The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Review

Player(s): 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Wii U
 
As I glide through the air, I land on an isolated island only to discover all of my gear non-functional. I’m tasked with finding three orbs and returning them to their homes on this seemingly deserted island. While exploring, I find that I’m not alone. There’s Mokoblins and other beasts on the island. I hunt for a weapon, finding some sticks on the ground, and summarily beating a Mokoblin over the head with it, only to be shot at by another with arrows. Dodging to the best of my ability, I pick up the arrows and a discarded bow and discover a towering Hinox as I flee from the coast, slumbering, with one of the orbs tied to his neck with a rope. Full of determination, I carefully take aim with my bow and cut the rope with arrows, waking him up. With no armor and all my weapons broken, I quickly grab the orb, running for my life as I’m being chased by the lumbering Hinox who is not even remotely happy about being woken up and losing his treasure. As I barely make it to the first orb pedestal and drop the orb in, I notice a large camp in the distance where the next orb is. I stare at it, adrenaline pumping, all gear broken, practically no life left, and completely determined to finish my task and get off the island with the treasure that will be rewarded to me for completing the challenge.

Expect to see many ruins like this.

This is the kind of experience that sums up what playing Breath of the Wilds is like. From the start you’re thrown into a huge open-world with barely any guidance, left to fend for yourself as you work toward rescuing Princess Zelda from her entrapment. Unlike the kinds of open-world games we’re used to playing, this one places a very heavy emphasis on creative adaptability. You’re given a handful of abilities near the beginning that function as traditional Zelda items (like bombs), and then given full freedom to approach the game’s 4 dungeons as you please. This is both a good, and a bad thing. The lack of linear item discovery and use means that most situations have multiple ways of approaching them. For example, when it comes to combat I went through the entire game with just bow/arrows, a two-handed weapon and Stasis. There wasn’t a single battle I couldn’t overcome with just those things. On the flipside, I watched as my friends each had different ways of approaching bosses, puzzles, exploration, etc. There is a very real sense of discovery and accomplishment in figuring out your own way to solve problems in the game. This also means that there aren’t really any situations where you’re given a really cool item and develop your skill with it through an isolated experience (i.e. traditional dungeons). Personally, I really missed this idea of being able to see creative ways of using items. Exploration and discovery is great, but not giving players incentive to explore strategies is a rather poor way of doing things. I never felt the need or motivation to stray from my tested formula I developed near the beginning of the game.

These little guys are cute...until you have to find 900 of them!

This leads to a core problem with the game as a whole: lack of guidance. The lack of guidance ends up taking away the great puzzle solving that the series is known for. I make it sound like giving the player full freedom is a bad thing, which it most definitely is not. Rather, the feeling you have when you get into a dungeon, discover an item and then progressively learn new ways of using that item in order to get to the end has always been an utter joy. In this game you have a handful of different types of puzzles that are repeated over 1000 times and turn into a very repetitive and nauseating experience. It’s only bad if you are a player like me, who doesn’t usually stray from strategies you know work if not given proper motivation to do so. If you are the type of person who likes to experiment a lot, you will find a ton of things in Breath of the Wild to keep you occupied.

Updating your trusty tablet!

In fact, despite my above complaints and my fairly linear way of thinking, I still ended up discovering a lot of cool ways to approach problems. It’s too bad that a game that plays such a heavy emphasis on experimentation only has one save file, thus forcing players to lose all progress if they want to try a new approach to playing the game. On the journey to get to one of the dungeons, it’s indicated that you’re supposed to use Stasis to freeze sentries so that you can get past them. This is the standard way of moving forward that I noticed most my fellow players following. When I played, I noticed some interesting bits about the environment, namely some metal boxes on some of the cliff faces. I decided to run with this idea, and used my Magnesis ability to control the boxes and smash them into the sentries, destroying them one by one. It’s this kind of open-endedness that makes this game really special. It’s an odd sort of balance that works when the environment gives you hints at possibilities. Unfortunately that’s not always the case. Still, if you are willing to put in the time, you will continue discovering new things in the game for a long time.

How do you fight against something like that?

Speaking of dungeons, let’s talk about that little piece that has been a staple of the franchise from the very beginning. Only having 4 dungeons isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since some of the best games in the series had about that many dungeons. The journeys to get to each dungeon are all fun, creative and extremely exhilarating. The problem is that once you get inside the dungeon, there isn’t much to do. The first dungeon you approach will be great, requiring that you move sections of the dungeon itself in order to access new areas. As you approach the second dungeon, you’ll realize it follows the exact same concept and pattern, as do the rest. To top it off, each dungeon is pretty small and short, taking me no more than 30 minutes each. It doesn’t help that, due to the lack of unique scenarios built for items, the open-endedness of the game actually hurts the parts of the game such as the main bosses. While they may look different and have slightly different attack patterns, the approach to defeating them is almost always the same: aim arrows/stasis to stun then whack it with your sword. Breath of the Wild ended up reducing my favorite parts of the franchise into a laughable joke. I do emphasize though, that the journey to get to each dungeon is actually extremely fun and unique, but that the end result is always the same.

Using Magnesis one of the first times is awesome!

While we’re on the topic of the same, let’s talk about Shrines and Korok Seeds. As you explore the environment, you’ll find a total of 120 Shrines, which are essentially mini-dungeons that revolve around a single puzzle of a couple rooms or so in order to acquire an item that you can use to unlock either a heart piece or increase your stamina gauge (which makes its return from Skyward Sword, and works very well in this game). The problem is that with a few exceptions of some Shrines that require interesting puzzles be solved in order to get in, the contents within almost always are the same. There are about 4-5 different puzzle types that each Shrine cycles through, which gets extremely repetitive when you have to do this 120 times. It doesn’t help that the internal design is exactly the same for each Shrine. It’s a cool pseudo-mechanical design but a little variety would have been nice. The next item is the Korok Seed. Spread across the world there are really small mini-puzzles you need to solve in order to get an item that will help increase your inventory space. Like the Shrines, these seed puzzles all revolve around the same 4-5 themes. The problem is that there are 900 of these hidden around the huge map. Once again, an incessant level of repetitiveness that is irritating. 

Even half destroyed, these guys will be the bane of your existence.

The combat is equally repetitive. As I’ve mentioned before, there are a lot of ways to approach the fights, but there’s usually not much reason to do so. With the exception of some mini-bosses that are really creative, I’ve never found myself purposely trying to avoid combat as much as this game made me do so. Even the last boss, while thematically extremely cool, was nothing special from a combat perspective. There are a ton of different variations of weapons, which is great, but unfortunately they all break far too easily (one of my ++ level weapons broke on a normal enemy in the final dungeon before I even killed him). The really low durability of the weapons was probably intended to encourage people to try new things, but instead it just ended up being really annoying since even epic weapons break after a few hits. This would be fine if there was a way of repairing your weapons, but with the exception of a small handful of items this isn’t possible. While there are weapons given to you extremely often, this painfully ephemeral design for them makes them all feel useless and leaves the player little to no time to get attached to any of them. Everything circles back to the core issue that I’d rather avoid combat than face it. It doesn’t help that the swordplay feels really limited especially in comparison with the fantastic systems that were in place in the last two entries (Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess). As with everything else in this game, much of this is redeemed by the fact that you can do so many different things. If there’s a thunderstorm, I can throw my metal sword at the enemy so they get struck by lightning then I can whack them as needed; I can use Stasis to freeze the enemy then hit it repeatedly to deal damage then retreat until Stasis recharges; I can light the grass on fire with a Fire Arrow then light my wooden sword on fire so that when I hit the enemy I deal extra damage and catch them on fire; I can tie a bomb to an Octorok Balloon then use a Korok Leaf to blow it at a faraway enemy then shoot the balloon to drop the bomb on an enemy’s head. This is but a taste of the types of things you can do, which definitely makes up for the low durability items and the shoddy swordplay. There are also a few different gear sets you can acquire, which give different bonuses and can be upgraded with materials you can gather throughout the game, something I thought was really cool. It helps that the armor sets don’t break.

Nice shirt, Link.

As mentioned, the exploration is extremely rewarding, despite the complaints I’ve made, thanks to the lovingly created over world. There are just enough populated cities to make the game feel alive without making it feel too densely populated. You’ll also find characters travelling, which helps breathe some life into the world. To help you move around, you can hunt down a horse and tame it, adding it to your stable. It’s a fun and rewarding process that helps the player build a bond with the horse as well as create another unique way of approaching problems. There’s other forms of travel as well, sometimes dependent on the area you’re in (such as the sand seals), but none of it is dull, thankfully. The entire game also has a ton of nods to the franchise as a whole, kind of putting the whole franchise into perspective and further rewarding exploration.

Cooking that apple was hard work!

The story is also very much based on how dedicated you are to exploring. Each journey into and through a dungeon reveals a slice of the bigger picture, clarifying on the past as swell as slowly giving a clearer picture into the solution to the problem at hand: defeating Calamity Ganon and freeing Princess Zelda. As you explore, you can use stored pictures in your Sheikah Slate (Read: Tablet Computer) to guide you to locations that will help restore some of Link’s lost memories, further expanding on the big picture of the story. This piece-wise manner of putting the story together like a puzzle may be off-putting to some, but I found it a rather charming way to expand on the game. As you learn more about the story, you’ll notice two things: the characters develop well and are interesting, but the overall history is bland and cookie-cutter. The villain is never given any real motivation, form or sense of threat, leaving the main quest lackluster at best. The development of the individual characters more than makes up for this, with some really touching scenes that helps give some of the best depth the series has ever seen. Even Link, the mute main character, feels developed, which is impressive.

Gliding gives you some of the best views in the game.

It’s too bad the voice acting, a franchise first, is mediocre overall. There are some characters and moments that feel impactful, truly showing the potential of the cast, but overall the cast sounds bored and forced. Couple this with the forgettable music (even with the many subtle nods to the franchise’s tunes) and the only thing holding this mediocre aural experience together is the well-done sound design. This isn’t the kind of game you want to play on mute, because clever aural cues and well-placed sound effects not only sound good, but help guide you as an exploration tool.

Cuccos are still the fiercest creatures in Hyrule.

One thing I haven’t really touched on yet are the controls. As a whole, I don’t really have anything to complain about. The controls are mapped well, work well and feel fluid and responsive. The only real issue is a fault of the weapons breaking too quickly, which forces the player to go to a menu to switch items (and sometimes even pausing) very often. There’s even some motion based puzzle-solving which I thought was clever and fun, despite the common complaint of it being non-responsive (an issue I never had). There’s also motion aided aiming, which I found to be very natural (the player can turn this off if they don’t like it). I played the game with detached Joy-Cons, Joy-Cons attached to the system in portable mode and the Pro Controller, with each way feeling great.

I adore the character designs.

It may seem like I mostly have complaints about the game, but this isn’t true. For one, the game is absolutely gorgeous. As you spend time exploring the over world, you’ll discover such a huge variety of highly detailed beauty that it’s enjoyable to just run around and take in the sights. There is so much love and care put into the design of Hyrule that it really shows as you run (or gallop on a horse) around. The sprawling map of Hyrule in Breath of the Wild is most definitely the crowning jewel of the entire franchise, with an unprecedented level of detail, artistic quality and depth that the series has never before gotten close to. This is where the real joy of the game is. If you can get past the repetitive dungeons, combat and overall puzzle solving, you’ll find an immensely gorgeous game to play. The best way I can describe Breath of the Wild is that it is a fantastic open-world game, but is a very lacking Legend of Zelda game. Pure Zelda fans (like myself) will finish the game with a dual feeling of satisfaction and incompleteness, while most other players will likely enjoy it thoroughly. In its own right, this game was definitely worth the wait, but just be warned that it isn’t perfect.

Reliving the past...

It took me about 70 hours to finish the game with 17/30 hearts, all quests completed, a fully upgraded stamina wheel and 25/900 Korok Seeds collected which puts me at about 65% total completion. This should give you an idea of how massive the game is, which is great. Whatever flaws the game may have, it’s definitely an amazing feat and deserves to be checked out, no matter what type of gamer you are.

- Teepu

Inside one of the dungeons.

NOTE: My entire experience is based on the Nintendo Switch version of the game. The Wii U game, while slightly inferior graphically, provides the exact same experience from my understanding. If you have the ability to choose, I’d recommend the Switch version simply because being able to play on the go whenever you want is an amazing feature.

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Graphics: PERFECT
Sound: GOOD
Gameplay: GREAT
Value: PERFECT
 
OVERALL: GREAT

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All photos ©Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development and ©Nintendo Co., Ltd.