Is Breath of the Wild the best game of the generation?

Eat shit I'll do as I please here, fanboy.

It is up there, but there are games I enjoyed more such as Bloodborne, Spiderman, Super Mario Odyssey, Smash Bros., and Witcher 3. It is definitely an excellent game for sure though. Easily in my top 10.

For me, hell yes.

No obviously. Its a great game but there is better game existed.

Yup.

I definitely enjoyed it a lot and plan to play it again soon. Lots of great games this gen and I'd consider it one of them.

But yeah, too many games that excel in different areas and appeal to different criteria.

Hmm. Fair if you don't like it, but this is false.

It adds non-redundant options to the possibility space. That's a textbook example of adding depth to a game.

And can't boil it down to "simply a nuisance". Some of its affects are indeed a burden while other affects can benefit the player. It's a two way street.

Rain just serves as another layer, adding twists on various systems. Temporarily opening some options, closing others, leading to different avenues for decision making.

I'll assume you don't like its affect on climbing, or how lightning strikes down metallic equipment? Absolutely fair if so.

On the flip side though, the metallic equipment drawing lightning can be turned into an advantage in combat and traversal. In combat, turning the same logic on your enemies and in traversal, causing updraft from burning brush. Likewise, your electric weapons get an AOE bonus in rainy weather, making them a more viable option.

On a similar note, fire becomes a non option for the player, but this also carries over to enemies.

Shield surfing gets a noticeable bonus from wet grass.

Rain causes puddles, allowing for use of Cryonis in areas where it's typically not an option.

Rain adds ambient sound, allowing for easier success in sneaking scenarios.

Then of course you have plants and animals that are more plentiful in the rain and some plants that only bloom when it rains.

I'm not some BotW super fan and haven't played in forever. Could be things I'm missing.

/Facts.

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As for the degree of depth it adds, debatable. And whether or not you like those design choices, absolutely subjective.

Personally, I'm glad that rain is a system rather than simply a cosmetic. Won't pretend I haven't been frustrated by it. When you have a direct goal and suddenly you can't climb exactly when and where you need to, can be annoying. But generally I appreciate the twists and there were times it steered me off on a completely different adventure unexpectedly. Which I feel aligns with the core of what makes BotW so enjoyable to many.

Aside from that, between your own skills and the game offering new equipment and skills as you progress, rain hindering your traversal becomes less of an issue.

I feel it's a valid and enjoyable design choice, but it's absolutely understandable if you feel differently.

Stop being foolish. Where do you think you are?

A dead forum that could drastically improve with more posters. Just being here doesn't entitle one to act like an idiot over some piece of plastic. Removing the outdated fanboy labels would improve traffic and bolster the community.

No need to remove the "wars" part of this place, just the idiotic and nonsensical labels that are in fact part of a fanboy war, which supposedly isn't allowed here.

@npiet1: It is the system wars and not fanboy wars. Threads are locked for fanboy wars. Where do you think you are?

It's kind of ironic that a majority of the better posters' here are from GGD, a board that is totally dead, unlike this place that is just semi-dead.

I moved here a while back because GGD was abandoned.😥

@ConanTheStoner: Woah, super informative post. I learned a lot from this haha, cheers! :D

Yep. Seems you also don't subscribe to the cringey and outdated fanboy terms either, as far as I can tell. I wonder how old those terms are now?

I typically limit myself to Sony/Nintendo/Xbox fannies. LOL. I have no idea how old the terms on this forum are, nor do I know how PlayStation fanboys became cows or Xbox fanboys became lemmings. Sheep makes more sense, since its used a a general term for followers.

Funny part is, those labels were put in place as a means of replacing more derogatory fanboy labels. Sure it's dumb. I think everyone thinks to themselves wtf when they're introduced to the cow, lem, hermit, sheep shit... I know I did. But people are gonna find ways to label each other fanboys regardless.

Anyways, I don't really see this forum turning around or reinventing itself. Would be nice if we could roll things back to how they were just a few years ago. When there was an actual limit to how much of a shit poster you could be. Not gonna cry about trolls and shit posters, every gaming forum has them. And sometimes they're entertaining. But the amount of threads that get disrupted or outright derailed over the same old tired ass shticks is beyond absurd at this point.

That being said, not even sure what mods could do about it now. I think we're way past the point of cleaning up the boards as a means to bring in more users. Would probably just accelerate this boards death if anything.

Fo sho!

Probably more to it, that's just what I know. Pretty amazing to see some of the things people are still figuring out in BotW.

From my understanding, the breakdown:

Cows: Because Sony milks their fanbase

Sheep: Follow whatever trend or gimmick Nintendo supplies

Lemmings: They run off the cliff with Microsoft

It's all dumb terminology at the end of the day.

@briguyb13: @Pedro:

I didn't start visiting this board until late 2004, but wanna say those terms originated in 2003? Pretty sure I heard that once.

And yeah, they were just meant to be different ways to label followers.

Sheep being obvious herd mentality. Cows being milked by Sony. Lems following others off a cliff... hermits idk, always assumed a jab at shut in basement dweller types.

But either way, dumb as they are, made much more sense back then. The rigid meta game, people proudly being members of a fanboy faction. Way less individual thought, more just brand loyalty and rules of the game. I think most importantly, the average user was so much younger. A lot of these people signed up 10, 15, 20 years ago. So yeah in hindsight it all seems especially silly.

I am also one of those who have moved here from the Games Discussion board because there just wasn’t enough traffic there, aside from the spammers of course. 😅

Since we're all announcing our whereabouts and how we got here: I used to be an OT guy. Won a few OTcars back in the day, had my 10k party. Modded a couple unions. Swung around SW and GGD.

Guess I was pretty well-versed around this site. It's a shame most of the activity has been consolidated to SW these days.

Oh - and oh yeah, I forgot this was a BotW thread.

@jaydan:

Ha, nice. I'd lurk OT a bit, but probably have less than 50 posts there over the years.

Yeah might as well. I mainly stuck to platform and game specific boards. I was gaming on everything at the time, guess I always have, but I had some slightly fanboyish leanings back then.

Mods told me to take that shit to SW. And I was like wtf, how dare you lol. Didn't know much about SW, heard it was the armpit of gaming forums, and thought I was above it.

Then I got hooked and it became my main gaming forum since late 2004.

It really is! Quite a testiment to the depth of the game that people are still able to discover new stuff to this day, evidently I've only really scratched the surface myself. Really need to get back into playing it once I'm done with Fire Emblem.

@ConanTheStoner wow, almost two decades old and the more rabid and frothy single system clowns are still fighting to keep that antiquated shat? lol

@Archangel3371 Thanks.

It used to be a party over at OT. I would say it used to be the most active forum on this site - and then that fateful April Fool's joke and everyone disbanded. That was around the time I left this site for so many years before coming back, but I didn't leave for that reason. It was more like when all your friends here ditched this place, there was no longer incentive to be here.

I told myself back then I was done with Gamespot, but so many years later I made the account I use now. Didn't really intend to dive back in here, but I dunno. Started posting again and here I am.

@briguyb13: No problem.

Back to Breath of the Wild, yeah there’s definitely a ton of cool and fun things you can do in the game. Seen some people do some really interesting stuff. As great as the game is on Normal I enjoyed it on Master Mode even more. It’s a real testament to quality game design.

I think there is a good argument for BOTW to take that place this gen. However, I would also say that there are a few other games that deserve it just as much if not more.

It’s not even the best Zelda game

I only did it for 60fps higher framerates and playing Breath of the Wild really made the gameplay smooth and enjoyable. If the Switch somehow offers to play BoTW in 60fps, this wouldn't be a problem.

Ha, right. I get that some of it is just holdovers from way back. Just like hype vs flop and other metagame related shit. No longer central to what the forum is, just habit.

I still catch myself on that shit sometimes.

Not to act like a gatekeeper on some stupid forum shit, but it's especially weird when relatively newer users cling to the old forum slang. It's like yo, you weren't even around for that dumb shit, so wtf?

Otherwise it's like a bunch of zombies, going through the motions of their previous lives.

Oh I feel ya, I bounced back then for the same reasons. Visited way later and even though it wasn't the same, saw a few familiar faces and got back in.

Been an on and off relationship with these forums since. Sometimes you just mean to dip your toes back in and say sup to a few ppl, next thing you know you're posting every day.

And yeah OT was definitely one of the top spots, was always like a rivalry between OT and SW lol. Kinda surprising that SW outlived it.

Eh. I think with some series it's easy to make that objective call between its entries. Zelda, not so much.

Personally, I feel BotW is without a doubt the best 3d Zelda game. And even bringing 2d Zelda into the equation, could still make a strong argument for BotW.

While some aspects can be directly compared, a lot of them simply can't. Becomes a matter of your criteria, right. The same things that some people absolutely love about BotW are the very same things that some people hate about it.

It's a weird one in that even though it's the closest Zelda has been to its roots, it's the furthest thing from the typical formula the series has been following since LttP.

Anyways, it's certainly not without its flaws. But I'd rather see them refine and evolve this formula than ever go back to the previous 3d Zelda style.

Maybe? Haven't played it yet. Don't have any nostalgia for Zelda, too. I'm waiting for Switch 2.

@Pedro: the internet.

You have answered your own question. 😂

It's pretty great, I played it recently to try out the dlc material.

That said though it has problems, I can't say it's my favorite Zelda or GOTG, and frankly it's not even my favorite game even from 2017. My personal GOTY that year is Nier Automata.

I'd say BotW, FF7 Remake, GoW 2018, RDR2 and the possibilities of GoT and 2077 being all contenders of best game of this generation

Yeah and if you can handle even being called a lem or what ever, hop off.

It probably is for me. And yes it has some flaws. The ending most notably. Some odd open world pop in. But everything else feels so refreshing and it feels almost like perfection. It's the only game this generation that makes me feel giddy inside when thinking about it.

Master Mode was something else, too. I love Master Mode so much, I am torn between waiting to play BOTW2 until they put in a similar difficulty or playing it straight away.

I mean I won't be able to wait but still. To me, playing BOTW without Master Mode equals to not playing the actual game unless you find it too challenging. Just like Twilight Princess on normal mode is only half the game it is on Hero Mode. These games make way more sense on the higher difficulties.

Its Nintendo we're talking about. Their 10th and 11th gen system will most likely not be able to run open world games at 60fps. Hell, BotW is a WiiU port, and even a port of a previous generation game ran below 30fps. Simply pathetic.

I think so. Haven't played anything better.

Not for me. Zelda is my favourite franchise from Nintendo only because I own a N64 and played both Zelda's on it, but to me they weren't the best games on the 64.

I won't say what my GOTG is, as I don't need to justify it as each person has different tastes.

No

@ConanTheStoner The one thing I hope they do something about is the broken-up flow of combat. Constantly swapping between weapons with different effects in battle can be quite jarring for a game with an otherwise fast-paced combat system.

To a certain degree, it almost feels like a turn-based game or an active battle system except the enemies aren't integrated in said system.

Man, OT used to be da bomb and I love posting random shit over there. That place is really a ghost town, you'll see the same thread that was made in 2 weeks now. Hardly anyone post there but I still go their and come to GS due to bad habits lol.

The acid test is always, if you took the franchise away from this and released it without the zelda name with the same game but different characters, would it be then? The answer for me is no. But it would be lauded as a great game.

Not sure, but it certainly deserves the title over any other action-adventure or RPG this generation.

My personal GOTY from what I've played so far this year (which isn't much, to be fair).

Oh for me that's a yes. It's easy to imagine too, because it is the least classic Zelda-ish Zelda game I played in a while. (I know that in concept it's actually more Zelda than most Zelda games because it focuses so much on exploration.) It would lose some of the magic that my heart associates with Zelda and the ruins and secrets around the castle would be less meaningful but it wouldn't have done away with any of the fun challenges and discoveries I had while playing this game.

This and probably Witcher 3 have been the highlights of this gen to me. They're also 2 of the greatest games I've played so far in my life and whatever money I've put into them truly feels well spent.

Enjoyed Odyssey way more than BOTW. Changing weapons every few hits annoyed me.