I’m about 20-30 hours in, having gone in completely blind from playing Breath of the Wild. Haven’t read any posts…. No ‘detail specific’ spoilers please!
Just thought I’d share my thoughts - they are actually sort of ‘mixed’! This post contains my general impressions of gameplay and some new features, but nothing ‘truly spoilery’, IMO. I’ve been deliberately vague where appropriate.
The most important thing: core gameplay is generally excellent as per BOTW. Exploring and combat is great fun etc.
Some minor gripes from BOTW have been carried over, particularly this annoying ‘noble / regal’ dialogue from Zelda and others… could they be more annoying?! Doesn’t really impact the gameplay though.
Some minor wins carry over too. I really love the dynamic music in the dungeons and the lead up to them (OK I’ve only done one so far… but it was excellent with the audio).
So here’s my major reservation… it DOES just feel like DLC for BOTW, doesn’t it? Or, like a ‘mod’.
Gone are the old ‘special powers’, replaced with ‘slightly less obvious’ ones. We also have ‘building and fusing / crafting’ as major mechanics. On one hand, I like that this makes for a more unconventional puzzle solving. On the other, I think the building and (particularly the weapon crafting) is adding quite a bit of ‘fiddle’ to the BOTW formula.
The main world is pretty much the same save for some aesthetic overhaul, very much DLC feeling in that regard. I generally don’t mind, it’s a cool map, but I do very much dislike the dump of ‘building materials’ all over the map, which feels silly and ‘for the sake of the game mechanic’. For the feel of a ‘brand new game’, I really do think they should have gone with a ‘brand new map’.
The shrines are back. Again, it’s good, but I have done this before.
There are ‘two new main areas’ which are very intriguing at first and I do like the expanded scoped but one of them does feel a little bland after playing around in it for a while.
So it’s ‘extra content BOTW+ with slightly more emphasis on fiddle’. I mean, it’s great… I’m not ‘underwhelmed’ per se… but it’s very much more ‘more of the same’.
Looking forward to spending more timing with it and seeing if my views change.
Edit: I forgot to add… the art style is excellent and carries the performance issues, but the graphical performance is almost embarrassing at this point. Going from the RE4 remake on PC to this is jarring on the eyes
it doesn’t materially affect the gameplay but… yeah, it’s really not good. A higher resolution and FPS would sort it because, again, the art style is fine.
