⚔️ 5 Simple Things That Make Breath Of The Wild Special ⚔️

The Legend Of Zelda Breath Of The Wild is an amazing video game that many people have written the virtues of on various websites and magazine outlets all over the world.

It’s a game that has won over the older hardcore Zelda generation and won some new Zelda fans in 2017.

I’ve always followed Zelda from afar as I never owned a Nintendo until the Super Nes in 1992 and then I mainly played Mario games and various sports games with mates. 

At the age of 12 I was just never that into playing a solo video game like Zelda.

Later on I moved to PlayStation consoles and never owned a Nintendo console until the Nintendo Wii.

Skyward Sword was always on my to buy list but I never did (again plumping more for the Super Mario Galaxy experience and the countless hours of Resident Evil 4)

From the Wii onwards I didn’t own a Nintendo until Christmas 2017 when I finally got my Christmas wish of a beautiful Switch.

I have attempted to play Legend Of Zelda A Link To The Past on emulation and SNES Mini but I never managed to complete it before being distracted by other games on my PS4.

After completing Super Mario Odyssey I felt it was my time to dive into the promised land of Zelda with the amazingly rated Breath Of The Wild.

To say I was blown away is an understatement. There’s something about this game that I can’t quite put my finger on which makes it a magical experience.

The thing I think that makes this such a video games all time landmark title are the little things. It was a given that Nintendo would produce an amazing game to represent their flagship franchise but the level of shine on the game is something else.

Here are the little things in LOZBOTW that make me smile every time I play the game.

Ladders & Climbing

Ladders are one of my pet peeves of the video gaming world. You either fall off them at precisely the wrong moment or end up going down when you want to go up as the view switches oddly. In LOZBOTW things are different. Ladders are a breeze. They just feel right. Whoever was on ladder duty deserves a medal in honour of services to present and future video games. Game Devs take note. 

While we’re on the subject of ladders we’ve got to mention climbing. It’s ingenious to give climbing a risk reward mechanism that can sometimes pay off dividends and other times see you fall to your demise. 

Uncharted is seen as the heavyweight champion of the ‘climbing sim’ but for me the climbing in Uncharted is cinematic but no challenge. LOZBOTW nails it by making the climbing easy yet tactical.

Cooking

Okay, so there’s plenty of video games that let you mix ingredients that you find on your travels but LOZBOTW makes the whole process a discovery each time you cook. The thing I liked most was that cooking isn’t actually spelt out to you. In my play through I was never told how to cook. I just saw a few abandoned cooking pots and decided to light the wood underneath and throw a few things in the pot to see what happens. Then the magic happened. The animation and sound effect for cooking makes you want to cook again and again and again. Then there’s the combination of the endless ingredients to make new dishes. It’s like going on a culinary cooking course with Bear Grylls and I love it!

Discovery

Of course LOZBOTW has the obligatory emerge from the underground shrine to survey a wondrous landscape that is open for you to explore as you see fit. It brings back memories of the first time I played Fallout 3 and the lesser known Yonder Chronicles and yes it does promote awe and wonder. But then when you come to the point where you realise just how much stuff there is to discover you start to wonder how did they fit this game onto a cartridge the size of my right thumbnail? 

There’s something little or big to discover on every turn of a corner and it’s a delight to walk up to something that you have discovered for the first time and see the question marks appear on screen to denote that it is indeed something new that are about to discover. That little jump of excitement keeps you exploring to find more and more things no matter how small.

Doors

Doors normally mean loading screen don’t they? That’s an unwritten law of video games. NOT IN LOZBOTW.

You find a house to explore and you open the door. Immediately you are looking at the inside of that house. No messing.

It feels great and makes the world seem more alive as you pop in and out of houses and shops seamlessly.

Music Subtlety

Last but not least is the use of music within the game.

A lot of the game is spent with nothing but natural sounds from wherever you may be situated within Hyrule however, this silence is punctuated by a stream of well chosen and subtle music and sound effect choices. It truly is a master class in the use of sound in video games and it brings the whole video together like a lovely dollop of ambient glue.

Hopefully you’ve been lucky enough to experience Legend Of Zelda Breath Of The Wild and have had the beautiful experiences that I have had.

Let me know your favourite parts in the comments box below.

 

"STAY FROSTY!"