Breath of the Wild Is BotW the least rewarding Zelda?

[Spirit]

900 korok seeds

A few hundred photographs

All of your powers obtained in the tutorial section

Spirit orbs for puzzle solving


Dungeons dont give you a new best friend item, chests no longer contain valuable life enhancing heart pieces, memories give cutscenes that could be considered underwhelming and engaging enemies in combat actively reduces/weakens your inventory.


We dont get many rewards for hard work in BotW and not a lot goes on as you progress through the game but does that make BotW the least rewarding Zelda in terms of items/upgrades and story?

 

[Azure Sage]

I feel like the rewards of this game operate in a cycle. Combat doesn't weaken your inventory if you fight smartly. I haven't had a "weakened" inventory in at least the past 200 hours of my playtime. The reward therin lies in finding weapons and shields even better than the ones you currently have. Then you get to do awesome things with them, and when they're used up, you'll find more awesome weapons. Spirit orbs are absolutely a worthwhile reward because more life and more stamina is invaluable. Dungeons didn't give us new items in ALBW either, BotW isn't the first to break that trend. The runes aren't really rewards, honestly. They're necessities. Chests, while not containing heart pieces, do contain rupees or treasure useful for upgrading or obtaining more rupees, or even new weapons. That makes them worth finding imo. The compendium pics help you track down the resources you need, and the korok seeds help make sure you can carry more of what you need. They're worth getting. The memories were all very interesting to me; granted I was hoping for more memories of Link's interactions with the Champions working together, but I appreciate them for what they are and what they were trying to accomplish, even if certain people here had different expectations of them.

The bottom line is, the rewards in this game are consumable, and whether or not that makes the game less rewarding than other Zelda games is debatable. Just because you don't get a big fancy weapon you can use to mow down enemies left and right doesn't mean things aren't worth doing. (That weapon is arriving in the summer DLC in a fashion, anyway.)

 

[Jirohnagi]

I feel like the rewards of this game operate in a cycle. Combat doesn't weaken your inventory if you fight smartly. I haven't had a "weakened" inventory in at least the past 200 hours of my playtime. The reward therin lies in finding weapons and shields even better than the ones you currently have. Then you get to do awesome things with them, and when they're used up, you'll find more awesome weapons. Spirit orbs are absolutely a worthwhile reward because more life and more stamina is invaluable. Dungeons didn't give us new items in ALBW either, BotW isn't the first to break that trend. The runes aren't really rewards, honestly. They're necessities. Chests, while not containing heart pieces, do contain rupees or treasure useful for upgrading or obtaining more rupees, or even new weapons. That makes them worth finding imo. The compendium pics help you track down the resources you need, and the korok seeds help make sure you can carry more of what you need. They're worth getting. The memories were all very interesting to me; granted I was hoping for more memories of Link's interactions with the Champions working together, but I appreciate them for what they are and what they were trying to accomplish, even if certain people here had different expectations of them.

The bottom line is, the rewards in this game are consumable, and whether or not that makes the game less rewarding than other Zelda games is debatable. Just because you don't get a big fancy weapon you can use to mow down enemies left and right doesn't mean things aren't worth doing. (That weapon is arriving in the summer DLC in a fashion, anyway.)

It's horrifically unrewarding. The only rewarding thing is Spirit Orbs, as they are the stand in for heart containers, combat even when fighting smart depletes you're inventory and equipment, because at some point you're weapons break and you eat into you're stock of food/materials and arrows.

Finding the Hylian shield is rewarding so finding shields becomes useless as nothing else is as good, Weapons yes you'll always find more but i daresay you have a specific weapon you'll want to use more and so the only rewarding thing is find them that first time then once you know where it is, just becomes a repeatable fetch quest.

Rupees have become farmable via the minigames more so than any other zelda game, and yeah rupees become more valuable as well early game but end game you're rolling in them as per usual. Making Chest searching rewardless unless it contains decent mats.

Korok seeds are worthless in truth as you can clear the game and play it without using a single seed for inventory expansion. There a useless optional.

Memories i would say are good but you don't get jack for getting them all.

Overall it's a big ol' collectathon with little to no incentives to finish collecting. Unless you want to complete the final collectathon. The "key" items screen.

 

[Dio]

Definitely the least rewarding. No longer does completing a dungeon progress the story in a meaningful way because they are entirely optional along with the story itself. Saving hyrule and completing the game does not seem rewarding as Hyrule never seemed threatened anyway. I know they said Ganon was going to break out but I never felt any impending doom.

Korok seeds only served to make your inventory bigger and shines your stamina and life increase. Yet after a point this becomes unnecessary because the lack of stamina and hearts no longer becomes a hinderance and further tackling shrines and korok seeds only serves to make the game unnecessarily easier.

Kills always seem cheap in this game as there is little skill to combat, it is simply the case of using a weapon to one or two hit kill your opponents. Therefore the combat is unrewarding too.

Memories are ****. I'm not going to water it down they are the worst most boring collection of cutscenes I have seen in gaming full stop.

 

[Turo602]

The lack of permanent rewards severely hurt this game. Everything you need is given to you in the beginning and all your meaningful rewards are given to you through shrines and divine beasts. Collecting everything, doing all the side quests, and clearing enemy bases don't get you anything of value other than materials, rupees, and weapons you don't need.

Doing these things don't feel necessary anymore and that's due to the lack of permanent items. One thing I never understood was why the bow or even the magic rods break. The boomerang also felt really useless as a long range weapon. So why not make them permanent weapons? They could start out weak and be upgraded as you go on. The arrows can be shot farther, do more damage, and shoot more arrows at a time. The magic rod could be toggled between fire, ice, and lighting, shoot more balls, do more damage, and your magic meter could even be increased. And the boomerang could start out wooden, then be upgraded to stun enemies, become razor sharp, and lock on to a great number of enemies. The korok leaf could have also been a permanent item serving as a tool to solve puzzles and travel on rafts without taking up a weapon slot in hopes that you'll run into a raft at some point.

Bottles should have been limited but also something you get rewarded with for various side quests. There could have easily been 10 total and would have felt a lot more satisfying to earn since it's both useful and non-disposable, making the trouble worth your time. There's also jewelry you get in the game with different functions in the gerudo town. Rather than taking up clothing slots, these should have been rewards and also been permanent upgrades to Link just like the silver and gold gauntlets in Ocarina of Time. They could have even made some special grip gloves as a permanent upgrade that prevents you from slipping off mountains in the rain.

A simple reworking of things like this would have greatly benefitted the game. I get what they were trying to do with the custom, disposable, and physics-based aspect of the game, and it's very welcomed, but at the same time, everything else was kind of simplified as well that they didn't really leave the rest of the game with much to work with because they focused all their attention on the new elements.

While the world is massive, the bulk of the game comes from shrines, divine beasts, and korok puzzles. Everything else is just there to give you something to do as a distraction from finding shrines, korok puzzles, divine beasts, and memories. They badly need to flesh out other aspects going forward and make the entire experience rewarding.

 

[misskitten]

The rewards are different in BotW, but it doesn't make them any less. Take for instance all the sets you can get in this game. Some might be readily available in stores, but the most interesting sets are mainly obtained through sidequests and shrines. Don't get me wrong, I love getting a good new item in a dungeon, but for me suddenly gaining the ability to swim up waterfalls trumped that. Becoming lightning proof was a close second, that was an awesome feeling. And dungeons did give you something cool as a reward; the champion powers, several of which were pretty awesome in my opinion.

And even after playing for months, I'm still excited when I find a particular good sword or bow in the game (the 5-arrow lynel one, anyone?) Yes, the items in other Zelda games brought a new element into the game as you played on, but I feel we get plenty of that with the combination of champion powers and set bonuses.

Yes, the collectables aren't necessarily up to par. The Korok seeds were good in the beginning, but then the game provide twice as many as you can put to use, making half of them virtually useless. I think the spirit orbs worked well, and I didn't see them as the shrine's reward as much as the combination of it and the shrine's chests. The best shrine rewards were new set pieces, rare materials like ancient cores/giant ancient cores, and the occasional good weapon. And I've already pointed out that you gain abilities later in the game, so while you gain all the main runes right from the start, you are still getting new abilities during the game. The Zora set makes it possible to swim up rivers, to attack while swimming, Urbosa gives you the power to create an electric shockwave around you, Revali gives you a powerful updraft you can ride up.

 

[DarkestLink]

Mostly because the rewards are so horribly balanced. Ganon and especially the Divine Beasts are balanced so you can effortlessly do them straight away from leaving the Great Plateau. So what are the spirit orbs for? Powering yourself up so you can...go through the overworld...and get more spirit orbs...yeah. ._. And even this is kind of moot considering how much more important it is to upgrade armor over hearts.

The problem with raiding enemy camps isn't that you lose too many weapons. It's that the shrines are supplying you with Guardian Sword++ and Thunderblades while the camps...give you a knights sword if you're lucky. Likewise, the shrines are giving you Guardian Axe++ and Royal Claymores while the camps are giving you Dragonbone clubs...at best. And they give you these weapons at such an alarming rate. So...should I go raid this camp and use up my Edge of Duality (50) for a Dragonbone club(45)? ...No.

If they allowed you to sell weapons for a decent price and carry "monster weapons" (Bokoblin, Moblin, Lizal) in your item slot, this would greatly incentivize me to raid camps.

 

[the8thark]

Is BotW the least rewarding Zelda?

Yes. (in the traditional sense)

This is very intentional. The rewards in Breath of the Wild are not prizes or useful items. They are tokens to remind you of the joy you had searching out all of the seeds and shrines. This is why BotW is so radically different to other Zelda games. In previous games, the joy is in getting the reward every so often so you can use it and enjoy it. In BotW the fun is in the exploring and the collecting, not getting rewards every so often.

Previous Zelda games give you a carrot or reward every so often to keep you playing the game.
Breath of the Wild makes the player create their own carrots (ie rewards to keep playing). Like setting your self exploration goals every day or quest goals or whatever. I'll search this mountain before I go to sleep, or I'll do this devine beast before I'll go to sleep. A very self paced game, unlike most other Zelda games. You can take Breath of the Wild as fast or as slow as you want. A touch under an hour for the best speed runners to hundreds of hours if you like taking your time to collect everything.

Well one could say the rewards in BtW are very different. User created, not developer created.