This review contains spoilers
Prior to finally finishing the game in 2023, the last time I’d played Breath of the Wild was in the first half of 2019. I put it on hold for so long because of how I was confronting the game: I was mostly wasting time exploring everything and consequently getting nothing done.
I eventually decided to pick it back up last year and complete it because of Tears of the Kingdom’s (at the time) recent release.
GAMEPLAY
What troubled me the most in both 2019 and 2023 was the game’s open world structure. I’m really not a fan of extremely big maps: I love exploring, which is why the more there is to discover, the more time I lose doing nothing useful, as these worlds tend to be pretty empty. I can’t expect them to be completely full but finding the same enemies or empty places multiple times in a row makes the whole experience more like chores than fun to me. This is generally an open world problem, but I had to point it out regardless.
In Breath of the Wild my goal was to complete all 120 Shrines (and defeat the final boss). This, of course, at times made my experience even more tedious: the issue was finding the shrines themselves rather than solving the puzzles – which were pretty fun overall, even the motion ones.
The Divine Beasts being proper dungeons was a fun idea: the puzzles were cool because the technological parts (pretty much new to The Legend of Zelda) were well implemented but the Ganon bosses weren’t as enjoyable.
I liked the combat overall but it felt a bit unresponsive in terms of defense; it might have been a skill issue on my part, though. I also loved putting to use each of Link's abilities.
Many complained about weapon durability but I didn’t mind it at all: caution and strategy were rewarded and I was always full of weapons anyway…
Movement wise, fast travel was nice but climbing and running were rather slow and limited due to stamina, while horseriding controls felt awful to me.
STORY AND CHARACTERS
I honestly don’t have much to say about the story. The lore was cool and Link’s memories from 100 years before the game’s events were also awesome, but the plot itself was pretty boring…
The characters didn’t help. I liked Kass because of his travelling storyteller figure and I loved Urbosa because of her kind but joking attitude, but I mostly disliked the rest.
I don’t know why this Zelda was so hated, though: she wasn’t that interesting but she wasn’t as annoying as people made her seem. I did find particular how she didn’t have the powers she needed at first, something she really struggled with.
VIDEO AND AUDIO
The artstyle was great and managed to make most of Hyrule look beautiful: there were many spots where I could just look at wonderful landscapes.
I didn’t encounter many glitches, and those I found were ones I could enjoy they didn’t ruin the experience.
The Legend of Zelda's music generally isn’t to my taste, but Breath of the Wild's is definitely one of my favourites from the series: I can’t say I liked all of the tracks but there absolutely were many amazing ones.
CONCLUSIONS
My experience with the game was kind of nice, even if split into two years, but nothing that incredible. I still don't get all the hype this title got, but I can guess that by being similar to open world Sony games, while still feeling like a "real" Nintendo product, a wider than usual audience found it appealing. I might be completely wrong, though, since this is barely just a "theory" I have.
I eventually decided to pick it back up last year and complete it because of Tears of the Kingdom’s (at the time) recent release.
GAMEPLAY
What troubled me the most in both 2019 and 2023 was the game’s open world structure. I’m really not a fan of extremely big maps: I love exploring, which is why the more there is to discover, the more time I lose doing nothing useful, as these worlds tend to be pretty empty. I can’t expect them to be completely full but finding the same enemies or empty places multiple times in a row makes the whole experience more like chores than fun to me. This is generally an open world problem, but I had to point it out regardless.
In Breath of the Wild my goal was to complete all 120 Shrines (and defeat the final boss). This, of course, at times made my experience even more tedious: the issue was finding the shrines themselves rather than solving the puzzles – which were pretty fun overall, even the motion ones.
The Divine Beasts being proper dungeons was a fun idea: the puzzles were cool because the technological parts (pretty much new to The Legend of Zelda) were well implemented but the Ganon bosses weren’t as enjoyable.
I liked the combat overall but it felt a bit unresponsive in terms of defense; it might have been a skill issue on my part, though. I also loved putting to use each of Link's abilities.
Many complained about weapon durability but I didn’t mind it at all: caution and strategy were rewarded and I was always full of weapons anyway…
Movement wise, fast travel was nice but climbing and running were rather slow and limited due to stamina, while horseriding controls felt awful to me.
STORY AND CHARACTERS
I honestly don’t have much to say about the story. The lore was cool and Link’s memories from 100 years before the game’s events were also awesome, but the plot itself was pretty boring…
The characters didn’t help. I liked Kass because of his travelling storyteller figure and I loved Urbosa because of her kind but joking attitude, but I mostly disliked the rest.
I don’t know why this Zelda was so hated, though: she wasn’t that interesting but she wasn’t as annoying as people made her seem. I did find particular how she didn’t have the powers she needed at first, something she really struggled with.
VIDEO AND AUDIO
The artstyle was great and managed to make most of Hyrule look beautiful: there were many spots where I could just look at wonderful landscapes.
I didn’t encounter many glitches, and those I found were ones I could enjoy they didn’t ruin the experience.
The Legend of Zelda's music generally isn’t to my taste, but Breath of the Wild's is definitely one of my favourites from the series: I can’t say I liked all of the tracks but there absolutely were many amazing ones.
CONCLUSIONS
My experience with the game was kind of nice, even if split into two years, but nothing that incredible. I still don't get all the hype this title got, but I can guess that by being similar to open world Sony games, while still feeling like a "real" Nintendo product, a wider than usual audience found it appealing. I might be completely wrong, though, since this is barely just a "theory" I have.