Today we’re talking about the Legend of Zelda breath of wild breath. For one reason, it’s been getting Caylor reviews, aside from just getting ten out of ten everywhere, it even reached the highest score from some places that only give these scores out to games like Metal Gear, Solid Mario 64, half-life, etc. This almost came as a bit of a surprise because leading up to the release myself – and you know many others were a bit skeptical, you know sure there are the average hype and excitement that comes with a new Zelda game, but it seemed odd for Zelda to Embrace those conventional modern, open-world game design philosophies and potentially lose some of its identity, but I’m happy to say: Zelda didn’t lose its identity at all and it’s absolutely worth all the praise that it has been receiving.
It’s not perfect and I feel like I need to say this more often than I’d like, but of course, no game is perfect, but I think this is definitely a worthy addition to the Zelda franchise and probably one of the stronger ones we’ve seen In a while. The story sets up simple enough, though your Link, as usual, the chosen hero who this time wakes up from this magical tomb 100 years after the fall of Hyrule to the dastardly calamity Ganon, you’re dumped into the opening area which is already pretty damn big. You are given a little bit of guidance, but once you get the paraglider, the game essentially begins and the entire world is open to you and it’s up to you really to figure out what you need.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of Wild
Breathe of Wild is absolutely freaking huge. Maybe even a bit too huge at times, but when you’re wandering up a lonely mountain or sprinting across a giant field, it can’t help but feel kind of like a big open world western RPG like Witcher or Skyrim. But it’s the gameplay systems within and how exactly you play that makes this game feel distinctly unique and thankfully still totally a Zelda game.
At least I’ve always kind of dug seeing Japanese game developers take on the open-world gaming trends, most recently with Metal Gear, Solid 5, Breath of the wild has that basic stuff. It has got a big old map, side quests and even towers to climb to unlock more map, but it’s how Zelda handles these very differently that makes them special. Climbing towers honestly, doesn’t really get you much, but they do get you in troll vantage point: you’re free to take out your scoped thing and scour The environment and place as many pins as you want on the map and kind of like an open-ended way. It almost feels kind of like an old-fashioned game when you’re stuck with a physical map.
With the original Zelda, you could totally see what they were going for here in terms of setting your own adventure and discovering things for yourself, but I think the way they handle these Towers is a good indicator of most of the other mechanics in the game. There’s a light cooking crafting element, but it’s simple and surprisingly deep and tons of fun. The game also barely tells you about it and doesn’t hold your hand. In fact, this is probably the least handhold Wiesel game we’ve seen in a while that may scare some casuals but does it make this game really good and exciting, especially when you discover something for the first time like Link’s awakening or Ocarina or whatever all their Zelda game is your favorite, Breath of wild really embraces that. So figuring things out is such a reward. That’s the reward and feeling of achievement you get for all your exploration.
Combat is mostly your typical Zelda fare, but it’s much more challenging and I think for the better weapons they grade and they degrade really quickly. It honestly can be a bit annoying, despite some worker rabbit the game does give you later on. I think honestly, it’s one of the few questionable design choices here. It seems like it just exists just to exist, but thankfully with it comes a variety of different sized weapons like hammers, swords, and staffs that you’ll end up using all types at least once.
Backflip Zelda combat stuff and in the combat, you can actually get one shot in quite easily and often especially early on in the game. This Zelda game is definitely not for the faint of heart but like I said earlier, at least exploration does reap rewards. Finding and completing these bite-sized dungeon challenges requires that you have points to buy more hearts and more stamina. So getting these necessary upgrades takes quite a bit of exploring and climbing mountains and running across rivers, and because of that and seeing you that you need more stamina and more hearts to really progress. I foresee this game taking you a long time. Even still now, I’m over like 30 hours in, and I still see no end in sight. That stamina system I mentioned does make traversal pretty interesting, though it may seem kind of stressful that everything drains your stamina like every single action, it does make you think more about how to get to the more difficult areas. Doing some specific things like most importantly eating foods will boost your cold resistance or give you more stamina for the long road you’re probably going to have ahead of you.
It’s just added strategy element and real importance of cooking and stuff that manages to make these somewhat tedious systems feel really fun and rewarding same goes for a lot of things in the game like even catching and taming a horse. You need to form a bond with that horse before it actually can completely follow your commands and obey you, the gameplay and open to all they’re effective because that’s the main event here, but so is the story. I think it does go just beyond a typical Zelda tale and some voice acting here and there actually shake things up pretty nicely, most of the voice acting is fairly well done. It at least is from what you could expect. Voices would sound like in a Zelda game, but the real stories in the games are the ones you make for yourself in this surprisingly gorgeous look in the open world.
The game is not super high res or detail-oriented. It’s running on technically outdated hardware, but like there’s, really good lush colors and contrast here not to mention some awesomely well-done sunrises and sunsets, and just visual light design that just helps keep the game looking pretty good and not really pulling you out of the immersion. The frame rate can take a dip from time to time, most notably on TV mode on the switch, but it’s not the biggest problem and it’s not totally a disastrous one. It’s really about the art design and style here and I think Breath of the wild has it in spades, at least overall though.
Honestly, this is a damn good Zelda game through and through you know, by following these modern game conventions it actually if you think about it took a risk for Zelda fans, but thankfully it seems like it paid off. You are most likely going to be drawn to this game, it’s hard to describe why it’s so good, and I kind of the only scratch the surface here, but I highly recommend it for fans of the series. If you can somehow get your hands on a console that plays it, but you guys know that’s how before you buy works. I give you some pros some cons and some personal opinion. Honestly, I didn’t have a lot of cons this time around, but now I want to hear yours down in the comments.