For two months this game fully consumed my life. When I wasn't playing it, I was thinking about playing it. When I was playing it, I was trying to figure out which of my responsibilities I could put off to keep playing it. For the vast majority of my time with it, I felt like it would never end. Every time I discovered a new area, something interesting on the horizon appeared guiding me to a new one. Every time I finished a quest, three new ones would appear. I played this game every day, and I did 3 of the first 4 story missions in the first week I had the game and then didn't do the last one until 6 weeks later. There was always another errand to run, another shrine to complete, another lightroot to find, another boss to defeat, another cave to explore, another recipe to make, another dragon to hunt, another island to see.
I was never bored and was almost always astounded, but by the when it was finally time to finish the story, the game had literally exhausted my ability to play it. I had squeezed all the juice from its fruit, chewed all the flavor from its gum. Am I supposed to play another video game now? Am I supposed to go back to games that don't consume my waking and sometimes my sleeping thoughts? Final Fantasy XVI doesn't have Ultrahand in it. Pikmin 4 doesn't let you build a Green Goblin glider.
When I finished Breath of the Wild I immediately knew I had just played a top 5 game of all time. I had hoped that this game would give me a similar experience. However, I am six years older than I was then. I am no longer in college, I have a real job and real responsibilities. I am a different person now. Tears of the Kingdom did not immediately strike me as a top 5 game of all time, though I suspect in time I will come to see it as such. I don't know if anything in my life will ever immediately strike me in that way, and I don't know if thats a bad thing.
What I do know is that in my estimation this is definitely the most video game ever made. It is an astonishing, medium-defining accomplishment, and it will be looked at with admiration by players and developers for years to come. It affected me deeply, and I am glad it exists in the world.
I was never bored and was almost always astounded, but by the when it was finally time to finish the story, the game had literally exhausted my ability to play it. I had squeezed all the juice from its fruit, chewed all the flavor from its gum. Am I supposed to play another video game now? Am I supposed to go back to games that don't consume my waking and sometimes my sleeping thoughts? Final Fantasy XVI doesn't have Ultrahand in it. Pikmin 4 doesn't let you build a Green Goblin glider.
When I finished Breath of the Wild I immediately knew I had just played a top 5 game of all time. I had hoped that this game would give me a similar experience. However, I am six years older than I was then. I am no longer in college, I have a real job and real responsibilities. I am a different person now. Tears of the Kingdom did not immediately strike me as a top 5 game of all time, though I suspect in time I will come to see it as such. I don't know if anything in my life will ever immediately strike me in that way, and I don't know if thats a bad thing.
What I do know is that in my estimation this is definitely the most video game ever made. It is an astonishing, medium-defining accomplishment, and it will be looked at with admiration by players and developers for years to come. It affected me deeply, and I am glad it exists in the world.