Makeke
Log Status
Completed
Playing
Backlog
Wishlist
Rating
Time Played
--
Days in Journal
2 days
Last played
April 14, 2023
First played
March 21, 2023
Platforms Played
This review contains spoilers
School has been a bitch so the amount of games I can
blast through has gone down quite a bit this semester. In my ongoing pursuit to play every Zelda, I've heard a lot of good word of mouth for this game within the fandom. I'm happy to report it's well deserved.
While I don't think ALBW offers anything particularly revolutionary to the Zelda pantheon, it is remarkable in how it excels in just about every series staple. The overworld is a joy to traverse and the wall merge mechanic adds a surprising amount of depth to exploration along with secret hunting. This mechanic also feels fully realized in the dungeons where it never really feels like there's any lull in the action. The puzzles aren't difficult but make fun uses of the wall merge mechanic and depth perception gimmicks of the 3DS that makes you feel like you're a genius during your playthrough.
The bosses here also deserve some praise. Similar to it's predecessor ALTTP, the Hyrule bosses are pretty much a cake walk but once you enter Lorule, there is a noticeable difficulty spike. The standouts for me would be Stalbind, Zaganaga, Gemesaur King and Yuga Ganon. Stalbind for the funny mirror gimmick, Zaganaga for how you had to manage use of the Sand rod and the King for just how generally frantic the fight got towards the end with throwing a tantrum around the arena. Yuga Ganon, while a fairly standard final boss encounter, delighted me with how the final blow is dealt. Just an extremely, satisfying and clever way to top off this game.
The story was cute too I guess. The Ravio twist was not something I expected, but definitely made sense within the context of the narrative.
While I still have yet to touch the Oracle games and Spirit Tracks, I don't really see another top-down Zelda surpassing this experience for me. It feels like a complete realization of this formula's strengths and would require drastic innovation in order to improve on it.
blast through has gone down quite a bit this semester. In my ongoing pursuit to play every Zelda, I've heard a lot of good word of mouth for this game within the fandom. I'm happy to report it's well deserved.
While I don't think ALBW offers anything particularly revolutionary to the Zelda pantheon, it is remarkable in how it excels in just about every series staple. The overworld is a joy to traverse and the wall merge mechanic adds a surprising amount of depth to exploration along with secret hunting. This mechanic also feels fully realized in the dungeons where it never really feels like there's any lull in the action. The puzzles aren't difficult but make fun uses of the wall merge mechanic and depth perception gimmicks of the 3DS that makes you feel like you're a genius during your playthrough.
The bosses here also deserve some praise. Similar to it's predecessor ALTTP, the Hyrule bosses are pretty much a cake walk but once you enter Lorule, there is a noticeable difficulty spike. The standouts for me would be Stalbind, Zaganaga, Gemesaur King and Yuga Ganon. Stalbind for the funny mirror gimmick, Zaganaga for how you had to manage use of the Sand rod and the King for just how generally frantic the fight got towards the end with throwing a tantrum around the arena. Yuga Ganon, while a fairly standard final boss encounter, delighted me with how the final blow is dealt. Just an extremely, satisfying and clever way to top off this game.
The story was cute too I guess. The Ravio twist was not something I expected, but definitely made sense within the context of the narrative.
While I still have yet to touch the Oracle games and Spirit Tracks, I don't really see another top-down Zelda surpassing this experience for me. It feels like a complete realization of this formula's strengths and would require drastic innovation in order to improve on it.