the shrines in any order and there’s even multiple ways of doing those. Like the different ways to keep warm while you’re getting up the snow covered mountain to do the Cryonis one.
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Also since we’re on the Plateau, there is no stupid hours long handholdey tutorial!!! The Tutorial the game DOES give you is more akin to older games in general where it just drops out into a tutorial area and gives you some minor direction on where to go to get the Runes, but learning the mechanics and the functions of both normal controls and the runes is entirely on you… and I LOVE this. Nintendo, you’ve just hit the perfect butter zone on tutorials in a Zelda game. You’re done. You never have to figure out another Zelda tutorial again. Just Step 1: Give us the tools we need to learn, Step 2: Let us play with them. Done. Good. We’re golden.
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No stupid handholdey companion character. This kinda goes along with the no tutorial thing, but man is this great. Sometimes, they do amazing with the companion character. See: Midna, Tatl, maybe King of Red Lions. But when they screw this up…. They REALLY screw it up…. Navi…. Fi….. I’d much rather have none at all than risk another Fi. Skyward Sword is in my Top 3 favorite Zelda games and I’ll be the first to admit Fi gets annoying fast.
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The next couple of things might count as spoilers for some. Spoiling to be safe:
! - I’m a big fan of the Divine Beast dungeons. The mechanic of having to move around the beasts from within in order to do puzzles is great. I wish the dungeons were a tad longer, but with all the overworld puzzles and Shrines, it’s not really an issue.
! - I really like that there are a few “Bosses” you can fight on the overworld that have names and lifebars like the Hinox and the Tallus. The first time I accidentally encountered one is scared the crap out of me and made me feel like I was woefully unprepared to tackle this world, but then the first time I managed to take one down, it made me feel like I’d learned and made real progression, and now I can take them down fairly easily, and it REALLY helps the feeling of progression in the game.
! - Link and Zelda’s champions of Hyrule from the flashbacks are all amazing, I really really want the DLC coming soon to be set in the past when those guys were alive and fun.
So yeah, REALLY Loving this game… unless something happens during the final beast fight, final side quest/shrine mop up, or the final battle with Calamity Ganon… this game will probably dethrone Majora’s Mask as my favorite game of all time… and I’m totally ok with this.
This game walks a very fine line between feeling like classic quintessential Zelda and a radical departure that completely changes the entire system and I think it hits the perfect butter zone there.
NOTE: Please ignore the prior length of this post. I copy-pasted an entire word doc on accident instead of the small chunk I had intended to.