Zelda Breath of the Wild - Wii U vs. Switch

[Reprise]

Whoa, nice! I didn't know you can do that. I've played Breath of the Wild for over 80 hours...

[BogusMeatFactory]

It says 45 hours but both my wife, my friend Nick and my brother in law Brayden spent Lots of time with it as well.

[ElkinFencer10]

I just finished the game last night and posted my review today. Holy shit, that was an experience.

[Xeogred]

For perspective Steam says I played Witcher 3 for 30 hours, but that felt like 100.

BoTW feels like 10, not 37. It's sublime.

I hate to rag on Witcher 3 again, but it's an obvious comparison to be made and that kind of open world game just isn't for me anymore. BoTW simplifies every element imaginable in the best of ways, doesn't tell you where to go, and is way more purely gameplay driven. My kind of stuff.

[ElkinFencer10]

A good open world game is one in which you can sink 100 hours; a great open world game is one in which you're shocked when you see that you've sunk 100 hours into it.

[Tanooki]

Those last two posts are my sense of this game as well. It's not a torment, you lose track of the clock in the room, yet don't feel too bad about it at all. It never feels like it's pounded into you or a painful slog at all. Everything which is annoying about the traditional open world stuff like Witcher 3 or those Dragon Age games too just isn't present here as it never feels like an overbearing chore.

[Blu]

I'm curious on the numbers here. How many of the shrines are tied to a quest or puzzle? How many readily available to be found just by exploring? I'm close to 80 shrines and I've done a number of the shrine quests too, just curious what I have left to explore versus quest for.

[Xeogred]

I think Popo mentioned it earlier somewhere.

Got the Master Sword yesterday! I'm at 50 something shrines, 100+ Korok, two of the main dungeons done. It's amusing how different the Korok seeds are for some people. Dan Rykert from Giant Bomb with over 100 some hours and just about everything done only had like 100 seeds... so he wasn't very good at finding those haha. I have the same number with half the time and only half the map covered or so.

I wish that these Divine Beast dungeons were not the main dungeon replacements per se, but I think they're really cool. I wish there were still normal big dungeons on top of those. But every once and awhile a big shrine comes along, like the Blue Flame one. Loved that.

Going to love exploring the NW cold region, but I still only have the top warm doublet piece so I need to find more.

[isiolia]

Korok seeds seem to follow the same few patterns, if you happen to notice them, but might be something easy to miss depending on how you get around. I don't have all that many either, but I also seem to have a lot fewer shrines done than you do despite having a couple Divine Beasts done as well (I think I have 25 or so done).

Probably just part of the telling players generally where to go and letting them find things in between - it's a general design tactic, but certainly really on display here. Though, the more I play of BoTW, the more I see the same things that other open world games or MMOs do, just shifted slightly (or not, given the "go get me 10 of these!" quests and such).

[alienjesus]

I'm at just under half the map explored, with 53 shrines completed and 153 Korok seeds so far.

I've explored these areas thoroughly, and in this order:
Grand Plateau
Dueling Peaks
Necluda
Lanayru
Woodland
Akkala

I'm now exploring the Lake Hylia region, with about 2/3rds of it done.

I'm being really meticulous with how I'm tackling the game. When I go to a new region I enter it, run straight for the tower to open the map, find the stables, and then set about throughly exploring the whole area before moving on.

I'll either do the region east of Lake Hylia next, or I'll tackle the region southwest of Woodland. I'm trying to explore the regions which aren't tied to the story first.