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Should we be able to beat BotW2 in thirty-five minutes or less?

Sheikah_Witch

I just really like botw
Joined
Apr 8, 2019
Location
Sweden
One thing that baffled a lot of people before BotW's release was that you could beat the game without finishing the story. After the tutorial area, go straight to the final boss.

This, of course, set the speedrun community on fire. To this day, the WR for BotW is about thirty minutes.

Even though BotW2 might not have similar opportunities to mess with the physics as much as you could do with the Stasis rune, would you want a similar 'go to the final boss anytime'-setup for BotW2?
 
I really hope not.

Being able to go to the final boss first makes things feel inconsequential. I know it's the latest fad in the open world/player choice movement but it is trivialising the rest of the content in the game.

Final bosses should be something to work towards, not a free pass to the credits if you're good enough.

I want the journey in BotW2 to feel necessary, being able to go straight to the final boss negates the journey so I hope we can't.
 

Dio

~ It's me, Dio!~
Joined
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Location
England
Gender
Absolute unit
Having the last boss available to fight right away limits the type of story you can tell and it was to BoTW's detriment. You can't evolve the world throughout the game or have anything happen of consequence in the plot e.g twists because if the final boss is always available to fight nothing in the plot can be of consequence. And in BoTW I felt this. It felt meaningless.

In OOT having Ganondorf take over after the third dungeon couldn't be done if he had been available to kill from the beginning. You cant reveal a true main antagonist as a plot point like in TP if he is already available to kill from the beginning.

I therefore hope this ability to kill the final boss right away never returns in Zelda. It made for the worst storytelling in the 3D series for sure which is well known for its usually simple yet meaningful and well told storylines.
 

el :BeoWolf:

When all else fails use fire
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Feb 5, 2016
Gender
Centaleon
The final boss shouldn't be available immediately if you're going for a story game like Zelda is. I get they were going for that free roam feeling but this was a bit much.
Off the top of my head I'd probably have it to where Ganon was sealed not only by Zelda but also the champions somehow. Essentially he'd be sealed and Link would need to use all four champion powers to undo it.
 

Jirohnagi

Braava Braava
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Feb 18, 2010
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Soul Sanctum
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God no, i hated that in BOTW made the entire game inconsequential, they'd just spawn all 4 bosses in before fighting the "calamity" and it just rendered the entire world pointless. Hell it made the ending of the game pointless the final boss was weak as hell as a consquence of being able to go straight to him.

Personally i wish they'd give us an option to refight bosses in say shrine of resurrection (like how in OOT3D resting in Child links bed will let you boss rush) and actually make it so the final boss is it as in the game doesn't just reload right before the final boss and act as if nothing happened and give us some goddamn post game
 
Joined
Apr 3, 2017
I dispute the statements about the world evolving. The final boss was different depending on how the world evolved. You got all 4 blights plus the final boss if you went straight there. As you explored and conquered divine beasts the final conflict changed.

Also entering the castle and climbing to the top was a challenge enough. I found that when I went into certain areas and was underprepared I was more motivated to explore. I have no problem with the developers opening a final challenge early on, but make it difficult to achieve, and change the experience based on how someone plays the game.

Speed runners are always going to look for an exploit. They want a different experience. They want to find glitches and exploits in order to get to the end fast and generally find that story gets in the way.
 

Azure Sage

March onward forever...
Staff member
ZD Legend
Comm. Coordinator
It didn't affect my feelings on the game in the slightest, because you don't have to do that. Complaining that you can do this is the same as complaining about difficulty level options in games. There's no one holding a gun to your head and making you play the game that way. I really liked that you could try to challenge yourself to take on the final boss that early. Building up your arsenal to your liking and thinking creatively to succeed is a big part of what makes BotW so much fun. I did a playthrough where I avoided every shrine, tower, and beast possible and limited myself only to melee weapons. The run consisted of me wandering the world building up my collection of weapons to prepare myself for the boss gauntlet. That was a lot of fun. It was still a meaningful experience even though the only story bit I did was the final boss. There's still plenty of great and meaningful content you can do other than the final boss, so calling the rest of that inconsequential just because there's no set order in doing them is kind of short-sighted in my opinion. A game is a lot more than its story.
 

PoeFacedKilla

Hylian Killer Bee
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Dec 3, 2019
Location
Seattle, Washington
Gender
Male
Itd be cool if they could deconstruct this trope. For instance you can go straight to fight mummy ganondorf or you can hit a few shrines (or their equivalent) to build up hearts and stamina but when you get to the raised Hyrule castle and you beat mummy ganondorf he is revealed to have the triforce of power: which he uses to raise seven towers (actual dungeons) that give him the power to revert to his normal form (not mummified) and kidnap Zelda before kicking link out the door. Then he is really OP and you have to find seven sages and conquer the seven temples to actually beat him. That way you kind of get the best of both worlds.
 
Joined
Jun 12, 2012
Location
Illinois
I think having the final boss accessible from the start worked for the most part in BOTW and i'm really happy they made it that way. But it did limit the story in my opinion and I don't think every Zelda game in the future should do that. I think BOTW II should have you beat all of the main story stuff and then have you go to the final boss just like in the other Zelda games before BOTW.
 

Jimmu

Administrator
Staff member
Administrator
The fact that the boss could be accessed so quickly didn't really impact on my feelings toward the game whatsoever. I was wanting to experience the whole story and am not interested in speedrunning at all but for the quite large community who enjoy speedrunning I guess it is cool that they could finish it so quickly.

I wouldn't say we necessarily should be able to finish BOTW2 in thirty-five minutes or less but if that is the case I won't mind and will just ignore it as I did with BOTW.
 

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