Review: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Great read. Happy to hear it's the same experience on the Wii U.
 
I'm probably about 70% through it now, and I think I am arriving at slightly lesser impression of the game than most.
 
It's just that, and I think I said this before launch, Nintendo really have had all this time to observe the countless other open-world games of this nature play out. While I will commend Breath of the Wild for finding its own slant, a suitably tasteful Nintendo take on all that, after a good decade or so of this genre I feel a little aggrieved to say it's a near perfect experience. There's definitely a grind factor that I'm hitting right now, a familiar pattern, which can be a bit of a slog.
 
Echoing what I said in anticipation, it's not really doing anything new, rather nailing almost everything it does do. The balance seems pretty great to me, I love that Nintendo properly modernised the series (whilst returning to the original) - and hope to see them do the same with other series. But overall, when I look at the experience, the one thing I will say is they could have made this exact game a while ago.
 
For me that counts against it, but yeah, don't get me wrong, this is nit-picking. I love it too! 
 

That's a really great review, Lex! Pleased to hear the Wii U experience is just as good as the Switch one.

Tom - what grind factor is getting you down? Having to complete lots of shrines to slowly build up hearts/stamina, needing to get the right ingredients for cooking, collecting enough weapons...? There are some aspects that could be seen as being a bit grindy.

Adam Riley said:

what grind factor is getting you down? ...., collecting enough weapons...? There are some aspects that could be seen as being a bit grindy.

However what's really interesting is the replayability...once i'm done with this game I just can't see myself re-treading it like i'd do with MM or OoT.....well that is until undoubtable re-release in 10 years time on the 'NXII' 

Adam Riley said:
That's a really great review, Lex! Pleased to hear the Wii U experience is just as good as the Switch one.

Tom - what grind factor is getting you down? Having to complete lots of shrines to slowly build up hearts/stamina, needing to get the right ingredients for cooking, collecting enough weapons...? There are some aspects that could be seen as being a bit grindy.

I now have one main dungeon left, so things have started to pick up again. And I definitely admire the less is more balance in place whilst exploring the lands, which makes an event feel significant rather than randomly generated- but I can't get away from the fact they've been watching open-games develop for all this time. 

And I quite like foraging for specific items, but again, if you feel like the main quest or plot hasn't been touched in a while, it can feel a little too fragmented. 

Then again, I feel this way about many open-world games of recent times- I'm probably being a bit over-critical. 

I sort of know what you mean, i am at the 40/50 hour mark (i think) , and playing it today was the first time i feel that i am a bit bored of running around aimlessly. The novelty has sort of got the best of me today. With that said i could continue with the main quest. I feel like I could be half way through (although i am disappointed if i am because it doesn't feel like much has actually happened).

I have been trying not to use  a guide to do anything, i haven't stumbled across the master sword yet...i am hoping that it's glaringly obvious...a few NPC's have mentioned a legendary sword...but i have yet to actually find it. 

I've been playing a game of 'Zelda snap'/'Zelda logbook which is adding all the scans in via the camera function.

It is a good game but i just can't see the replayability in it.