Expands on Breath of the Wild to an exponential degree, but at the same time doesn’t entirely obsolete it, trading some of that game’s laid back serenity and environmental storytelling for more immediacy and showy moments. Tons of new enemies and bosses, some of the best puzzle design I’ve experienced in a game since The Outer Wilds, a world, expansive, dense, wondrous, endless at dishing out surprises. The building mechanics, I’ve made everything from hoverbikes to battlebots already, I can only imagine what people online have come up with. The weapon fusing, at first I thought it would annoy me but eventually I became obsessed with hunting down new creatures to see what crazy new thing I could make out of it’s parts in a vein kind of similar to Monster Hunter. Above all though it’s great for that unparalleled freedom to do what you want when you want. The dungeons are incredible, the Wind Temple is probably my favourite overall just for the atmosphere, the build up to it, the boss it climaxes with, the music through all of it, unforgettable. And the final boss had at least three moments that blew my mind, this has easily my favourite incarnation of Ganondorf. This game is so overflowing with unforgettable moments, big and small, scripted or improvised, that just evoke things from me.

It’s not entirely perfect, I think the first hour is weaker than BOTW’s, the building can sometimes be finicky, and I’m a touch disappointed in the rewards you get for certain challenges (like the Labyrinths). But it otherwise does virtually everything I look for in a video game to such an above and beyond degree to which nothing else even really compares. Marking it as complete here honestly feels dubious because even after putting 70 hours into it and beating the final boss, I still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of what this game is hiding from me.