{"id":21146,"date":"2017-04-02T17:09:21","date_gmt":"2017-04-02T07:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=21146"},"modified":"2017-04-02T17:09:21","modified_gmt":"2017-04-02T07:09:21","slug":"the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=21146","title":{"rendered":"The Legend of Zelda – Breath of the Wild"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"breathofthewild\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Developer: \u00a0<\/strong>Nintendo EPD
\nPublisher: \u00a0<\/strong>Nintendo
\nPlatform: \u00a0<\/strong>Nintendo Switch<\/p>\n

T<\/span>here’s a piece of concept art in the manual for\u00a0The Legend of Zelda<\/em> [1986, NES] that shows the hero Link standing at the precipice of a great plateau, overlooking a vast landscape. \u00a0Ahead of him is a lush green forest bisected by a winding river and in the distance the ominous darkened peaks of an imposing mountain range. \u00a0The image is wonderfully evocative and perfectly captures the sense of adventure and exploration that players would seek in a fantasy adventure game. \u00a0Of course, despite being a classic of its time, due to technical constraints, the original\u00a0Legend of Zelda<\/em>\u00a0doesn’t exactly realize that vision.<\/p>\n

Future iterations in the series would also come to be regarded as classics in their own right but for the longest time, the\u00a0Legend of Zelda<\/em> games came to be defined by a series of distinctive templates and systems that each new release would rigidly adhere to. \u00a0They were linear experiences with players unlocking access to each dungeon, each weapon and each new area in the same sequence as every other player before and after them.<\/p>\n

It’s taken thirty one years and finally\u00a0The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild<\/em> is the game that makes good on bringing that original concept artwork to life. \u00a0Not just in a literal sense (the player begins the game on that very plateau) but with its design philosophy,\u00a0Breath of the Wild<\/em> is an open ended adventure game that lets the players go in any direction, to do whatever they want, when they want. \u00a0The result is breath-taking.<\/p>\n

\"zelda<\/a><\/p>\n

The paucity of tutorials and guides\u00a0in the opening minutes of the game is a startling change from its predecessor\u00a0Skyward Sword<\/em> which literally guided the player with a firm hand through its opening\u00a0seven or eight hours<\/em>. \u00a0I had read several previews about\u00a0Breath of the Wild<\/em> before I played it so I felt I knew what I\u00a0getting myself into but there really is nothing like experiencing this game’s opening minutes first hand. \u00a0Link wakes up from a hundred year slumber. \u00a0He walks out of his dwelling and that’s the introduction over with. \u00a0The entire world of Hyrule is at your feet and every players experience from that point forward will be different. \u00a0There’s a hundred hours of exploration that awaits but equally, there is nothing stopping the player making a beeline straight for Calamity Ganon if they wish (the speedrun record of this game is an incredible 48 minutes).<\/p>\n

Every player will have their own story of what they did first. \u00a0Here’s mine. \u00a0I ran around a field and climbed some trees. \u00a0I tried to climb the side of a cliff but in the game’s early state Link can’t hold onto anything for very long so he fell to his death. \u00a0Starting over, I approached a camp of moblins. \u00a0I pushed a boulder at the top of a hill that rolled down and wiped out one of them like a sequence from a Looney Tunes cartoon. \u00a0The others ran over to attack me. \u00a0I killed one moblin but dropped my makeshift weapon (a stick) in the process. \u00a0His friend stole my stick (!) and chased me with it. \u00a0I picked up a sword that was lying around at the camp and used it to finish off the remaining moblins. \u00a0But before I could get too attached to my new weapon, it fell to pieces as I landed the killer blow to the final creature. \u00a0Afterwards, I ate the meat that was being cooked at the camp site and then a birdman standing on the roof of a dilapidated church steeple caught my eye so I scampered off to find a way to climb up and talk to him.<\/p>\n

\"botwpic1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That unscripted mayhem in the opening moments of the game neatly encapsulates what Breath of the Wild<\/em> is about from moment to moment and what makes it so good.\u00a0\u00a0The enemy AI reacts to your behavior in a wide variety of ways and often retaliates in comedic fashion. \u00a0I’ve seen moblins run away when a fight doesn’t go their way. \u00a0I’ve<\/em> run away from moblins when I’ve been overrun and I can hear them laughing at me. \u00a0Things have accidentally exploded in the heat of battle sending people flying through the air. \u00a0I’ve seen a hinox pick up a tree and swing it at me, only to accidentally wipe out his smaller friends at his feet. \u00a0I’ve even seen a beefy Lizalfos pick up a smaller bokoblin and toss it at me as a weapon! \u00a0Even at the seventy hour mark in the game, I was still coming across new ways to defeat enemies (e.g. leaving metal swords near sleeping mokoblins in a thunder storm) and seeing new behaviors from creatures in how they attacked me (the Lynels are especially devious).<\/p>\n

Basic survival is an ongoing challenge in\u00a0Breath of the Wild<\/em>, an unexpected curveball from a series that has been known for rather milquetoast difficulty. \u00a0Be prepare to die a lot<\/em> in this game.\u00a0 It’s easy to wander into an area where the creatures are far stronger than you and can fell you with a single hit. \u00a0Likewise the scorching heat of Gerudo Town and the brutal chills near the Keh Namut shrine can also kill Link unless he is prepared with the right clothing or food. \u00a0Every weapon and shield in the game is breakable over time so its impossible to get too comfortable. \u00a0It’s a constant requirement to find new loot and cook up new dishes and elixirs to navigate the more challenging corners of Hyrule. \u00a0It’s a brilliant new wrinkle to the series.<\/p>\n

\"botwpic2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course the heightened difficulty and stack of new challenges would make for a frustrating game were it not for the outstanding new play mechanics that\u00a0Breath of the Wild<\/em> has to offer. \u00a0The controls on the Switch, particularly with the Pro Controller, are absolutely butter smooth. \u00a0The way Link handles and the range of new moves in his arsenal also represents a significant step change for the series.\u00a0 This is the first Zelda game where Link can jump (!). \u00a0This might sound like a revelation but in actuality, it is two other manoveurs – the ability to glide and climb – that radically changes the game for the better.<\/p>\n

The glider, picked up early on at the Great Plateau, makes soaring through the open world an absolute pleasure. \u00a0Its speedy, easy to handle and is so convenient that it greatly discourages the player from simply fast travelling all over the place as the glider lets you absorb your surroundings and quickly change direction when something interesting catches your eye (which is basically all the time).<\/p>\n

Secondly, there’s climbing. \u00a0In\u00a0Breath of the Wild<\/em>, Link can climb over most surfaces to the extent that his stamina meter will allow him (think of the radial dial from\u00a0Shadow of the Colossus<\/em>). \u00a0There have been plenty of games before\u00a0Breath of the Wild<\/em> that allows the player to climb but I can think of few open world games that allow you to do so on practically any surface and succeed in making it a fun challenge by forcing the player to negotiate their stamina meter with finding an outlying ledge to rest on. \u00a0In the likes of\u00a0Uncharted<\/em> and\u00a0Assassin’s Creed<\/em>, climbing represents some of the least interesting elements of these respective games as the player simply holds up on their controller and waits for the animation to complete. \u00a0In Zelda, its part of what makes exploring so much fun.<\/p>\n

Combat is also improved with the addition of time-sensitive dodge and parry moves that, when employed correctly, slows time and allows Link to get in a flurry of extra hits. \u00a0Mastery of both dodging and parrying is essential to besting some of the games trickier enemies such as the Guardians and the Lynels.<\/p>\n

\"botwpic3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The sense of discovery that Breath of the Wild<\/em>\u00a0instils in the player is something that has been missing from the majority of games in the open world genre for some time.<\/p>\n

The Hyrule that awaits the player in\u00a0Breath of the Wild<\/em> is filled with a jaw-dropping variety of landscapes – snowy, tropical, desert, forest, mountainous, open pastures\u00a0– and that terrain is populated with a huge number of villages, wild life, hostile creatures and over one hundred subterranean shrines to be explored. \u00a0There are so many spectacular sights that initially appear as a dot on the horizon (“is that a pillar of smoke in the forest?”, “is that a flying dragon at the top of that mountain?”, “is that a giant troll sleeping with treasure on its chest?”) that grabs your attention and lures you in for the next adventure.<\/p>\n

The old open-world RPG cliche went something like this – “see that mountain in the distance? \u00a0You can go there!” \u00a0It’s true, but its likely that you’ll get there with a\u00a0GPS path-finding\u00a0route that you and everyone else follows in the same way. \u00a0Breath of the Wild<\/em> has no such feature\u00a0and it is all the better for it. \u00a0So how are you going to get to that mountain? \u00a0You’ll have to decide if you want to chop down a tree and make a bridge out of it. \u00a0Or glide over a ravine and hope you have enough stamina to climb the other side. \u00a0Or head East and see if you can make it past the bandit camp. \u00a0The choice is yours.<\/p>\n

The game does have an open world staple in the form of towers that must be climbed to unlock new areas on the map (popularized by\u00a0Assassin’s Creed<\/em>) but instead of cramming the map full of side quest markers, the player must instead take out their telescope and find points of interest for themselves which you manually mark on your map. \u00a0Instead of feeling like a step backward, this Do It Yourself ethos feels refreshing and far more invigorating when motivating players to actually explore their environment.<\/p>\n

\"asscreedunion\"<\/a>

Assassin’s Creed: Union<\/p><\/div>\n

Breath of the Wild’s<\/em>\u00a0primary form of content comes in the form of shrines – miniature dungeons which contain either a Guardian to defeat or a puzzle to solve that typically takes 5-10 minutes. \u00a0These shrines reminded me a lot of Valve’s classic puzzles game\u00a0Portal<\/em>, both in the playfulness of the design and the neon blue aesthetic. \u00a0As part of the staple content of the game, I found them to be an order of magnitude more interesting to negotiate than the endless fetch quests and collectathons that pass for things to do in similar open world games.<\/p>\n

The other aspect of\u00a0Breath of the Wild\u00a0<\/em>that continued to impress me was the sheer number of imaginative spectacles the game has to offer that are completely independent of being quest content. \u00a0Without wishing to spoil too much, the game memorably lets you go sand-seal surfing, ride a wild stag and discover a location called Eventide Island which momentarily turns the game into a mini rogue-like where Link must gather all the treasure on the island with just a single life and without the use of any weapons. \u00a0The game is just packed with these sort of passages of play that are\u00a0creatively designed and a treat to play through.<\/p>\n

\"botwpic1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Breath of the Wild<\/em> is a game of extraordinary depth. \u00a0A cursory glance at the game’s online community reveals Youtube videos with titles like ‘one hundred secrets you may not have discovered’ or ‘fifty things you may have missed’. \u00a0Underpinning this embarrassment of riches in a labyrinthine chain of systems that fuse the game together. \u00a0There is a day\/night cycle. \u00a0A weather cycle. \u00a0An elemental system where everything flammable can be set on fire and everything metal can conduct electricity. \u00a0There is a cooking system that lets the player experiment and create over a hundred dishes. \u00a0There are AI systems that determine which wildlife are docile to Link and which are not. \u00a0Weapons can be crafted and improved. \u00a0Trees can be chopped down, turned into kindling or used as a weapon. \u00a0Houses can be purchased and furnished. \u00a0Dogs can be fed and befriended. \u00a0And on and on and on. \u00a0There is just a mind-boggling variety of mechanisms that make the gears turn in this game and incredibly, at the end of it all, Nintendo have held their nerve and explained almost none of it to the player. \u00a0It is all there to be discovered for themselves in a way that feels organic and spontaneous.<\/p>\n

Amongst this myriad of distractions is of course, the nineteenth story of a hero named Link who is preordained to find the Master Sword, befriend Princess Zelda and challenge the villainous Ganon. \u00a0In a revolutionary new Zelda game that has thrown out so many longstanding conventions, the narrative in\u00a0Breath of the Wild<\/em> is merely ‘good’. \u00a0In creating such an open ended game, there is a challenge telling the story as different chapters will be encountered in a different order by every player. \u00a0So the slices of story are broken up like jigsaw pieces and unlocked as ‘Memories’ which are scattered throughout the game. \u00a0While\u00a0Breath of the Wild<\/em> stops shy of doing anything truly radical (there is a growing chorus of voices who wish for Zelda to be the hero of the story), there is still an entertaining tale that is told.<\/p>\n

\"botwpic4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I could go on about\u00a0Breath of the Wild<\/em>. \u00a0I have barely spoken about the game’s art style. \u00a0Or its ambient soundtrack. \u00a0Or the matriarchal Gerudo Town which only allows women. \u00a0Or the four ‘real’ dungeons – the Divine Beasts – each of which resembles an enormous animal. \u00a0But these are all aspects of the game best enjoyed unspoiled and experienced first hand.<\/p>\n

Not only after the release of Skyward Sword,\u00a0Legend of Zelda<\/em>‘s custodian Eiji Aonuma gave several interviews where he acknowledged a stagnancy that had crept into the Zelda franchise and a need for the game to modernize. \u00a0With\u00a0Breath of the Wild<\/em>, creative director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and his team have delivered on that goal. \u00a0The game is an instant classic and unless there is an unparalleled backlash coming in the months ahead, they seem to have finally made a game more beloved than 1998’s\u00a0Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time<\/em>. \u00a0It is a game so well constructed that I expect it will influence countless games that follow it. \u00a0It is a crucial launch title for the Switch, a system that Nintendo cannot afford to have fail. \u00a0And it is a game that gives great optimism to any fan of Nintendo themselves. \u00a0If they can successfully breath new life into one of their oldest and most conservative franchises with such innovative and modern concepts, what else could they achieve. \u00a0What does the future hold for Super\u00a0Mario, Metroid, Animal Crossing<\/em> and their other series? \u00a0Time will tell and provide some added perspective but on first instinct,\u00a0Breath of the Wild<\/em> feels like the most significant game that Nintendo has made in two decades, sitting squarely shoulder to shoulder with\u00a0Super Mario Bros<\/em> and\u00a0Super Mario 64<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a hundred year slumber, Link awakens to a Hyrule taken over by the monstrous Calamity Ganon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2640,441,2618,468],"class_list":["post-21146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","tag-breath-of-the-wild","tag-nintendo","tag-nintendo-switch","tag-the-legend-of-zelda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21146"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21177,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21146\/revisions\/21177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}