BotW early thoughts

I've been playing BotW for a couple of days via loadiine (with its insane 3 minute load times) because I couldn't find a USB stick bigger than 8 GB to install the game to. Oh and don't worry, I AM going to buy the game tomorrow from the stores, I just wanted to give it a try before that.

I think I have a fairly solid grasp on the mechanics so far, but that said the game is definitely huge as fuck. Though I don't know, I'm not sure I would say that in a good way. The overworld is big and there's definitely stuff to do. You may find enemies to get materials from, chests for weapons that break in seconds, shrines to complete in 5 minutes or a korok seed "puzzle". There's a ton to do but it all feels really repetitive.

The korok puzzles are really random, basically you have to do something to find them. Be it picking up a rock, pushing a bigger rock from a cliff, finding them running in grass or stuff like that. I really hope the game gives some better way to find them (as I haven't found anything yet) without having to fork 30 dollars for a guide.

Horses feel pretty useless due to not being able to call them from far away, a huge step back from previous games like OoT. That's about all I have to say about them.

The shrines themselves have really minor puzzles. I feel like half the time when I'm doing a puzzle, I'm not sure if there's some other "right" way and I'm doing it wrong. They aren't too special from what I've played so far (20 out of 120). The grey and blue color scheme and bland music kinda kills the mood, though I guess that might've been what they were aiming for.

One thing I note is how hard rupees are to get out in the wild and how expensive everything else is. A bundle of 5 arrows will set you back 20 or so rupees whereas you might find them much easier by breaking boxes in bokoblin camps. Speaking of arrows, they are a must in this game. The different variants are especially useful, but of course cost a lot more unless you get lucky in finding them. The best way to get rupees is mainly just mining for ore and selling them, as they give you about 200 rupees.

Something I'd recommend doing asap is getting the camera upgrade for the slate by doing a quest in the village lab when you get it. The game wants you to take pictures of every single weapon, enemy, animal and collectable item there is. The sooner you start doing this, the better. Either that or you can buy a single picture for any of the categories for the "low" price of 100 rupees.

The health and combat is a whole another beast to talk about. The balancing is really weird and some enemies feel unfairly difficult due to the whole "open world" nature of being able to go anywhere you want. Lynels deserve a special shout out for this. I have no clue how to even fight them properly. You'll know what I mean once you see them...

I see the game's been getting some 10/10 reviews around places which worries me, either I've yet to see something that makes it deserve that or I just don't understand the game. I can't say how I'd personally rate the game score wise so far, but I'm not really a fan of some of the decisions they made. The "dungeons" are probably my biggest gripe so far, but I'll see if it changes. One thing I can say say is that it definitely doesn't feel like a Zelda game to me, it's just that different.

But yeah these are just my early thoughts so far. Things might very well change in time as I play more just due to how huge the game is.