A Weekend With Zelda: A Breath of Fresh (Wild) Air (Part 1)

It's been raining a lot in Southern California. For the past few months, it seemed like every weekend was subjected to some amount of rainfall. The rain was sorely needed because of the drought that California had been facing for the past decade. And man, did it show. The barren hills drank up every drop given to them, and the color green has been brought back into the palette of this semi-arid desert.

Something about the way the sun hits the San Diego hills in the morning just makes driving through the meandering highways hard. And I don't mean it in a bad way like potholes and tourists who don't know how to use turn signals. I mean that every new turn brings another small wonder that begs for attention. Hills that used to be brown have changed color almost over night. It's like driving through a completely different city. Concentration on road becomes difficult when new life is everywhere around you. The roads and houses now seem out of place -- clashing with the new scenery. And now a city that I've known for twenty something years has suddenly becomes new again.

And that's just how The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild (BoTW) makes me feel.

 

I'm not very far into the game (I haven't even got to the first dungeon yet), but I have spent a ton of time with it. And I have to agree with the critic consensus of overwhelmingly positive reviews, this is a must-play game, no doubt about it. However (just to get it out of the way), it may not be 10/10 for a lot of people because of graphics and minor performance issues. The pop-in issues and the weapon durability system can be kinda frustrating. And I can't deny that they deter the experience, but it's like saying a couple of rides were down at Disneyland but you got to ride Space Mountain ten times without waiting in line. Once you take the first hour to settle in, the faults sort of melt away and you're treated to a Zelda title that is like no other.

It's not rendered in 4K, but it's beautiful nonetheless

Open world is a term thrown around a lot in video games, and sometimes leads to groans and airing of frustrations in conversations. A lot of the times, the game world is exploreable but only after you unlock it by finding towers. You're able to go places,  but sometimes there is very little do. Other times you can only get to places a specific way or the game forces you to advanced the story to access other parts of the map. In BoTW, it truly allows you to explore the entire map any way you can fathom. Once you acquire the tools within the first hour of the game, you can ride, climb, run, jump, and glide anywhere that you please.

Long ago are the days of Hearts in treasure chest, now health and stamina are upgraded via Spirit Orbs

The game also has a bunch of useful things to do. Exploring gives you access to new weapons (weapons break in this game, so it's important to find new ones), ingredients for cooking, expansion of your inventory slots, and also the best part of the game: access to shrines. The shrines are mini-puzzle dungeons that are as much fun to find as they are to play. They are short and sweet, but there are so many that the length of each of them are perfect. And each shrine I've seen so far is fairly different. Some ask you to use certain items, some shrines are enemy mob battles, and some are even connected to each other so that you have to finish one to finish the other.

As long as you have the stamina, you can climb up any mountain you see in the game map. And there are reasons to do so.

And to be honest, the best way to describe BoTW is not "open world," but just open. The game tells you where to go, but it doesn't hold your hand. Enemies can be beaten in a variety of ways and sometimes they just don't simply need to be beaten. You can just sneak by them. The best part is there is no complicated skill tree and ability unlocks aren't hidden by branching paths of leveling system. The gave gives you everything you need very early on. The experience is truly yours to carry and it really feels like a breath of fresh air.

After two years of no new games for my Wii U, the death of the console goes out with a soothing exhale. I may not have gotten a lot of use out of my Wii U, but I'm glad Nintendo stuck with the plan of releasing the BoTW on it instead of forcing the small user base to the Switch. I may have to push out my plans of purchasing other games until I give this game a good play-through. There is so much more I want to talk about too. I think I might have a part 2 later next week.