Are Breath of the Wild and Mario Oddysey truly deserving of their 97 MC score?

97 is pretty god tier in the video game world, it very rarely happens, yet Nintendo seems to make it look easy. What do you think, SW? Are Breath of the Wild and Mario Oddysey's truly deserving of their 97 MC score? I think both are good games, but it does make me wonder if the industry is biased a little lol.

Sheep will say yes, others will say maybe, haters will say no.

At the end of the day, I don't care about what the score is, I know I had fun playing BOTW. And that's what matters, MC scoring higher or not.

Zelda ya. Mario seems so... blah. Nothing special

In my opinion neither are even close to those scores, but I do understand why they would score so high since they appeal to such a broad audience. Neither are bad games to me, but neither are in the 90's either.

For reference I own both. Breath of the Wild isn't even in my top 3-5 Zelda games and Odyssey is one of my least favorite Mario games ever made. To each their own though.

No video game deserves any numerical score. It is an arbitrary number that differs from reviewer to reviewer, for reviews are just that: opinions. Reducing complex opinions down to a single number severely oversimplifies them and leads to dumb comparisons and contests between things that shouldn't be. For example: comparing SSB with, say, Forza Horizon. They are two completely different games for two completely different audiences, yet the obsession with dumb arbitrary numbers make people compare them anyway.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Got any alternative suggestions?

No, the real score for Nintendo games are always minus 5 of what the shown score is. They receive what is known as the Nintendo bump. A heightened score given to a game just because it's from Nintendo. It's a real thing.

I'm none of the 3 and say no. However, I also say that I understand why they would score that way, so perhaps that puts me in maybe territory overall even though not for me.. I don't know. Now I'm getting into semantics.. which funnily enough is all that opinion are in the first place.

It greatly expanded upon Halflife 2s (still unsurpassed) seesaw puzzle.

Unfortunately, the dungeons all look like some Tron copy-paste job.

The aesthetics and expected micro-nature of them gets predictable and uninteresting even though it's trying to throw something new at the player within them.

Can argue they are optional and keeping a repeating motif, but... they did kind of get boring as do the tepid enemy encounters.

After a while it feels MMO like with cows in a field waiting to be picked off. Just, not very interesting.

Never had this problem with Stalker (excluding Clear Sky), feels like a living breathing place, enemy encounters feel natural and generally more memorable than a quickly setting in (literal) rinse.

Wasn't big on the weapon breakage either. Doesn't feel tactical, just "pause to break flow of game, swap other shitty weapon", until it largely becomes nullified later.

So yea, if had any gaming expert criticism up there with Superbunnyhop, this would be it.

Hear! hear!

That's the problem with rating anything and the reason I have such a hard time making a "favorite game list." I don't even like making top 10's in genres because then I start into the whole subgenre questioning.. lol.

I tend to find things I like in every game regardless of how bad it is and some of my favorite games of all time don't have the best overall critical reviews.

Like I always say, a game is as good or as bad as the person's opinion playing it. Different strokes for different folks and all that shit.

That could just as easily be disputed by anyone who disagrees with another take?

Scores are meant as a baseline of popular opinion that some people take way too seriously.

Both games deserve the scores they received. The amount of polish and care was paramount and nothing else comes close. Toilet gaming at it's BEST.

No. Zelda got nostalgia tax. Just look at Skyward Sword on Wii, no way that game deserving of 93/100. In my opinion BoTW is still really fun to play but its still just another ubisoft styled open world game where you find tower to unlock map portion and with barebones story. Difference is u need to tag the activities on the map instead of it revealing itself.

For Mario I have no opinion. I hate Mario I think its one of the worst game IP and milked so much, I stay away from it as far as I can.

Zelda is overrated every single time (other than Link to the past and Ocarina of time). Its like a Kojima game, the hype is what sets these scores, and not the actual quality of the game.

Oddysey is not even worth talking about. Seriously, when was the last time you heard anybody talk about this game? Its as if this game was never released. Its an unremarkable 8/10 game, and nothing more. At least BoTW is popular to this day.

The critics have already spoken.

The rest is damage control.

Are the opinions of others on a game worth their opinion? A very strange question. 😂

Cows mad they cant rewrite history because both of those games outscored every Sony game ever made 🤣 Pitiful

Now the industry is bias. 🙄 Reviews are generally biases because they are all opinions. Then you have monkeys using the opinions of others to validate their bias. Something you regularly do but now you have a problem because it is not a Sony game.😂

BotW does some cool stuff but it's a super tedious game (cooking, weapons) . Imo it's not that much better then a Ubisoft open world.

Odyssey has some wonderful controls but is pretty boring. Maybe the later stuff is more interesting but I had no desire to play it after beating Bowser.

So no. I personally don't think either should be much higher then 80 and I'm being nice.

O man, cows really need a good game to play. It’s been a disgraceful first year.

I thought Odyssey was overrated and I hardly played it. I usually don’t like platformers anyway. I don’t think it’s a 97 but I haven’t played enough to give a score.

Also, I didn’t like Mario Kart but also haven’t played a bunch. The Switch does have some good games though and shines in handheld mode, imo

BotW: Yes. Odyssey: No

I own Mario Odyssey, but haven't played it. I'm not a Mario person in general, but got it for $30 and figured I'd get around to it eventually. Breath of the Wild is one of the 10/10 games I've ever played. It was magical and easily in my top three ever. I played it last fall after a friend of mine demanded that I give it a shot. Incredible game, perfect and addicting unlike anything I've ever played before. BotW2 is going to be a day one purchase.

They're pretty good, but people probably had extra appreciation for the franchises after a considerable time apart, Nintendo didn't have close to the same amount of consumer support for Wii U and 3DS as they saw for Wii and DS.

My copy of BotW is still sealed so can't comment on the quality, but Mario Odyssey definitely doesn't deserve those scores. The hat novelty wears off quickly, and while the mechanics are polished the game is waaaaaaay too easy, the maps too small, and moon hiding spots for the most part uninspired. I've never played a 3D Mario game prior to this one so maybe they're all like that, but I was unimpressed.

Also, jaggies. Those should have died with the previous millennium, why is Nintendo still forgoing Anti-Aliasing 20 years later?

BotW: Yes. Odyssey: No.

Oh hell yeah!

BOTW yeah best video game ever made. Mario oddysey is good but way overrated but in general Mario is very overrated has both Zelda and DK are better franchise.

Because its hardware is very close to what we had 20 years ago🤣

The Switch definitely shows its "age." MHR looks so bad, it can run 100+ FPS at 4k on a 3070. That shouldn't happen lol.

If only Nintendo made 3rd party games.

lol that isn't saying much, the game looks like shit😭

For me personally, I think BOTW is very overrated. But I think Mario Odyssey is an absolute masterpiece. Each to their own 🤷‍♂️

Mario games are crazy overrated but lol nintendo makes great games. GOW 2018 on ps4 now you want to talk about an overrated game.

Great games for their genres....definitely at the top of the heap with others from Rare, Nintendo, ND, Guerilla, etc.... but no more worthy of those scores than Jak & Daxter, Ratchet or Horizon: ZD imo.

My daughters have Mario Odyssey on their Switch & I had a bit of a go, it was fun, but really felt like I'd done it before & better on N64, for that time.

I've never been a Zelda fan, but saw enough footage to know it is a high quality piece of software & what can be expected from Nintendo... their developers have a great knack for using art styles that complement weak hardware & they do it brilliantly. But, just not my thing anymore.

As I found out after buying a Wii-U for myself & 1 for the kids, I just think I outgrew Nintendo's IP's, & they did not progress in ways that suit my gaming tastes. I haven't always wanted to see what Myimoto could do with a more mature themed game, but for whatever reason, that has not allowed to be. So Sony & to a lesser degree MS became better alternatives for me (although Zenimax may change that MS lesser degree thang).

Nintendo will always have a place in the biz, as they just do what they do, and younger & old/nostalgia driven gamer's love it. Nothing wrong with that obviously. as Switch is still flying off store shelves, & it was a very smart tactic for Nintendo to go with a faaaar weaker console, but using the brilliant counter punch of offering a machine that is both portable & dockable as a tv unit.

I do agree with others about the ratings being irrelevant and comes down to personal experience because I have liked many games that many have considered to not be good and vice versa, but since the question is as such, I will answer accordingly. Have yet to play BOTW, so I will hold my opinion until I get around to playing it. However, I did play Super Mario Odyssey (I believe early last year so my opinion is as such:

I originally thought it would be a great game since I watched YouTube Husband/Wife Duo play it and it looked really fun. Their playthrough was so fun to watch that I saw it about 2 to 3 times, but when I got around to playing it, I can say that I feel the rating is exaggerated. I feel both and most games that come from Nintendo are given near perfect to perfect ratings because "it's Nintendo." This is something I have always had a problem with Nintendo games, and while I recognize their significance with gaming and what they brought to the table, I feel they get a lot of passes for what other games would get harshly condemned for. Super Mario Odyssey is really a nostalgia ride for those who have more of a history with the series, and since I don't, my experience wasn't as positive. It is very easy and never picked up for me. Mario games have not clicked with me since the Gamecube and DS era, the three being Super Mario Sunshine, Mario Party 4, and Super Mario 64 DS, and I find as time continues, I find myself not being entertained by the new games that are steadily coming out.

That seems really....unfair...Why is this still allowed?

Haven't played Odyssey, but I do say BotW earned that score. Probably wouldn't have agreed in my first 40 hours with the game. I liked it, but missed the more complex dungeons of previous games, and felt the world was too big and empty. But then I moved past the main quest and just started dicking around, and that's when it all made sense.

It's one of those games you can casually get through in about 10 hours, or dive into for the rest of your life.

I assume trolling....lol.. I think he is right that Nintendo games tend to get a free pass on issues they have, that other games get crucified for, & scores lowered by a point or 2........So, I think it needs to be called out as often as possible so balance in the scores becomes more frequent.

As I said, several of the Ratchet games & Jak & Daxter are up there with Mario's quality to me, & in some areas even surpass it, & same goes for Horizon vs Zelda, but scores do not reflect that, they assume we all will believe them that Mario & Zelda are insurmountable kings of their respective genres...which is just not true, & hasn't been since the end of N64 era.

I wouldnt go that high but both great games imho.

BOTW is one of the most interest games made this gen mechanically. the weapon breaking idea wasn't great but everything else was wonderful. i could go on and on. definitely a 9/10 for me.

Odyssey was also very enjoyable. much much better than 3D world on the wiiu. not up to mario galaxy though. some duff levels do let it down a bit. but overall a great game. 8/10 if i was to put a score on it.

Yup. I typically don't have a lot of gripes that many tend to have with games, so I will find enjoyment with games that others don't and vice versa. I like some Ubisoft games that others don't, some EA published games, etc. And there are some I really don't care for that many praise. I'm not into bickering about the stuff most bicker about today, my things comes down to: is it enjoyable? Will I like it? Will it be something that will be worth the price? (I typically buy during sales) And some of the games I have liked literally have been condemned to hell and back, but somehow the same Mario game three times in a row with a slightly different gimmick or mechanic will be praised. I remember there was a guy who wrote about how the fanbase blindly buys Mario games but they are not creating anything that is truly worth the purchase or is trying to shake up everything in a meaningful way and he feels that as a fan provided some constructive criticism will help (something like this, but it was in this ballpark), and he just got shredded apart in the comments.

I mean scores are always objective, but in the respective genres you would be hard pressed to find better games so, yeah guess they deserve the praise they get!

I wouldn't give a score of 97 for these games. I'm ok with them getting a lot of praise, cause they're awesome, but the negatives should lower their scores a bit.

SMO is an 8/10.

BotW a 9/10. Maybe even 9.5/10.

SMO suffers from padding. I think it would've been a much better game with around 700 less moons, and instead make them more meaningful and more fun to grab. I'm not sure how many times I've played and beaten SM64, but it's a lot. When thinking of replaying SMO, I just think of all of those moons, and it feels more of a chore to go back, so I don't.

BotW doesn't have dungeons.

Didn't Skyward Sword have a 9-something on MC as well? lol. That game's a turd.

The irony of cows questioning a metacritic score

Mario Odysser was basically just the same as any other 3D Mario and BotW is reskinned Assasshole's Creed.

I think some questioning from all sides can be warranted. For instance, as a predominant Sony console gamer I question some of the reviews of Days Gone & it's shortcomings, which were gripes prevalent in Far Cry. Assassins Creed, Zelda: BOTW, Horizon: ZD, GTA, Spiderman, & every other open world game in existence.

So why was one called out for these gameplay elements & scored down, when the others were not? Days Gone done them no worse than these other titles, in fact, I platinumed that game & loved almost every moment, yet I found many Assassins Creeds, Far Cry's, Horizon, etc, a bit of a chore to be honest. Not not wanting to never play them again of course, but just wishing some parts would end & be done with.

I would say for my taste, the only other open world game that kept me interested in these areas Days Gone was faulted & scored down for is GOT...maybe GTA5 also!!

general rule of thumb is to subtract -20 from a Switch game to get the actual score. a 97 on Switch is a 77 on a proper gaming platform.

Played mario odyssey and it's good but not a 97 that's ridiculous.

Here's a hint.

If they were MS exclusives they'd be lucky to be sitting at 80.

Fake news, fake reviews, fake awards, fake off. lol :P