The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)

10/10 - Nothing can be said about this masterpiece that has not been said before. But as someone who was incredibly late to this phenomenon, I can tell you that all the hype and praise this game receives is completely justified.

I will mention that I wish the story was told in a more sequential manner and weapon durability is a very annoying feature, regardless of what people can come up with to justify it. It is too much here.

I recommend you play this on the Switch 2, or an Emulator with patches so you can experience this work of art at 60 FPS.

First things first: I liked this game. That said, I was preparing to be smitten and amazed, as I was told this game is incredible, amazing and one-of-a-kind, that it was worth buying a Switch just for it and....it isn't. Good thing emulators exist, though.

BOTW does exploration very well. There are incredible vistas, nad largely everything you can see you can get to. There are different biomes, survival challenges, a ton of little things to do (riding, taming horses, sailing, climbing, collecting stuff and the super-important cooking!) and lots of places to see. That said, a lot of theplaces are kind of samey - rolling hills with grass, rolling hills with snow, rolling sand dunes... COmbat is pretty simple and direct, even though I didn't really manage to GET the finer points of movement and combat. The constant breakage of weapons is a bit of a chore, but I guess it's necessary to feed the item economy. The powers were varied but limited in usefulness, and I found the inability to note things on the map or an in-game journal hindered me. Overall I found the exploration really interesting and varied, the combat ok if repetitive and the characters and story bland and uninteresting. Maybe the game was only aimed at past fans of Zelda and Link, but all the characters are flat pieces of talking cardboard at best (Link is a blank and mute cipher) and the little bit of interest came from some side characters showing a bit of personality in their words or given side-quests. Some things were outright stupid, like the need to dress up to enter Gerudo Town, even after I was known to be an amazing important hero, or the inability to stash items somewhere when running out of room (and don't get me started on the need to track down a large silly creature in order to expand Link's inventory). The bottom line is I never really got to the point that I cared about Hyrule, its people or its trouble. I only finished the game because I enjoyed discovering new things and the challenge of riddles (and maybe the occasional combat challenge). I won't be going back to play any DLC.

Didn't know there were dragons here. Whenever NPCs mention them, I thought they meant something else like rivers or the northern lights or something. That was a nice surprise.

Although I'm already off to free the fourth divine beast, there's still so much to do. Tempted to complete all of the clothing sets and their upgrades. Great game. So many entertaining things to do that you really get your money's worth.

I do not like Death Mountain. I've used up 90% of all my arrows, and I have nothing to show for it because the monsters fall into the lava, leaving me with no loot. Also I'm just not a fan of hot places. The shrines are getting harder, but I feel like I'm also improving.

I so want to play Metaphor: ReFantazio but it's very probable that if I drop this game now, I'll never finish it.

WHAT. A. GAME!

From the moment I stepped out to Hyrule from the Shrine of Resurrection to defeating Calamity Ganon; BOTW is a game not so much about the start or finish, but all the meatiness along the journey.

Be it a controversial format for a Zelda title it took me a while to get use to this layout and gameplay, but I'm glad I took my time to appreciate such a work of art. Hidemaro Fujibayashi and his team really out did themselves, and I cannot wait to jump into TOTK. (Fortunely, I did get it for Christmas)

Unfortunately, not a 100% finish for me, but I'd happily take the 92%, including the 800+ Korok seeds haha. If you love an open world, check list type of game BOTW is absolutely perfect, but only if you're willing to take it slow.

I hope everyone had lovely Christmas, Trauts

I try to avoid such hyperbolic proclamations but…this might be the best modern Zelda game. The game is wide open, playful and doesn't hold your hand. It is definitely the most stand out Zelda game for me since Ocarina.

I was six or so when 'Link to the Past' jump started my passion for the series, but Ocarina was he one that I feel felt most realized and is most memorable to me. This one reminded me of what Zelda games have failed to be for a long time.

The modulation of main dungeons into a multitude of shrines and four tight ancients didn't really bother me that much.

The weapon degradation never really got to me to the degree that it did for others here. It always felt like another lever in the designers' pocket they were pulling on (phrasing) to get you to explore more - get out there and get new weapons! I feel like they got closer to addressing that in ToTK by allowing you to modify any old weapon you picked up into a variety of cool opportunites. Leaning more fully into that freedom made sense. BUT I suppose that's a topic for another review.

I'll end by saying this IS one of the top 3 Zelda games for me - 'LTTP was my first, Ocarina took it 3D and consumed 11 year old me-remember when our only source of tips was other kids at your school? With BOTW, I had fallen out of Zelda games for a while, bought it without reading any reviews, popped it into my now wife's Wii U and we clocked close to 45 hours into that game in the first week outside of our FT jobs. It consumed us! Maybe I should have led with that...

An interesting discussion by BMO and Ureshi on wingkon's review got my brain ticking. (Wingkon's review is a considered, fair enough take but I'll probably end up disagreeing with it when I get around to Tears of the Kingdom). I’d like to throw my own thoughts about Breath of the Wild and reviews/opinions in general into the ring.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an open world, sandbox, do it yourself, playground thing wearing Zelda’s skin. It’s grotesque and a bit bland. It came at a time when I was already facing ‘open world’ fatigue. It doesn’t respect player’s time. I spent so long just walking, riding, gliding, climbing, running and rarely felt rewarded for it. Off brand Ghibli visuals, no proper dungeons, doesn’t always work well, weapons degrade too quickly, lack of really good music, directionless and probably more I’m forgetting. It just didn’t click with me. I have to give credit where it’s due though, at least Nintendo is trying things with mechanics and not just pushing story and graphics. I also need to admit I never finished it. I’m glad people have a game they really enjoy; I just hope it doesn’t come at the cost of something I’ve loved for decades. I’m really hopeful Nintendo will return to ‘traditional’ Zelda.

You know what some 10/10 games are though - Wanted: Dead, Killer is Dead and South Park 64. I enjoyed them, so why not, right? Telling people these are 10s or putting them on best ever lists without mentioning anything else about them is fine, right?

As savage as I just was to Breath of the Wild, I would still give it a solid review, one that talks about its strengths and weaknesses. I think it’s still a really good game that just about anyone should try and I would put somewhere around the 7/10 range. However, I do plan on giving it another go and reassessing my thoughts on it. I will also attempt Tears of the Kingdom one day. The best reviews/opinions, I think, are those that bring plenty of personality and strong thought out personal views but also keep some objectivity and see the reality right in front of them.

I don’t think we can just dismiss reviews, reactions, popularity and discussions about games as just opinions like they don’t matter. Whether or not we like it or admit it these things do have an impact, especially the ‘professional’ ones. They shape opinions, start discussions and steer conversations. They impact sales, developer reputations and potentially peoples jobs. They can shape the industries direction, enforce trends, and change future games development and impact history.

This may sound silly to some but I think people that have studied old movies or books will get it. At some point in the future a young student could be doing an essay titled something like ‘Videogames and the surrounding culture during Covid’ and what they find will be what’s being written right now. 20, 50 or 100 years from now people will be researching videogames and our time period. It’s important that we have robust, well considered reviews, opinion pieces, essays and discussions for the immediate and long term health of this medium. These things need to be scrutinised, criticised and discussed with as many diverse voices chipping in as possible. If you love videogames, I think you should care about this a little.

Anyway, while I stand by what I just said, don’t take this too seriously. I’m a hypocrite that over values games I love too. But, I guess at least my reviews bring some nuance, which is something that probably can’t be said of many of the Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom opinions. Loving something and enjoying it a lot shouldn’t necessarily mean or be accepted as ‘it’s the best ever, 10/10.’ I think there can be something ‘nefarious’ to a games popularity, maybe even this one. It’s not just fine, but should be celebrated that everyone has different opinions, as long as there is some objectivity and give and take.

Nintendo Switch 2 evidence grows with rumors of developer demos

Nintendo has reportedly demonstrated the Nintendo Switch 2 behind closed doors at Gamescom last month. Eurogamer reports that some trusted developers got an early look at the Switch 2 and some tech demos of how games run on the unannounced system.

There was reportedly a demo of an improved version of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that’s designed to run on the more advanced hardware inside the Nintendo Switch 2.

Hours after the Eurogamer report...Nintendo also showcased Epic Games’ The Matrix Awakens Unreal Engine 5 tech demo running on the type of hardware Nintendo is targeting for its next console. The demo reportedly used Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling technology with ray tracing enabled, suggesting Nintendo and Nvidia are working on a significant chip upgrade for this next-gen console.

The new console is said to include an LCD screen instead of OLED and continue to support cartridge slots for playing physical releases of games. Developer kits for the next Nintendo Switch are said to already be available to certain developers.

Growing up, I was more of a Mario kid. But also, I never got my hands on a Zelda game before. So, when I heard this game was Open World when I acquired a Nintendo switch, that was the only reason I decided to invest in it. This was certainly different from other existing games where you could explore and have as much freedom as you wanted. The side quest was a lot better than most games I've played, everywhere you went there was a surprise with each corner. It was almost overwhelming and paranoia inducing because you can't help but think you're missing something if you didn't enter that house, or cave, or pick up that very obviously suspicious looking rock.

I love games that can keep me hooked for hours and hours on end because there's so much to do! To this day I still get videos recommended to me that I didn't know existed in Zelda Breath of the Wild, even after completion. Exotic animals that I never knew we could ride, special outfits, secret areas, to hey what happens if I collect all Korok seeds? (You could probably imagine my reaction to finding that out, one word: POOP?)

The reason why I gave this a 4/5, Is because early on when I started the game, I had nothing, but I went in Hyrule castle and kept getting distracted by all the cool items that were scattered. Before I knew it I was fighting Ganon. It took a while but what an underwhelming fight it was. With this knowledge I felt discouraged to play the game afterwards even when I did nothing and barely knew the story. But I gave it a second go after a while and played at my own pace (-:,

And beat Ganon a second time. I guess I felt better now that I've completed the game knowing I finished where I felt comfortable. But still, I wish that place wasn't so available the way it was, I like the build up to the final boss fight knowing I prepared for this.

Amazing game.

Finished (finally!) the final Trials of the sword. Easier than I expected (finished with max fairies, not a single one spawned in my last oasis break) but to be fair, I ancient arrow'd both Lynels. I was so confident in the last levels that decided to just parry the turrent beams, something I don't even do outside of the trials with Mipha's grace available.

And I thought finishing it made the Master Sword energy to be infinite but alas, it's not. Anyhow.

Now I just need to finish Ganon, buy every single collectopedia item left (less than 20), and I can call this game finished for good.

It's impossible to talk about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild without being hyperbolic. BotW is easily the most ambitious Legend of Zelda game, which inherently makes it one of the most ambitious Nintendo games. Within a week of playing BotW, I knew it was one of my favorite games of all time, and while it might not be my personal favorite, I do believe it to be the best game Nintendo has ever made.

Breath of the Wild clearly has its inspiration in the original Legend of Zelda, which threw the player into a massive world without guiding them in any way. BotW does this on a gargantuan scale in a completely immersive and always changing environment. But I'd also say BotW is inspired by the elegant simplicity of something like Super Mario Bros.' World 1-1, in which the game teaches the player through doing. Right away, I was in awe of what BotW was doing, as I walked out of a cave, and saw an apple and stick on the ground, not far from a roaring fire. One can eat the apple for health, or in the spirit of experimentation, I threw the apple into the fire and came away with an item even more beneficial. The same for the stick, which could be lit on fire to increase my fighting odds or to light nearby flammables. BotW isn't telling the player what to do, it's allowing them to figure all of this out for themselves and the way it does that is truly brilliant.

The level design of Breath of the Wild is nearly flawless. Every element is impeccably precise and beautifully structured. BotW is so smart in how it guides the player, without ever holding their hands - even more remarkable considering Nintendo's newfound interest in helping the audience figure out what to do the moment they get stuck. BotW is more seamless in its assistance, nudging the player in the most subtle ways, without giving them the answers. For example, there was one point, I felt I was trapped in a particular room with nowhere to go. However, I saw a hidden chest, which made me want to use a magnetic tool to pick it up. By enacting the magnesis to pick up the chest, I was shown that a hidden door existed in the same room. Again, the game didn't give me the answer, but designed the room perfectly to allow me to solve the puzzle on my own.

The trust Breath of the Wild has in its audience is also wonderfully freeing. Instead of having the player earn new tools to explore this land over the course of the game, BotW gives the player all their tools upfront and allows them to explore however they see fit. It's so freeing to know that you have all the tools at your disposal, you just have to figure out what to do with them. Every problem has a solution and you already have the answer. Even more spectacular is that the game allows you to solve every puzzle in your own way. There might be a straightforward way to handle an issue, but there might be an equally helpful workaround. The game doesn't care how you solve a problem, only that you figure out how to do it your own way.

While Breath of the Wild is expansive and seemingly never-ending, it's also remarkably simple. One could easily finish the game within a few hours, or play for hundreds of hours and grow and improve your skills, armor, and health. Breath of the Wild wants you to make the game your own and the real adventure is whatever you want to do.

Which is a major reason I think Breath of the Wild might be the best game of the last decade. When I think of the best games that came out in the last decade, I think of ones that allowed the player to make their own journey, utilizing the tools given to them by the developer. Minecraft allowed players to do whatever they want. Fallout: New Vegas made a desert epic that could be tackled however the player saw fit. Mass Effect 2 gave players a space saga to explore at their leisure. Even smaller games like Gone Home or Her Story gave the player a story that could be discovered in whatever order the player saw fit.

Yet, I think Breath of the Wild is different from those games in one major way. In games like Fallout: New Vegas or Mass Effect 2, you're leveling up your character, expanding what they can do and constantly changing. But in Breath of the Wild, if you take off all your gear and armor, Link is the same at the end of the game as he was at the beginning. Breath of the Wild isn't about beefing up Link or making him some powerhouse that needs to upgrade himself in order to defeat Ganon once more. The real growth in Breath of the Wild is whatever the player brings to it. BotW is training the player to be prepared, to learn this world and feel comfortable taking on the world that is laid before you. Link isn't changing in this adventure, the player is.

Which after having played this game for 160 hours, I know I could likely play it for another 160. I want to upgrade all my armor. I want to find all the useless Korok seeds. I want to make my own adventures. After 160 hours, every time I picked up the controller, I still found new ways to be surprised and delighted by this ever-changing world and what I could do in it. That's not even mentioning the beauty and simplicity of this story, which feels like the culmination of every Legend of Zelda game that came in the decades before this game that only gets stronger the further the game goes.

Breath of the Wild is the best game of the last decade and by far, one of the most incredible gaming experiences I've ever had. I can't wait until Link's next adventure begins, but until then, I think I'm going to still continue revisiting Hyrule, this land that has already left me in awe for 160 hours.

I have a love/hate relationship with this game. Its beautiful and extremely charming. Controls are almost perfect and game play, while needed some getting used to, was fun and addicting.

All that being said, I think its fair to say that this was one of the more difficult Zelda games, if not, the most. You are going to experience soooooo many one hit kill moments, especially in the beginning. While not as difficult as Dark Souls, I certainly got a few flashbacks. There were some moments of frustration that were unnecessary in the game play, such as the constant changing of clothing and that damn lightning, but you do manage to play through it.

This game is as open world as it gets. The beginning does a little hand holding at the very beginning, but you are pretty much on your own, after that. Many of the main and side missions are a bit cryptic and require a lot of exploring and interacting with all the NPC's all over the world. The map itself is huge. I must have played around 50 hours total and I feel like I missed about half of the secrets and side missions.

Overall, I liked the game. Despite the frustrations, the game play and beauty kept bringing me back.

When a game can just plop you in a world, and you are able to just run in a straight line and simply find things to do, places to explore, interesting characters to meet, etc..... you know you have something special here.

Sure I do have some criticisms such as the removal of unique dungeons, the shrines basically looking exactly the same, and I've seen other people have gripes against the breakable weapons. But man, Breath of the Wild is an experience, and taps into your imagination of what it means to go on an adventure. The exploration of the world, and the mystery of never knowing what you're gonna see or find next is what makes this game so enticing. I love it.

Now if only there was a fully colored manual to go with this game xD. I bet it would have looked AMAZING.

Brilliant in many respects and it's clearly been made with love and attention. It nailed the sense of exploration and the real freedom to explore and to complete the game in the order you wished was a rare treat.

It was let down by a couple of issues. First and foremost, the story was weak. The rare story dialogue scenes were not engrossing. The lack of linearity contributes to this - because you can collect the memories in whatever order you like, you collect them out of order. While experiencing the story non-chronologically may intrigue some, to me it felt muddled. I never connected with the characters or the relationship between Zelda and Link.

Also, a couple of other minor gripes were the way in which the same dialogue displays every time you enter a shrine or each time you speak to a stable owner about taking out a horse. Considering the extensive efforts the developers went to to make the game seamless and organic, I found these minor things jarring.

Ultimately, the game incorporates many tired open-world tropes and gives them a Zelda skin. Where once Zelda and Nintendo pushed video games forward and provided players with something new, here they are content to make a very good game alongside all the other open-world AAA games currently available.

The best word to describe the experience of playing Breath of the Wild is "flow". Or put another way, doing things in the game just feels good. Each of the game's mechanics naturally leads into the next: You climb a tower, mark points of interest on the map, and then fly, horseback ride, or run to each, perhaps with little combat interspersed along the way. While Breath of the Wild is by no means the first game to use this formula, it executes it exceptionally well. Every discovery in the Hyrule overworld reveals just enough of something more to nudge the player into thinking, "Well, let me see what's over that next hill before I stop playing for the night," ...and the next thing you know, it's 3 in the morning. The combat takes some getting used to, but once I got the hang of it, I found that it allowed for more variety in tactics than any other Zelda game. Coupling this with the plethora of weapon and armor options, there's a strong possibility that no two people with approach a given encounter the same way. Weapon durability and crafting also further feed into the BotW's addictive cycle by always pressing you on to find new ways to upgrade Link.

While the dungeons and shrines are somewhat aesthetically bland, I really enjoyed the Zelda-meets-Portal style of physics-based puzzles. For a seasoned Zelda player like me, these new types of puzzles were a welcome change from the predictable and blatantly signposted puzzles that had been the norm for the previous few games. I will say that of the four main dungeons, I felt that the camel and elephant dungeons were much more interesting than the salamander and bird, but this may be a function of the order that I tackled them. While the puzzle and platforming challenges of the shrines and dungeons are top-notch, one area where they fall flat is enemy variety. There are only two types of enemies indoors: Guardian Scouts and Ganon Blights, with minor variations on each. It would have been nice to enter a combat shrine or a dungeon boss room and be surprised, but that unfortunately never happened.

All of this excellently crafted, free-flowing, non-linear gameplay does come at a cost, however: storytelling. While the narrative has never been as central to Zelda as it has to other big name RPG series (like Final Fantasy), most of the modern entries provide an enjoyable journey with ups and downs along the way, colorful cast of characters, and come to a satisfying conclusion at the end. Breath of the Wild's amorphous structure makes having a cohesive narrative through-line much more complicated. The resulting Nolanesque collection of out-of-sequence flashbacks offers an interesting and nuanced glimpse into the relationship between Link and Zelda, unlike anything I've ever seen Nintendo attempt before with these classic characters. While the voice acting varied considerably in quality, it was generally effective at giving additional emotional weight to these scenes, I just wish there was more of it (most cut scenes are still text-only dialog). However, what makes a disjointed Nolan-style narrative work, is an ending that provides a twist or big reveal that ties all the other scenes together and gives them new meaning. Disappointingly, Breath of the Wild just doesn't have that. For me, this game that is otherwise fantastic kind of ended with a whimper.

Though the very ending of the game left me feeling a little cold, after some reflection, I still can't help but love a game that is otherwise so expertly crafted and provided me with over 100 hours of fun and adventure. Even after playing Breath of Wild consistently for 2 months, I still find myself tempted to return to mop up the last few shrines and I will almost certainly be picking up the DLC. Anyone who is a fan of action RPGs or open-world games owes it to themselves to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

For more content like this, check out my blog: Tales from the Backlog