Calling for Zelda fans who played both BoTW and Elden Ring

[SaintBalor]

The first time I played it, I absolutely adored Breath of the Wild... I think its approach to world design will prove to be a turning point in open-world games, and I believe we've already seen its influence in many recent games. One thing that struck me about Elden Ring is that it has an extremely similar approach to the open world as BoTW in how there is always something interesting hidden wherever you go. Miyazaki being a master of environmental storytelling, it's no wonder Elden Ring iterates and improves on a standard that Zelda set before it.

As much as I love it, with the problems I had with it, I can't really see myself replaying BoTW, but I completely see myself restarting Elden Ring in NG+ or even a completely different build.

Still, I'm curious to see how you see these games and what you think each does better or worse, and how they compare in your eyes

[SaintBalor]

TaterTot の投稿を引用：

You should not be comparing 2 completely different games.
Any Zelda fan will tell you how bad BotW is....
You want a good zelda game you go OOT or Majora'sMask. But OOT is by far the best zelda game and still one of the best games of all time.

I disagree... Yes, of course they're different games, but not entirely... You can see a lot of the same design principles in the two games. They both attempt to present an immersive open world, which you can explore mostly freely... There are a ton of secrets and stories spread out around the world, and neither of them compartmentalize the open aspect of the world into objectives, but allow you to discover at your own pace

[MrSoul]

Oh and dlc was laughably bad for what could have been(ie just make more content, don’t want trial runs or w/e ♥♥♥♥ that was xD )

[weiss]

defnotj4 の投稿を引用：

i found botw to be way more dense in the overworld, and one of its defining aspects. elden ring lacks this density, and is probably closer to skyrim in that regard. anything from the little puzzles for korok seeds and the crafting mats that actually got used, to encounters that always provided me with a weapon to toy around with and chuck at enemies before it broke.

i disagree with that. BoTW had huge areas aswell where ... you found absolutely NOTHING. both games lack in that part. open world games have often this problem if they dont play in a city like the GTA games.

and yes, i totally see me aswell in a NG+ in elden ring. it makes so far fun, the bosses are kind of fun even tho they have horrible patterns here and there xD and i am one of the luckyones where the game runs fine and does not crash all 10~30 minutes ^^.

[Pacino]

I thought Breath of the Wild absolutely nailed the feeling of exploration and discovery even if I did have qualms with certain mechanics. To me it's far from a perfect but it's also an example of an open world experience done correctly. Elden Ring also nails that aspect, every time I go and poke my nose in what looks like a small corner I seem to find it leading to entire areas. The amount to discover is through the roof. As for which is better... As massive Souls fan it's Elden Ring. But we're talking very different games so it's very much personal taste. You could accuse Elden Ring of being a little bit too obtuse and aimless at times but I'd rather have that than the Ubisoft approach of puking icons all over the map which makes any sense of discovery non-existant.

[Hedonism Bot]

Elden Ring's combat and main area design are better but exploring in BotW just felt so much better. Though, I love the instant horse in ER way better. The glider in BotW is probably my personal favorite mechanic in an open world. Loved traveling to towers and jumping off to glide to destination

[Kakihara]

BOTW is for babies, Elden Ring is for adults.

[Aldain]

Man I get people who just don't like BoTW, but from some of the people in here just calling it outright bad makes me wonder what their definition of a good game is.

But yeah BoTW's world still feels better to me than Elden Ring's, BoTW's weak points were its combat (servicable but nothing spectacular) and the general lack of dungeons (Hyrule Castle was spectacular though), but physics based puzzle solving and even basic Korok puzzles always left me feeling like I was actually interacting with the world rather than just running through it point-a to point-b.

Elden Ring's open world feels more like a means to an end than the star of the show compared to BoTW, I can look around and enjoy the scenery, but it wasn't until I got to a dungeon like Stormveil Castle that I really felt like my exploring mattered much.

For all the openness Elden Ring has, I do often feel like there's only really one way forward and that all the exploration is just taking different routes in a funnel towards the legacy dungeons. BoTW was similar in that regard to an extent but the methods of approach were so much more free-form.

With Elden Ring I don't really get that same degree of freedom that BoTW gave me, it feels at odds with the more linear design the Souls series is known for.

[Cooperal]

One thing that I find about open worlds which always seems counter to expectations, is that they aren't very replayable. You can force yourself start things out in a different order from your first playthrough, but the more of the map you clear the more everything begins to mishmash into feeling like the same as the last playthrough.

I played BotW to completion once, and again with some modded rules. But the only people who can I can think would really see the game as ground-breaking, are those trapped in Nintendos bubble; those who have been sheltered away all the great work that's been out there for decades.

It has the least number of unique enemies, less than any other 3D Zelda despite being the largest. Melee weapons only have three very limited movesets with some of them rarely having an extra effect. The number of non-puzzle tasks has been cranked up to a level that no self-respecting adult would stop for every single one they see.

The korok seeds are a thinly veiled way of masking all the empty space that was needed to prevent the Wii U from self-immolating. That was the other thing, people loved not waiting for loading screens in the overworld even if the trade-off was hours of walking/climbing/gliding in a straight line instead. Less tech savvy gamers are so easy to trick.

BotW is still a charming game, a relaxing game, but unless you tailor it like I did I can't see why people would revisit. I didn't even mind the durability thing itself, I more despised how inventory size (and therefore your overall durability pool) was linked to doing stupid crap like picking up a rock, or putting a rock in a circle of rocks, or playing spot-the-difference with really simple cube formations. Korok seeds really represented the bottom of the barrel when it came to valuable design ideas. Even some of the shrine puzzles didn't deserve their own shrine.

[Arbadacarba]

Loved BotW loving ER

[Yagger]

TaterTot の投稿を引用：

You should not be comparing 2 completely different games.
Any Zelda fan will tell you how bad BotW is....
You want a good zelda game you go OOT or Majora'sMask. But OOT is by far the best zelda game and still one of the best games of all time.

botw wasn't a bad game, some stuff could have been done better, but it was still a good game

[Trezoitao38]

Not, they dont have similar approach. Elden Ring dont have climbing, swiming, gliding, towers, shrines, scale of enemies, low durability games, runes, koroks etc. Elden Ring still is in the same systems of Dark Souls games and Breath of the wild forget it is a Zelda game.

[Funpire]

Yagger の投稿を引用：

TaterTot の投稿を引用：

You should not be comparing 2 completely different games.
Any Zelda fan will tell you how bad BotW is....
You want a good zelda game you go OOT or Majora'sMask. But OOT is by far the best zelda game and still one of the best games of all time.

botw wasn't a bad game, some stuff could have been done better, but it was still a good game

This. I don't think BOTW was a bad game. I'd recommend it to people. It's worth the money for what you get.

[Do It For Hargon]

Kerrack の投稿を引用：

Funpire の投稿を引用：

That said, Majora's Mask was the best Zelda game ever.

Fixed it for you.

Absolutely. LTTP is close-ish behind for my second fav.

And I never cared for BOTW. At all. It was a bit of a disgrace on the LoZ name. Elden Ring is superior in every way to it.

[Yagger]

PixeLockeT の投稿を引用：

Kerrack の投稿を引用：

Fixed it for you.

Absolutely. LTTP is close-ish behind for my second fav.

And I never cared for BOTW. At all. It was a bit of a disgrace on the LoZ name. Elden Ring is superior in every way to it.

so I'm allowed to say dark souls 2 was a bad game? because its certainly a disgrace on dark souls

[Falleax]

I doubt I'll go back to BOTW for a very long time because that game's main draw to me in wanderlust. I've already scoured the world, been everywhere, seen everything, so there's not much left for me to care about. The game's other mechanics aren't enough to draw me back in and I hope BOTW 2 does some significant overhauls to the game to keep it fresher longer.
Elden Ring is different because the main draw is the combat and navigation of dangerous environments, so I'll replay it a bunch, I'm sure.