Your thoughts on Zelda BOTW and Mario Odyssey with some distance? Feelings on Switch and it's library currently?

Zelda is still the most amazing experience I've had with a game since the launch of vanilla WoW. The few games I can remember where I could not actually sleep at night because I couldn't stop thinking about playing it again are Ocarina of Time, vanilla World of Warcraft and Breath of the Wild. It's a profound game that kinda sullied other open worlds for me.

BOTW was a fantastic breath of fresh air and a great game. It doesn't have the air of nostalgia around it to me like Ocarina of Time, so I won't say it's the best Zelda, but I am glad they finally went in a new direction for the series. I can't wait to see how they build on this design in the future.

Mario Odyssey was a ton of fun. Not revolutionary the way Zelda was, but still great. Just slightly too fetch-quest-y to me; I generally prefer difficult platforming challenges in Mario to free-forming exploration, so I hope we'll see more Galaxy-style games in the future.

Switch overall is bloody amazing, the first time in years that I am playing console more than PC. It is well worth it for indie games even if you don't like the Nintendo staples.

Honestly Mario and Zelda were massively overrated imo. Its cool that it was open world but I just wish that world was filled with interesting things instead of just neat little physics puzzles that don't really reward you with anything. Exploring the world was just not rewarding and tedious because of the stamina system and shitty horse system. The combat system is also not very deep or satisfying. Also, good God it has some of the most horrendous voice acting and writing I've heard in a AAA game in a very long time. Still, probably the best 3d zelda since OoT but thats not saying much. Mario was just my least favorite type of platformer. I don't like collect-a-thon platformers and they hide the cool stuff behind shitty star collecting. I played it until I saw credits and a few more hours after that and dropped it.

My main use of my switch is for indie games and its been fantastic for that.

@slag: where does BOTW belong in the pantheon? Does it break top 5. What does your top 5 look like? I’m curious.

I’ve only beaten WW and dabbled with few others.

Odyssey was alright. After that...well...I guess I tried Hollow Knight, but like with most metroidvanias, I stopped playing at some point.

So the system's kinda whatever for me. If they put out Metroid Prime trilogy eventually, I'll definitely use it more.

Breath of the Wild is still amazing. The scope of the world and the feeling of discovery is exactly how I used to feel when I'd play games as a kid. Mario Odyssey was good, but I preferred the feeling I got from Super Mario Galaxy.

I played BOTW a month ago again to check out the DLC, and I couldn't put it down (again). I just love pretty much everything about that game.

Mario was fun and I enjoyed my time with it. But I saw someone play Galaxy last week and man... those games were so tightly designed. Galaxy 2 continues to be my favorite 3D Mario game. Odyssey was a lot of fun to run around in but I just prefer creative, directed levels.

The rest of the library has been solid, although I'll admit that I'm mainly using the system for indie games or multiplatform stuff that isn't too graphically intensive (Sonic Mania, etc.). I just love playing games on that system. As a fan of the Vita/PS4 crossplay stuff, the Switch just works super well for me. So unlike the Wii U, I have a ton of smaller games to fill out the time between big releases.

I picked up a switch about a month or so ago and Breath of the wild was one of my first pick ups. Sadly, it just isn't doing it for me. I put about 30 plus hours into it, and with the limited game time I have as it is, I just feel it's just not worth it for me to continue as I am just not enjoying it all that much. I am kind of saddened by this as I picked up a Switch pretty much for BOTW, but with so many indie games and it being portable is my go to platform now for indies now. Perfect timing too, since my gaming PC recently shit the bed. Sure I am not able to play everything I had on steam, but it seems Nintendo is very determined to get a huge back catalog of older and new indie titles and honestly I am really happy with this, so it's already been well worth the purchase. I have yet to play Mario Odyssey yet, but I do plan on it.

Mario was a lot of fun all the way through, though I didn't do much of the post-game stuff. I was satisfied with beating Bowser and ended up with around 350 suns.

Zelda was good at first but I ended up pretty bored and stopped after maybe 15 hours.

And I haven't played anything else other than the Octopath demo, which I didn't enjoy. There are a lot of great 3rd party games on the switch, but I already played all the ones that interest me on PC over the years.

I have no interest in Smash either. So I'm really hoping some other first party games come out in the next year, because right now buying the Switch has kinda felt like a waste.

BOTW is great but really hard to go back to after a long break. It is really easy to forget what you were doing and where to go and what you need to do sometimes.

Odyssey was kind of disappointing. A good amount of the worlds are short and not sweet. I beat the dark side of the moon and I am not 100% sure if there are more worlds if you get more moons but at this point I don't really care.

Honestly, at this point I would wait for the Switch SP or whatever the second version of the hardware ends up being.

I don't think you'd get a consistent answer as evidenced by the replies in the thread.

I think what is truly noteworthy though, is this the first Zelda since Twilight Princess to really generate a lot of mainstream attention and the first since Wind Waker to have such a strong positive reaction after release. BotW has made Zelda relevant and influential again in way that it probably really hasn't been since OoT. The fact you can even have this conversation about where it falls in the Pantheon is the real takeaway imo.

for me personally I think it's right at the edge of the top 5, either right in or right out. Which would make it a second tier Zelda imo. The top 3 I feel are a significant cut above the rest

I'd personally rank the Zelda Games into tiers roughly something like this.

• Legend of Zelda
• Ocarina of Time
• a Link to the Past

• Wind Waker
• Breath of the Wild
• Link's Awakening

• Majora's Mask
• Twilight Princess
• a Link Between Worlds

• Oracle of Ages
• Oracle of Seasons
• Minish Cap

• Adventure of Link
• Skyward Sword
• Phantom Hourglass

• Spirit Tracks
• Four Swords Adventures
• Hyrule Warriors

• Link's Crossbow Training

I really liked BotW as it's really the closest the series has come to modernizing the style of Zelda 1, which is the game I personally fell in love with. But I do think BotW's boss fights and dungeons just aren't on par with the all time greatest imo which is why it doesn't belong up there with the top 3. It also doesn't feel head and shoulders better than most of what else came out around it like older legendary Zelda games did. The top 3 were clear GotY winners the years they came out. And considering that OoT was a '98 release, that's really saying something. Breath of the Wild? A lot of sites said it was the best, but I don't think there is as much agreement there. Certainly not with fans. It's a considerably more divisive game than OoT or aLttP ever were. But BotW did do a lot, really shook up the formula and made some profound impact with how it reimagined open world exploration and traversal.

Zelda 1 is a game I don't think many would consider their favorite or even a top tier Zelda, but it really was transformational when it launched. If you weren't gaming in the 80's it's kinda hard to appreciate how groundbreaking it was and how transcendent it felt. It wowed me more than OoT did later and that was a stunner. Certainly by modern standards, heck even early 90's standards, it's real rough.

I think there is general consensus among fandom that OoT and aLttP are the favorites. So I can see why BotW might not work with everyone, because it doesn't share the sensibilities most newer mainline Zeldas have.

BOTW was and still is amazing to me (even though I don't play it that much anymore).
The Switch is still pretty neat with so many games on it.
I like the fact smaller developers also publish quite a lot on the eShop and all.
Although it does make things harder to navigate to find a game I want to buy...

@slag: haha, Slag, thorough as usual. In terms of personal ranking, how much do you factor “importance?”

I’m surprised to see A Link Between Worlds kinda low, below TP. ALBW I hear the least amount of complaints, I guess besides ALTTP. Even games like OoT and WW I hear common quibbles. So I guess you didn’t enjoy it as much as most ppl and/or you like TP more than others.

@liquiddragon: There's some play in this list and my feelings change day to day on some of them. E.g. I think I probably put Phantom Hourglass a little low. It's probably the best of that tier, but I'm so torn on where to place Adventure of Link which was such a groundbreaking game largely unappreciated (me included) due to its massive flaws. So that's why I put it into tiers, I could personally accept an argument for why ALBW is better than TP or MM, but personally I don't think it's any better than the games a tier above or any worse than a tier below it. The Capcom/Flagship games in particular are hard to place since they are so alien in some ways but if I were willing to move any game from one tier to another it'd probably be one of them.

So in regards to ALBW. I think the game is great, but given how great "Great Zeldas" are, I think originality and innovation become increasingly important distinguishing factors. MM and ALBW both are expertly crafted games with some great new mechanics that are held back by retread/recycled environments and assets. To their credit they reuse them in very interesting ways, but I just don't find them to be as ambitious as the games above them. That I think is important in a franchise that has been at times a very groundbreaking series.

So to me a game like Twilight Princess, despite some flaws, is more what a Zelda game should be than a game like ALBW. That isn't to say ALBW is bad, it isn't at all. It's just if you are going to try to rank things that are very close in quality, you've got to have some way to do it. A lot of this is splitting hairs. Until you get down to tier 5 I don't think any of these are anything less that top 10 games the years they came out.

I wouldn't say it's "importance" that I value but innovation and originality. I think "importance" is a byproduct of trying to make something new and succeeding. I value execution more than innovation & originality, but most Zelda games execute incredibly well. So Innovation & originality is a useful way to seperate the 9.9s from the 8.8s of the world.

A contrary example would actually be Gravity Rush 2. That game used a ton of recycled assets and locations, but it executed so much better than the previous game (mechanically, narratively, graphically and side quest design) that spending so much time in Hekseville again is of far less importance imo than what the game added to the experience.

@slag: ok, so even in your personal ranking, you consider stuff like innovation and not just base it on how much fun you had w each. Or is it one and the same? You find yourself not enjoying some of them because of what you’re looking for in a series? For personal lists, I tend to just figure out which ones I had the best time w.

fuckin' great

Breath of The Wild gave me the same feeling that A Link to The Past did. (Which is my all time #1)

It's an absolute masterpiece. I still think it's the closest thing to a perfect game that I have ever played. The fact that it's on a portable system is still mind blowing.

Mario Odyssey is just a blast to play. Galaxy 1 & 2 are probably stronger games, but overall I have to admit that I enjoyed my time with Odyssey just as much as 64. The flaws just couldn't topple the overwhelming feeling of pure joy I had while running and jumping my way across the worlds. Not even those the annoyance of those ridiculously stupid Broodals could topple my enjoyment.

I picked up a Switch after the Game of the Year podcasts last year and although I’ve enjoyed some time with it I do regret the decision. Breath of the Wild is excellent and I’ve had a ton of fun with it but can’t justify the system on its own.

Odyssey bored me to tears. Admittedly it’s my first 3D Mario game but I just don’t get the hype or appeal. It’s basically just the collectible part of most open world games blown up to be a whole game on its own. I guess that style of game just isn’t for me.

The ports that are on other consoles I’m not sure why I’d ever play on the Switch. The big games will always run and look better on other platforms and everyone admitted to not wanting to play AAA games on the go on the Vita and for me that hasn’t changed.

Mario Tennis was a game I was hugely looking forward to as I’ve always liked the Mario Sports games but the single player was such a let down. I had fun with it for a weekend multiplayer but haven’t gone back to it and I imagine if I did now I’d get destroyed in every match.

I hope we get more exclusives soon that help me feel better about my purchase. I’m loving Octopath Traveller at the moment but like with Zelda I don’t feel like one really excellent experience every 12 months is enough to make me feel good about the Switch.

For a the Zelda Franchise? Absolutely. That's the standard and expectation it set for itself throughout the the 80's and 90's.

For most others? Not really. Other than Super Mario Brothers or Final Fantasy, I don't go into a game expecting a game to try to be that ambitious. Like you my personal enjoyment is the primary criteria I use to rank games.

Innovation or freshness or whatever you want to call it is more of a tiebreaker criteria for me. I'd rather play a fun game than an innovative one, but if both games are roughly equally fun I'll take the innovative one.

E.g. Personally I don't think I enjoyed Link to the Past any less (or more) than Ocarina of Time,they are both so good it's impossible to quantify the difference in enjoyability (and that's not even taking into account how difficult it is to compare games from radically different generations and even arguably different genres). But did one feel more revolutionary than the other when I played it to the point that it changed the way I even thought about games? Absolutely. No disrespect to ALttP, it just didn't give me a totally new experience in the same way OoT did. So to me OoT is the better game.

A contrary example would GTA III and Vice City. GTA III was the more innovative game imo, whereas Vice City was a great refinement on the formula III created. But I think Vice City is the far better game, it's just a lot more fun to play and witness. Better setting, story, characters and execution.