Let's talk art

[Pik]

This discussion's been had. I bet anyone familiar with it can't guess what I'm about to say...

Enough! with the cel-shading. It doesn't do it for me. Not that I expect ninty to ever make a zelda game that appeals to me again, but come on. It's been done. It's cheap. It's lazy. It looks poor. But ninty doesn't care because they can still sell enough to make bank regardless of how it looks. BotW's financial success will only reinforce this. ninty isn't going to splurge on sophisticated graphics even if they knew how, and it's apparent that they still don't know how to achieve modern graphical fidelity.

I also think it's too late for the Zelda series to appeal to core gamers. That opportunity passed with Suckward, BotW only convinced core gamers outside nintendo that the Zelda series isn't worth their attention. Even if ninty endeavored to develop a Zelda game that lives up to the modern standards core gamers expect, it wouldn't catch on with them. This is a shame because the Switch was set up to catch mainstream attention and ninty hasn't followed up with that momentum and made good on sophisticated showings that can appeal to modern gamers. Zelda was one opportunity for open world fantasy, Metroid was another for core shooters. Maybe it's not too late for core gamers to find Switch appealing, but I think they know too much about the Zelda series by looking at BotW to consider Nintendo as a suitable alternative to PS4. Zelda still won't be unseating the likes of Elder Scrolls any time soon.

You know, I agree with you in principle, but when you call it "Suckward" and say that BOTW is not a core gaming experience I can't take you seriously. (coming from someone who hates Skyward Sword, you sound ridiculous) Anyway, regardless, BoTW is THE mainstream Zelda game. Anecdotally, I've seen it as a lot of people's first Zelda game in the first way Skyrim was people's first Elder Scrolls game. Speaking of Elder Scrolls, the Legend of Zelda and Skyrim occupy two totally different spaces, so it doesn't need to unseat it in the first place.

Anyway, on topic...I like it when Zelda games switch up the style after a few games. It should continue to change as the games develop. Thus, a cycle between more realistic and more stylized depictions of Zelda between games would be ideal. We're currently in point of that cycle where the style is more cartoon-y, so I would want the next Zelda game to look more realistic with a different mood. I wouldn't mind cel-shaded characters again if the palettes and textures were different - BoTW is a game bathed in lime green. If the color tones were a little more realistic (more shifted to blue, like the attached), it could look great.

 

[Castle]

I call it "Suckward" because the title is not deserving of respect. And because the game sucks.

And BotW is not a core gaming experience. It is every mass market paint-by-numbers Ubisoft school of open world design game ever made. This is the sort of rehash we've seen copied again and again in mainstream titles. We're sick to death of it! It doesn't get any more mainstream than that. And the more mainstream a product is the more mass market casual it is. @Pik seems to think "mainstream" audiences are core audiences. Quite the opposite in fact. But @Pik did describe BotW and Skyrim to a tee. If a title is appealing to a great many new players, it's mass market casual. And long time Elder Scrolls fans criticize Skyrim for being dumbed down the same way Zelda fans criticize BotW for being casualized (which the series has been since Wind Waker). Nintendo put more effort into BotW than the developers of Horizon: Zero Yawn did or just about any of the last two dozen or so samey big budget open world games released, I'll give them that. Granted, Nintendo put far more effort into Breath of the Wild than I've seen them put into anything in a long time.

Still doesn't change the fact that graphics turn heads, and graphics displaying modern technology firing on all cylinders turn the heads of core gamers primarily. They are the ones who care about dynamic shadows, reflective bump mapping, real time water displacement, advanced vertex shaders, anti aliasing, real time lighting, 4x texture resolution, facial mapping, motion capture animation, etc. Casual mass market audiences don't know or care about any of that. They'll settle for bright happy colors. They're usually not that vested in the game in the long run to care how it works anyway. But core gamers (ie "snobs") appreciate advanced graphical fidelity and tend to snub anything that looks like a child's finger paints. After all, they did drop hundreds of dollars on advanced gaming hardware not just so they can play games, but so they can play the best looking games available.