Breath Of The Wild’s Monsters Are A Bit… Boring
Zelda: Breath of the Wild, has easily become my favorite Zelda game of all time. I have spend about 200 hours of my life spaying the game, beating it in both normal mode, as well as master mode, and also getting all 120 shrines and all of the outfits (besides all the DLC yet).
That is days upon days of my plastered to my husband’s Nintendo Switch, and playing this game instead of doing anything more productive with my time.
Now this is not my first time talking about this game. I not only have a review of it here on Medium, but I also talked about how I think Zelda is NOT a damsel in distress in this game, and how I believe that this game’s invisible walls are a detriment to its otherwise expansive landscape. But this is yet another issue that I have noticed about this game’s design that I want to discuss.
The enemies are a little bland and after awhile they just get boring. You have Bokoblins, Moblins, Lizalfos, Hinox, and the skeleton forms of all of those. You also have 2 Yiga clan types, the Modulga, Stone Talis, Lynel, Wizzrobe, Octorok, Keese, Chuchus, and all the guardian types. You also have the recolors of all of the above.
This may seem like a lot, but in reality, you only have about 14 enemy types to deal with, and many of these are only relegated to certain small areas of the game, such as the Modulga. This is a far cry from games like A Link To The Past, which has 81 different enemies. For a game as massive in scale as Breath of the Wild, it is really sad that they did not add in more diversity in their enemies.
They just become dull after awhile. Bokoblins don’t have any special moves when they are gold instead of when they are red. They just have stronger weapons, they have a fuck ton more HP/Defense, and they have a larger tolerance to electricity. That, to me, feels like a let down. It even lets enemy encounters start to feel more like a burden than something to enjoy.
This is especially true with enemies like the Yiga clan, or flocks of Keese, who pop up out of nowhere and pester the hell out of you. And don’t even get me started on how much I hate the Lizalfos, who fight as if they are high on speed.
With how empty Hyrule field can feel at times, having huge swatches of land that are devoid of monsters for what feels like miles, it would have felt better to add enemies like the Deku Baba around the ruins that are already covered in vines and debris. Gibdo’s and the ReDead would be a great addition to the game as well, especially given how everyone dies.
More theme specific monsters, like Magmanos in volcanic regions reinvented as regular enemies, Leevers and Like-likes in the more desert regions. Having mini-bosses like Mothula in the forests would have worked well too. Instead, we are greeted with 40 Stone Talus’, which may have some minor variations, such as one being lava, and one being ice. We also have 40 Hinox’s, 22 Lynels, and 26 guardian stalkers, the main difference between all but the stalkers being their skin color.
Because of this, all of the enemies stop being much of a threat, and stop being interesting after a couple of hours. The “dungeons” really don’t provide anything new either, and the shrines only ever have one type of enemy in them.
This is a huge issue that I have with the game as a whole. It is a very lazy character design route to take a blob, and then add some different colors or attribute to it, and act as if it is a legitimate new enemy.
There were many enemies to choose from that would have made the feeling so much better, and as a game as wide and expansive as Breath of the Wild is, it pains me that they didn’t try harder to make more unique monsters, and have them feel more realistic in a Ganon-Apocalypse.
Hopefully the next Zelda game will remedy this situation.
Thank you for reading this! If you liked it and want to support other free future writings by me, then check out my Patreon.
If you want me to write similar articles for you, send me a message at contact@lucycodex.com and you can hire me as a writer for a price. You can also find me on Fiverr and on Upwork
