Good Game Design - Breath of the Wild: Open World Done Right
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 มิ.ย. 2024
- The Legend of Zelda: BotW is the best open world game I've played in a long time. Let's talk about why! (Horizon Zero Dawn is pretty great too)
For those wondering about spoilers, I personally feel like there aren't any, but if you're extremely sensitive to them, it's very very mild at best.
Huge thanks to Razbuten for his help, and reference of his videos. Check him out here: / razbuten
Also thanks to Nathan Wooten for the Red Dead footage.
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Games shown: Call of Duty 4, Final Fantasy XV, Assassin's Creed, Just Cause 2, Batman: Arkham City, Sleeping Dogs, Saint's Row The Third, Skyrim, Brutal Legend, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Far Cry 3, Grand Theft Auto 5, Borderlands 2, Fallout 4, Mad Max, Red Dead Redemption, Fallout 3, Prototype, Grand Theft Auto 4, Witcher 3, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Music:
Birocratic - "Lovely Rita"
Everything else from Horizon Zero Dawn OST, Twilight Princess OST and Breath of the Wild OST
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When I talked to someone while naked I got 100 Rupees and got told to buy some clothes
wow, that's awesome.
Philip Olsson Little did he know is you already have clothes. The dude got conned. lol
LOL
This could so easily be taken out of context
Yes! Just discovered that yesterday. It's amazing how every time you sit down with this game you discover something new.
120h into the game... Didn't know a guy would stop you from jumping off a bridge.
I'm still discovering new things every day, it's nuts!
Reminds me of the guy in Mother 3 who tells you to get off the railroad & you can mess with him by stepping back on it every time he leaves. He eventually says he doesn't care anymore but you can call his bluff by doing it again.
Yeah I saw something in the water and the guy said that to me and then I jumped after.
I beat the game in 17 hours, but I felt unsatisfied. So I restarted and decided to let myself get distracted. Best idea ever.
My friend showed me some random mountain with a great thunder blade on top that I had no idea about AND I’M 135 HOURS IN!!!!
Breath of the wild is the next standard for exploration and player freedom in open world games in my opinion.
I agree totally
snomaN Gaming that was an amazing video man! The people who ask why breath of the wild is different from other open world games should see this video in a heartbeat.
I hate that standards keep getting higher and higher. I mean it's great that the devs are able to evolve their games further, but setting standards just means the community has a reason to shit on the dev teams hard work just because they aren't living up to the next standard. "Perfect" games like BotW are extremely rare, and most of the time AAA companies have to settle with 7/10 or 8/10 games because of all the shit they have to deal with in the development stages of a game, and they have to finish the game before the deadline.
I just think the game devs are getting way too much flak and not enough praise for what they do.
neogohan324 - "the next standard for exploration and player freedom" doesn't mean story. I disagree with Skyrim having more depth than BOTW in terms of story, but I loved the depth in Witcher 3 too. I think the gameplay of Witcher 3 is mediocre, but all the little side quest stories kept me coming back. Hopefully Cyberpunk 2077 takes some ques from BOTW in terms of exploration and keeps the level of story that Witcher 3 had.
Standards may be getting higher and higher but fans still buy the same formula from nintendo or assassins creed. I'm glad nintendo is stepping up on open world, though, because through the whole course of the Wii U complaints I could only wonder if a pokémon game with semi-open world would ease it.
So much that I decided to 3d model Johto.
GODDAMN I DIDN'T KNOW YOU COULD UPTURN THE GUARDIANS WITH ICE
THIS GAME
Writing on Games SAME LMAO. THAT CHANGES SO MUCH
LOL there's literally so much I'm still discovering every day!!
I just deflect them lasers.
Writing on Games Holy shit, I didn't even think of trying that with cryonis.
Writing on Games yeah, you get more ancient parts by flipping over guardians not in the ground or with legs, you can use magnesis and metal objects to push them over as well.
I honestly feel like I spend more time in BoW trying to do super cool stunts or trying to eliminate enemy camps in the coolest way possible, such as jumping off my horse and taken them out one by one with arrows or planting traps near their weapons to defeat them before they can grab them. It's all about experimenting, seeing what you can do with what weapon or item. I even tried to use chuchu jelly as weapons (Which worked pretty well for the ice and fire chuchu jelly)
Yeah I love the freedom to just do anything you could possibly imagine in regards to physics and stuff
I was once in a thunderstorm in my sheikah garb gear (which increases stealth) and was hiding near an enemy camp, they didn't notice me right away. I noticed a treasure chest nearby and used magnesis to pull it close and quickly grab my loot and then get away from it, but in that short time, I got a lightbulb in my head, so I used magnesis to move the treasure chest on top of the platform I was hiding under, where the ennemies were, and then lightning striked and all the minor mobs got one hit killed by lightning, leaving me with only the black bokoblin to take out. honnestly felt great.
Togepi1234 Gaming I once took out an entire camp of mid-tear enemies by rolling bombs down into the camp about 200 times because I didnt have any good enough weapons to fight them with
I lured a large group of mobs into a puddle then quickly fired an arrow at the ground beneath them causing all of them to be paralyzed for a moment long enough to start a Greatsword spin and finish them off.
this game has a wonderful physics and possibilities.
R.I.P those who missed Hetsu because they went exploring to fast.
I missed him...but funny thing was on my way back i saw this wierd looking npc...ya and that was after the 3rd beast....made me reliease i coulda seen him so much sooner and the limited inventory without him was pretty annoiyng.
Narlaw1199 I didn't take the road to Kakariko. I only found him because a friend told me about him.
Narlaw1199 this actually happened to me and i was apparently ranting about the korok seeds haha
Narlaw1199 me
Narlaw1199 i missed him until I go fight the second Beast
For games with RPG elements, tie upgrading skills to specific activity rather than expenditure of experience points. For instance in BotW you can't "level up" you health and stamina from experience points, you have to complete shrines. This way players avoid XP farming and repetitive gameplay
Yeah I am SO GLAD they avoided XP for it
Loc Karr Hyper Light drifter did something similar with its upgrade chips
But in reality the shrines end up being more repetitive than the numerous methods of getting heart pieces and other upgrades in previous games
the shrines ar eunderrated.
i dont get how their much different. I half of the shrines to be boring and just for level grind so i can get the legendary sword
You know what's hilarious? He was talking about how hetsu is on the way to kakariko village so you will know the purpose of the korok seeds. I was 75 hours and 90 shrines deep into the game before I found him.
Seriously, I am like 90+hrs into the game too and I have yet to even finish or find the small things like that as well. When I played on another account in the beginning, the shrine with the vines wrapped around it in the island was usually easy to do if you had a fire arrow. But given my 3 hearts and low stamina and barely any resources, I figured out that I could have just used a flint and wood with a torch to burn the vines instead of using a fire arrow. Small things like that made me learned many new things about this game still lol
@@jamuu1 I didn't know you could light those Spikes until like 130 hours.
Now I'm at 700 and still discovering new things every day.
Part of the "Climb the waterfall" gang too?
@@fruitenantcolonel9207 More like the ''somehow go throught the guardian infested mountains to reach kakariko'' gang.
9:10 The moment I saw the name "Eventide Island" I was like, "don't step on the shore don't step on the shore DON'T STEP ON THE SHORE"
lol yeah, you like how I cut right before it? ;)
Now we'll never know how badly you got your butt kicked by that Hinox.
guyoverthere, I had Urbosa's Fury, and just one use did took so much of his health meter away.
〈-thatguyoverthere I decided not to face him, just paraglided down to his belly, grabbed the orb off him and ran up the hill with him following slowly behind
I had the hinox bring the ball up the hill and then slammed the metal boxes into his eye...
The best thing in terms of open world design is the fact Breath of the Wild doesn't tell you anything. Normally you unlock a tower in a game and your map is filled with check points. Breath of the Wild is like go look for yourself.
BotW has 900 Koroks to find. just think about that. Nintendo actually created 900 mini puzzles for you to find. I was wondering why I kept finding some every single hill or hidden area.
You don't need nearly that many to max your inventory, so I love that theres SO MUCH of them.
One of the best things to me, is that moving around in this game is actually fun. Games like Skyrim were not fun to move around, so I fast travelled everywhere. It was really disappointing sincw Oblivion let you level your walking speed and jump height and that made it very entertaining for me.
I feel like half of my game time is just me climbing, gliding, shield surfing, riding a raft, etc...
yes yes yes all of this
snomaN Gaming :D
Matt Fletcher I agree, it's incredibly fun to move around. However, the point he made in the video about only being able to travel to shrines and towers seems a bit far fetched, as they are basically everywhere once you've uncovered at least half of them.
That said though, I'd rather move around on my own than fast travel a small distance. Sometimes however, fast travel is very useful:
- Quickly getting across the map and back when fixing gear upgrades, for instance
- Reaching a certain area that you can then freely explore on foot
There's what, 5 or 6 variations, though? Pick up stone, complete stone pattern, complete cube pattern, put thing in thing (ball in hole, dive into ring, roll ball into hole, etc), shoot some targets, or dash to a mark in time. So even assuming 9 variations, you're doing each 100 times. Quantity kind of overwhelmed quality here; I'd have loved maybe 90 well-done ones rather than the collect-a-thon they did since that's about where I just got burnt out on them.
neogohan324 I get what you're saying. Maybe this quantity over quality was chosen for the sake of actually finding them as another common activity to entertain you while exploring rather than a rarity in the gigantic map?
You forgot the breakable weapons...and how they make the player not rely on a certain weapon or to disregard weapons just because they have a lower attack value
Yeah, I honestly never had a problem with them though. They give you so many weapons (almost every enemy drops one) that it was never an issue for me. Do I wish they lasted a little longer? Sure, but I upgraded my weapon slots and kept some good weapons to save for bosses, and used just okay weapons for everything else. Not a big deal at all
Not just that, by having breakable weapons, the player is incentivized to try other approaches in battle. Amazing design decision in my opinion, it encourages players to experiment and, as you said, discover. Nice video!
Good Game I get that they were trying to make the game more realistic, but I think they went WAY overboard with the weapons breaking. If I go to my local sports store and get a bow and arrows, I'm pretty sure it won't break after 15 shots. That just gets annoying at that point.
It also created a lot of annoying and frustrating fiddling with menus.
Breakable weapons also make most shrine/camp rewards worth it. Let's face it, going out of your way to solve an optional puzzle to get a chest of Rupees isn't the most exciting thing in the old Zelda games. Also, it gives you a choice between powering through areas with your stronger weapons (thus wasting it) or fight on the level of the area you are in by using the weapons you find in said area.
I'm 180 hours in, I have all the Shrines, almost 200 Korok Seeds. This game is revolutionairy. I've never played a game where I'm this far in and I'm still learning new things.
You mentioned the Pro HUD, I wish there was something between Normal and Pro. I find the clock, the weather forecasts and the temperature and sound meters really useful but I don't want the minimap. Because of that I've stuck with the Normal HUD.
yeah same actually
You can get the temperature from the equipment screen and the time is displayed on the map. You don't need the HUD for either of those things. The weather forecast is gone, but that's a bit of a cheat anyway.
Also, there are two visual cues to tell you when you're in a dangerous climate. Link will start sweating or shivering and a puff of snow or embers shows up on the screen when you've changed climates. Much more intuitive and immersive than looking at a temperature scale.
Yeah but I don't wanna look in menus when I don't have to. Just being able to glance and see the temp or how much sound I'm making is really useful.
And yeah I know about the visual cues but I still like being able to see if rain or thunder is coming up so I can adjust and prepare accordingly. If I'm going to climb somewhere, and I see rain is coming up, I'd rather go do something else in the meantime or head to a stable and rest to fast forward time.
Those indicators aid your experience in small ways, making you able to prepare, while the minimap too convenient and fundamentally changes how you interact with the game.
Dennis Löfgren a
Dennis Löfgren wait, there is a weather forecast?!?
After almost 30 years of gaming, I really don't want Breath of the Wild to end because... then its just back to normal games...
Yup I know
“laughs in BoTW 2”
Just gotta wait 1 more year to start a whole new dream
The amount of hidden stuff in this game is fantastic. Me and a friend from school both got this game at the same time and by the time school rolled around that Monday, we both had completely different experiences in completely different locations. He took on Zora's Domains while I did Gerudo Desert, he explored Hyrule Field while I avoided it due to the guardians.
I just loved every moment of discovery, and every small little NPC you met around Hyrule, talking about the world like it was truly a real location, commenting on weather seamlessly, telling you useful tips, etc. I fully realized this when I saw some people discussing on twitter about how in their countless hours of playing, they never encountered Lurelin Village. The whole game felt like you were actually charting a new land, sharing secrets, locations, and even just talking about the lush world they were in.
I really, really, loved this game
*shows breath of the wild gameplay*
*edits in twilight princess music instead of actual breath of the wild music*
TRIGGERED
Believe me, I tried. But there was NO breath of the wild music that fit the mood for that section. I wanted some epic entry, but BotW does not have that. At all
how about the music for the main bosses or the final boss? that's pretty epic
well, even if it would have been fitting or not, it whas still a good video
snomaN Gaming hyrule castle? Trailer music? Divine beast Vah Ruta?
Hyrule castle theme maybe
😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡 BEING TRIGGERED IS NOT A JOKE!!! JUST BECAUSE PEOPLE GET TRIGGERED BY EVERYTHING DOES NOT MAKE IT A JOKE!!!! TRIGGERED!!!!!!!
Man...this video has made me want to go buy everything necessary to play the new Zelda game. (Console and all).
If you have a Wii U and don't want to invest in a Switch that's a good way (but I will say the Switch is pretty amazing!)
I just got through comparing pricing and reading the differences between the two and I think Switch would be the best bet for me (50" Vizio 4K Smart TV- best electronics purchase in the past 4 years that I've made btw). The Switch is extremely robust internally and is capable of running 4K @ 60 FPS! Also, the price difference is almost non-existent, which is strange. Makes the decision for me easy though. So, with all that said, I think I'm gonna be trading in the Xbox 1 and Wii towards a Switch :) Thanks again for the fantastic videos and suggestion!
Mad Dawg I don't think the switch does 4K at 30 let alone 60
*@MadDawg* if you have a WiiU buy it for that. If you don't, even tho a Switch and Zelda together costs 360 some dollars... I still recommend it. This game is that fucking good.
*@MadDawg* not to mention that the Switch has some incredible potential as well!
For those wondering about spoilers, I personally feel like there aren't any, but if you're extremely sensitive to them, it's very very mild at best. No story spoilers at all.
I remember back in 2008 when No More Heroes 1 came out the game was criticized for having an open world that was considered to be by far the weakest part of the game, as it was considered really dull and empty. Many have speculated Suda51 actually did that on purpose though as he's known for including "off" game mechanics or sequences on purpose in order to try and prove some kind of point (the on rails nature of Killer7 was apparently a commentary on games that only offer an illusion of freedom when in reality it's just super linear and only a small amount of paths are important), namely Suda was trying to say "if the open world isn't the main draw of the game, then why bother forcing yourself to make one when those resources could go to bettering the other parts of the game?" What seems to further prove this is the sequel ditched the open world entirely and you just go straight to locations from a menu, so you get to the action, the main draw of the series, right away.
In the case of Zelda though I know those devs have had similar criticisms thrown at them which they've tried to correct in other ways. Both Wind Waker and Twilight Princess got flak for their open worlds being seen as "too big and empty" so Skyward Sword decided to instead make the overworld sections more compact and dungeon-like, but they still got flak for it because now people missed having a more traditional overworld to explore. It seems that with BotW they finally found a balance in making an overworld that's nice and open while also making sure it's packed with content that prevents it from becoming dull.
I also really like how Zelda has severely backed off on the tutorials this time. You're shown each control once and that's it - look it up in the menu to see it again. The shrine subtitles are simply hints and descriptions. Far more than usual is left for the player to solve, or to piece together hints to - in no other Zelda game (save LttP/LBW) would I wander aimlessly and find the Master Sword far before I could acquire it. Having multiple potential solutions to every puzzle and situation also works well - oh, you used the electroball to complete the circuit? I used a shock arrow to bypass everything and my friend used yellow Chu Jelly while his sister dropped a sword across the connectors and Mom just dragged the treasure chest over instead.
I think when play botw any time in the future i'll turn on pro mode. It truly seems amazing
NerdyPlaysMagic it is!!!!!!
NerdyPlaysMagic It definitely feels more immersive.
I`m playing on pro mode and now I can`t go back to normal mode.
I recommend you to turn on the pro mode only after you get the paraglide after you know how things work more or less. Ah, and don`t forget to turn off the annoying Shiekah sensor.
Yeah now that i have been playing in pro mode for like 10 hours i will never go back to normal mode.
+SuperAvocado "Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep...!"
Dammit BOTW! Why do I have to put up with a SECOND alarm clock?! Sure it's useful but how I just want the indicator and do away with the annoying beeping.
I don't need it I don't need it I don't need it I don't nee- I NEED IT I NEED IT I NEED IT
YOU NEED IT!!!
Go back to chuggaconroy plz
Waiting for Mark Brown's Analysis!
EDIT: This is not meant to be offensive. The vid was great!
Yannick Schäffer right! It will probably be more technical, informative, and without anything against sno, probably more interesting too.
FYI, the mine carts in Death Mountain work better with round bombs.
Amazing video, BTW.
or stasis
I recently started playing Breath of the Wild despite having it for about a year, and I'm honestly impressed with the way the game is. Going in I found myself bored and unmotivated, so I put the game down for a year thinking "this isn't for me" but then I realized why the game isn't for me. It was because I find portable mode on the switch kinda awkward, and I lack a TV for my switch at the moment because I live in the middle of nowhere, so instead I hooked it up to my computer and I've been having a blast.
I love the physics engine of the game and gliding to and from one place to another is fun and rewarding. The combat is something I originally thought clumsy and awkward now feels highly intuitive.
What I THOUGHT were insanely priced pieces of equipment in the shop because I had been playing for 3 hours and only had 40 rupies were actually really cheep once I realized I can sell a lot of the junk I loot off monsters that I don't plan on turning into tonics.
I also have OCD when it comes to item management, so I was terrified I would run out of food... until I realized that food is plentiful.
I thought there was only one 'good' set in the game, but because you can change literally everything you have equipped on the fly mid combat, you can quickly adapt to any situation, so I have my big heavy armour for walking around (because I like bulky armour) and combat, and then a few other specialized sets depending on if I'm stealthing, on a mountain, or if it's raining/thundering out.
It also doesn't feel too annoying to die because of how often the game autosaves, a feature Skyrim lacked or wasn't very consistent with. "Alright, I have it set to autosave every five minutes." "Fuck I died. Well, at least I'll only lo- why am I back at the start of the town I was at 2 hours ago?" I'll usually put the game down once I die in BotW, then pick it up again in an hour because while it is amazingly fun, it's not insanely addictive like so many other games out there, and it helps that when you die you're not immediately frustrated and feeling like you have to redo that past two hour period all over again.
BotW gets so so soooo many things RIGHT that it's really hard to actually pin down what it gets wrong other than "after xxx hours I start to feel bored."
I really enjoyed this but I totally failed to remember that mechanics spoilers were going to be a thing.
I feel like overall I didn't spoil too much tho? At best it has very very very minor spoilers, but it depends on your sensitivity
No you definitely didn't, it was a great video. In terms of this game I mostly didn't want to see all the cool things you could do that aren't immediately obvious, and also some of the locations. I'm normally not too sensitive with spoilers though, I hold the opinion that spoilers aren't spoilers without context anyway (which needs more explanation to make sense but yeah), so it's cool.
It's more just being like "oh cool, you can do that" or "oh cool, that's a place" and not realising that may happen watching a video on this.
I've seen most of this stuff already, but not all. I didn't feel like it was spoilers. These are definitely Arlo spoilers though.
Clayton Grange agreed
Clayton Grange Yeah but,
Solid Snake
This video reminded just how much you can do in this game. I remember spending a whole ass hour on a snowy mountain just making snowballs, completely entertained by pushing them down the mountain. Lots and lots of fun. And I LOVE horses, so I basically never fast travelled. I went everywhere by horse or by foot. I just love how atmospheric and beautiful botw is. The sound of the wind rushing past as you gallop on your horse just never gets old. Not to mention the gorgeous music.
Good work Sno! I'm enjoying both games your talking about as well!
oh btw, Hetsu has a third location. after you do all of the kakariko village upgrades (sorry for butchering the name) he appears at the Riverside stable for a few more (SE corner of Hyrule feild) but if you go to the korok forest, that's his new permanent location for the rest of the game
I’m fairly sure there’s at least one more, though I forget where. My theory is that there are actually at least 4-5 locations, but he’s at them in a specific and non-obvious order and if you skip one so does he. He has a quest only at the first one, so you probably have to find him there, but there are definitely several locations after that.
Or that one time i saw an seemingly easy camp of monsters, only to find out that they were ALL armed with bomb arrows... ouch.
The best way to kill enmies like this is in the rain
The problem is that it wasn't possible to see if they had bomb arrows or not. Also, i was climbing a wall when i arrived at their camp.
I had a similar shock when some enemies all had fire arrows.
Great job making this video man! I'm gonna share it to my friends for you!
One thing I like about this game is you can put markers on the map, so if you reach a point of interest or an area that you can't get to at the time you can mark it for later when you do have the ability.
You deserve much more attention! Your work is great, excellent narration and showcase of gameplay, relevant to everything you say. I don't suppose this takes little amounts of effort and time, you deserve much more for your excellent work! I'm going to share this, and keep up the good work!
Hey thanks so much, I'm very happy with how it turned out so that means a lot :)
BotW is quite frankly, the best game I've ever played.
I thought the same thing a year ago...
And I still do. :D
Blinded by nostalgia garbage game
Yep, same here
@@CrowofYharnam Stupid, if you listen there are three (Mainly two) people who don't like the game, you, who doesn't play it and says nostalgia is the ONLY reason people don't play it, even though everything but that is true. People who say it's so different from the zelda formula it's garbage, and the people who have genuin problems with the game and talk about them. I personally love the game but, have you seen the reaction to skyward sword, people didn't really like that game, and you know what it was? A zelda.
@@awesomezilla it's garbage its even on a garbage console
I had already done a Divine Beast when I found Hetsu because I didn't go to Kakariko first; I ran off to the northwest, visited the Gerudo Desert and acquired the Gerudo Garb, uncovered some Great Fairies, activated many of the towers, ran off to the east again, entering Kakariko from the northern steppes rather than the south so there was a chunk of the town I didn't see until after finding Hestu for the first time later, wandering around the swamps before heading to Zora's Domain and calming the first Beast, tried to fight a being stuck in the Lost Woods for an hour before finally figuring out what I was supposed to do and finding the Deku Tree with only four hearts to my name before finally returning to Kakariko from Hateno Lab and stumbling across a monster camp with Hestu's Maracas within. Confused, I walked forward and there he was. Needless to say, I was unable to continue playing that evening!
What I love about the game is that you have to figure out most of the mechanics by yourself. Like, I didn't know using a bow while falling would slow down time until I went against Vah Ruta. Or that you could use STASIS ON GUARDIANS UNTIL NOW!!!
god I love this game
You should play Hollow Knight. It's a new metroidvania that's sadly gone under the radar.
Tanay Chitre yeah that's some good ass shit
+The Italian Goomba How the fuck did they think it would be a good idea to release the game between Horizon and Zelda!?
Tanay Chitre I dunno
just after reading your comment i checked my subscription box and found a hollow knight gameplay by northernlion :D
Just bought it two days ago, gonna play it this week :D looked pretty cool!
Thank you for this video. I had been playing the game for a few hours and was feeling bored. This is convincing me to try it with a different mindset. I could best describe it as not approaching this game looking to beat it so much as approaching it in order to experience its world.
Thanks.
I love the fact you get your main mission straight away. Because while I was exploring the world and getting lost I still knew what I was supposed to do. Many open world games I get frustrated with because I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing.
Great video and analysis. I also think your video just showed me the last stone talus I needed to get my medallion from Kilton. It's funny because I literally passed through that area a bunch of times and never awoke that talus...
Edit: Can confirm I always passed by the Stone Talus on Lake Hylia North
45 hours in and I've only knocked off 2 of the Divine Beasts. I just go tower to tower to find more shrines to get more hearts and explore. I haven't even looked at the main story in ages the world is too much fun. I'll come back after another 20 or so hours. 10/10
LOOOOL I climbed a mountain to get to Kakariko and I completely missed Hetsu!! Omg I'm so far into the game already and I never got him!
Jillian Monks lol I sooo did the same. About 30 hours in and I found him. I wanted to punch myself in the mouth. Haha I was like ok...this game is damn near perfect. But why in the hell can I only hold a few weapons and such.
nathan bernabei see but that's a testament to just how huge this game is. I took a different path from you guys and still missed Hetsu.
Haha problem solved lol
RemixerUltimate He should still be standing there.
GANTZ100pts Oh I know he is. But that doesn't change the fact that I found him later than others did because of the path through guardians that I chose to take
Man, I'm working on the game, which is a student VR project... I'm learning so much design stuff from your videos. Thanks for that!
This was excellent! I plan on giving a full review on Breath of the Wild once I beat it (thank you for not spoiling the ending, by the way) and you nailed two of the key points I wanted to make: adventure and atmosphere, two things that Breath of the Wild excels at, and makes it my favorite game at this point!
I fast travel in Breath Of The Wild because if I don't I'm never reaching where I want to go...
On another note, you can get Guardians to fight Stone Talus.
And I also scared a Guardian by dropping down on it from above. It shuddered and fired a beam into the distance, as it hadn't seen my approach.
Botw makes effortless movement enjoyable and the clear visuals intriguing. Addicting. I’m now playing Witcher 3 and am finding the movement clunky and the visuals overbearing. It feels like I’m fighting the game as well as the enemies.
Very interesting insight. Great video!
I feel lucky coming across your channel because I've been looking for thoughtful videos like this, and I also feel bad coming across your channel so late, haha.
Literally watching everyone's reviews of zelda while I wait for it to come in the mail. HYYYPE!!
I like your videos, you talk nice and clear. I completely agree, this world is AMAZING!!
I want to add that all the shrines and side quests are strategically created and placed to teach you new ways to tackle situations. they teach you how the elements work with the environment, the temperature and your weapons; how they affect your temperature; why certain ingredients are important and where to find them; enemy behaviour etc etc. It prepares you for the road ahead and for the bigger tasks that loom just around the corner.
you are taught slow motion arrow firing before the eagleas well as updrafts and gliding. You will find them both in the quest line and the surrounding area and even shrines. Then lo and behold the eagle boss gives you many opportunities to use these skills if u so choose to. No matter which direction u decide to take the game peppers in these design elements literally everywhere to make sure u can still learn really important game play mechanics. And every single one of these mechanics stay relavent throughout the game.
Simply. Impressive. As. Fuck.
dude the footage with your words is savage for the older "classics". nice critique
This game is SO GOOD for all of these reasons, and I am glad that everyone is praising this game for its open world design. My brother and I have been talking about all of this games great design decisions this past week, and it feels great to finally enjoy exploring an open world again, because it rarely happens.
You know what I did when I got the game?
I did the great plateau and then it was like, "go to kakoriko village and stuff." and I was like yeah sure lemme just go over to that jungle and find cool stuff. then I found a couple of towers then lurulein village and I was like ooh, a place and I found stuff and I found hateno village and I was like ooh, another place then I went to the ainceint tech lab and it was like, "go speak to impa and the I can upgrade your thing" and I was like, "but, buh, I, ahh... NO!" and then I went to gerudo and found stuff and stuff and went over to central hyrule after that and got epic pwnaged by guardians and then I finally decided to go to kakoriko village and stuff.
ooh, I also found two stalkoblins on sheleton horses with fire arrows whick killed me like 7 times.
As a would-be game designer in the future, I can safely say that I am in love with your channel. Many of these sorts of videos of yours contain analysis that is incredibly valuable to my studies! Thank you so much for these videos, and keep up the great work!
BotW’s Hyrule is amazing because it feels like a living, breathing, dynamic place. I only wish we could see it all before the great calamity
I don't really like Skyrim all that much. It feels like all I'm doing is getting a quest, warping to the nearest place to that location, and running to where I have to be. And its final boss has to be the worst in history tied with the final Bowser fight in New Super Mario Bros 2.
kiz epic journey I agree, people praise Skyrim so much but I think it is awful. Big world that's very full of things to do, but most of it is shit and mods are pretty much the only redeeming factor which is sad. I had to force myself to play the main story just last year for the first time and I ran into a game breaking glitch that I had to console command my way out of, making me miss an entire main story quest. And this is in THE SPECIAL EDITION. The final boss was absolutely awful especially given the fact that there was NOTHING that happened after I defeated him. No congratulations or credits or anything like that. It felt inconsequential.
Breath of the Wild is a million times better.
Yeah. The Dark Brotherhood quest line was probably the best part of it, and Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood was far better. Breath of the Wild is probably my favorite game of all time.
a bold move, using actual Zelda footage in your video
One key part he forgot to mention on why you can go straight to the end of the game from the beginning is that breath of the wild also uses its vast space and detail for training. If you're trained, you don't need to go explore hyrule of you're ready to fight Ganon. While your choices in other open world games delay your mission, your choices in botw train you for your mission
Stay Frosty snomaN
My favorite game before this was Skyrim. Going back to it I see how not fun it is to explore the land. The places you get to are fun but the act of getting to the land is not. I hope the next elder scrolls game is fun to explore. I'm also playing zero dawn and I love running through that land too I just wish there was more stuff to climb to make the world a lot more fun to traverse.
Skyrim was also my favorite game before BOTW
But I have no fucking clue what you mean by saying exploring the land isn't fun
Well, there was Skyrim.
Then there was Witcher 3.
And now Breath of the Wild.
I wonder what the next game is that will set the standard for Open Worlds.
The Sword Art Online Dickriding Association Star Citizen, if it ever gets released
Rdr2. Imo i think its a tie with botw for the greatest open world game
The coolest thing about the game is the enemies respawn, but not in your traditional way. I really like it simply because it allows you to try other tactics then when you were doing it the first time!
I wish you went into a little further detail about how all of the mechanics help to make exploration more fruitful. Like how weapons break so you are always looking for new ones and trying all sorts of different kinds out. Or the reason there is a stamina bar is so that you have to think tactfully about how to climb or fly to certain areas. Or how the extreme weather makes you think about all the different and interesting ways to keep warm or cool in order to get to your destination. It makes it so much more rewarding when you find a new interesting place by experimenting with different recipes or techniques. Like you said, everything leads back to discovery, and that is amazing game design. Good video.
wait, wait, waiiiit!
You can make snowballs?! Do you like start by rolling a rock down a snow covered hill or something??
ninjablade2 Yup
Yuuuup :)
Great analysis. It was also great of you to bring up the surface similarities between Horizon and BotW, and then discuss why Zelda is a far superior open world and game. It will be hard for people who haven't played BotW to fully appreciate, but as a first time Zelda player I absolutely agree with all the points made.
Yeah, as someone who isn't really a big fan of the Zelda series, BotW was incredible!
Another great video! Well done!
GTA: I have the best open world
Breath of the Wild: are you sure?
I wasn't really that excited about Breath of the Wild but now I want it so badly because of this video ;-;
Although there are definitely some amazing open world games out there, I hate this trend towards open world games that's happening across the gaming industry and spanning all genres. Just because a game is "open world" doesn't mean that its good. Just like if a game is "linear" it doesn't mean that it's bad.
You do realize the entire point of the video was the exact opposite of what you said, right? He's saying that most open worlds are only good on paper and bad in practice most of the time.
@Mr. LFirst off I want to talk not argue, just getting that out of the way. I have issues with open world games in general, and a lot with this one. But after playing most Zelda's, even more action-adventure games, and open worlds. For adventure games about choice this is the right call, there's no point to have an otherwise non linear game, but have mostly linear gameplay/ progresssion, I liked the change of that, not that others (like yourself) didn't. But for games based around choice , (non linear adventure games) systemic interactions are the right call. I also think the puzzles in this are a disappointment, but it's a step in the right direction after everything they've previously done, and sure they didn't do it perfectly. But it's the one design choice I'll always defend for this game.
the fact that its so open world that you can go straight to the world boss after the tutorial is what sold me.
Just saw your comment in a GMToolkit video, and here you are with friggin' Birocratic as your background beat. I'm down. Will be watching more from ya!
Haha thanks, great tunes :) Yeah, lots more game design videos here!
Haha thanks, great tunes :) Yeah, lots more game design videos here!
To be fair not every game is about exploration. For example, while The Witcher 3 lets you explore, the game is more a vehicle to let you live out the life of a monster slayer for hire. That and not every game can so easily have a base premise that is so simple. Zelda can get away with a shallow premise of go kill the big thing eventually since it's a classic franchise that traditionally doesn't have much story, and thus people don't need a reason to kill Ganon, but other games need to build up their worlds, characters, and plots in ways that don't lend themselves to absolute openness. For instance, could you imagine a way to somehow let you go to the final mission of The Witcher 3 right after the opening area? It is impossible due to the narrative requirements you'd need to meet prior to make it so Geralt can go there. The same could be said for many games. Think about how odd it would be if you could go fight Sephiroth right after Midgard, or if any of the Souls games just let you walk into the final boss fight without any buildup. The level of freedom BoTW has can be nice, but if every game did it we would quickly wish for more focus and drive outside of "The spirit of adventure". (Just like how after these past few years of open world games we've seen people come back around to more linear design's positives after the 2000s basically made linear into a slur against games.
That's my point. Very few games could really get away with the idea of giving you the freedom to end the game right after the intro, and those that do have to make certain sacrifices to do so, and it shouldn't be a standard to hold any game to.
Having BOTW's level of openess doesn't mean games needs to allow you to beat the final boss right away, it means the world needs to be fun to explore and there's rewards for exploring it. I really enjoyed the Witcher 3's stories, but the game itself got old fairly quickly. I put 87 hours into it, including the expansions, and I think it would have been a much better experience if exploring the world was as fun as all the stories were. Also, the souls games are not open world games, you're restricted to linear paths, there's a lot of paths you can go down, but they loop back into each other.
I would also disagree about BOTW's story being as minor as previous Zelda games, the end goal is still the same, but there's way more backstory, fleshed out characters, and the main dungeons are actual events that have an effect on the world and the final fight.
I get bored of open world games pretty easily, but the gameplay of BOTW kept me coming back. The stories in The Witcher 3 are what kept me playing with that game. Which is awesome, but at the end of the day they are games and the gameplay is the most important thing about them.
It's fine if you value exploration, but it never should be a requirement to have it be there, or be a major focus, unless the game wants it to be. Also, while I agree that gameplay is important, simply having good gameplay, at least for me, isn't enough in this day and age if the series has any reason to be expected to go farther. The Witcher 3 and Horizon Zero Dawn both have tried to tell grand stories in an open world, and Zelda is restricting itself to the standard "there's the bad guy, kill the bad guy" story setup that it had since the beginning. This has the benefit of not needing extensive cutscenes and story progression to make the setup to of the major threat, but it also means that if you are like me, and prefer Zelda games like Twilight Princess where there was more buildup and the like, then the transition will be at least somewhat disappointing. This is especially going to be the case if you didn't really care about exploration in Zelda to begin with like me. (To be honest I'm kinda tired of hearing that word. I kinda wish people would stop saying it)
No, I value gameplay, good gameplay should be a requirement and a major focus for games. Exploration is a main gameplay component of an open world, why should it be acceptable for that part to mediocre? You don't play the story, you watch it. I'm not saying that stories in games aren't important, but gameplay should always be more important than the stories. Also, did you play BOTW? There's a lot more story too it than you're acting like it is. I would say it's on the lesser side of stories, but it's far from just "kill the bad guy".
Why should exploration be a requirement? When did that become a necessity?
wait you could bat the ice blocks away with an arrow!?
Ffinlo Wright how did you block them?
Tyke Everyone I know broke em with Cryonis.
Gosh, everything has so many ways of going about things! Which way is the right way? Whatever you come up with!
Gerudo Town was my favorite area.
I had early suspicions of the circumstances to enter the town before I ever even got there thanks to a traveling guy I bumped into who told me about the towns of the land. I passed those suspicions off as nothing more than a fun, silly idea. "Surely they'd never do that," I thought to myself and figured I would have to sneak in some other way.
I arrive at Gerudo Town some twenty hours later to discover, much to my personal amusement, I WAS RIGHT! I got a great laugh out of it...and then I never took the Gerudo clothes off because they actually looked pretty good on Link. (Well, I didn't take the shirt off. Switched to the other Gerudo pants and the Climbing hat and then dyed them all the same color. Made a very nice combination.)
Wooow such an amazing video man! I'm impressed!
I *LOVE* Breath of the Wild! My only problem Is that my switch has broken joycons, making it literally impossible to play BOTW, or any game for that matter.
Are your joy cons drifting? It's started happening to me as well, and I am not happy.
The game reminds me the most of Morrowind and not just because they start with someone telling you to open your eyes and an old dude telling you that you can do whatever you want. Only Morrowind got the sense of exploration right in an open world before BotW. It's the only Elder Scrolls game that had interesting locations and secrets and incentivised looking around every corner to discover the world on your own, with very little direction and a truly open ended world. And then Bethesda completely lost it in every other game they've made since.
I'm always reminded of an Oblivion mod when I think about open world design, it was called "interesting locations" or something like that. The game was so dull and boring that people made a mod just so you could find interesting things when you explore. Not new caves or weapons or combat, just landmarks and cool looking THINGS in the world. That's what people wanted from an open world game, interesting locations that didn't need to give you a reward but finding them was the reward in of itself.
BotW is the only other game I've played that takes that makes an entire world out of it. A lot of places in the game are just facinating. You want to explore it because its cool and your reward is the experience of finding it. You don't need a progress bar or a +130 exp notice, the game rewards you by giving you an experience that you won't forget. And that's what sets it apart from every other open world game.
great channel my man you had only 20k subs when I seen your channel now your going to hit 100000 subscribers
I'm curious about how Xenoblade Chronicles X fits into the stigma behind Open-World games nowadays. Fast-travel is free. The quest offer standard rewards, but they are all relevant to the plot: humanity making a foothold on a new planet after Earth was destroyed. Every 100 meters in the explorable world offered something to do thanks to segment challenges, meaning that the world was never empty.
I think what Breath of the Wild does so masterfully is tying all aspects of progression to exploration. Getting better equipment, weapon slots, health, stamina and consumables is all tied to where you've been and what you've done. Everything is available the minute you leave the great plateau, all you have to do is find it. Couple that with a beautiful, engaging and dynamic world, a smart physics system and a sublime soundtrack and what you're left with is a gaming experience different from pretty much any other.
It ties RPG-like progression (i.e. stat-based) to exploration (which arguably previous Zeldas and Metroids also did to a lesser extent). What it doesn't do well is reward that exploration with any sense of revelation or progression outside of stat upgrades. There's not much new functionality in gameplay to be gained - lack of key and useable items that allow you to explore and exploit the vast world even further. There's little you obtain that makes you think, wow I can do this now (very simple examples from previous games might include Iron Boots to travel underwater, a fishing rod to catch fish, a shovel to dig, or ocarina /masks to interact in different ways with the world). Even with the three basic abilities available, not enough use is made out of them throughout the game. Magnesis can rarely be used, and stasis doesn't affect many objects either. They're also not well-designed for combat (though are fun for sandbox gameplay) like items in previous games - hook/clawshot, boomerang etc
With the Zora tunic you can swim upward waterfalls, with the masks you can mingle through monsters without being detected, with the Gerudo outfit you can get in the Forbidden City without being thrown out, and so on. And you get the Divine Beast abilities, which are fantastic. You can freeze all enemies with the Stasis +. The Compendium lets you detect any kind of lore you've photographed on your way. I think you have overlooked a handful of elements in your analysis.
The dungeons in botw are pretty lackluster compared to earlier zelda titles.
I only just finished BOTW for the first time earlier today. Instead of trying to speedrun or completionist it,
you've convinced me to try replaying it with the pro HUD on. I feel that not knowing anything about the game would have made it impossible to have fun like that, but now that I know what to expect from the game, getting by without the Minimap(still have the full map), weather forecast, temperature gauge, and control prompts, as well as the Champion Power HUD, time of day, among others, might not be an exercise in frustration anymore.
I would say for fast travel to have certain waypoints across the map to travel to and from, that way you can limit significant retraversal while encouraging someone to actually explore the area around the warp point.
i also played with no hud, best thing ever
Botw is the best game of all TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
love your channel man, keep it up!
Your video was so good I didn't care I was having the game spoiled a bit! You keep doing what you do. Thank you for making me believe in TH-cam again.
Breath of the Wild is the Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time of this generation. It's a 3D game in every sense of the word and not only builds on the works of the past, but superannuates them with its incredible scope and unparalleled freedom. It's like they thought "What if the original NES Zelda was made with today's technology and with the presentation and vision of Ocarina of Time? What if you could go anywhere and do anything like in the original game, but without the handicaps of flat 2D sprites and memory that's smaller than a jpeg on a PC today?" Nintendo has raised the bar even higher with this game. Who knows how long it'll take to top this game...
There are several non linear games that are way better than BotW
The Godly Gold Lynel The Witcher 3 and Bloodborne
wait YOU CAN RIDE SAND ANIMALS? HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS
Wait until you find out you can ride bears.
Matthew Vitelli WHAT!
You can ride bears. It's just hard and you can't register them.
Wait until you find a skeleton horse to ride.
The Animated Gamer xD Their is so much more to the game. You can also ride bears and dears.
Daaaaannnnnngggggg snoman you are at 76k i"m so excited to see how much further you are going to go. It's such a contrast
LOL
This is so well made. What an amazing game, you really did it justice!
6:20 wait yur suppose to deflect those with arrows? I just used the Cynosis rune to break them.
*cryonis
supposed to means nothing haha, you can do most things multiple ways
cryonis is better because it doesnt have limited use
Open world games annoyed me already but Breath of the Wild has made them all totally unplayable.. the climbing in BOTW alone ruins all the others.
Tuff
This game reminds me of the first time I found Blackreach in Skyrim. I got lost and just sort of stumbled on it before the main quest takes you there, so I figured I'd take a look inside. Part of the way down, I see some egg sacs with chaurus eggs in it, and before my insectophobia kicked in, I reassured myself with a simple "I can leave if I want." In the end, I made it all the way to the bottom and was greeted by arguably the most beautiful place in the game. The incentive and reward for exploring wasn't the key item at the end. The incentive was my own curiosity, and the reward was the feeling of discovery when I found the abandonded Dwemer city at the bottom of the dungeon.
I actually completely missed Hetsu on my way to Kakariko for the first time. I just messed around, tried going to Hyrule Castle only to get my ass kicked, and climbed a bunch of mountains to get there. I only went to Hetsu purposely after completing most of the game.
Also had no idea there was a cooking lady who made bad food. I've been playing for weeks on end.
Hell, I've been wanting to explore BoTW so much that I hacked the Wii U version just see what lies beyond each boundary. Gerudo Desert for example, while seemingly an endless land, actually transitions into an ocean, like a beach. There's no collision there, but I've seen it.
Well crap. Now I need a Switch.
I hope JRPGs define the 2020s and we get a resurgence of those games
I stopped to have a chat with a fellow traveler while on horseback one day. Realized he was Yiga Clan - I jumped off my horse immediately, barely leaving any time for him to finish his trash talk, and put 3 arrows into his face and skull at point blank range, ending with a stab coming with all the speed and forewarning of a lightning strike. And he was no more...
I also think the sidequests in Arkham Knight are very rewarding. they may be repetitive, but they reward you with OPTIONAL Boss fights which is awesome