Time and time again the industry will saturate itself with the exact same game 500 times and not learn its lesson. The people who call the shots have no concept of fun
I think that depends on what you think of as a Zelda game. I think it’s not very similar to a link to the past; however I think it expands on much of what made ocarina of time a successful game, while still innovating.
I'd really love to hear in what way you think BotW is remotely similar to OOT, because I cannot think of a way you could make a game more dissimilar to Ocarina of Time while still trying to justify it being a Legend of Zelda game.
I was so disappointed after everyone hyped it up as the best game ever. I would rather play Ocarina of Time again. Not to say it's bad, but I couldn't finish it and it's sitting there gathering dust for now. What I will say though is the temple puzzles are the worst thing ever. Not good puzzles, and repetitive as hell.
Yeah, I mean, it was a perfectly acceptable video game to play once. A little dull and unfocused. But fine. But the series has several seriously legendary entries. I'd sooner play Ocarina of Time ten more times than BotW once more.
Pokemon did nothing with it. It's the same game but with a world map you barely interact with. IMO routes were better. At least routes involved navigation, gimmickry, and some sort of intentional journey.
Why the fuck did they give us an open world map but you still have to best the gyms in a specific order.... just make them scale based on how many badges you have.....
Open world Pokemon should be a slam dunk but Paldea was such a boring world. There was nothing to actually discover except the Pokemon themselves, no unique structures or hidden stories or anything
What are these breath of the wild imitators? The only ones I know are Genshin and maybe that one ubisoft greek myth kids game (Phoenix Rising or something?).
There's a specific vibe, like there's a je nai se quois about certain open world games that are have come up post BOTW. PokemonSword/Shield and Legends, Palworld, Genshin, the new Sonic game apparently, etc. Feels like Banjo Kazooie on steroids. Like those had a similar vibe that's distinctly different to Skyrim or Just Cause or Batman Arkham or GTA or Elden Ring but they're all similar to each other? I can't put it into words properly.
Like, I'd say Fortnite Battle Royale is a BOTW-ified PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. And it's not strictly the climbing/gliding, I wouldn't say Spider-Man or Batman Arkham are BOTW-like, nor just the soft(er) animation style, I wouldn't say Raft or No Man's Sky is BOTW-like, nor the combat/crafting system
Although it may not necessarily be strictly a bad thing, to throw a different type of subgenre into a genre that was going to be dominated by GTA/Just Cause/Saints Row like open world, or a Splinter Cell/Assassin's Creed like open world, or a Minecraft/Roblox like open world or an Elder Scrolls like open world, etc.
Elden Ring is Dark Souls x Breath of the Wild. And there was that game Runic or something that was first to market with Breath of the Wild mechanics without being a switch exclusic
Sheikah towers were just kinda stolen from Assassin’s Creed. The perches or whatever they were that unveiled the map. Breath of the Wild was heavily derivative of many games before its time. It’s just that they did what they wanted to do fairly well which is why it was a hit.
This has always been a problem with the game industry (or any companies doing 'art'), one game is popular and profit-seekers will be much more quick to approve the funds for a "proven concept" than original ideas.
In fairness, indie game devs often copy recent popular games too, but they do at least often try interesting twists on it.
Yeah, to be fair when I was a kid, sidescrolling platformers and fighting games were overdone in the 16-bit era, then RPGs and 3D platformers in the PS1/N64 era, then we had your "your choices matter and FPS era, and then the Soulslike era.
This is how I feel about Elden Ring. I just picked it up, and while the quality of life improvements for the soulsborne games is big (wow, a dedicated jump button!?), the open world with crafting just seems to dilute the overall experience. Not as much as I expected it to, but it just isn't as tight as the rest of them.
Okay, so the Soulsbourne games do have open worlds, but they're not made arbitrarily larger so they can give you a mount to traverse the miles of empty space made for no other reason than to be bigger.