BotW is the end of OoT (and it’s bad)
I’ve gotta throw this out there because this game (and its praise) is driving me up the wall.
I unrelentingly loved this game, until I completed Vah Ruta. From that point on, something bugged me and it took me a while to figure out what it was.
Vah Ruta was a cleverly designed dungeon, with a theme that tied into the actual dungeon mechanics. After that, the rest of the game felt incredibly shallow.
It dawned on me that the only thing of any substance in this game was the part that felt the most like a Zelda game. But with only 4 of these divine beast dungeons would it be enough to sustain the rest of this empty experience?
I completed Rudania and had my answer. No.
The divine beast dungeons are impressive for BoTW compared to the shrines, but they fall far short compared to anything from previous Zelda games. The gimmick of manipulating the dungeon fails to impress pretty quickly, which is damning when there are only 4 dungeons.
Okay that’s my gripe about dungeons, now onto story;
There isn’t one. Or more accurately, we are experiencing the end of one, without the beginning or middle.
Remember how in OoT you spent the start as young Link, you explored the world, encountered characters and dungeons, AND THEN you became adult link, you got to see the change in the world you’d gotten to know, re-encounter familiar faces and friends.
The changes in that world mattered because we’d experienced what it had been.
In BoTW we’re dropped in a world where everything interesting has already happened, and everyone we’re told is important is already dead before we get our few minutes of interaction with them (and that’s being generous).
You cannot just have a short segment where everyone tells me “That person was great, and you were friends, ‘member?” and expect me to care about them.
This world is devoid of meaningful character and story, leaving a big bland sandbox.
This game is the end of Oot stretched out across a big landscape with climbable mountains, but little else, and the idea that it’s the best Zelda game is laughable.
BotW can keep its mountain climbing, I want a world that can be experienced in ways more in depth than “I could climb that”.
