The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Okay, how to approach this? The game is indeed awesome, and it is indeed an awesome zelda game - however its "difficulty" I think is higher... or different than all the others, sans maybe Zelda II, that actually this game is a lot like.

I did not "follow the path" I just started wondering around after seeing visiting impa and got lost in the world, I took what is obviously not the beginning path... mad guys are leveled by essentially 2 things - their "color" or level and their weapons- from what I have gathered throughout my playtime is I wondered off into medium and medium high territory - the first fight challenge shrine I ran into was a medium level one, and it was hard, I have done another medium, a hard and an easy in total through my 55ish shrines.

The first guardian / race I ran into was Zoras and progressed up until the attack on the beast, then decided to wonder off again- then I got to the Gurudo's but didnt get to the city, and then bird people and got up and to the assault... I have of yet to get to the gorons lol

I have, I think 2 or 1 towers left to discover - I got the master sword and it is stupid that it breaks and has a 10min cooldown.

The jungle swamp area- whatever its called in the south sucks, I don't like it - and it made me realize I just do not like those areas, I hated this type of area in WOW also- I do not really know why, I just do not like them- I did a few shrines down there, shot the dragon for a few scales and left.

So I did all the labyrinths, that was fun!

Then I decided to explore Hyrule castle - I didn't cheese it up via spire climbing - and let me tell you... if you have played through the game, do NOT skip the experience of crawling the castle inside and out- the music...what to say- the music there and its change while going inside and out and around- may, may have saved the game from being the worst on providing great rehashes and additional themes like we have always gotten from Zelda games.

I got to gannon and fought the 4 versions that I assume I would have fought inside the divine beasts - they were not bad - then got to gannon proper...I think... got him fairly easy to 2nd form that is immune even to the master sword (WTF?) - I shot him with 1, my last anti-robot arrows and I think it did dmg, and that was all I had soooo- I died and ported back and bought a sword and more arrows - I will fight him later.

So that's what I have done and I feel I have "done" about 20-25% of the game lol


REVIEW:

Gameplay:

Everything (almost) was thought of, Nintendo proves again they truly are masters of gamecraft. There was a tower that had a bunch of frozen ice that I could not get past... I had no flint, just some wood- I cheated and looked it up and a guy melted them via building a fire- but I was sol, no flint... BUT I had a fire flamberg - THAT will start the wood on fire...oh what? JUST having the GIANT FIRE SWORD out started melting the ice! nice... it also makes me warmer?! to combat cold? the ice sword makes me colder for combating heat?! haha nice.

Fighting is smooth and a good advancement upon the 3D Zeldas of the past- throwing weapons and the master swords beam, the inclusion of boomerangs and how they made archery have arcs is great fun.

Weapon durability sucks, it needs to be... a wee bit longer than it is currently- and you by default should be able to hold 1-2 more, or put aux "weapons" in to a 2-3 slot space- such as the torches, tree branches, wind leaves etc.

The world is scaled almost to perfection - the world LOOKS huge yet in actual travel time everything is quite manageable - however they did distance, scale to character etc. it is, as per Nintendo- as perfect as you can get.

I did cheat and look some solutions up, but looking at what people do, what they are wearing compared to me and how I play - I do not see much overlap - this is great and everyone will have "the same" yet not exp playing the game- again they have kept the familiar yet uniqueness is there.

Overall solid 9 9.5 / 10 here - the attention to detail is beyond compare - however I dropped a giant steel door on a camp fire and it didn't put it out ;-)

Difficulty:

Unlike most Zelda games, the WORLD is difficult and hard and can be very harsh and unforgiving if you literally are not, yourself - not your character - seasoned at adventuring around Hyrule - well, well done.

Most trial tests and puzzles are all fairly simple - I think this was a suffrage in how they were presented - yet I have not been in a divine beast - those may be more traditional in a 3d dungeon- or maybe the trial is getting in them and you just fight the water/lightning/air/fire gannon- I will find out next time I get an hr or so to play

Story:

At first I was not impressed, really - it was your typical cryptic Zelda mythos that spans forever- had gannon fucking shit up bla bla bla... but- having only done 2 picture memories and the sword- putting the story together had been actually a VERY good and fulfilling experience.

They did set it up nicely that what you are playing is YOUR story, the games story happened 100 years ago... I think they actually put more effort into this story than Skyward Sword - I still think Skyward Sword was a complete waste of the Zelda origination story (THAT STILL HAD A DAMN 1k years ago! story back story itself!) But more on that later actually...

The 4 hero's and the princesses and link's past journey is well told... at first from the king during the intro you think "We prepped, shit hit the fan, you got fuk'd and the princess took on gannon to temper him- and has been holding him at bay for the past 100 years while you recovered." well...no... it didn't all just happen at once.

The princess was with link and doing the rites or whatever to gain her power - visiting shrines etc. a la Skyward Sword - very nice connection there, however things were not going as planned...but she seemed to keep that a secret - even her knighting ceremony for Link "nothing happened" - she is obviously the point of failure in the battle of 100 years ago. Again I have not tracked down all the memories yet, that is next on my list to do after I take out the beasts.

The story and how it is presented takes a few notes from Lunar: The Silver Star - and there is nothing wrong with that- think of how many downloads Nintendo would sell if they released a DLC that WAS the adventure from 100 years ago- again they would be back to "IT PRINTS MONEY" territory... but like Lunar - they risk screwing that story up if they do so... again unless its fleshed out enough in the memories that the between parts will not jack up stuff... but it can hurt peoples own created filler...that's always the risk in things like this.

Music:

Bland...and it is because the environments sound effects are more important to the game than the music - however what music there is is great, just not anything that is "this zeldas" main piece that people will hum down the street for years to come.

... and then we get Hyrule Castle... two wonderful melodies that we have been waiting for the entire damn game - set the PERFECT tone and set up to your final confrontation with gannon... it is just, again, very - very well done.

While I still do not think there is a sound track that you can play and say "oh that's BOTW right there!" or say "THAT is the Windmill song!" - the final two parts help make up for, at least what I have had as a very nice background music piddling on in the background- and its very background and backseat to the rest of the game.

The BEST part of this game, and something I hope EVERY Zelda game has from now on...

NO GIMMICK

Twilight Princess was partially jacked with the wiggle waggle and then they bucketed down ten fold and make stupid Skyward Sword - UURRGHH NO STOP.

So I am glad their gimmick was open world - not a game play mechanic per-say. I am glad I didn't have a Navi, I just targeted, I don't need an excuse. I just have maps, and inventory and I can carry however many thousand of rupees - I don't need a new reason why every game! Sure, they had the cellphone, but not that much was given to it...it was it is what it is.

Twilight Princess it was minda and the twilight world-- yeah I know its the plot, but it added an annoying mechanic and dog mode that you had to finally get past then the game was more enjoyable.

Skyward Sword - it never fucking ended with its gimmick EVEN THE LAST BATTLE HAD IT FOR FUCK SAKE SICK YOUR SWORD UP BREW GET LIGHTNING - okay game over u win yay hahah.

I know EVERY game had "something" that was "plot" that was the gimmick - sans zelda 1 and 2...and 1st gameboy... link to the past was the dark/golden world- but it didnt effect your game play really, it was another stage.

But majora mask...argh... even OOT- but again, that didnt mess with the core gameplay that much and was good...okay I am done with gimmick...maybe

Overall... its a 10... is it 100% perfect? no, but its an A+ and for a game "Its a 10!" for sure, for a Zelda- again one of the best... I still may contend Zelda II is still technically "bigger" - if you must have a scaled score and cant accept a 10 or A+... out of 100 I would give it a 97% - 90 if those final tracks were not there and the presentation of the plot didn't expectantly grab me like it did- without those things... it would have been like 86-88%. But the no gimmick is really the best.

fight Ganon with none of the divine beasts done

It started with me just wanting to explore the castle - I heard "the shield" was there - although I didnt find it, even after killing the two gate tower guards. Then when I managed to get to the top I just wanted to see what was up lol, no harm in just spending all my food and items and going at it- would have prolly won if I had weapons that could actually damage his 2nd form... that is, if that is his last form... it may be something of a backwards thing- usually in past games he starts as gannondorf and then turns into a monster, maybe this time he starts in monster form then goes gannondorf - or there is no gannondorf.

Still haven't found the goron city LOL - have no fire armor, did eat my way to the tower and completed the entire map tonight.

Next task doing the water beast, then air as I did the progressions up to their attack and am ready... then gurudo and gorons - then gannon...or memories, then gannon.

I did like 3 sidequests, I do not like sidequests - I explored quite nicely on my own lol