Zelda: Breath Of The Wild
9/10 FYI: Finished it with all memories, 74 shrines completed and 66 hours on the clock. (WiiU version)
Will probably be my game of the year, unless Mario Odyssey somehow ends up even better (very likely to be honest). A massive return to form for the series for me after the disappointing Twilight Princess and downright average Skyward Sword.
The positives:
- No handholding of any kind. I've hated this in the most recent 3D Zeldas, Skyward Sword being the lowpoint. Thankfully this throws all the old Zelda opening hour problems out the window. Once you do the tutorial area and get your runes you are left to your own devices and can go straight to the final boss if you so wish. I love that. I didn't do that, of course, in fact I didn't even step foot inside the castle until the end of the game, such was my desire to explore this wonderfully crafted & realized world.
- Sense of adventure is unparalleled. I've never played a game that filled me with such wonder and excitement by just running around and exploring. The game world is massive and vast & entering a new area was a joyous experience each and every time. There's so much to do and see and now even after finished the game I've still loads to do with about 30 shrines left uncovered and probably even more side-quests than that to discover.
- The cast of characters. I used to think Majora's Mask was the highpoint in this regard with its extensive trading system and bomber's notebook but this tops it by some distance. There are so many people to meet and dozens upon dozens of quests to do and tons of memorable characters to get you to do them. Some are more expansive than others which might take you the length of the game to carry out while others 5 minutes.
- Climbing. I can't stress enough how great this is. Being able to climb virtually anything is a revelation for an open-world game. In face, I was so used to the old Zeldas that I would often forget I could do so and spend ages in an area trying to get around or over something before remembering I could just go straight over it.
- The Shrines. I mostly loved these and like the idea of them partially replacing traditional dungeons. It lets the devs experiment with puzzle that use all the different runes and items in so many different ways without being beholden to the theme of a
particular dungeon as in older games.
- Eventide Island. One of my favourite things in any game ever. I'll say no more than that 'cos I don't want to spoil anything.
- The massive, MASSIVE number of flora & fauna make this a really believable world to have an adventure in. The amount of different living creatures wandering the world must run to over 200 at least ( i have no idea of the actual number) with double that when it comes to plants & flowers.
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As for negatives:
Weapon degradation. My biggest grip upon completion was the same as it was in the first hour of the game. In the second half of the game I was actively discouraged from engaging in combat because there's no point wasting a good weapon on a meaningless fight that will reward you with a worse weapon than the one you just broke getting it. It's a horrible cycle of pointlessness, particularly towards the end game when you have really good stuff and don't want to lose them to nothing enemies.
Minor gripes:
- The item management screen is a bit of a mess. Really needed a recipe book or something for quick cooking and separate screens for cooking and non-cooking items.
- Motion control puzzles in certain shrines
- Game could have used more enemy variety. 90% of the enemies are the same types of bokoblins, moblins and those lizard banana splits over and over. Where were the stalfos, like-likes, darknuts, poes, iron-knuckles etc? So many enemies from previous games to draw from and they're nowhere to be seen. I liked the new enemies, but there were too few of them.
- A lot of barren nothingness in a some areas of the game. I realize this was maybe what they were going for, to make you feel like you're wandering a huge desolate desert/mountain range etc, but I just would've preferred more to do in those areas. Side note: there was no graveyard in the entire game. Where do the people of Hyrule bury their dead?
Teeny tiny gripes:
- Framerate can be terrible in some areas; Kokoriko Village, Korok Forest etc. but it only bothered me a little. I'm not the type to lose the plot over dropped frames.
- Link doing 20 rolls like a football player feigning injury when you get knocked down
That never stopped being ridiculous. Especially if you fell down a hill. Just keep on rollin' baby (you know what time it is).
- Horse controls
Thankfully, using horses is optional except for one single occasion.
Overall, an outstanding experience that took over my life for 10 days straight. A long time since a game has engrossed me like this.