19 months, 16 games, 13 videos, and 130 dungeons later, and we finally finish our breakdown of the dungeons in the Zelda series, by looking at 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Get maps, graphs, notes, and more in this Dropbox folder: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0arnq2gf89e8hem/AAAJYLhV8VT7o4meCTa-hRdVa?dl=0
Lovely stuff as ever Mark. Thanks for a brilliant series.
The visual boringness of the Beasts and shrines was my main turnoff too. I can excuse the shrines alone as part of the sacrifice of making such a huge amount of modular content for the game, but if each beast had not been the same old sheikah tech, but had instead all had their own race-unique architecture style and mechanics it would have been so much more memorable. (Vah Naboris gets to stay though. That can be the beast that stays unchanged in my ideal scenario.)
I am looking forward to buying the book of graphs!! #makeithappen
This was an amazing series. I can’t wait for season 2.
-You did nothing the whole day. It’s time to be productive
-New Mark Brown Video
-NVM
NEVER CLICKED SO FAST
I think the most valuable lesson here – maybe the most valuable lesson out of the whole series – may be that there is no one right way to design a game. I’m sure we’re all looking forward to more great content!
This has been one of the most fantastic game design series on YouTube — absolutely incredible. Thank you for helping current game designers, and inspiring so many future ones!
I sorta feel like to an extent the ability to move the divine Beasts is functionally equivalent to the dungeon items in previous Zelda games. That recontextualization that makes Zelda dungeons great still sorta exists as well as they could within the context of BotW’s mechanics.
I hate when good Series need to end so creator can do anythink else. Pleas Nintendo make another zelda so there will be New episode of Boss keys.
7.8/10 not enough graphs
YAAAAAY BABY.
The dungeons in BotW are the biggest reason why I don’t love the game as much as other people. They’re just too bland, short and unoriginal. And the lack of atmosphere between them is a big problem. My favourite dungeon in the series is Snowpeak Ruins mainly because of the atmosphere (and I’m glad you called it out for that in this video).
I’m glad the shrines have some really good puzzles, but the repetitive atmosphere is still a problem.
At the conclusion, when I heard Phendrana Drifts, I was like “Please, do Metroid Prime!” then it shows up
When I was playing the shrines I kept getting the feeling that Nintendo had made a small dungeon maker toolset and the devs just all had a go at it. Like they were jamming all these ideas for dungeons out of a Mario maker style level creator. Makes me kinda want a Zelda Dungeon Maker game.
The justification I’ve heard from friends when I complain that the game lacked deep and engaging dungeons is that the whole road to being able to get into the beast (the path to Zora village, the path to Goron village, going into the Yiga hideout in the desert area) made the beasts feel as the culmination of a quest, so they didn’t see the divine beasts as standalone dungeons. I’m not really a fan of this idea, but it would be cool to see other people’s thoughts on this.
Been waiting for this one… It did not disappoint!
Since you already labeled Divine Beasts as Puzzle Boxes, I don’t thinking expecting pacing out of them would be correct. Puzzle boxes are something you poke around into and find the solution for, and it takes a different pace for different player.
Regardless, amazing work for the series.
18 months… what a journey. It gave me a new appreciation for every Zelda game and is going to have me going back to play the ones I never got a crack at. I’m definitely looking forward to whatever series you move on to next, though I have to say I’m hoping it’s another Nintendo classic like Metroid of Mario. Even so, I’d also be interested in some shorter game series if that’s something you want to do to diversify for a little while. Whatever you do though, I’m sure it will be great.
Whoops. Turns out there’s a share limit on Dropbox! Please come back tomorrow if you want to access the goodies. Sorry about that.