The legend of zelda: breath of the wild
The moment I realized The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild might actually be my favorite Zelda adventure ever struck me like lightning — literally.
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While running through the picturesque green fields of Hyrule, a massive storm unexpectedly rolled in. As heavy rain began khổng lồ pour, a strong wind rustled the tall grass, and in the distance I could hear the crack of lightning. The sharp sound rapidly came closer và closer until zap! I was electrocuted to lớn death by a bolt. Every time I restarted, the same thing would happen. I couldn’t understand why the lightning was targeting me, the helpless hero, until I realized that both the spear & shield on my back were made of metal. With the steel unequipped, I was able to lớn safely make my through the storm.
Breath of the Wild has something that’s been missing from the series for years: surprise. Most recent Zelda adventures have become formulaic, abiding by a rigid & proven structure that offers nostalgia and familiarity, but little room for revelations, either big or small. Breath of the Wild is more mở cửa and natural than its predecessors, letting you discover things — like how lightning works — through experimentation. It isn’t always as curated và cinematic as other Zelda games, but the unpredictability makes it feel like a true adventure, where you’re uncovering your own path, instead of hitting your marks and following the script.
Zelda games have always been large, but Breath of the Wild feels uniquely grand, a massive open world filled with so much to vì chưng that I suspect most players — even those who complete the main story — will miss large swaths of the map. The scale could have been daunting, but the joy of discovery and the satisfaction that comes from finding your own way make it inviting instead. I want khổng lồ go the places I’ve yet lớn discover. I want khổng lồ uncover new secrets and abilities. I want more.
At 50 hours into the game, I still haven’t reached the kết thúc of Breath of the Wild. In some ways it feels lượt thích I’ve only scratched the surface. But even still, these bold changes have profoundly altered my expectations of what a Zelda adventure can be. And I’m entirely convinced that this is the best Zelda game I’ve ever played.
This reviews contains light spoilers for the early hours of Breath of the Wild.
Breath of the Wild opens with series hero Link awakening in a dark cavern. A mysterious disembodied voice guides him to a tablet that has a passing resemblance lớn both the Switch and Nintendo"s maligned Wii U controller. The tablet helps to lớn navigate this version of Hyrule — the fantasy realm that has long been the heart of Zelda adventures. As you learn in the very early parts of the game, a century ago, powerful evil destroyed much of the world, allowing nature khổng lồ reclaim castles, & littering the land with abandoned machines of war. People still exist, in small towns and stables, but much of Hyrule is beset by hordes of monsters who have bivouacked into the hills. This is a dangerous place. Naturally, your job is lớn set things right.
One of the game’s greatest strengths is how it goes about explaining how you will bởi vì that — or just as often, not explaining it. Breath of the Wild rarely gives you explicit directions as to what to do. Instead, it tells (or shows) you what needs lớn happen, & lets you fill in the rest. One line of quests tasks you with uncovering shrines (more on those later) using only lines from a poem or a riddle as guidance. Another presents a series of images of scenic Hyrule locations from before the calamity, & asks you lớn find them as they are now. In order lớn defeat Ganon you’ll need to lớn first uncover four “divine beasts” scattered throughout the world. Of course, the game doesn’t even tell you what a divine beast is.
This lack of direction can be disorienting at first. I played Breath of the Wild immediately after finishing another huge role-playing game, Horizon Zero Dawn, và it was a jarring transition. After spending 40 hours playing a game that literally pointed me in the right direction at all times, now I was forced lớn fend for myself. But it very quickly turned into a liberating sensation. Instead of worrying if I was following the correct path, for the first dozen hours or so, I largely ignored the story altogether. Instead, I trekked across Hyrule activating the specific towers found in each region, which not only help fill in the details of the maps but also provide crucial fast-travel points.
Even the act of filling out Breath of the Wild’s maps instils a deep sense of adventure. In most open-world games, particularly Ubisoft titles lượt thích Far Cry or Assassin’s Creed, your maps is overburdened with icons from the very beginning. You can spot where everything from a thành phố to a treasure chest is located before you even start exploring. It can feel overwhelming. Breath of the Wild, meanwhile, does the opposite. When you first start out, the map is almost completely empty. You can see the dividing lines between the various regions that 3d Hyrule, but none of their details. It’s only once you start exploring that it fills out. A town won’t appear on your map until you actually go there, which you can only bởi by finding it on your own. Discovering a new place or thing truly feels lượt thích an act of discovery.
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Breath of the Wild features two significant additions that completely changed how I viewed the world around me. In addition lớn the usual methods of traversal — foot, horse, & fast travel — links now also has the ability to climb nearly every surface you come across. If you spot a mountain, a castle, or virtually anything else, you can climb it. The only restriction is Link’s stamina — which expands over time và can be augmented with things lượt thích potions — but even then there are ways around it if you’re clever. This marks a fundamental shift for the series. Instead of an impediment, walls and mountains are now just another potential pathway. Often I would bypass monster-plagued roads altogether and simply climb the comparatively safe mountain instead.
Link’s climbing ability is made all the more useful and important by a seemingly innocuous paraglider, which lets liên kết temporarily soar through the air. In short order, it became a pivotal part of the game, và my main method of transportation. Instead of walking or riding to a new location, I would climb the nearest high point — a mountain, or maybe a tower — & then glide in the direction of where I wished lớn be. The act of getting somewhere became exciting in và of itself. There’s a certain pleasure that comes from just having enough energy to reach the vị trí cao nhất of a tower before losing your grip, or sailing peacefully above enemy camps as the monsters sleep below, unaware.
Not only is Breath of the Wild’s map large; it’s also dense. I was constantly discovering new places and puzzles, both elaborate và diminutive. One of my favorite additions lớn the game is the shrines — glowing caverns scattered liberally across the map. Each one is like a miniature, self-contained Zelda dungeon. Early on these shrines serve as tutorials, showing necessary details about Link’s powers — like his ability to temporarily halt time or use bombs — but later they essentially become puzzle boxes, which approach Portal-levels of cleverness. The shrines also simplify the Zelda dungeon formula in an almost sản phẩm điện thoại game-like manner, resulting in satisfyingly quick puzzles that can usually be completed in less than 15 minutes or so. Even better, unlike typical Zelda puzzles, those in Breath of the Wild’s shrines often have multiple solutions.
Many other additions help bring Breath of the Wild in line with contemporary open-world games like The Witcher or Skyrim, while also contributing khổng lồ its overwhelming focus on adventure and discovery. Liên kết can now cook, for instance, gathering ingredients in the wild, using them to lớn make food that replenishes health or buffs abilities. I found myself especially taken with this feature, scouring the world for new vegetables và meats, và seeing what I could make of them. Again, cooking isn’t really explained, making it all the more compelling. Whipping up a tasty mushroom rice ball or meat-stuffed pumpkin using guesswork instead of a recipe is satisfying. I especially love the way ingredients dance and jump in the pot as you prepare a meal.
There are also survival elements, forcing you lớn protect liên kết from extreme heat và cold. You’ll often find him shivering or sweating because of the weather, his health depleting. Weapons, too, give way. For the first time in a Zelda game your swords và shields degrade as you use them. But weapons are everywhere. You can even pick up a downed skeleton’s arm to lớn bludgeon beasts, its fingers still twitching as you swing it about. Using your best equipment becomes a risky choice, not an assumption.
Even though Breath of the Wild introduces RPG-like elements such as crafting and a greater focus on gear, it’s missing a very distinct kernel of the genre: experience. In most RPGs, numbers determine almost everything you can do. If you’re a level 5 character in a typical RPG, you definitely don’t want lớn head into a dungeon filled with cấp độ 10 enemies, and there’s a whole range of items & abilities you can’t use until you grind long enough khổng lồ meet the appropriate level. This effectively walls off large portions of the world until you’ve achieved a numerical cấp độ of success.
Breath of the Wild scraps this logic. Liên kết gets more health and stamina as you progress, và you can acquire stronger weapons & armor, but he never gets stronger himself. He doesn’t learn to swing a sword or shoot a bow any better. But you do. Breath of the Wild offers a more open and expansive world lớn explore, but it also demands more of its players than other Zeldas, forcing you to lớn get better & smarter lớn survive. It’s the most challenging Zelda I’ve played in many years, but also the most satisfying. (Though it never approaches the daunting difficulty of games like Bloodborne or Dark Souls.)
All of these many changes fundamentally alter the Zelda formula. But what’s perhaps most remarkable about Breath of the Wild is that it still feels like a Zelda adventure — và it’s more than just the familiar setting và characters, or the stirring rendition of the Zelda theme that plays in the background. Breath of the Wild may be the biggest Zelda game to date, but it’s also an experience that distills the essence of the series into something more pure. More recent Zelda games have become bogged down with needless hand holding, an overabundance of tutorials, và overly complicated narratives. Breath of the Wild gets away from that. It changes the Zelda formula in dramatic ways, yet paradoxically it feels more Zelda than almost any trò chơi in the series before. By going big & open, Breath of the Wild gets at the heart at what a Zelda game should be.
This new direction, và shaking up of the age-old formula that has come khổng lồ define the series, helps Breath of the Wild return to lớn what made Zelda so beloved in the first place. More so than just about any game series, Zelda’s heart lies in exploration, that moment of seeing a towering mountain in the distance & realizing that eventually you’ll be able to lớn reach the top. Breath of the Wild takes this idea, cuts out the fluff, và expands upon it. It pulls ideas from other games, lượt thích crafting or survival, yet makes them feel perfectly at trang chủ in its beloved universe. It’s exactly the Zelda trò chơi I’ve been waiting for.
Just watch out for lightning.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild launches March 3rd on Nintendo Switch và Wii U.
