As I see it, the addition of such mechanics is a symptom of the idea that plagues video games most today: That simplicity is a negative, and more complexity is inherently good.

As I see it, the addition of such mechanics is a symptom of the idea that plagues video games most today: That simplicity is a negative, and more complexity is inherently good.

 

 

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I'd have to agree. 

Personally I'm quite happy with both systems—the stamina gauge forces you to play smarter (such as looking for ledges you can rest on when climbing instead of just attempting to scale a giant peak in a single go, and hiding from enemy groups instead of merely trying to outrun them), while the weapons breaking encourages you to try out different weapons instead of relying solely on the default sword (since most of them perform quite differently in battle and the best way to get a good feel for all of them is to cycle through them regularly). It'd be a different story if, say, the stamina wheel put a hard limit on which points you could or could not reach, or weapons were rare and hard to come by. But neither is the case in this game and I feel like both systems have helped me to think harder about my actions instead of just making a beeline approach from place to place and button-mashing my way to victory in battles.

But the main issue I have with the stamina bar is that it's far too limiting. It's hard to judge how far I can go up and more tines than us care to admit I end up at the very top and run out of stamina and fall off. This seems needlessly frustrating.

I find myself avoiding combat whenever possible, it's lethal far too often and I'm likely to trade weapons for monster parts and worse weapons. It's just not worth it. I have weapons I'm not going to use because by doing so I'll lose them, so I end up pulling out the master sword and using that since it won't ever break. To me, this is pretty terrible, a game that likes to tell you how much freedom it has is keeping me from doing something with it's design.