Thoughts on Breath of the Wild

More often than not, I don’t play a game to completion. I usually peter out around the 20 hour mark, sometimes far sooner than that (See: every monster hunter game I’ve ever put 3 hours into and then set down forever).

Spoilers ahead!

As of last night, I have around 85 hours in Breath of the Wild, and I have not nearly run out of things I want to do. I just built a town, helped a couple get married, found some new sidequests, and bought my own house. And that was just this week!

However, I can feel the twilight of my time with this game approaching on the horizon. I’ll soon reach a point where I’ve done so much that the game holds little further appeal to me. Though I dread that moment, I know it to be not that far off. So, I figure, I’ll talk about what I liked and disliked about the game, and put it to bed in my mind at last.

Now, I didn’t pay attention to any of the hype surrounding this game. I saw maybe 2 minutes of gameplay footage before buying it, and I really did not know exactly what I was getting myself into, only that a good friend had suggested that it looked excellent. I picked it up for my Wii U from a Gamestop on March 4th, and after about an hour of play, cancelled my plans for the day entirely.

My first thought, emerging from that cave at the beginning was “holy shit, this game is beautiful!” And that was a thought that stayed with me for the next 80 hours of gameplay. The game looks gorgeous, not in a hyper-realistic way but in that same charming cell-shaded way that Wind Waker did. The colors are warm and inviting. The landscape stretches out before you in miles for every direction, inviting you to come and play.

The next thing that struck me, perhaps literally, was the combat. Combat in BotW is scary. Enemies are smarter and more dangerous than they have been in any Zelda game to date, and even in the late-game, there are enemies that can take you down in one or two hits. This leads me to one of my favorite points about BotW: You don’t gain the ability to defeat tough enemies by collecting heart containers or buying better gear, you gain the ability to beat them by mastering the combat system. Sure, the fancy clothes and stronger weapons help, I won’t deny that, but 20 hearts is as good as 3 hearts if you don’t know how to dodge properly; you’re going to get smacked either way, and it’s going to hurt.

Oh, and it goes without saying that it’s fun. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had with Zelda combat. I really can’t overstate how much fun it is to slice and dice your way through waves of enemies, using every skill at your disposal to turn them into mincemeat. Heavy weapons, like claymores and clubs, make you feel powerful and strong, and the animations for these attacks reflect this. The master sword is a reliable fallback, and since it’s the only weapon in the game that can’t permanently break, I ended up with a lot of affection for it. It’s a shame, though, that spears are such garbage. They aren’t fun, and they prevent you from using their shield. They’re only good for throwing, whether you’re throwing them at an enemy, or just throwing them in the trash.

The clothes, though. The clothes!

I feel like such a dork for writing this out, but I love dressing Link up in crazy mix-and-match ensembles to make him look like a badass. I love that you can dress him up as a skeleton, or a barbarian, or, you know… that outfit.

The system for upgrading outfits is a pain in the ass, though. I think it’s a well-executed pain in the ass, but a pain in the ass nonetheless. The amount of time I’ve wasted running around Hyrule looking for lizards fills me with regret. It’s not fun, it’s a chore. It’s made easy to do by means of the Shiekah Slate’s locator, but it’s just running around Hyrule waiting for your slate to beep at you. There’s a moment of catharsis when you finally acquire the 12 macguffins that are required to upgrade whatever gear you’re using, but it’s offset by the hour of repetitive play that got you to this point.

I don’t want to be too down on the game for this, thought. It’s completely optional to upgrade your clothes to their max level, so I can’t be too upset that the game wants you to bend over backwards in order to do it.

One last thing to wrap this up: a bit of praise for the designers of Hyrule.

Hyrule, in Breath of the Wild, is one of the most intoxicating and exciting gameplay worlds I’ve ever had the chance to explore and enjoy. Though devastated by calamity 100 years ago, the land of Hyrule is full of life and brimming with vibrant peoples. The Gerudo feel more fleshed out than any of their previous incarnations (probably due to a distinct lack of Ganondorf), the Gorons all feel like they stepped out of late-80s wrestling arenas, and the Zoras are… Well, the Zoras are kind of dicks. Oh, and Hylians are there too, I guess.

The landscapes are jaw-droppingly beautiful. That’s not praise for the graphics, but rather the overall design. Majestic mountains in the distance, winding bridges, death-defying heights, and rolling hills abound in Hyrule. I can’t think of any place I’ve explored and found “boring”, and that in itself is an achievement for any video game.

So, it’s a great game with fantastic atmosphere. The combat is exciting; it makes you feel both exhilarated and terrified at the same time. Exploration is a joy, and there are hundreds of tiny little stories littered around the world for you to discover. This is an easy recommendation for me, as I’ve enjoyed the game a great deal. Do yourself a favor and pick it up ASAP.