Although I usually only write reviews for games I'm currently playing, I thought it was a good time to review this game, since it's sequel is coming in only 6 days and I'm really hyped.

I first played Breath of the Wild back in 2020, during the pandemic, I've never finished a Zelda game before (I've only played a bit of Wind Waker on my Wii U before that) and I actually wasn't that interested in BoTW, not even when the sequel was announced in 2019, however one day I was talking to a friend and he told me about the mad theories people were making about the sequel (which at the time only had one teaser), and it got me interested, I bought Breath of the Wild and... I did not really like it that much when I first played it.
Yeah, the sense of freedom and exploration was good, and I thought it was a good game but nothing more than that.

Some time later, my friend shared his Switch account with me and he had the DLC for BoTW, I downloaded it and gave another shot for this game, and, after playing the DLC and replaying most of this game, I fell in love with it, but why? What made my second playthrough so different? Especially when many people say that Breath of the Wild loses it's charm after the first playthrough? Well, I think I know the answer.

When I played Breath of the Wild for the first time, I only cared about the main objectives, freeing the Divine Beasts, getting back your memories and defeating Ganon, I never cared much about the world of Hyrule itself and that was my greatest mistake, the world design of this game is phenomenal, the way you can manipulate the physics of the game using the runes is just some of the most fun I've had with a video game and it's combat, while simple, is really enjoyable, many people complain about the breakable weapons, but I kind of like that system, it makes every weapon feel valuable even against the strongest of enemies, I also like the clever ways you can find to defeat enemies, after playing both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask I can say that stealth sections in Zelda were never the most complex things ever, they were fun, sure, I love the Pirate Fortress in Majora's, but it's really simple and not that much thought-provoking, in this game however, while not Metal Gear levels of deep and complex, it's just really fun.
The story while not the best written thing in the world, I like it for what it is, the feeling of a natural disaster Calamity Ganon gives is really cool.

Also, I know it's a kind of controversial topic but I really like Breath of the Wild's music, yeah, it's not as memorable as soundtracks like Ocarina of Time's, but I think the more minimalistic soundtrack really serves this game well, and the Hyrule Castle theme is my absolute favorite song in the entire franchise.

This game still has it's flaws tho, don't get me wrong, while many mini-bosses are cool, the bosses itself are forgettable, the shrines too are kind of forgettable, save for a few really good ones, and that's the biggest issue with this game, while there are many things to do, the variety in some areas like enemies, boss fights and dungeons is really lacking, is it enough to make me not love this game? Hell no, however those are things that need to be fixed in the sequel.

Overall, I regret playing Breath of the Wild the way I did when I first played it, however, while my first time playing it wasn't very good, I learned to love this game, and now it stands on my top 5 favorite games ever, but who knows for how much long? As I said in the beginning, it's sequel is coming in only 6 days as of the writing of this review, I'm really curious to see how much they changed the world of Hyrule from the first game and how much Link's new abilities change the flow of the gameplay.