I just completed Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. The game is absolutely fantastic, and is probably the most Zelda game I’ve played yet. For an open world game based on crafting and collecting materials and weapons, I actually enjoyed that aspect of the game, something I normally disdain in games with a crafting/collecting system. I know the game is almost 7 years old at this point, but if you haven’t yet played Breath of the Wild, I encourage you to find a copy and play it.
No spoilers are going to be discussed.
I was pretty skeptical of the radical shift Nintendo was attempting to do with the Zelda series with the changes they made in BotW. Normally Zelda games are dedicated to the story and the dungeons/puzzles. You were basically incentivized to find the strongest sword you could find, upgrade your arrow capacity to the max, fill a as many bottles with fairies as you could, and cut your way through your enemies. The idea of equipment having durability was quite the shift. No longer could you just whip the Biggoron sword, and cut through enemies. You might need that cool, high level sword for a bigger fight, possibly with a boss. Even the Master Sword has a limited amount of use before you have to switch weapons. Many weapons have unique characteristics, such as flamesword’s being able to light fires, or certain bows having a zoom function. You weren’t just stuck lugging around a bunch of crappy weapons to burn through to save your one good weapon. This was a strategy I used for a while, until I realized the strategic value of some weapons. The weapons and gameplay was a lot of fun, and the fights always felt challenging, no mater what level or what equipment I was carrying around.
Another aspect I was sceptical about was the collecting of materials and crafting. I normally hate games that use this as a feature. I was driven mad with Far Cry, which dedicated a large potion of the game play to running around and collecting materials, which distracted from the fast paced gun gameplay. I actively avoided that aspect of the gameplay, and thus missed out on a key part of the game because it slowed the game down. With BotW, the collecting and crafting didn’t really slow the gameplay down. Nintendo did a good job factoring in the rhythm of the gameplay, and placing crafting points in natural places where you would slow down gameplay, such as towns or stables. Collecting wasn’t ever too far out of the way, and materials were always around. If I needed food to make food, there were plenty of animals or plants that could supply me. Even the act of cooking was pretty enjoyable, especially experimenting with different recipes that resulted in different effects. I never did quite master the elixirs, and I just gave up on trying to make them after making dubious food several dozen times over.
The Zelda series has always held a special place in my heart. I have an affinity for history, and I have a particular interest in Medieval History (I love all history, but the Middle Ages are just slightly more so, next to Rome). Growing up, my grandfather made me a wooden sword out of a wooden stake. I’d run around the woods with my friends whacking that sword against imaginary monsters, or pretending that my friends were enemy knights in a duel with me. When I would go on hikes with my dad, I’d discuss what life in the Medieval era was like, such as how barter happened, or what the day to day life was like. The Legend of Zelda always scratched that Medieval fantasy itch I always had. I played Ocarina of Time when I was about 8 years old, and the fantastical world of a perpetual European style kingdom always enthralled me. As I grew older, I came to appreciate the other cultural references that Nintendo crafted into the Zelda Universe, such as the idea of cycles, and rebirth. I think the Zelda mythology is on par with actual, real world mythology.
BotW continues that Zelda legacy. The story is easily one of my favorite Zelda stories, and overall is now one of my top 10 video game stories. The pacing is done extremely well for an open world game that encourages you to explore. I organically found myself on the path to completing the first of four major temples, by complete accident. I encountered a character while I was exploring, and the writing of the character drew me to aid him in his quest. In games such as the Fallout series, typically NPC’s run at you and give you a task. In BotW, you’ll seek out characters and quest givers in order to satisfy your curiosity. The characters are also well written. My favorite character, Prince Sidon of the Zora, made me legitimately feel like a hero, as he encouraged me to charge up the side of a mountain to aid him in his quest (also his smile… that damn smile). Hudon’s quest arc in Tarrey Town was fun, because half of the time I’d forget about the quest, until I ran into something organic in the world, and remembered his quest objectives.
Speaking of the world, I was pretty amazed at how full the world felt. Normally in open world games, the scale of the world is a lot smaller than it appears, and developers use invisible walls to section of parts of the world, forcing the player to take a longer path to give the perception of a greater area. In BotW, if you can see it, you can get to it (aside from the literal mountains at the borders of the map). I spent a good portion of my time literally scaling mountains, running charging at full speed up mountains, and climbing them when I couldn’t. The only thing limiting you is your stamina wheel, but you can increase it, or make food/elixirs that regenerate your stamina. And the map is absolutely full of things to see and do. Aside from the 900 Koroks you can find around the map, there’s just a lot of cool things to see. I particularly like trekking through winter mountains, and deserts, and I found myself spending a lot of time in the Gerudo area of the map, because it had both of those things (Also Nintendo can make a Dune game based on the BotW engine just based on the sand seal surfing I did while wearing the Hylian hood).
One major issue with open world games is feeling like there’s little or nothing to do. I never felt like there wasn’t something to do. Every area I explored felt like there was something interesting to see. My first jaunt through the Faron woods, I encountered Kass, a Rito (basically a bird person) musician, who sang me a song about a local shrine. The Faron woods don’t hold any major main quest value, so there’s no reason to explore it. However, finding the shrine, and completing the quest, was something I didn’t expect to find. And that happened during the majority of my time playing the game. The world felt like an actual place where characters interacted with it, and stories occurred. My only main complaint was that you seldom ever backtracked through main quest related towns once you completed the main story-line quest and the town related quests. For example, I completed the Zora’s Domain area first, and didn’t return until I started doing DLC quests. The towns feel fairly isolated from each other, and I feel as though there was a missed opportunity to have some quests that required Link to run errands between these areas. It happened in prior Zelda games, just not so much in this one. Quests were more or less dedicated to the area in which they were given.
I’ll admit that I’m not the best at puzzle games, and some Zelda dungeons were pretty difficult for me as a kid. My main complaint with lots of puzzle games is how little information is given to how to solve the puzzle. With this game, I rarely often resorted to looking up how to complete the puzzle. Normally, if I was looking something up, it was because I was unsure of the exactly location. However, virtually all of the shrines and dungeons I solved on my own. If I did look something it, it was the DLC items quests, because some of those items were in whacky spots (The Royal Guards Hat was in a chamber above the final boss. Who would organically search the chamber above the final boss?). I did grow rather tired of the “Tests of Strength” shrines. After the first few, I would freeze the robot, pummel it, wait for my freeze rune to recharge, and repeat.
I’m sure everything I’ve said has been stated by others before me. Like I said, I’m late to the party on this one. But Breath of the Wild is the first “new” game I’ve played in a long, long time. Normally I just replay the same games over and over again. Like I stated in the beginning, I wasn’t warm going into the game. I had doubts. However, I was happily proven wrong. You can shake up the Zelda gameplay, and it will still be an amazing game to play.