ver since Nintendo released the original Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo Entertainment System to Japan back in 1986 and worldwide in 1987, the game revolutionized how video games approach the action-adventure genre and means of free exploration within a virtual fantasy world. Fast forward roughly 30 years later to 2017, Nintendo had once again revolutionized the action-adventure genre by allowing its revered fantasy series to bring back what it had lacked in such a long time, a sense of freedom.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild rewires the standard Zelda conventions that were established back in late 1990's and returns the series to its explorative roots. This time around, Nintendo has transitioned into the open-world genre. As from the start of the game, the player can traverse through the vast, open land of Hyrule right out of the gate. They can run off in any direction they choose and with what the world has to offer, it never ceases to pique the player's sense of awe and wonder. The more they explore, the more they are rewarded by discovering mysterious landmarks, solving complex hidden puzzles, and attacking enemy camps to raid for treasure and weapons. And in return, they are rewarded with the ability to reach newer and more fascinating areas later on.
It's dangerous to go alone! Take this.
– Old Man, The Legend of Zelda (1986)
THE WORLD MAY BE FREE, BUT IT SEEMS...QUIET.
The land of Hyrule has become a shadow of its former glory into that of a post-apocalyptic state. Nature has reclaimed the world and the people have are now trying rebuild what they have lost. The player takes control of Link, the destined hero of Hyrule, who must learn to survive with this new and unfamiliar world after waking up 100 years in the future. He shortly encounters an old man and receives strange telepathic calls from Princess Zelda who tells him that she is holding the evil entity known as the Calamity Ganon, who has ravaged the land, captive and asks Link to defeat the monster in order to save the world. The player ventures forth to solve the mystery of what happened the last 100 years, save the Princess and in turn, the world.
Having been originally begun development for the Nintendo Wii U back in 2015, several delays postposed the game into becoming a dual release in 2017 on both the Wii U and brand new Nintendo Switch. The vast, openness of the game allows the player to look at particular scenario within the world, such an environmental puzzle or enemy camp and approach it in 3 or 4 different ways. It's incredible! I myself have put in way over 150+hours into this game, running from mountaintop to mountaintop and looking for every nook and cranny as the world fascinated me so much. But enough on the explorative aspects, how does the game present itself and mechanically feel?
As Nintendo has always done in the past, the polish and presentation is phenomenal as always. From the minute details to gargantuan sights, Breath of the Wild represents its world with such an cel-shaded art style, but evolves the series by bringing life to world of Hyrule. The animals such as fish, ducks, boars, deer, bears, and so on feel so realistic that their behavioral patterns are taken from the animals they are based on. NPCs (Non-Playable Characters) now have more in-depth and dynamic lives than previous games as when day arrives - they prepare for their daily tasks, night comes - they return home and go to sleep, it rains - they run for shelter, and some NPCs even fight back against enemies that attack them.
The game was also mechanically built with a new physics engine that allowed these features to work so genuinely within the world, the most prominent features though have to be the methods to which the environment interacts with itself and the player. Rafts drifting on rivers, boulders build with kinetic energy being flown across the map, fire interacting with nature and how rapidly it spreads. It's just all so amazing!
The game runs pretty well for Nintendo first take on the open-world genre. I played on the Wii U version of the game; the game being a dual release on an older gaming system, the Wii U, and its newer system, the Switch, there are clearly minor differences. While nothing about the overall experience differs greatly between the two versions to make one seem better than the other, the Switch version benefits from the newer hardware in its visuals. The Switch allows the game to be rendered at 900p at a more consistent 30 fps while the Wii U also runs at 30 fps, but sacrifices the graphical fidelity down to 720p to compensate. That being said, both versions still perform fantastically on their own and allows both owners of the consoles to enjoy the new Zelda game at the same time.
Before I finish this review, I must also discuss some of the flaws surrounding the game. No game is perfect and one of the biggest flaws Breath of the Wild suffers from is its story. While Nintendo always focuses on gameplay first than story, which benefits the fun and enjoyment a player has while playing their games, this can also hurt a game series such as Zelda with how much world-building it incorporates. The story isn't bad per se, but the presentation displayed it was flawed in it execution. Link, over his century long cryogenic recovery in the Shrine of Resurrection, had lost all of his memory. And so, the game presents the mystery of what happened long ago through the means of Link recovering certain memories that are discoverable within the world. However, by this method, the story and the characters from back then are much more interesting than what is happening currently in the world now, and visually presenting the story in such a scattered way prohibits the development of these characters, having the story feel disjointed. The player just ends up feeling sad and desperately grasping at straws, wishing they had more to chew on.
The dungeons are partially affected by the faulty storytelling. While on the one hand, the designs of the dungeons are immensely massive and intricate in how they are massive puzzle boxes mechanically. However, the designs artistically overall are very similar to one another and once the player has seen one they more or less have seen the others. This even carries to the dungeon boss themselves. The world has done a great job bringing overworld bosses across the vast land, but the dungeon bosses themselves are just as bad as the similar dungeon layouts. They are all a manifestation of Ganon's malice called blights with each having a slight different look and elemental fight style; however, at the end of the day they too are very similar in how you defeat them.
The combat is good in Breath of the Wild and some new mechanics like the new Flurry Rush features make battles more interesting, but compared to previous entries such as The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, it seems lackluster and not as intricate as the moves you learn in those games. On the other end, the enemy encounters after a while become repetitive as the game offers a very limited pool of enemy variety from the countless that have appeared years before in other Zelda games.
To conclude, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a masterclass in open-world design and a landmark game that reinvents a classic 30-year-old action-adventure franchise. It presents a wonderful sandbox full of mystery, dangling dozens upon dozens of tantalizing things in front of you that just beg to be explored. I’ve had so many adventures in Breath of the Wild's Hyrule, and I hope Nintendo continues to make more give me more Zelda adventures like this in the coming future.