It’s been a while… but this is some of the best news I’ve heard in a long time! 
Anyone played this? Any thoughts?
Sadly, I went and preordered the Switch version but forgot to preorder the Switch. So now I’m sitting on a game that I can’t play until summer at the earliest and am dodging spoilers/news embargoing all over the place.
The menu interface is seriously awful, and weapon degradation is just plain not-fun-ever and I don’t understand why it exists. That being said, I am having a lot of fun. I’d recommend it - I’m really picky and I’m still enjoying it, in spite of the fact that I typically don’t like open-world exploration-type games at all, so with those in mind, I guess the game must be pretty good.
I’ve been having a lot of fun with the game. I will say that I wasn’t to keen on the introduction of voice acting at first. Just seems to draw more attention to the fact that Link isn’t allowed to say anything besides grunts. But I’ve since warmed up to it. The weapon degradation thing is a pain in the ass, although I did find a pretty useful work around though Since it seems you can use as many amiibos as you want during a day.
While early on I found weapons broke a bit too fast, now that I’m solidly in the power level 20+ or bust weapon range and I expanded my inventory a few times, the durability issues are far less annoying. I’m not super fond of them, but I understand the NEED for it since you could otherwise Metal Gear Solid your way in Hyrule Castle with 3 hearts and snag some pretty epic royal grade weapons with minimal resistance.
The scenery is beautiful and the feeling of exploring the unknown is great. I’m 15+ hours in (I think? Is there a clock somewhere) and can’t wait to play more tonight.
From what I’ve read, neither BotW nor the Switch have total gameplay times.
It also doesn’t have multiple save slots (a couple of quicksave slots, but if you’re playing on the Wii U, you only get the one save, and the Switch is limited to one save per profile).
That being said, I did eventually get the Wii U version of the game (once I finally got to try it via the Switch). I also beat it recently (though sadly you can’t quite do it without at least treading some ground past the Great Plateau since you simply can’t hold enough weapons to fight through all of Ganon’s forms, even with all the Hyrule Castle swag; also Ganon’s fourth form will oneshot your ass at 3 or 4 hearts and under the effects of a defensive or electric resist dish).
Sup guys.
BOTW is the only Zelda in a long while that makes exploring fun. I don’t know what I’ll think of it in retrospect, but it’s certainly top-shelf material and quite fun.
I’ve never been a big Zelda fan, but I love this one so far.
I feel like it had a top notch overworld (especially with so many towns and settlements available), but the Divine Beasts and subsequent bosses were kinda lacking. Hyrule Castle is a good dungeon and a few more areas like that instead of another couple of random Battle Shrines would’ve been excellent (especially since Shrines in general only had a couple of good rewards and a bunch of random weapons, shields or arrows).
I found it amusing that the four Guardian Abilities basically correspond to four of Zelda 2’s eight spells (Jump, Life, Reflect and Thunder).