The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Final Hour Count: ~55h

It’s been some time since I’ve written about Breath of the Wild. I ended up putting about 55 hours into the game over the course of 4 months. I hit a moment while I was progressing that I decided I was going to see it through to the end and be done with it. I had a great time with it and below are some reasons why. I’ll try to stay spoiler free in case you have not yet finished and want to.

Highlights

Death Mountain

Death Mountain was a ton of fun. I did not expect that from the area considering I had to baby sit my fire resistant potions. Of course, you quickly gain a method to bypass that altogether. All I want to say about why I had fun is mine carts and cannons.

Divine Beasts

I enjoyed completing the Divine Beasts and ended up completing all 4. The rewards for these were pretty good and made it seem worth while. There were some puzzles that I ended up looking up and felt real dumb for not getting them.

Shrines

If I ever go back to Breath of the Wild it will be to do more shrines. They were fun little mini dungeons to find and complete. They lend themselves well to the “I’ve got 15-20 minutes to play” method. Get in, feel accomplished.

Combat

As I got deeper into the combat system, I had fun with it. I ended up utilizing different types of weapons. Never really found one style I stuck with. Spears, swords, boomerangs, all was great.

Physics/Systems

For me, Half-Life 2 was a turning point for physics in games. It gave me a baseline of what I expect from games where I embody a character in a well realized world. Breath of the Wild ticked that box in so many ways. I continued to be able to execute on my ponderings. Few games give you the sense of mobility and ability to affect the world and at the same time give you the feeling like there’s always more out there to explore.

Hyrule Castle

Hyrule castle was a lot of fun. I almost wish I didn’t decided to complete the game before visiting. I felt like there was a lot of it I missed out on because I had a singular focus of destroying Ganon.

State of the World

There’s much in the world I left unfinished. A lot of side stories. I never did find that poor girl who wanted to play hide and seek… oops. I highly doubt I’ll go back since I tend to abandon a game once I decide I’m done with it. I did enjoy my time there though.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Current Hour Count: 15h 45m

I’ve been playing this game for the past 3 weeks. I put about an hour a day when I can. That excludes the first day we bought the Nintendo Switch and the game. I was sick the next day (actually sick, but convenient timing!) and got almost 5 hours. Playing it on the Switch is handy since there can be competition for the screen with my wife or my two year old.

My Thoughts So Far

Many games exist within a large, open world but this one of those is one of the best. The gameplay systems and the interaction between them is what sets Breath of the Wild above the rest. Stamina, temperature, cooking, material properties, destructible objects, and sound/hearing all blend together in satisfying ways. The upshot of that is that when you ask the question: “Can I?” the answer is often yes. This leads to surprising moments that when you find them or someone tells you about, you find yourself saying, of course that’s a thing!

I have a friend at work who is a major part of me wanting the game. She started telling me about her adventures with Link and it sounded so cool. I was doubtful I’d ever be able to play it since my wife and I have a 2 year old and an almost 5 month old. My free time is limited. It surprised me that the game is still satisfying in small doses.

Most open world games you fire up with the understanding you are going to be there awhile. They take a certain amount of mental prep to even fire up. I don’t get any of that from Breath of the Wild. There’s always bite sized tasks you can perform; prescribed by the game or not. One night I did 15 minutes where I set my goal to climb a particular mountain and that was engaging and fun.

I’m starting to notice I’ve been able to take on greater challenges, despite the fact there’s no leveling system. I’m not sure what the secret is to this. I suspect it has something to do with enemy group difficulty and the usefulness of items that monsters drop. The end result is it enhances the feeling of mastery over the game’s systems. I finished my first boss/dungeon which was a satisfying accomplishment.

While I’ve played most of the 2D games in the series, this is the first 3D Zelda game I have played. From talking to others, there are some pretty notable ones: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and Wind Waker. I wonder if I’ll be able to go back to those after playing this. By all accounts, this is a different game than those so hopefully my brain won’t do that thing where it yearns for one work to be something altogether different.