I don't want this game to end. Never before have I been so engrossed in a game. This is the new standard for first party games.
I disagree very much. Don't mistake me, there's 70% of a truly iconic game here, but there's loads wrong with it. Inventory control is an abysmal mess; aside from needing a more granular breakdown of item types to cut down on seek time, they desperately need the ability to manually sort the non-materials menus.
The Korok seeds are asinine and exist only to placate Aonuma's pathological quirkiness. The fact that less than half of them actually have a use, and the reward for getting all of them is a burnished turd and the ability to make the head of cabbage dance on command is just more unforgivable catering to Aonuma NPC weirdness.
The weapon durability system is fundamentally flawed, and I've already discussed in great length how to fix it, but the weapon damage rate balancing is badly flawed as well; the possible range on weapons does not remotely follow the same growth curve as enemy HP. And before you cry foul that the open nature of the game means that a player would be grossly OP if they found a high-level weapon early in the game, I ask why the converse isn't decried: I can encounter a blue-maned Lynel or black Hinox at any point during my quest. Why should detrimental openness be tolerated but advantageous openness be forbidden? Related to this is the absurdity of the enemy ranking and HP. Calamity Ganon ought to be the most difficult boss in the game with 8000HP, yet a silver Lynel which is far more mobile and agile, far more capable of decimating you in the same amount of time and whose HP is 75% of the DEMON KING HIMSELF ISN'T EVEN A BOSS. Why were four Lynels, three elemental and one Stalynel, not created a trusted lieutenants left in charge of the Divine Beasts instead of four 'incarnations' of Ganon? Beyond only having a bit more than 1/3 the HP of the weakest Lynel (800 versus 2000 for a basic Lynel), they are laughably easy with their repetitive attacks and low mobility. The entire thing is ridiculous.
The fan service and exploration elements are brilliant, I don't deny that, but I've given a great deal of thought regarding BotW and how people compare it to the original
Legend of Zelda, and the reason that it still feels like a tour or a Fisher Price Dark Souls game is that you're never really alone. That's one of the things that made the original so compelling from a survivalist standpoint is that your opportunities for communication and assistance is severely. You encountered two or three NPCs during the course of the game and that's it. The overworld of BotW is infested with NPCs and the fast travel system, which I accept as being necessary because of the scale of the world, means that you're only ever thirty seconds away from feeling the relative safety of interaction, even if it's with friendly AI. One of the most primal fear generating conditions is isolation in places of ruined or abandoned former habitation; we instinctively know that something
very bad happened there and we are set at unease. That feeling lasts in this game for about 90 seconds till you meet Rhoam and it never returns, despite the game trying mightily to instill a sense of dream with cutscenes like the destruction of Castle Town or the Lanayru Road/Return of Ganon memory.
