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[ChoosableOne]

Despite dozens of criticisms I made, I had to buy a Switch (long story) and I will get it soon. I thought of Zelda BOTW as the first game, but when I played a little bit on the emulator, I didn't enjoy it enough, so I'm holding my decision for now. I didn't want to fight against the same type of simple enemies and wander around the shrines full of long puzzles(at 20-30fps). And it was a little bit easy for my taste. But I don't know the whole game as I played for a short time for trial purposes, so maybe I can give it another chance. Or, I can wait for the reviews of the second game and buy that one. Elden Ring, on the other hand, was a game that I enjoyed a lot from the beginning to the end and I think it's one of the best game of all time for me. The combat system, atmosphere and sense of exploration were great. It's also clear that it got some ideas from Zelda. What is your choice between these two games that show how being a maidenless fills you with great anger? Which one is better, and why?

 

[lh032]

ER, BOTW is too repetitive, bland world as well.

 

[Gallard]

Elden Ring is 5 years post BOTW. TOTK would be a better comparison

 

[Banjo64]

Close one but went with BotW for reinventing the franchise and for making me smile throughout. Probably the best 2 AAA games since The Witcher 3 and Bloodborne launched in 2015.

 

[SeraphJan]

Elden Ring is 5 years post BOTW. TOTK would be a better comparison

I'm also waiting to see ToTK, as its release date is closer to Elder Ring compare to BoTW, that would be a more fair comparison. Also I would suggest ask that question at least a year later for hype to cooldown, as Elden Ring will no longer has the hype factor, to make it more fair.

However for the sake of relevancy to OP's title, I think Elden Ring is overall a better game. BoTW do have a robust physic system compare to Elden Ring, but everything else the latter did better.

Personally I'm not a fan of Open-world design in general, I would have to go with Sekiro and Bloodborne over Elden Ring though (and Classic Zelda over BoTW), but that's just me.

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Out of curiosity, I've also asked AI just for fun. The result is pretty surprising, this bot knows his stuff.

 

[Danjin44]

I personally enjoy both different reason, both might be open world but how each design their open world is different and it’s own satisfaction.

 

[Robb]

I don’t enjoy souls games so this was easy.

 

[Spukc]

Elden ring is fun and all
But botw is way more open

 

[GigaBowser]

BOTW because From releases the same game every time.

I'm sorry my friends.

 

[killatopak]

Elden Ring

I like dungeons and being able to choose my weapons. It’s also an RPG which is my preferred genre.

 

[hemo memo]

Breath of the Wild is about discovery and one last shrine kind of thing. Also BotW doesn’t have proper dungeons but shrines with very short puzzles so I don’t understand your “long puzzles” criticism. Also puzzles are different. One might be ehh the other is amazing but overall puzzles/shrines are great. As for the challenge you will find it if you want to. I don’t want to spoil it. Elden Ring is a different experience as not much world discovery and puzzles but tight combat and brutal bosses.

Both games will be enhanced by engaging in discussions with the community which is far superior in my experience for BotW than ER. Nothing comes close to the world interactivity of different systems in BotW to any game I’ve played before. This is my opinion.

 

[NikuNashi]

Elden Ring.

BOTW world is just too samey and lacks memorable visuals (plus it was visually dated when it came out). The art direction of the world in ER is possibly the best ive ever experienced in a game.

 

[Zathalus]

Elden Ring, more variation in both gameplay and the world itself.

 

[Gandih42]

Loved both games, I think they both have some of the best exploration to date. Elden Ring is more to my particular tastes though, I prefer the more grim style of fantasy and the combat gameplay. It's not really fair given the gap between them, but the one thing in particular that makes me put Elden Ring above Breath of the Wild is the "legacy dungeons". Essentially really awesome traditional "Souls" dungeons/levels contained within the open world.

I've stayed away from most of the Tears of the Kingdom marketing so I can go in fresh, but from what I've seen they are doubling down on the open ended gameplay rather than highly crafted locations. Cool choice in my opinion, as puts it more towards a different flavour than the likes of Elden Ring.

 

[ChoosableOne]

I don’t understand your “long puzzles” criticism

If you get stuck it takes time to solve them And there are lots of shrines, although not mandatory. So when you put those together, you get my long puzzles argument.

As for the matter of "5 years between them, you can't compare those two". It seems that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will have a similar structure as BOTW, and I don't think the result will change much.

 

[Freeman76]

Breath of the Wild is about discovery and one last shrine kind of thing. Also BotW doesn’t have proper dungeons but shrines with very short puzzles so I don’t understand your “long puzzles” criticism. Also puzzles are different. One might be ehh the other is amazing but overall puzzles/shrines are great. As for the challenge you will find it if you want to. I don’t want to spoil it. Elden Ring is a different experience as not much world discovery and puzzles but tight combat and brutal bosses.

Both games will be enhanced by engaging in discussions with the community which is far superior in my experience for BotW than ER. Nothing comes close to the world interactivity of different systems in BotW to any game I’ve played before. This is my opinion.

Not much world discovery in elden ring?

Wtf u smoking i want some

 

[Kurimao]

I prefer Armored Core cuz heavy metal rocks.

 

[hemo memo]

Not much world discovery in elden ring?

Wtf u smoking i want some

Not as much as BotW. You can wander around in ER but there is still a clear path you follow. BotW is all about discovery that’s why you will not find a proper walkthrough.

 

[KungFucius]

Zelda. I hate soulslikes. I play games to have fun, not get pissed off and stressed out. If you took out the shitty git gud waste of time combat and maybe made the game world a little bit smaller, then ER.

It will be interesting to see what it up in ToTK. Exploring in BoTW was great, but I played it 2x. Will having the same world make ToTK less fun to run around in?

 

[Trunim]

Not as much as BotW.

I discovered the copy/paste stables and enemies. What did you discover on your adventure?

 

[hemo memo]

I discovered the copy/paste stables and enemies. What did you discover on your adventure?

I discovered the copy/paste bosses and reskin caves from previous Souls games and no story to be found unless reading items description is considered one.

 

[REDRZA MWS]

Elden Ring because the wokd is far less barren and keeps you wanting to explore. Also more variety if enemies. Lastly, i cannot stand the weak weapon stamina and how fast they break.

 

[Beer Baelly]

Elden Ring made my jaw drop several times. BOTW not once.

 

[Fredrik]

I love Zelda BOTW but Elden Ring is an iteration of Demon’s Souls, BOTW and Skyrim, 3 great games, with lots of dungeons, secret areas, bosses, cool loot, different ways to play it and multiple endings.

Most importantly, BOTW’s breaking weapons is a dumb mechanic, it only make you use bad weapons because you want to save the good ones for difficult enemies, making searching for loot less rewarding.

 

[Filben]

Exploration felt more rewarding in Elden Ring. And the world itself was more engaging and interesting.

 

[Oberstein]

Zelda BOTW.
It brings a new dimension to open-world games with its mechanics, while ER offers nothing really new.

 

[Rockondevil]

I dislike souls games but I loved Elden Ring.
I love Zelda games but I dislike BOTW.

Zelda made a worse experience compared to previous entries for me. The lack of dungeons, continuous weapon breaking and quite a bland world didn’t do it for me.

Elden ring made a better experience compared to other souls games for me. The unique areas to explore, great weapons and a great world to explore did it for me.

 

[Nankatsu]

Elden Ring, because it's much more challenging, rewarding and dark than BOTW.

 

[DragonNCM]

Elden ring.......easy...at least my weapons & shields are not destroyed

 

[Lasha]

Botw when I want to goof around. Elden ring when I want to play souls.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Elden Ring is more appealing to me in just about every aspect. I can build the character I want, combat is far superior, larger enemy variety, and a more serious look.

Zelda just has the nostalgia factor going for it. Everything else falls short.

 

[ClanOfNone]

BotW was fun, and exploring the world was great, but the lack of proper dungeons, ever breaking gear, and a few other design decisions kept it from greatness.

ER did all of these better, and then has way more variety stacked on top. I played BotW once, and I don't see myself doing another playthrough. I've already done over 3 for ER.

 

[Trunim]

I discovered the copy/paste bosses and reskin caves from previous Souls games and no story to be found unless reading items description is considered one.

Ah yeah, you just reminded me of the copy/paste main bosses in botw as well. I'm sorry, what was the story? Ganon being evil and destroying Hyrule again is he?

 

[Coherenthy]

Elden Ring.

I tried to play BOTW many times but it's just so boring.

 

[hemo memo]

Ah yeah, you just reminded me of the copy/paste main bosses in botw as well. I'm sorry, what was the story? Ganon being evil and destroying Hyrule again is he?

At least it has one.

 

[Schmendrick]

Zelda is a nice sandbox but ultimately feels extremely shallow imho.

 

[lefty1117]

Zelda, I just like the setting and tone better.

 

[HL3.exe]

BOTW. Loved the Immersive Sim style systemic nature of it all. Way more impressive on a technical design standpoint with it's physics and chemistry systems. Creating constant open-ended emergent opportunities all the time.

 

[Ogbert]

Genuinely surprised at people saying ER has more variation in gameplay.

Zelda is a sandbox physics engine. You can do all sorts of stuff.

ER is standard Souls combat.

Anyway, voted BoTW. Just adore the world, the music, the peacefulness.

 

[Trunim]

At least it has one.

It's the same one, rehashed for the majority of Zelda games. Saying that botw has better story than ER is funny. Sounds to me you didn't even play the game, since you can't even come up with a real argument, considering "reading item descriptions" is the one you decided to use.

 

[Sentenza]

Played both to completion, but I prefer Elden Ring and it's not even a particularly close contest, as far as I'm concerned.

For many reasons, but above all the fact that by the end of ER, 150 hours and more into my playthrough, I was still in awe with what I was finding out and engaged with its exploration and combat.

Conversely, BOTW started to feel like it was morbidly repeating itself 20 hours into the game. The occasional shrine/puzzle was the only thing saving it from the "Didn't I already fought the same 8 enemies on rotation a million times already?".
And your arsenal of powers and tools became increasingly pointless as you progressed through the game and massive HP bloat kicked in, too.

 

[Corian33]

Elden Ring. It makes BotW look like a hollow shell of a game.

I still scratch my head when I see people rave about the exploration, gameplay variety, and world/story in BotW. I honestly feel like we must have played different games. Yeah, the world is big and you can go wherever, but like 95% of it is empty nothingness. The story is so forgettable that I couldn’t tell you what happens at the end despite beating it.

Elden Ring is absolutely stuffed with dungeons, enemies, characters, world building. There is something new and interesting in every direction.

 

[Sentenza]

I discovered the copy/paste bosses and reskin caves from previous Souls games and no story to be found unless reading items description is considered one.

There are more TYPES of enemies in ER that individual ones in BOTW.
And that's without even counting the (unique) bosses in both games, where the comparison between the two becomes borderline uncharitable toward the Nintendo game.

Also, let's not go into itemization...

 

[Neff]

Breath of the World by far because
- Puzzles
- Creative solutions to said puzzles
- More interesting world
- Varied sidequests
- Ambiguous descriptions and locations of said sidequests
- Less annoying
- Didn't get boring

That said I did enjoy Elden Ring a lot for most of its duration, because I'm a fan of FromSoftware's other Soulsborne titles, but it's a game design loop which just doesn't lend itself to the open world genre imo. I got to the end and hated the final boss so much (come back you flying cunt) I just gave up, because there was no more to see and my incentive to continue evaporated. And that's where my save file remains to this day. However I've been through BotW several times to the tune of 400 hours, loving it each time, and I suspect I'll do the same for the sequel.

 

[Aldric]

BotW by a country mile.

BotW takes advantage of the open world concept in a way very few other games do by having perfect synergy between core traversal mechanics, the world design, its physics engine and its entirely free progression system. It's obviously not a perfect game but it's an undeniably unique take on the open world formula as demonstrated by the way it rubs so many people the wrong way who've been screeching about the durability system or how the game lets players carve their own experience which is derided as "making your own fun".

Elden Ring in comparison is just Dark Souls 4 in a completely pointless and even counterproductive open world which destroys the already shaky balance of the game. There's zero novel idea and the game comes off as a caricature of the Souls formula with all the flaws of previous games (atrocious hitboxes, pants on head retarded Fextralife bait questlines, spastic delayed boss patterns, derivative cryptic pseudo narrative etc etc) and adds more with its garbage traversal and the spirit ashes that completely trivialize the combat, which is the only thing you do in the game btw compared to BotW's much more varied gameplay scenarios. There's also no towns in the game and overall no reason why anyone would want to become the ruler of such a shithole.

 

[begotten]

ER, BOTW is too repetitive, bland world as well.

Elden Ring recycles all their bosses. 20 copy and pasted Trees and Dragons.

Every "side dungeon" in Elden Ring is literally the same copy and pasted mine or cave filled with the same boss except with an extra copy then two.

Having worse graphics than Dark Souls 3 makes the world look the same but with a shitty yellow filter, except for the underground places. Big whoop.

 

[Markio128]

I just can’t deal with long periods of misery in a game, so BOTW for me. There’s more to it than that though. BOTW has clever puzzles, a fun survival aspect (where you need to mix items to make food/potions to help with certain environments - same with outfits), interesting traversal with climbing, swimming, horse riding and gliding. There’s simply more imagination and creativity in BOTW.

 

[ChoosableOne]

Elden Ring recycles all their bosses. 20 copy and pasted Trees and Dragons.

Every "side dungeon" in Elden Ring is literally the same copy and pasted mine or cave filled with the same boss except with an extra copy then two.

Having worse graphics than Dark Souls 3 makes the world look the same but with a shitty yellow filter, except for the underground places. Big whoop.

Aren't those mini-bosses and field bosses you're talking about? According to fextralife(link below) there are 30 unique bosses in Elden Ring. It's a fair criticism that dungeons are similar and many enemies repeat themselves, but there are still so many different normal enemies, mini-bosses and bosses that I can't compare to botw in this regard.

BOTW enemy list(bosses included)
Elden Ring enemy list without bosses
Elden Ring boss list

Elden Ring has 15 main bosses, 15 mini-bosses, 87 field bosses, to be exact.

 

[MiguelItUp]

Honestly I preferred Elden Ring by a landslide because of mechanics and gameplay alone. I just felt 100% more captivated and interested to play and explore. I 100%'d the game which is also something I don't do often at all. When I played BotW, I eventually got burnt out completing dungeons, put it down, and never picked it back up...

 

[kraspkibble]

BOTW. Elden Ring is too easy and the map is wasted. The environments are beautiful and there is a lot of variety. Hyrule in BOTW had me wanting to constantly explore. In Elden Ring I didn't feel it was rewarding to explore every inch of the map. As for difficulty, I'd much rather play BOTW on Master Mode than Elden Ring.

I'm not sure if I will be able to bring myself to replay Elden Ring in order to access the DLC/Expansion which I know I am going to need to do. Not only have I played BOTW multiple times but I am excited for TOTK which is just the "same game" anyway. I hope that the ER Expansion makes a lot of changes to the base game instead of slapping on a new map area. If we ever get a ER sequel then they need to do much better with the map and make the game more challenging.