I must be one of the few, but I couldn't stand BotW. I played for probably 2 or 3 hours and just found it awful. I absolutely despise the weapon breaking mechanic.
The weapon durability seems like an issue till you stop worrying about it, because the game is constantly throwing new weapons at you. Some people never get over that hump though.
I felt that way initially but eventually you realize you’re just collecting piles and piles of “stuff”. All of it is disposable and what matters is you getting better at interacting with the world.
Honestly, it’s my only gripe with it too and you really just gotta get used to it. Know when you need to fight and when you need to just skip an enemy. The weapons later on have higher durability so they take longer to break. The game was always less about combat and more about exploration, y’know, “I wonder what’s over there, what’s over the next hill” type of stuff.
Very annoying at first, but after a dozen or so hours you realize you have way more weapons than you actually need, and you have a good understanding of how best to use each of them organically. I don’t think I ever got caught in a situation where I didn’t have enough weapons to proceed through a part of the game. It’s for sure weird and takes a little getting used to. But totally worth working through to enjoy an amazing game.
Nah, the issue they had was there’s so many weapons/items in the game and when they didn’t have the durability limit, people would get attached to one weapon or another and stop trying out the other weapons.
So the durability fixes that by forcing players to actually use a few different weapons. Earlier Zelda games were more rigid where lots of enemies are hardcoded to be invulnerable to most weapons so you’re forced to use a specific item because it’s the only one that can damage, ie, a peahat in Wind Waker.
Same. Attempted to restart BoTW a few times over the years and bounced off it really fast each time. For me it comes down to the “open world” being too large. The best thing about BotW for me is that it makes me nostalgic for the previous Zelda games so I play one of those instead.
I don't know that I want to see weapon breaking stick around forever, but I think it was a fresh change.
As others have said, it is annoying at first, but you get used to it.
The nice feature though is that it encourages you to use a far wider variety of items. You aren't hunting for the "best" item and then using that forever. You constantly get to use a bunch of different weapons and pick the ones that are better for certain purposes.
I wouldn't really want a third game based on it though. Because on the flip side, there is also something special about earning a great weapon and then being able to use it. Ditto for the ability to climb everything everywhere...it changes the "feel" of exploration because you aren't limited in the routes you take. It also means you miss a lot of tidbits that a game would normally have forced into your path--and as someone with less time for gaming these days, I don't want to be forced to choose between taking the easy direct climb+glide option or walking along the road to make sure I pick up potential story elements.
I’ve played almost every Zelda as they’ve released pretty much. I played BotW when I was recovering from a surgery, but I didn’t really like it. I don’t think I would’ve finished it if not for being bedridden. I played TotK at release as well, and it was the first Zelda I couldn’t bring myself to finish.
I personally don’t love open world chore games, which those mostly are. There isn’t really anything unique to see while you’re doing repetitive open world chores in these games.
You could avoid a lot of what I didn’t like about both games, but it’s such a huge part of them, so why even play them if you’re avoiding all the content? It’s Zelda, so it’s not like you’re getting much of a narrative.
If you’re into kind of standard open world environments and somewhat aimless open world chores, then they’re pretty well made games. If you’re looking for dungeons and puzzles and interesting, unique environments, there isn’t a lot of that in either BotW or TotK.
Hard ditto - it's just too different. Starting with LTTP (most clearly, though the NES titles had a bit of it), Zelda games have been metroidvanias - discrete new skills unlock access to new areas and effective combat with new enemy types. BoTW can't do that due to weapon wear, so it ends up being a bit metroidbrania and mostly conventional RPG with stamina and health gates. It's just not the same game.
Oddly enough, as someone who didn't like BOTW, it was a lot better with the higher difficulty setting. Didn't fix any of the core issues (in particular BOTW having a barren, pointless open world), but it actually made me focus up in combat.
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u/TheGreatestIan 17h ago
I must be one of the few, but I couldn't stand BotW. I played for probably 2 or 3 hours and just found it awful. I absolutely despise the weapon breaking mechanic.