Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsPerhaps the Ocarina of Time Dethroner
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2020
So I am about 3 years late in playing this game. I just bought a Switch primarily to play this game during quarantine, and it has been so so worth it. Zelda is my all-time favorite gaming series by leaps and bounds. I am one of those people who has said for 20 years that Ocarina of Time is the best game ever created and cannot be dethroned. Now, I'm not so sure.
Look, while overall this game has clearly been very highly reviewed, I know it has been polarizing in the Zelda community, and I do understand why. This game breaks from classic Zelda formula many huge ways: a true open world, a non-linear story, degradable weapons (everything except one weapon can and will break, usually quickly), some voice acting (!), and most notably, the lack of "proper" dungeons. There are 120+ mini dungeons, some of which contain elaborate puzzles, and others being simple (you fight an enemy or two, and that's it). There are 4 or 5 (depending if you get the DLC, which you should) bigger dungeons, but those are all quite small compared to what longtime Zelda fans are used to. But it doesn't matter. If anything, I was happy to spend less time in dungeons, and more time exploring the sprawling, beautiful, majestic open world, where there are countless things to find and do. The attention to detail is amazing - double rainbows, grass sparkling as the sun rises, enemies that actually act realistic (such as hunting wild animals, eating food, sleeping, and fighting you like they actually have a brain). The combat in the game is super fun and engaging. That was one complaint I always had about OoT, MM, and to a lesser extent, TP and WW: so much of the combat in those games was basically just waiting around for the opponent to expose their obviously vulnerable parts to you.
This game is not like other Zelda's, which to me, even as a longtime fan, was incredibly exciting, and proved to be a breath of fresh air. Yet it IS undeniably a Zelda game. When solving puzzles, fighting bosses, or of course, finding a certain item hidden deep within a forest, that familiar yet exciting sense of "damn, I LOVE Zelda" is always present. Unlike some other fanboys, I believe Breath of the Wild found a perfect balance between integrating so much of what I have always deeply loved about these games, while leaping into new territory.
There are some small issues I did take with the game. I found the main story to feel just a little flat - not that the plot is bad, I just would have liked to see it fleshed out a bit more. I also found the ending to be very unsatisfying, which was disappointing given the hours I'd put in to the game. Also, while I was happy that Nintendo finally included voice acting in a Zelda game, some of it - especially the male characters - felt a bit like overkill and made me cringe a bit. (Zelda's voice is perfect, though).
So ultimately, did BOTW dethrone OoT for me? It's hard to say. They are very different games, but what I do know is that as I replayed OoT shortly before buying this game, I found myself...well, bored. Times have changed. OoT's once vast world now feels small. The enemies are predictable and kind of boring to fight. I found myself playing mostly just to try and recapture a sense of nostalgia. None of that is to say OoT is anything less than a masterpiece - 20 years ago, it was revolutionary. Unlike BOTW, OoT's ending still sends chills up my spine. The final boss battle is incredible. What I do know, though, is that once I picked up BoTW, I felt the awe, the joy, the excitement, the sense of adventure that OoT had initially inspired in me decades earlier. Again, hard to compare apples to oranges, but in terms of sheer enjoyment, Breath of the Wild has bested any game I've played since I was a kid. And that's what games are all about.
Kudos to you if you read all this.
![The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Nintendo Switch [Digital Code]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51xVZUUZ1hL._AC_US60_SCLZZZZZZZ__.jpg)
