Even the process of boarding these things is a degree of awesome that we’ve never before seen in this series. Their insides house Wild‘s major dungeons, and while they’re short by Zelda standards, they make up for it in creativity and spectacle. So what’s to discover? Well, Link’s major objective is to retake control of the Divine Beasts, four Shadow of the Colossus-sized monstrosities that can be used to help drive Ganon out of Hyrule Castle. Whereas too many open-world games boil down to endless waypoint-chasing because they lack the guts to truly turn players loose, Breath of the Wild restores a sense of discovery to a genre that should be defined by it. Players are still on their own to actually find things. Yes, players map out Hyrule by climbing to high places, just like every Ubisoft game ever, but it only provides a topographical layout of the landscape. No weapon is meant to last long, and they drop so frequently that it’s more a matter of adjusting to constantly-shifting conditions than having to backtrack for repairs every few hours.Īnother tired staple of modern gaming that Nintendo has successfully tuned is tower climbing. Speaking of weapon degradation, I initially hated to see Zelda adopting the mechanic, but it actually plays much like Let It Die, perhaps the only game in recent memory to successfully pull it off. Equipment has stats now, money is earned primarily through quests, and weapons break after continuous use. While it’s not quite an RPG, there’s more to preparing Link for battle than simply hunting for heart containers. The game’s “walls” are the figurative kind where I frequently got my teeth kicked in for venturing too far afield while poorly armed, or when setting out with an insufficient understanding of the game’s systems. Of course, if they do, they’ll quickly learn that Breath of the Wild is the first Zelda in quite some time in which players can expect to die… a lot. It’s possible to make a beeline straight for the final boss if players think they’re up for it. Players are given all of their major abilities during the tutorial section, and once that’s complete, they can travel anywhere. Right from the start of the game, Link can climb any vertical surface for as long as his stamina meter can tolerate it. That changes with Breath of the Wild, the first 3D entry in the series that can honestly be called an open-world game, and the degree to which Nintendo has pulled down the barriers puts their earlier efforts to shame. For a long time, the technology to reproduce that particular flow in 3D wasn’t there, so instead, we’d get segmented worlds where vacant stretches of field or ocean would connect the more exciting bits. The original 2D titles had a sprawling, mazelike quality to them, and their worlds functioned as cohesive wholes that expanded as players added to their arsenals. The main reason is one producer Eiji Aonuma underlined when he first unveiled Wild. Breath of the Wild’s shakeups make it feel like the series’ most substantive step forward in nearly two decades, and it’s been a long time since a Zelda release was such an event. The hardware gimmicks were a dead-end, and even the brilliance of something like Majora’s Mask would be diminished had it become a mainstay. While I adore the series, it’s wallowed in its own formula for a long time, and Nintendo has struggled to push the brand forward in a meaningful way. That jarring introduction is the first indication that, at long last, Zelda has matured. ![]() When he reemerges into the fields of Hyrule mere minutes after Breath of the Wild begin s, he’s not met with blaring trumpets… just silence and ruin. Series nemesis Ganon won, most who fought against him died, and Link was sealed away for a century to recover from mortal wounds. A new Zelda is usually a spirited affair, but the adventure in which a prophesied hero sets off to defend his land from an ancient menace happened a hundred years ago, and it didn’t end well. When I step into a Zelda overworld for the first time, I expect a bit of fanfare as I set course for one of the majestic locations silhouetted against the sky. WTF How are the Koroks at Death Mountain not spontaneously combusting? LOW Losing my grip during a long climb because it suddenly started raining. HIGH Medoh and Naboris two dungeons of unparalleled spectacle.
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