Breath of the Wild
There is so much to love about this game. In a lot of ways, I think this it’s perfect gameplay-wise. Like, if I designed a game, I would want it to play like this. The open-world concept fits into the modern notion of a game, while still feeling very authentically like a Zelda game. The open-world goes a step further for me because truly, you can go anywhere– if you see it, you can get there. Link’s quite the climber in this game! Couple that with the paraglider and you can literally get anywhere.
All of the objects in this open world interact with each other which means there’s a lot of collecting to do! From mining gems, to hunting, to foraging, to grabbing an unlikely weapon… it’s so much fun. Hearts are not dropped by any enemy so if you want to restore, you have to use my favorite feature in the game: cooking! I can’t even tell you how much fun I had combining things to come up with recipes. You’ve got to love the music it plays when you’re on to something amazing. Sure, I made a few dubious foods before I figured out how to make elixirs, but I’m a cooking master now!
Another new feature is that no weapon is permanent. You melee weapons, shields, and bows all break after extended use. Even the Master Sword needs to go on cool down. While I’m not a fan of no permanent weapons, it did let us try out a bunch of different ones, which was immensely fun.
When talking about our weapons stash, we need to mention Hesto, the giant Korok with maracas that gives you another slot to hold a sword/shield/bow. I loved all the Koroks in this game! Their cute little puzzles were instantly recognizable and I was still excited to hear yahaha! every time.
Speaking of puzzles, let’s move on to Shrines & Divine Beasts. The game is a little lighter on storyline because it’s non-linear. You can play whatever you want in whatever order you want, but the main goals are to recapture the Divine Beasts from Ganon’s clutches freeing the spirits of your friends inside. Along the way, you are to activate shrines, which also helps you move around quicker, since you can teleport, and towers, which activate the map for the section. The shrines either have puzzles, tests of strength (battles), or blessings. Your Sheikah Slate includes runes to help you with these puzzles and, basically, to give you alternate ways to do anything in the game– so useful! The Divine Beasts themselves are giant 3D puzzles– I was just in awe of how someone could create them.
Anyway, the story unfurls through each Divine Beast victory and through recapturing the stored memories on your Sheikah Slate. We get to know a fun cast of characters, including Princess Zelda. I’m going to say it– I couldn’t stand her voice actor at first, but I got used to it at the end. Her storyline is the most compelling to me.
Even with Calamity Ganon’s battle done, I know we’ll be playing more Breath of the Wild. I can’t wait for DLC, and I can’t say enough amazing things about this game!
