It doesn't rank in my top five. Or top ten. Or top twenty. It's possible I'd put it in the bottom end of a top 50 on a good day.
When BOTW first came out, I played it rather obsessively for about two weeks. Every night, came home, played until bed, and put about seventy hours into it in two weeks. I rarely do that with games. There's a lot to see and do and I look back on that time fondly.
But I eventually stopped playing and have never really returned to the game for a few reasons.
There are two mechanical reasons - the weapon degradation and sliding down mountains when it rains. It's an example of how, no matter how brilliant your design is, a shit mechanic or two can really ruin everything. It's easy to throw away Boko clubs and generic Traveler Swords, but when you fight a difficult monster and the giant flaming sword +1 you got as a reward breaks within the hour, it's really disappointing and made me wonder what the point of it all was. OK, yes, I get the point is to explore, find and use new things, solve all the puzzles, and such, but I still want my upgrades to stick.
Another point that made me lose interest - the world is empty. I mean, there's a lot of stuff in it to see and wonders to gawk at and nooks and crannies to look in, but there's nothing much to do around a lot of these. Frequently, when you do find some sort of activity or secret or something, it just leads to another short puzzle dungeon with the same blue aesthetic and the same small mechanical enemies. At some point, that just got really boring and I had seen more than enough of those puzzle dungeons. There are quests and stuff, but too rarely does it feel impactful or interesting.
Ultimately, the game is gorgeous and a joy to wander around in and it is one of the defining examples of emergent gameplay. It's certainly worth your time and brilliant in a lot of ways. But a handful of its mechanics really, really drag the whole experience down and it really could use a smaller world with more significant, memorable things to do in it.
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