Thread by @joegoroth

I hear a lot of people say, "I like BOTW, but it isn't a good Zelda game." As someone who has a pretty massive Zelda tattoo, I couldn't disagree more.

Almost every Zelda before BOTW is built on a super hard lock and key model. The games were a series of puzzles where the devs had made sure only one solution works.

There is a strong temptation for game designers to make sure the players have to do "the right thing." You spend A LOT of time making any puzzle, and you want to make sure players get to experience the cool thing. That they get their money's worth.

BOTW spends all the time making the cool puzzles, and then has the confidence to say, "solve them however you want."

There is puzzle in BOTW, where you are supposed to rotate a cube through a series of waterfalls and torches in order to light every side. Its a cool puzzle. But if players bring in fire arrows they can also just shoot each side of the cube and it solves.

AND PLAYERS LOVE IT.

BOTW is this leap forward where the devs are willing to spend all the pain to build the cool stuff and then just let the players do whatever they want with it.

I don't think BOTW has any less locked doors or cool solves to puzzles than its predecessors. It just has the confidence to say "open as few doors as you want however you want."

Proof I like those old Zelda games too