http://www.gamerankings.com/switch/189707-the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/index.html

And it's ahead of the second best (Mario) by quite a lot. You can bet its score won't change much at this point as there have been 40 reviews already.

It's pretty good.

Trying to numerically rank qualitatively judged things is stupid.

Zelda is "game reviewer" difficulty precisely or something so all of them get insane reviews; I'm sure the game is good but probably not approaching Super Metroid/Metroid Prime/Vagrant Story/RE4 territory. Or a Link to the Past for that matter.

It's very good. Has a bunch of problems, but it is very good. It isn't even the best Zelda, but it's very, very good. I'm totally in love with it either way. It's very good...

i wish dan ryckert's pull quote for the game was, "Goddamn chu-chus!"

Well it all comes down to opinions, I never liked Metroid Prime and I don't like RE4 very much.

To be honest I haven't liked a single Zelda game in the past but I like this one so much I'm thinking of going back to some.

BOTW is a link to the past Zelda games for me, you might say...

Well that's scientific proof then!

I usually get bored of games where I spend hours making little progress, I've spent hours making little progress in Zelda... and y'know what... I'm okay with that.

BotW is a good game? This is the first time I hear about this!

It must be pretty good seeing how people ignore the bad performance it seems to have, even those who dont care about fps should notice drops to 20.

I am interested to see the public opinion on the game and the switch in a couple weeks when the dust clears and hyperbole dies down.

It runs very well in handheld mode, there are some weird FPS drops in docked mostly related to the grass, yet strangely the WiiU version copes better in these areas according to DigitalFoundry.

It's clear to me this is the result of the game being built for the Wii U first. Unfortunate, but excusable for a launch game.

The game is very good. Of course what developers will take away from these great scores is that people want more breakable weapons and clunky inventory management, with a cooking system that could be easily simplified with some menu changes!

Seriously, the game is fantastic, but some of the design decisions are kind of baffling. It's a very Nintendo game.

I'm not ready to call it king of all games yet, but I am pretty confident it will be in my personal top 5 for the year, and it could climb higher than that (I'm very early.)

The fact that you have two editors on this very site who have quite different opinions on this very same game goes to show exactly how useful these sort of rankings really are.

You like it thats great, you don't thats cool too, but no matter how often someone links you to articles and leaderboards your mind probably won't get swayed one way or the other.

@humanity: I agree with your point, though Jeff seems to have come around some on the game since the Switch stream. He called it "damn good" on Twitter, while on the stream he wasn't even sure if he was having that much fun with it.

@magmamud: Cool! Glad he's having fun with it.

You mean a Zelda game was reviewed well? WHAT? People are all about a game when it first comes out but then there will probably be a backlash on it in 6 months or so? WHAT? /s

Seriously though, for me this isn't even in the top 3 best Zelda games of all time. The movement is wonky, the menus are a chore, they took the worst part of Dark Souls 2 (durability) and maxed that up to 100, the combat isn't as good, and it is by far the cheapest Zelda game in terms of deaths that I've ever played. I don't think its a bad game but I certainly feel like many people are simply getting caught up in the fact its a different Zelda more than its actually something that's "zomg amazing". Just my opinion and I've only played about 6 hours or so.

Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time didn't give me framerate problems when they came out nor did I die because of how loose the movement was. Just sayin'.

Awe, that was sweet of Metacritic to do that!

I think the game looks really good but Skyward Sword has a 93 on metacritic. I don't trust critic scores on Zelda games. At least I have rarely agreed with them remotely.

I do think this new game is quite different but also funny to see the description on Skyward Sword start this way: "A Link to the Future - The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword shakes up the tried-and-true adventure game formula and marks a turning point for the franchise."

Personally I think it's the 4th best zelda game I've played. Which is really dang good.

Whether it's the absolute best doesn't really matter

Yeah, that's pretty cool. I mean, really. I am willing to get a Switch for this game.

...Buuuut, the Steam version of Senran Kagura Estival Versus is due out in less than two weeks on St. Pats, soooo... I'll go with that as my GOAT.

I am really enjoying my time, but i swear, you take that Zelda name off and suddenly perspective would change greatly. I just can't get past seeing so much of this done before and vastly more contextual and engaging. Christ, people are praising the ability to laboriously chart points on a map..?

I love the way it looks, though. Some creature animations look fantastic and obviously taken with great detail.

I get a bit of a team ico vibe from the eerie expansiveness of it, and that really is an interesting feel for any game.

The game seems great, but I really have trouble taking anyone seriously that gives perfect scores (with near perfection implied) to a game that runs as poorly as it does and has inventory management that's near TW3 pre-patch level, seriously they make the same mistake of merging most of their usable items. food and crafting mats under a global "materials" tab.

Outrageous. The game isn't old. How can the best video game be one that isn't old!

It's not just that. We don't have much independent reporting. With a console launch there is also novelty and anticipation, also reviewers are at an age where there is enormous bias and nostalgia. I'd trust Dan as little with a Nintendo review as I would trust Brad with the review of a Blizzard game. Also the hype cycle is peaking and aggregator sites tend to start stronger than the scores end up. Playing a huge game for a week or two there is just no chance or time to get enough distance, perspective or not be overwhelmed by any games pull.

That said. It's amazing that N.-do nailed the studio Ghibli look on a modest mobile SoC, but even after all that coverage I still struggle to see how Zelda stands out from the myriad open world games out there. It is interesting but also sobering to see N.-do make some good decisions, and "get with the program".

When Oblivion came out it was not just a launch title and open world, but the 360 really blew away technically everything including the PC. But did ESIV hold up? That's the kind of comparison I want to hear, from people who played both. Not a friggin' chronology of Zelda releases...

I really wish Jeff had reviewed it and gave it 8.8.

Captain Skyhawk for the NES is the best game ever. Fuck that website, it don't know shit.

It is really, really good. And I'm playing the Wii U version. And I thought skyward sword was terrible. I gave up after the third dungeon. Twilight princess was mediocre. Whatever your stance on the zelda series or numeric review scores, this really isn't just another open world game. I think I'm enjoying it the way i enjoyed The Witness. The care and art design of every inch of the map makes exploring fun on its own-which i have never felt in any other open world game for more than five minutes. And like The Witness, the map is bursting with environmental puzzles. Imagine the map from The Witness but the size of an elder scrolls map. With no reduction in density of design. Also throw in Pokemon Snap! 5 giant bombs out of 4 review aggregators.

On an unrelated note, calling the game "Zelda's Breath" as a shorthand is goddamn hilarious!

Anybody who wants to use one of those review aggregation sites as a means to decide the best game of all time, probably doesn't have much to offer in the conversation of "Best game of all time".

Besides, Yakuza 0 is the best game out this year so far anyway :o !

Is this N.-do thing you keep saying some M$-style sick burn?

Wouldn't be anywhere near that high of a score if it wasn't a Zelda game. Also, I get what they were trying to do with the games music, but is anyone else disappointed with it as I am? With such a big world, there's barely any music playing as you traverse it. It's so quiet and uneventful. Where's all the fantastic music you would normally hear in a Zelda game? I ended up playing older Zelda OST's in the background as I ran around. Sometimes playing xenoblade or nier automata music too.

I'm almost starting to regret waiting to pick up my Switch. I'm still busy with some other games and to be honest, I wanted a clean few months for Mass Effect. I'm still more excited about Andromeda than Breath of the Wild, but it's good to know I have something special waiting for me when I'm ready.

Well, that makes me all the more excited my Wii u copy is arriving today. Now, the problem of whether to take a break from Horizon or to hold off on Botw till I finish the former. In my experience, open world games are best played one at a time; otherwise you can overwhelm yourself.

I spent all weekend obsessing over it. I haven't done that for a video game in forever. Quality wise it's on a LTTP level.

The counterfactuals going on in this thread are amaaazing.

The essence of playing Breath of the Wild is as if Nintendo combined elements of Far Cry, Pokemon Snap, The Witness, The Witcher 3, and survival games all in one experience, clothed that experience in the aura and charm of Zelda, and threw in some Portal-like puzzles for good measure. While the game has distinct flaws and can certainly suffer from a lack of clear direction (a pro or con depending on your perspective), it is such a unique and joyful experience that I cannot help but feel refreshed after playing. If you are lobbing criticism without trying it yourself, then you are doing yourself a disservice. This is one of those games that I recommend anyone who has ever liked a video game try at least once, and approach with an open mind.

You wouldn't have typed that if this thread wasn't about a Zelda game.

@nnickers said:

Just my attempt at shorthand, although I do appreciate the essence capturing brilliance of "M$". I just feel silly both pronouncing and writing 9-10-doh. Also, It may be a triggerword for things nobody wants. Maybe Ninten-dough, would be more like M$, but that's not what I was trying to say.

Game is dope yo.

@themanwithnoplan: Horizon feels incredibly generic compared to Zelda, it ruined Horizon for me as that game is stupidly Far Cry

Zelda's voice actor is even worse than Aloy though, totally overacted

Huh that's totally weird because the new Zelda doesn't seem that gre (plays the game) oh, shit, right, yeah, totally.

I haven't played it either, but this kind of statement seems odd to me. People wouldn't like it as much if it wasn't a Zelda game? That seems like saying people wouldn't have liked Empire Strikes Back as much if it wasn't a Star Wars movie. It probably would be a worse movie if it wasn't a Star Wars movie, but it would also be very different. At that point you're just saying "This wouldn't be liked so much if it was a different thing than it is" which seems kind of redundant.

Not trying to call you out specifically, I've just seen a lot of people with this stance and it doesn't make much sense to me.

Remember those Coke vs. Pepsi commercials. The beverage just doesn't taste that great if it doesn't say Coke on the bottle. That's been shown and proven a million times over, in thousands of consumer studies. Pepsi won because it was sweeter, but people assumed the better tasting sample was Coke. It is a weird quirk of the human mind, being able to adjust perception, but it is a fact.

Agreed, and it's really hard to tear myself away from playing it. There's always just one more interesting thing over that hill to check out...

@eurobum: I'm sure that quirk is true for sweetness levels in soft drinks but comparing pepsi to coke is far, far simpler than comparing this huge 50+ hour game to... whatever fake alternative version people are thinking of.

@sammo21: You're wrong about Ocarina of Time. That game ran worse than BotW at only 20fps (on N64). It had framerate issues too, more severe than the ones in BotW. And yet, nobody cared or really noticed, because it didn't affect the overall experience. It's the same here, I don't care because it has never impacted my experience playing the game so far. Not to say framerate doesn't matter, it does, but it doesn't always have a major effect. It didn't hurt OoT and it so far hasn't hurt this one.

#notmyzelda

@apdls: Lots of N64 games ran like crap. Same with PS1. And most of the consoles before them. It's not an apples to apples comparison.