Breath of the Wild, Part Three

[rynling]

It took me four months, but I beat Breath of the Wild. I... feel so empty inside.

I accidentally skipped through the end credits, so I don't know how many hours I put into Breath of the Wild, but the post-clear map screen tells me that I've only completed 39.48% of the game. And this is after me finding and upgrading all of the gear, finding and finishing all of the shrines, and thoroughly filling out the "Hyrule Compendium" (which is basically an annotated photo album). I think that the rest of the percentage points probably have something to do with collecting all of the Korok Seeds, of which there are 900 (I've found a little more than 200, which is all you need to max out your gear slots), as well as finding and defeating every instance of every monster. Maybe I'll pick these projects back up when there is DLC available... or maybe not.

To be honest, there isn't a lot of story or lore or worldbuilding in Breath of the Wild, and running around and poking Link's face into the various nooks and crannies of the overworld map doesn't really teach you anything. After a while, everything starts to feel a little generic, and actually playing the game isn't helping me get inspired to write fic about it.

I'm not sure what to do with myself now. I'll just wait patiently for FFXII to come out, I guess.

Comments

[thegingeryone]

I think one of the biggest things with BotW is just like...it seemed to start and stop environmental storytelling at "here's some ruins and some decayed guardians, you do the maths"? So you start out and its a case of "oh god what happened?" but it never goes beyond that because the answer is ALWAYS "guardians happened."

So it feels so disappointing, because for all the little tidbits of info we might get from item descriptions or cool looking ruins they don't add up to anything. they dont tell us anything about ganon (serious botw wtf are you playing at with ganon), or zelda, or anything. it's so frustrating -_- I'm glad I'm not the only person who felt "eh" after it was done.

[rynling]

THANK YOU for helping me feel not so alone about this.

I have so many questions about Breath of the Wild, and the game refuses to yield any answers. Like, what's up with the creepy mummified monks in the shrines? What's going on with the blood moon? What are those giant Gerudo warrior statues out in the desert? Why do the names of the Divine Beasts all use the Gerudo "v" sound? How did people in Hyrule lose the knowledge of how to manufacture rubber? Why is the passageway leading down to the Hyrule Castle docks hidden behind a metal slab in the library? There is some interesting environmental storytelling and neat bits of lore tucked away in the game, but it never gets any deeper than vague suggestion.

I recently read the Edge Magazine feature on Breath of the Wild (in Issue 304), and they've quoted Hidemaro Fujibayashi as saying that the core element of the Zelda series is puzzle solving. While that may or may not be true, I can't help but wonder if the poor dude is still feeling a bit sensitive about the criticism of Skyward Sword's emphasis on story. Couldn't there be a nice balance between puzzles and story?

[thegingeryone]

there are so many questions about botw and its like an itch because NINTENDO....Please tell us more. what is happening in BotW. You can't pull so many games of building up gan the man and then pull your switch debut with "oh yeah he's a bloodborne boss now, really creepy, very visceral, associated with the moon and blood, no personality". I feel like the story was kind of...shoe-horned in, to be honest. I understand why they had all the associations of 100 years ago but like. it's kinda hard to get invested in it if you're not giving us a reason to...like...being able to play those segments.

See, I agree with the comment on puzzle solving bc i'm sure it's always been gameplay at the front of their minds, but at the same time, it's not like they haven't...done it well before? Coughs loudly and gestures at wind waker. Like if i wanted a game with maybe 3% story and an antagonist with as much personality as a brick I'd play phantom hourglass.

I think there was a kind of shift in the wii games, where they tried to put in more story and seriousness across franchises, but achieved lower sales/critical reception for whatever reason. and then nintendo just...put it down to the story, i suppose? Which comes across as very silly. come on guys, we KNOW you can do this.

it sucks because i WANT to like botw but the story just turns me off so much...

i really need to write an essay about botw i'm so bitter about how it handles its characters and world

[rynling]

Like if i wanted a game with maybe 3% story and an antagonist with as much personality as a brick I'd play phantom hourglass.

You mean that other game Fujibayashi directed? Haha... ha...

I also felt that it was difficult to get invested in the world of Breath of the Wild. This is why I put off facing the final boss for so long - I knew that the promise of this last little bit of story was going to be the only thing keeping me tied to the game. When the "Champion's Ballad" DLC is released I will most definitely jump on it, but in the meantime I don't feel particularly compelled to spend money on the most recent combat-focused update.

Oddly enough, according to the Video Game Sales Wiki, Skyward Sword didn't perform that poorly, and Twilight Princess most certainly did not perform poorly. The Wind Waker, despite being on a shit console that almost bankrupted Nintendo, didn't do half bad either. Even a cursory analysis of this data suggests that the presence of a story (and Ganondorf's hellafine ass) does not hurt the financial or critical reception of a game. For what it's worth, I've read a lot of reviews of Skyward Sword over the years, and what about one out of three reviewers seems to take an issue with is not the game's story, but its motion controls (which, unfortunately, I've never been able to get to work properly either). It therefore seems that there's no compelling reason for the developers to have not woven more narrative details into Breath of the Wild's gameplay elements.

TL;DR: I agree with everything you wrote, preach it friend.