A HUGE Portion Of The Criticisms For BOTW And TOTK Boil Down To “there Isnt (xyz) In This Game Like

A HUGE portion of the criticisms for BOTW and TOTK boil down to “there isnt (xyz) in this game like other games!” And the answer to it is almost always “yes there is, you are just ignoring it or actively avoiding it or willfully engaging in it in a way that is breaking it and then getting mad that it broke”

Like, if you want a tight 50 hour 3d zelda with a full ACTIVE PRESENT story and linear story/mechanical progression & big dungeons….just listen to what the game is telling you to do and inviting you to see when you see it and you will literally get a classic linear 3d zelda experience complete with “yes, we did infact have ONE PARTICULAR solution in mind for this puzzle!”, deep lore implications, extremely melodic and complex orchestral music, progression, & a zany cast of characters.

Both of these games are so much more than that though, and contains so much more content that people don’t see that meat and potatoes run because of their own choices and desire to break the game wins out over wanting to meet the game where its at. And to be fair, that is a major component to what these games are daring you to do. And you should engage with those, but if you really did want the classic experience, it should be obvious you should treat it like the OOT era games and it will LITERALLY provide that for you in neon blinking lights and guardrails.

I really do feel like these two games are sort of an exercise in discipline /listening /spotting subtly /recognizing things in their new shape as much as they are an invitation to explore experiment and fuck off, and people are mad that the option to break from the path exists at all because they dont have the control or desire or sight to focus in on whats being asked of them and they don’t want to accept the shape of what the game is working with.

I’m not saying these people are playing the game wrong, but the attitude and closed mindedness is the problem. it’s almost always the source of these kinds criticisms that want to present these games as empty repetitive experiences, when these two games give the entire franchise a run for its money on uniqueness and novelty and story depth and profoundness.

You went in for a bad time, didnt want to play, and got exactly what you worked for- a lame, monotonous level skip that jumps ahead of itself, disrespects the intention of the developers, and misses the point of very obviously and enticingly marked gametunnels they made for you.

Like, seriously here, both but totk especially is quite literally an on-rails CINEMATIC GAMEPLAY experience if you want it to be, it literally has a path that is like 99% laid out in such a way that you are directly on mine cart rails and jumping up and down on direct vertical pathways. The regions-to-temple pathways are about as much of a bee-line as you can get. The skylands & cave systems are effectively old oot era compartmentalized zones. Same with shrines. There are so many ways they have created pathways and say “GO THIS WAY” that if you ignore those and get lost its kinda on you for not being observant….. which has always been one of the top asks of the player required to beat a Zelda game.

The biggest difference between these two games and other 3-D Zelda’s is that it just has taken the roof and some walls off the design. It Lets you experience more in context to your journey at any given time and that gives you a lot of freedom and agency to break from the path or stay on your goals, and both enrich your experience and inform what links journey is going to be and how narratively/mechanically/progression cohesive it will be.