It's not a bad thing to be able to explore the world but I certainly hope we'll get the good old dungeons back! I love BOTW but I love the good old dungeons too
Do you think we'll see the pre-BOTW style again?
- Thread starter mαrkαsscoρ
- Start date
I don't think I'd ever really like to go back to exactly what Zelda games were like before: the linearity, the pushover bosses, and the smaller scale world. Not everything has to keep being like BotW, but there are elements of BotW I think the series should hold onto.
The lack of proper dungeons is the big killer for me in this new formula. I feel that if we got some full-fledged large and themed dungeons, I sold be more on board.
My other major complaint was the weapon durability system, but fuse is a great way to solve that issue. It makes obtaining weapons easier than ever.
Unfortunately, due to BotW selling exponentially more than any other previous Zelda game, I doubt we'll see new Zelda games return to the old formula.
My other major complaint was the weapon durability system, but fuse is a great way to solve that issue. It makes obtaining weapons easier than ever.
Unfortunately, due to BotW selling exponentially more than any other previous Zelda game, I doubt we'll see new Zelda games return to the old formula.
I still don't agree with this notion that we didn't get "proper" dungeons in BotW. They certainly didn't follow the strict formula Zelda loves to use, but they were very much proper and very much dungeons.
The Divine Beasts are ridiculously short. At least actually getting to them was a fun challenge.
Hyrule Castle is great, but it's the exception.
While they can be shorter, it ultimately comes down to how long the player takes to navigate them. I appreciate that their length is determined more by player ability than the need to collect a dungeon map, a compass, an item, and then the backtracking.
That's fair. I just hope that if Tears of the Kingdom does something similar with equivalents to shrines and divine beasts, that they are more unique in terms of aesthetics and music. That would go a long way in making each one feel distinct.
I do think when most people are criticizing the dungeons in BotW for not being "proper", they're referring to the length and theme. The puzzles were great, combat was okay, but there's only like 5 puzzles and 10 enemies per beast and they're stuffed into an environment that looks like every other beast and all 120 shrines.
If it doesn’t have the item gating and backtracking, then it’s not a proper dungeon.
The divine beasts just removed the system that already worked beautifully and replaced it with a heap of nothing. Just a big empty room with 5 disconnected things you need to touch. Maybe sometimes locked behind an obstacle that’s so inconsequential that it might as well not be there. If you can just solve a puzzle by going around it, then it’s not a puzzle. Dungeons are supposed to be confusing labyrinths that test your ability to navigate the area and remember locations of interest, and it’s impossible to do that when every single location of interest is completely irrelevant to whether you can visit the others or not. It’s a shame because Zelda was on a hot streak of giving some pretty damn amazing dungeons before BotW, but then Aonuma had to start prioritizing “freedom” over actual game design.
The divine beasts just removed the system that already worked beautifully and replaced it with a heap of nothing. Just a big empty room with 5 disconnected things you need to touch. Maybe sometimes locked behind an obstacle that’s so inconsequential that it might as well not be there. If you can just solve a puzzle by going around it, then it’s not a puzzle. Dungeons are supposed to be confusing labyrinths that test your ability to navigate the area and remember locations of interest, and it’s impossible to do that when every single location of interest is completely irrelevant to whether you can visit the others or not. It’s a shame because Zelda was on a hot streak of giving some pretty damn amazing dungeons before BotW, but then Aonuma had to start prioritizing “freedom” over actual game design.
Last edited:
I want a dungeon to be half an hour to two hours long, a grueling affair that, if I have the desire to crawl through every corner, will require every bit of problem solving and creative item usage I have available in my arsenal
Make me feel like a cunning rogue adventurer dang it
Make me feel like a cunning rogue adventurer dang it
A half hour to 2 hour long dungeon sounds awesome. And yea, I don't think having the ability to skip half the content of a dungeon should be considered a strict positive for a game. It's something I've become pretty baffled by with the relatively recent hate towards "linearity" in games. Sometimes it's a good thing.
It’s not even a linearity thing, more so the fact that games, by definition, require rules. If you are not completely locked out of doing something, then it’s impossible for the developers to craft an experience around that. That’s why things like lackluster dungeons and the lack of enemy variety are moreso symptoms of an inherently flawed core design philosophy than major issues. When you can do so little to make each encounter with the same enemy different, then it’s impossible to break up the monotony of fighting those enemies. We could have gotten twice as many enemy types and yet the game still would have suffered the same problems. BotW occasionally attempts to change things up by making the terrain or environment different, but the game is specifically designed to make them completely inconsequential so it doesn’t work nearly as well as it needs to, and that’s just one of the examples of its design conflicting with itself.
BotW has rules, though. They're just more physics-based. And it encourages players to use and abuse those rules to their advantage for better or worse. Locking a path behind possessing a specific item isn't a matter of rules. It's linearity. In a non-linear game, that path will not be locked off. At most it will be accessible, but just more difficult and maybe more rewarding. A linear game will tell you "no, that path is not currently an option." I agree that it's a problem with design philosophy, but I think the problem with BotW's design philosophy is that they made it so incredibly non-linear that everything in the game is completely uniform and therefore loses significance.
I guess I should clarify that what I meant by “it’s not even a linearity thing” is that the word “linearity” is very simplified way of describing it. Yes, the problem overall does have something to do with linearity, but specifically speaking it’s a lot more nuanced than that. This is evidenced by the fact that there are plenty of other games that are almost as non-linear as BotW and yet have none of the same issues. Skyrim comes to mind as not forcing you to do anything at any time, but still being able to craft different experiences in the overworld because of the fact that it’s allowed to limit what obstacles the player can climb over, so the player has to figure out what directions it’s possible to attack from and plan out which one is the most optimal. On top of that, every enemy uses the same incredibly complex stat build system as the player, so the devs are able to make certain tactics not work by making the enemies weak or strong against them. The player could use that stat system to become completely overpowered towards everything, but that would require an incredibly in depth knowledge of the system. BotW barely attempts to use either of these, and when it does it completely falls flat because of how easy it is to make any sort of terrain a non issue or how overly simple the stat system is respectively.
The rules it does have are never really used to limit the player in any meaningful way though, that’s the problem. The physics engine is less of a limitation in game design and more of a thing for the player to mess around with. It’s like if you wanted to start playing basketball, only the rules have been changed to “nobody is allowed to stop you from making a basket, and you can have a baseball bat if you want to try smacking the ball instead of throwing it.” There’s no longer any real pushback to the game, and the baseball bat can’t be used to introduce that pushback because it’s designed to be completely optional.
Skyrim is a great example. Though I'd say BotW has some story-locking and difficulty barriers just like Skyrim has, the way it's pulled off is not as graceful. Not to mention Skyrim has vastly more variety in things like enemy type and loot than anything you'll find in BotW.
I agree that the issue is more nuanced than just linearity. When I brought up linearity earlier, I was more pinpointing the origin of the problems being with the popular criticism of Skyward Sword and how that seemingly effected the way Nintendo handled BotW. It's definitely more an issue of freedom and accessibility taking priority over making a crafted experience. Sure, everyone can make their own choices and go where they want and will have vastly different experiences in the game. But with that is introduced this bell curve in which a few players will have stellar experiences, some will be miserable, and the majority will be somewhere in the middle. If that's what they wanted, mission accomplished I suppose.