Breath of The Wild isn’t Zelda

Breath of The Wild isn’t Zelda

2017 retro reaction

Appreciated the changes to gameplay, not the changes to Zelda

 from: here

The “story” in this game feels too loose and unimportant. Just there because, with princess Zelda, Ganon and other staples of the game lightly peppered onto it.

Without playing it, I saw the reduction of Zelda essence in Breath of the Wild. In my quest to find people that could offer therapeutic content for my one-person Zeldaholics Anonymous group, I came across youtubers who had some interesting things to say.

I love the new direction of Zelda that favors exploration, but I’d say, thinning out of story and emotional connection is too great a cost. At no time do I want to feel like I’m out of a ZELDA game.

As I watched more segments, it definitely looks like fun, they have some great things that I love, like choice of garb, adding enemies’ weapons to your arsenal (even though I hear people complain about their durability), cooking, riding any animal, even the divorce from fairies and other races of “assistants” to Link is welcome by me.

Not to mention the beautiful, soft musical score married throughout every area is a major plus. It sinuously blends and alters according to where you are what you’re doing and is as gentle as the wind. So the music very much suits the world and journey, that’s a move away from traditional Zelda that I was excited about. The only thing I would adjust is the music when you’re inside the dungeons. I felt like they could revert back to the creation of legendary Zelda tunes for dungeons.

So, it isn’t the change of direction I have qualms with. I didn’t like that it lacked Zelda essence.

And what’s “essence”? I’m definitely not thinking along the lines of what some other fans had to say:

I wanted to get a base tunic and base sword, run to a town talk to a couple of people, find a big key, find the item for that dungeon, and beat a boss then go on to next dungeon

I’m not that nostalgic. Getting a base tunic etc, that’s a formula, not ESSENCE.

My feelings were more on the scale of linking story to battle.

The fun elements I mentioned earlier, I found myself asking “WHY?”. What is the meaning behind it all? What is the one subtle tone connecting all these things? Why does it even need to be called Zelda?

To me, it looks like a game that doesn’t even NEED Zelda.

I understand how my next point probably wouldn’t make sense from a marketing or sales standpoint but:

Breath of the Wild could be a completely new series:

In Majora’s Mask, even the existence of the fairies are directly related to the story. They were broken up by Skull kid while he was under the influence of Majora’s Mask. So this thing that I have to do is directly as a result of the “evil” in the game, it’s all interwoven and I feel there’s a point to it all.
The fairies in BotW are closed because… tourism was down. That’s it. Generic, bland, boring, detached from fantasy and staunched in ordinary reality.

What I loved about the previous Zelda games was the progressive story, environment responding to your progress, surmounting challenge.

 

The one game that always comes to mind when I think Zelda essence is Ocarina of Time.

The atmosphere and story magic lies in the situations Link is thrust into. It’s because we get to KNOW and feel the people in his world, see them happy, then see it all turned to gloom. The game made us love these characters, made us learn their situations and then slowly (then all at once) destroyed it with Ganon’s darkness and in thematic, touching ways, with great art and music… it was all beautiful and tragic and pulled the player in like movies do. These kinds of things are what creates magic for the player.

I didn’t feel it in BotW and found myself on a quest to prove myself wrong. I’ve even watched a lot of the cut scenes. I don’t even consider anything I’ve seen of the game to be “spoilers” since it was all fantasy tropes being propped up onto uninspired cliché and on-the-nose dialogue. I would only care about the gameplay, not much else.

I’ve heard people call it the ultimate Zelda game… not just the ultimate GAME, but the ultimate ZELDA game. I’m left in the corner of the ring contemplating WHAT ABOUT ME? WHAT ABOUT RAVEN?

Many fun, much emotion-less

I find whatever lore IS there (divine beasts) is too loosely incorporated into the game. And whenever they run their cut scenes it’s propped up on tired clichéd “goddess this/that” “evil this/that” and other fantasy tropes communicated mostly through boring, try-hard dialogue.

Even when I had seen the game for the very first time, I felt that with that lackluster opening scene, story would be on the real low end throughout the game.
I wish it would’ve started with more of an emotional core story than anything else. They’re pushing the world, but I’d prefer they pushed the story first, then the amazing world would mean that much more.

In Ocarina of Time I loved how the environment changed as you progressed through the game, it’s like what I’m doing CLICKS and MATTERS.

In Twilight Princess, I get to talk to people ACTUALLY freaked out by current events. When I complete an objective then go back to talk to characters, I get to see how their life has changed because of it. I just felt CONNECTED.
I want to meet people and nations affected by the terror of the lands and see how it interferes with their daily life. I want to constantly be reminded of some emotional urgency/turmoil. I would want more than collectible items as a reward for enemy encampments. It’s a range-free game with flimsy story tacked on as a matter of principle. Meh, because that’s what games do.

I like interacting with villagers and sussing out problems and how to solve them within their town from listening to conversations and finding clues and breaking the code etc etc. But in Breath of the Wild, from what I’ve seen, it seems the characters all go about independent of the pending evil I have to defeat.

 

Even if you meet a character, after all that, what’s it all WORTH? A tip about where something is and communicated with on-the-nose dialogue. What are these lone travelers experiencing as a result of the danger in the game? What is their story?
Even in Majora’s Mask you had people BEGGING to be healed, their personal plight, even those that weren’t directly as a result of the main evil, blended perfectly into the overall tone. In Breath of the Wild, you just had random people with tips or wares. It’s just not… meaningful enough for me.

When it all comes down to it…

It does not feel like Zelda to me. And that leaves me with a hollowness that will not be filled.

I’m happy it’s successful. No matter what, I want the game to do well.

It looks like a great game, just not a great ZELDA game.

The only thing left to do now is to wait for the next Zelda game since Twilight Princess to be released.

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