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updownstrangecharmtopbottom-blog · 8 years

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For those who have yet to experience Breath of the Wild, I won’t go into detail about plot, but will discuss some of the mechanics, things I enjoyed about the design, and a few criticisms. As I know most people haven’t tried it yet and I don’t want to ruin anything about it, because I try to be a decent human being. I do love BotW. I really do love the scope of BotW. Not much of a spoiler, but there isn’t a whole lot to the story, and thus I will not discuss any story elements. As much as I want to criticize the game for its lack of story, it would be overlooking the fact that it was designed to be this massive open world adventure. It was a necessary sacrifice to offer the degree of freedom you have to explore the world – scratch that, I wouldn’t even consider it a sacrifice, because the story that is present is wonderful. There is a certain amount of emotional depth that the game presents for all its key characters that makes it fulfilling. There are so many moments that tug on your heartstrings. These moments are preserved despite the lack of linearity.

While the original Zelda was very open-world, there was an unavoidable linearity to it. For example, there is still a necessity to get certain items in dungeons to make more difficult dungeons accessible. Unlike any other Zelda game, Breath of the Wild is truly open-world where Hyrule, in all its beauty and grace, is free to be explored at any time. The open world design is incredible. I really can’t describe it. You must experience it for yourself if you want to assess the beauty of the game. The design is so thought out and stunning. If you can see it off in the horizon, chances are you can reach it, climb it, and explore its mysteries. That goes for anywhere on the map. I adore the fact that many locations are named after supporting characters from previous installments in the series, some more obscure than others. It makes my heart happy to find little things like that.

It took me over 20 hours of gameplay just to see about 70% of the damn map. Granted, I don’t travel by horseback too often, which is really a hell of a lot more convenient for traversing most of the map, especially when it comes to running for your life from a bunch of monsters that can do 8+ hearts of damage to you and you only have a soup ladle as a melee weapon and a potlid as a shield. It’s also super sick to do a backflip off your horse and do a slow-motion trick shot with your paraglider and bow.

Taming horses and exploring the world with them is a wonderful experience. Stables are plentiful in the game and always near a place you can warp to, so you can access your registered horses with ease. You don’t need to lead the horse every step, as it will avoid obstacles and will naturally follow the path. You can spend your time moving the camera around to enjoy the scenery and plan your next destination. One of my favorite parts of the soundtrack is the horseback riding theme. A lot of the soundtrack is very ambient, but the riding theme is a peaceful and playful arrangement. Ditching grand scores for the overworld, BotW offers a very serene and transient soundtrack, allowing for nature to immerse you into the environment.

The combat system can be a little frustrating at times, but it has solid mechanics, it’s just more complex than the traditional z-target hacking and slashing. I’m so grateful it isn’t a mess like the gyroscopic controls of Skyward Sword. I do find myself not using the z-axis targeting sometimes, because sometimes it gives you a weird angle, but that might just be a personal problem. Enemies in the game are a serious threat. I’m talking Moblin’s that can do 8 hearts of damage with one hit, Guardian’s one-shot kill, Lynel’s with homing shock arrows, and Guardian Sentries in shrines can be very difficult and require some strategy and planning in advance. Enemies will sound alarms if they see you, surround you, etc… To take down a camp of Bokoblin’s very early in the game, I needed to sneak around in the rain and snipe all the guards on towers with my bow. Getting too close and they would sound the alarm causing the whole gang to storm out and kill me with one hit. Enemies are very responsive to the environment and their camps can be used to your advantage. After taking care of the guards, I took care of the Bokoblin’s that kept killing me with one hit by igniting a barrel of explosives in their den with a bomb arrow.

My main criticism of Breath of the Wild is the lack of traditional dungeons. While there are the 4 Divine Beasts, which are sort of like traditional dungeons, they are a little too short for my taste. Wind Waker is light on dungeons, too; however, they are extensive. The Earth and Wind Temples, the Tower of the Gods, etc.. were very lengthy dungeons and there was a sense of real triumph in completing them. While the mechanics of the Divine Beasts are awesome (I won’t say anything more about that), they can be a little frustrating at times.

The Shrines do offer some interesting puzzles that really make the Sheikah Slate useful. One of my major gripes with some of the other games, like Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, is how useless some items are outside of their acquired dungeon *cough Spinner, Dominion Rod, Ball and Chain, etc… cough*. There aren’t a whole lot of traditional weapons in the game, but every weapon in the game are useful.

I really can’t say much else about BotW without really giving it away. You really need to experience it for yourself. No playthrough will be the same, and that is one of the most valuable assets of the game. It ditches the linearity and gives you the freedom to do really whatever you want. You could literally go fight Ganon from the beginning wearing nothing but your underpants and wielding a torch, or you can be a completionist and put a painstaking 100 hours into the game before fighting Ganon.

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kilauea, one of the most active volcanoes on earth, has erupted continuously from its pu’u o’o vent since 1983, oozing one thousand degree fahrenheit lava at fifteen yards an hour across hawaii’s big island into the ocean. photos by (click pic) tom kualii, g. brad lewis, bruce omori, cj kale and nick selway

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