The best WRPG ever made, and that's partially because of the anarchist sensibilities of the genre being reflected in its story: you're shot in the head, left for dead, and from there, anything goes. A wild ride that's only undermined by the myriad of bugs and graphical issues; a remastered version complete with DLC could be a contender for the best game ever made. And even with all of its flaws, it's still very much in the running. Getting right that which nothing else does goes a long, long way.

A game permeated with shame: not just through the course of the story, which is fine, but in its very design: there is a disgraceful amount of self-hatred in modern videogame storytelling, as if they would much rather be movies or television shows, but organization gatekeeping forces them to an interactive medium. The Last of Us is a game designed in a manner not dissimilar to the worst of early 2010s prestige TV (think, like, Low Winter Sun) but with lazy video game time-filler like "collect 40 dog tags."

If you like zombie stories, it's a good zombie story. But if you like good video game stories, it is very much not one, and the praise for its narrative is antithetical to the development of gaming as its own medium capable of rich, emotionally fulfilling tales.

An absolute mess of a game. The themes are undercooked and its plot elements are all too familiar; this would be fine were its gameplay not sacrificed to accommodate them. The gameplay itself is rather lousy, as little thought seems to have been given to why this is even an FPS with magical powers in the first place. 2013 was a big year for video games, and not in a good way; Bioshock Infinite isn't the most responsible for toxic trends, but it might be the product which, in and of itself, is the greatest failure.

If I could just review Eventide Island I would give it five stars. The problem lies in that the vast majority of Breath of the Wild is effectively another Map Game, indistinguishable from the likes of everything Ubisoft churns out year after year (though with much better aesthetics, admittedly). In many ways, it feels like a proof of concept for the best game ever made, rather than that final result so many seem to adore. I don't blame them; if I could enjoy it that much, I would jump at the chance. As is, I'm eager for the Majora's Mask equivalent: the follow-up which fulfills its latent promise.