6th August 2017, 11:35 AM
https://www.destructoid.com/breaking-dow...um=twitter
This is a lengthy article which is getting attention by a guy who finds BotW disappointing for a bunch of reasons. Some of those I agree with, most notably the criticism of the flat difficulty of the game (a difficulty curve is far better design!). That "flat" design carries over into a lot of other things, and causes other things he criticizes at length, including that there is basically no progression in the game because you have all the key items at the beginning and the only things you have to find are shrines (which are all very similar) or korok seeds, and the story presentation of the game and how all of the interesting events happen in flashbacks and not in the present. I don't know if I mind that latter one as much as the author does, a story told in flashback can work, but I'll need to play more of the game to know. Also, when talking about how poorly BotW does at having your actions feel like they matter in the world he keeps mentioning Majora's Mask without admitting that that game is very much an outlier within the Zelda franchise as far as having your actions directly affect the world goes, but still there are some pretty good points there. The criticism of how everything in the world is all the same -- how all stables look like Mongolian yurts no matter where they are in the world, that all shrines look and play about the same, that there are so few different types of enemies and you see them over and over, and such -- is particularly good, because this is definitely a problem with the game.
There's more; it's a good article. I don't agree with all of it for sure (there's no criticism of the simplified combat for example, or praise for the graphics), but the core complaint that open-world design is not necessarily good is obviously one I agree with.
This is a lengthy article which is getting attention by a guy who finds BotW disappointing for a bunch of reasons. Some of those I agree with, most notably the criticism of the flat difficulty of the game (a difficulty curve is far better design!). That "flat" design carries over into a lot of other things, and causes other things he criticizes at length, including that there is basically no progression in the game because you have all the key items at the beginning and the only things you have to find are shrines (which are all very similar) or korok seeds, and the story presentation of the game and how all of the interesting events happen in flashbacks and not in the present. I don't know if I mind that latter one as much as the author does, a story told in flashback can work, but I'll need to play more of the game to know. Also, when talking about how poorly BotW does at having your actions feel like they matter in the world he keeps mentioning Majora's Mask without admitting that that game is very much an outlier within the Zelda franchise as far as having your actions directly affect the world goes, but still there are some pretty good points there. The criticism of how everything in the world is all the same -- how all stables look like Mongolian yurts no matter where they are in the world, that all shrines look and play about the same, that there are so few different types of enemies and you see them over and over, and such -- is particularly good, because this is definitely a problem with the game.
There's more; it's a good article. I don't agree with all of it for sure (there's no criticism of the simplified combat for example, or praise for the graphics), but the core complaint that open-world design is not necessarily good is obviously one I agree with.
![[Image: logo_bos_79x76.jpg]](https://www.tendocity.net/logo_bos_79x76.jpg){kind=logo}