Every so often, I'm reminded why I love this hobby. The escapism, the fun, the sense of adventure, of working out a puzzle, satisfying in-game combat and the overall feeling of being immersed in a beautiful, vibrant alive world. BotW has all of these things and every one of them is of the absolute highest quality.
I think this is what makes BotW stand out so much from anything else in its genre - it's just so fucking SPOT ON. With everything. So many other open world games manage to succeed in plenty of areas, without ever having to master any of them - that isn't a criticism of those games by any means, but what I'm trying to explain is how rare it is for a game to nail so many different aspects.
There isn't much hand holding in this (indeed, some skills which are never locked away are never explained to you until you're HOURS into the game - e.g. shield surfing!) and it has the unusual feature that everywhere is unlocked as soon as you're off the first area - The Grand Plateau - which acts as the only real tutorial to the game. The story is really rather basic (Ganon is bad and has infected everything - get to the big fuck off castle in the very centre of the map that you CANNOT miss and kill the bastard) but the way that everything you do points to the end goal means it never feels overly simple, nor is it intrusive should you deviate from the main quest (deviation probably accounted for at least 75% of the 95 hours I spent on this). I put in a good 80-odd hours into the Wii U version but never finished it. The amount of side quests and even areas on the map I found this time around that I didn't before is crazy - the massive amount of NPCs (some of which are memorable!) means that these meandering sessions will always reward you. I think it would do the game a huge disservice NOT to go off the beaten track and forget about Ganon for an hour or ten.
Because BotW is HUGE. The landscapes are utterly beautiful, and I didn't really find any area to be superior to any others - the snowy peaks, the Gerudo desert, the Gorgon mountain covered in magma, the lush forests, the rocky plains - it's varied, it makes you approach the scenery in different ways, and at different periods depending on how you've tackled the game and the equipment you have. And probably the key to everything is that NOTHING is out of bounds. Want to scale that mountain? Off you go. Wonder what's down that valley? Go and have a look. And the more you play and the more stamina you unlock means the more you can explore before your stamina meter empties. By the end, you'll have more than enough to explore to your heart's desire and more than likely with the equipment required to reach some of the extreme landscapes.
The bewildering level of love and attention found here goes to ridiculous levels. Link kicking a treasure chest when wearing no shoes - he jumps up and down in pain. One shrine puzzle features a block of ice that you have to carry around various fire-related obstacles. I couldn't work out for the life of me how to do this as the block melted before I could get near anything. Then I realised I had a fire weapon equipped - which was melting the block. The variety of ways enemies react to you depending on how they're alerted to you. And then the many different things they can do as you approach. Pick up a nearby weapon? Alert others? Run away?! Using one of the very cool rune powers to get rid of a pack of bad guys or solve a puzzle - it's brilliant how often you're encouraged to use initiative, and as a result it means that you aren't able to just use the one method time after time (I love it, but the Spartan Kick in Assassins Creed Odyssey is essentially a permanent get out of jail free card - no such cop out here...)
When this was first released, I remember the IGN review and one sentence stood out: "if you think something might work, it usually does". I've never forgotten this, because by crikey, it's so true and it makes for some wonderful game mechanics. Soooooo many examples of "hmmm... I wonder if.... HOLY SHIT, IT WORKED!"
The vast majority of the 120 shrines and 4 divine beasts (essentially mega shrines) are excellent. I'll admit that I needed some outside help to finish all 120 of them, as finding some of them proved too much for my limited intelligence! The 4 main 'dungeons' come in the form of the Divine Beasts - colossal, man made structures located in each corner of the world that have been possessed by Ganon, and you have to manipulate the way they move to help solve them, freeing them from Ganon's clutches following a boss fight at the end of each one. I loved all 4 of these - wonderfully laid out set pieces requiring you to use your initiative with the skills you learn as you progress across Hyrule. You don't HAVE to do these, but it significantly helps with the final boss fight if you do. And by missing them out, you'll miss out on what I think are particular highlights of the whole adventure.
BotW is as damn near perfect a game as possible. The criticisms I have of it are pretty insignificent - I didn't like the shrines that require gyroscopic controls (fortunately very few of them have this), some of the inventory management is frustrating and I really didn't like the English voice overs for some of the characters but I feel that this is nit picking when everything else is so good.
BotW is the greatest game I have ever played. Not just because the scale of the game is so vast, but because practically everything within this gorgeous world is as highly polished as you could imagine. Everything works, and it works beautifully. It's a stunning achievement, clearly crafted by a team who invested an insane amount of time, love and care into every aspect of this game. The land, the story, the visuals, the stunning sound, the creatures, everything.
I am a proud member of the Breath of the Wild Hype Train. Sometimes, ridiculous hype of a video game is 100% justified.
I think this is what makes BotW stand out so much from anything else in its genre - it's just so fucking SPOT ON. With everything. So many other open world games manage to succeed in plenty of areas, without ever having to master any of them - that isn't a criticism of those games by any means, but what I'm trying to explain is how rare it is for a game to nail so many different aspects.
There isn't much hand holding in this (indeed, some skills which are never locked away are never explained to you until you're HOURS into the game - e.g. shield surfing!) and it has the unusual feature that everywhere is unlocked as soon as you're off the first area - The Grand Plateau - which acts as the only real tutorial to the game. The story is really rather basic (Ganon is bad and has infected everything - get to the big fuck off castle in the very centre of the map that you CANNOT miss and kill the bastard) but the way that everything you do points to the end goal means it never feels overly simple, nor is it intrusive should you deviate from the main quest (deviation probably accounted for at least 75% of the 95 hours I spent on this). I put in a good 80-odd hours into the Wii U version but never finished it. The amount of side quests and even areas on the map I found this time around that I didn't before is crazy - the massive amount of NPCs (some of which are memorable!) means that these meandering sessions will always reward you. I think it would do the game a huge disservice NOT to go off the beaten track and forget about Ganon for an hour or ten.
Because BotW is HUGE. The landscapes are utterly beautiful, and I didn't really find any area to be superior to any others - the snowy peaks, the Gerudo desert, the Gorgon mountain covered in magma, the lush forests, the rocky plains - it's varied, it makes you approach the scenery in different ways, and at different periods depending on how you've tackled the game and the equipment you have. And probably the key to everything is that NOTHING is out of bounds. Want to scale that mountain? Off you go. Wonder what's down that valley? Go and have a look. And the more you play and the more stamina you unlock means the more you can explore before your stamina meter empties. By the end, you'll have more than enough to explore to your heart's desire and more than likely with the equipment required to reach some of the extreme landscapes.
The bewildering level of love and attention found here goes to ridiculous levels. Link kicking a treasure chest when wearing no shoes - he jumps up and down in pain. One shrine puzzle features a block of ice that you have to carry around various fire-related obstacles. I couldn't work out for the life of me how to do this as the block melted before I could get near anything. Then I realised I had a fire weapon equipped - which was melting the block. The variety of ways enemies react to you depending on how they're alerted to you. And then the many different things they can do as you approach. Pick up a nearby weapon? Alert others? Run away?! Using one of the very cool rune powers to get rid of a pack of bad guys or solve a puzzle - it's brilliant how often you're encouraged to use initiative, and as a result it means that you aren't able to just use the one method time after time (I love it, but the Spartan Kick in Assassins Creed Odyssey is essentially a permanent get out of jail free card - no such cop out here...)
When this was first released, I remember the IGN review and one sentence stood out: "if you think something might work, it usually does". I've never forgotten this, because by crikey, it's so true and it makes for some wonderful game mechanics. Soooooo many examples of "hmmm... I wonder if.... HOLY SHIT, IT WORKED!"
The vast majority of the 120 shrines and 4 divine beasts (essentially mega shrines) are excellent. I'll admit that I needed some outside help to finish all 120 of them, as finding some of them proved too much for my limited intelligence! The 4 main 'dungeons' come in the form of the Divine Beasts - colossal, man made structures located in each corner of the world that have been possessed by Ganon, and you have to manipulate the way they move to help solve them, freeing them from Ganon's clutches following a boss fight at the end of each one. I loved all 4 of these - wonderfully laid out set pieces requiring you to use your initiative with the skills you learn as you progress across Hyrule. You don't HAVE to do these, but it significantly helps with the final boss fight if you do. And by missing them out, you'll miss out on what I think are particular highlights of the whole adventure.
BotW is as damn near perfect a game as possible. The criticisms I have of it are pretty insignificent - I didn't like the shrines that require gyroscopic controls (fortunately very few of them have this), some of the inventory management is frustrating and I really didn't like the English voice overs for some of the characters but I feel that this is nit picking when everything else is so good.
BotW is the greatest game I have ever played. Not just because the scale of the game is so vast, but because practically everything within this gorgeous world is as highly polished as you could imagine. Everything works, and it works beautifully. It's a stunning achievement, clearly crafted by a team who invested an insane amount of time, love and care into every aspect of this game. The land, the story, the visuals, the stunning sound, the creatures, everything.
I am a proud member of the Breath of the Wild Hype Train. Sometimes, ridiculous hype of a video game is 100% justified.