Post by WickedCrustacean on Nov 7, 2018 14:44:28 GMT -5
The Zelda franchise is one of the oldest and most revered brands in the world of video games, with the first game having been released all the way back in 1987. Most gamers have probably played one or more of these adventure games at some point. For me it was Link's Awakening in the mid 90s, which I borrowed from a friend and played on my Gameboy during a summer vacation from school. These games have always been quite a lot of fun, but were essentially about unlocking a fairly linear world, finding items with new abilities, and using them to get further through tough dungeons and puzzles.
Lately, everyone has been getting on the open world bandwagon, and Nintendo decided to try their luck at it as well. So after several years of work, they released Breath of the Wild in 2017 as an open world adventure game or perhaps lite RPG. It was released for the two Nintendo consoles, the Wii U and the Switch, but fortunately for those of us who wouldn't be caught dead owning those, it is now also playable on the PC thanks to the CEMU emulator software.
The result of their work is quite surprisingly the best open world game released in the last 10 years or so, and arguably ever. Whether you want to compare BotW with other action-adventure games such as the GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Far Cry or Assassin's Creed franchises, or with the distinguished open world RPGs of the period (Witcher 3, Skyrim, Fallout 3-4), BotW blows the competition out of the water with its excellent gameplay and amazing world. While some of these other games might outshine BotW in certain areas, as a whole package, it is on a completely different level in terms of quality of gameplay.
The main thread that runs through BotW's excellence is what is typically called player agency. Modern mainstream games often suffer tremendously from the lack of this active participation by the player. Think about a typical AAA game these days. The developers and publishers are aiming for massive sales, and so they are afraid to introduce any challenging gameplay that might alienate potential buyers. The logical outcome of this is to dumb the gameplay down to the lowest common denominator, that usually being some casual player who can barely chew gum and tie their shoes at the same time. And so you get games with quest compasses, location of interest markers, quest broken down into tiny steps so simple and mindless that you feel more like an errand boy village idiot running to and fro on everybody's behest instead of the hero you are supposed to be.
BotW spits in the face of all these trends and builds its entire game around the notion of player agency. It's not quite as cruel or hardcore as the old games, and there are various aids to the player that prevent you from being too lost in any particular task, but overall, the game is refreshingly free. From the moment you start it, it places you on a plateau overlooking the entire game world, with the ultimate arch-villain and the goal of the game visible in the far distance, sets you free to do as you will. If you want, it is entirely possible to work your way directly to the end goal and take a stab at it, although this would certainly not be recommended for most players.
The game gives you some general goals, but they are so high level (e.g. kill the main villain, conquer 4 mega-beasts to help in the previous task), that no two players will experience the same journey. It is up to you, the player, to figure out which direction to go into, what to do, how to interact with the massive highly reactive world, and how to slowly, over the course of a hundred or more hours, build up your character in power and knowledge of the game in order to tackle its more challenging aspects. Over the course of that time, you will fight hundreds or thousands of intense battles, explore a beautiful continent, solve hundreds of elegant puzzles, have heart-touching moments, and slowly unravel the subtle story behind the game.
The player agency also comes through in solving of the many puzzles in the game, of figuring out tough fights, and uncovering various game mechanics without the benefit of a detailed hours long tutorial common to other games.
The story is probably the weakest aspect of BotW just because it's so understated, when you compare it to the cutscene and dialogue heavy games such as Witcher 3 or Red Dead Redemption. It's a very simple story at its heart too, there a recurring evil that comes around once every age, and every age, a noble princess and her loyal knight also appear to face it. A 100 years before BotW's events take place, the princess and the knight expected the evil to come, so they used ancient technology to build up a vast army of robots and 4 mega-beasts to help defeat it. Predictably, the evil took control of these helpers and used them to help itself win. The loyal knight was gravely wounded, and as her last act before being imprisoned by the evil, the princess put the knight to rest in a secluded shrine. So now, a 100 years later, you wake up in the shrine, extremely weak, without your equipment, with lost memories and only the barest of instructions. The world is overrun by evil monsters, corrupted robots and other adversaries, and it is up to you to gain your strength back and defeat the evil.
However, in its defense, while the story is understated, what is there is well written and animated. The rare tidbits of dialogue and cutscenes are all produced in a mature way that evokes strong emotions, and this is much better than the typical heavy story game with terrible writing. It also frees you from the heavy handed "interactive movie" approach now common in the industry, and lets you write your own story by actively participating in the gameplay.
The game also absolutely oozes charm. Everything from the gorgeous vistas to cute looking characters and NPCs, to tiny woodland spirits called Koroks that sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks to cutscenes of Princess Zelda's memories is just so emotionally touching or cute or funny that you can't help but be drawn in.
Most of the time you spend in BotW will be dedicated to exploration, and this is one of the areas in which the game absolutely shines. It is probably the best exploration game ever created, which can be attributed to two main features: the massive, wonderfully crafted world, and the myriad of ways in which you can interact with it. The world of BotW is called Hyrule, and it is essentially a massive continent, consisting of a vast landmass made up of various regions with their own climate and vegetation. In the Southwest, you have the Gerudo region which is a huge desert, covered by sand dunes and dotted with ancient ruins. In the Northwest, you have the Hebra region which is a mix of snow covered mountains and tundra plains. In the center, you have the Hyrulean plain, massive flat grass covered fields. To the south, there are the tropical jungles of Faero, gradually leading to the waterfalls and mountains of the Zora region. Throughout, there are long rivers, large and small lakes, towering mountains, islands off the coast, swamps and forests, plains, volcanos and lava, and every other kind of terrain you can imagine. In a first for video games, each of these has a name, so you can zoom on the world map from seeing the entire continent at large, to each individual landmark. This actually helps you navigate for certain quests and puzzles.
The differences between different regions are not just cosmetic either, they have a direct impact on gameplay. Horses are logically found only on plains, and can only travel across relatively flat terrain. They cannot travel on sand, so if you are going to the desert region, you might have to use a sand seal instead. Cold regions have lower temperature, which will hurt you, gradually decreasing your health until you die, unless you somehow warm yourself up. You can do this via warmer clothing or by cooking up foods/potions that warm you up (for example adding hot peppers to regular dishes). The desert on the other hand, is very hot, so you will need cooler clothing or foods/potions that cool you down. Volcanic regions will burn you unless you wear a special flame resistant suit, or use another appropriate consumable. Forest regions can easily catch on fire. Swimming takes stamina, so if you try to cross a wide river in the early game, you might easily drown. This encourages the player to look for bridges and fords instead of haphazardly running around as in other games.
The world is also full of various wildlife (besides the monsters), which is generally neutral toward you, but can be hunted and will sometimes attack. Everything from various birds, insects, foxes, wolves, bears, buffalo, wild pigs, goats, deer, ostriches and many others is included. Hunting them with your bow can provide various types of meat, which can then be combined with other ingredients, but you can also tame and use some of these animals as mounts, if you want something more exotic than a horse.
Other than the dominating wilderness, there are also several settlements in the game. These include 2 human villages, 4 towns of non-human races, 1 town that you help create and build, and some ruined castles/citadel. Each one is fairly simple but lively, with individual NPCs and fairly complex behavior. At night, NPCs go into their houses to sleep, during rain they run under the cover of buildings or overhangs, and during evenings, sit around fires or sing songs. Besides the towns and villages, there are also a lot of stable inns around the world, where you can also interact with various NPCs, get quests, board or take your horses, cook, and some other stuff.
All of this is nice, but what really makes the exploration come alive in BotW is the immense level of interactivity in the world. Where in many games the world is just a passive background prop against which you do other things, here it is an active participant in the flow of gameplay. One of the biggest innovations in BotW is your ability to climb vertical surfaces. If you come up against a wall or a side of a mountain or a tree or even some of the larger monsters, you can climb whichever vertical surface is on front of you. This ability is tied to your stamina pool (which you can increase over the course of the game), so for every second that you actively climb, some stamina is spent. If you exhaust all of your stamina before reaching a flat surface, you will fall down, possibly to your death. The exact angle of the slope being climbed determines how fast the stamina is spent and also how fast you move, which adds an entire level of strategy to climbing. Do I climb here, where I might never reach the top, or look for a more favorable drop?
Another novel ability that you acquire early in the game is being able to para-glide. You quickly obtain a glider, which is a like a mini-parachute that you can release whenever you are up in the air, and then use it to float down instead of falling, or glide atop air currents toward your destination. This also uses stamina, so it's something that must be used strategically as well. Later in the game, you will also come across other ways of doing this, such as by grabbing on to a flying chicken.
At the beginning of BotW, you also gain access to various runes which allows you to interact with the world in different ways. Two of them let you know use remote bombs. These don't really do much damage, but can be used to get around certain obstacles in the world. For instance, detonating them near a cracked wall will blow it open and let you pass through. You can also throw them near an air current to have them float up and get to a more favorable detonation point. Another rune is Magnesis, which lets you manipulate metal objects, similar to the gravity gun in Half Life 2. You can raise them up in the air, drop them on enemies, open massive metal gates, drop metal planks to create makeshift bridges, and other useful actions. Yet another rune is Stasis, which freezes objects in time for a few seconds.This doesn't seem that useful, until you realize that you can hit frozen objects with weapons, and accumulate force, and then, whens stasis wears off, this force will be magnified and the object will fly off in the direction of the force. This can be a very useful tool in various puzzles or other interactions. The statis rune can also be upgraded to freeze monsters in place, which can come in handy against certain enemies. Another rune is Freeze, which lets you grow ice pillars on top of water surfaces. These pillars can be used to traverse bodies of water, raise gates, and other useful stuff. The final rune lets you take pictures of the world with your camera, and add them to a game compendium. Not too useful in gameplay terms, but lets you role play a naturalist cataloging the world fauna.
So imagine being able to climb almost any surface in the world, paraglide around, and play around with the runes above. But this is just the tip of the iceberg in gameplay possibilities in BotW. Below are just some of the many things you can also do in Hyrule. Shoot an explosive barrel with a fire arrow to set off a cascade of explosions. Tame a wild horse in the plains, bond with it, and bring it to your stable. Feed a dog food to become friendly with it, then it might show you some hidden treasure. Combine hundreds of different ingredients you find in the world to create different foods and/or potions, each with different effects. Surf mountain slopes on your shield. Attach balloons to objects to make them float in the air. Use large leafs to generate air currents to power sailboats across the world's rivers, seas or lakes. Set off massive fires by applying torches to burnable materials. Mine ore deposits for useful materials and gems. Cut down trees to get wood, then use the wood to create campfires. Shock enemies with electric arrows to make them drop their equipment. Apply electricity to water to shock things in the water. Push rocks down slopes, cut trees down to create makeshift bridges. Leave food outside in hot or cold places to have it automatically cook or freeze. Start fires to create updrafts which you can then use to glide up high.
These things above are just some of what I discovered so far, but since none of this is communicated to you outright, there could very well be many other possible interactions of which I am not even aware of yet, or have forgotten. And these are all not some scripted events for a particular quest, but things that can be done at any time.
Contrary to most modern open world games, BotW does not use quest compasses, but it does provide some help to the player in the form of map markings. These however can be enabled or disabled at will, and generally do not get in the way of active exploration, since there are also instructions given, and considering the size and verticality of the world, even knowing where on the map you must get to still results in an exciting journey. The way the map is handled is always quite novel. By default, your sheikah slate (a sort of primordial tablet) starts out blank, meaning the entire world map is blank, but scattered throughout the world are Sheikah towers. By climbing these and activating them, you are then able to download the map of the surrounding area to your slate. Eventually, by activating all of the 10-15 towers in the game, you can uncover the entire world map.
When you are not exploring, the second most common activity in the game is probably combat. The world of Hyrule is populated by numerous monsters, Guardians (corrupted robots), and other enemies, and you will often have to match your battle prowess against them. The good news is that BotW features one of the best combat systems in any action-adventure/RPG game. One of its best characteristics is that it allows for many different kinds of approaches, depending on the player's preferences and ability.
For players who hate (or are unable to master) the actual combat, there are all kinds of non-combat or alternative combat options. The main character is able to sneak, for example. This can be improved by mastering the sneaking system (for example getting better at staying behind cover, out of sight, making less noise moving around), but also utilizing certain equipment (there is a stealth armor set available for purchase which makes you make less noise), and using stealth related abilities. If you shoot an enemy in the head with an arrow when they haven't seen you yet, it's an automatic silent one shot kill for most lower level enemies. Sneaking up right behind them lets you execute a sneak attack for massive damage. You can also sneak in the rain, which covers your sounds even more effectively. Line of sight also seems to play a big role, as things notice you a lot less when you stay at their back.
If stealth is not your speed, you can also bypass standard combat by resorting to all the neat stuff you can do with the game's physics engine. Use the Magnesis rune to lift a metal box high in the air and drop it on an unsuspecting Bokoblin. Put a large rock in Stasis, hit it a few times with a metal sledgehammer, and then watch it fly through a Lizzalfolo. Shoot an explosive barrel with a flame arrow, and watch a whole camp of enemies get barbequed.
Bows are also quite effective. Headshots do a lot of damage, so being accurate pays off, and there are many types of arrows, for different situations. Flame arrows set stuff on fire and do extra damage to cold creatures. Ice arrows freeze things, shock arrows electricute, bomb arrows, well, you get the idea. If you are falling (with or without the glider), and start aiming with your bow, it will automatically place you in a few seconds of slo-mo bullet-time, letting you get off an accurate shot more precisely.
Once you get in melee range, you can just run around freestyle, and try to manually run around attacks and get your own in, but this will not work well against tougher enemies. Instead, the game's preferred way of melee involves two approaches, the perfect dodge, and the perfect guard. The perfect dodge requires you to lock onto your opponent, and then jump sideways or backwards (depending on enemy attack type) right as they attack. This requires good timing, but once nailed, leads to something called Flurry Rush. During a flurry rush, time freezes for everyone besides you, and you can perform a large number of attacks in the safety of this slo-mo effect without any fear of retaliation.
The perfect dodge is a higher skill maneuver with a good pay off, but it does have some limitations. It does not work against certain attacks, and also, it can sometimes be hard to select the right kind of dodge in the heat of the battle, especially against faster enemies.
The highest level skill, in my opinion at least, is the perfect guard, or parry. This is done using a shield. By default, when you lock onto somebody in combat, your shield will come up, and you will block their attacks. However, blocking does not incapacitate them in any way, so they can still attack you. Also, most shields can't take much damage, so blocking will lead to their destruction very quickly.
With the perfect guard, you lock onto the enemy, and parry at a very precise time during their attack animation. This timing varies from enemy to enemy, and even depends on what exact weapon they are using, so it takes quite a lot of time to perfect. But once mastered, it is an extremely effective way of fighting pretty much anything. A successfully timed parry will put the enemy into a helpless state for a couple of seconds, letting you get off a few attacks on them in safety. It also might disarm them, if the shield quality is higher than the weapon quality. Unlike dodging, parrying works against almost any attack in the game, including ranged attacks, spells, and everything else. It will take a lot of effort, but someone learning the ins-n-outs of perfect guard will be able to face almost any enemy with ease. In fact, this particular style of combat in BotW is very reminiscent of Dark Souls series combat, and was probably inspired by it.
The variety of enemies is sometimes criticized, because the game uses about 13-15 base templates, but this is misleading, because each template can have many different variations, and each variation can use different weapons and other things. For instance, for the Bokoblin template, you can have Red, Black, Blue, and Silver Bokoblin varieties, with better stats and more advanced combat behavior, and each one can use everything from clubs to swords to spears, and some can even be mounted on horses and use bows.
One of the more novel and frustrating for players mechanics is that of item degradation. All weapons and shields have durability, and once their durability goes down to zero, they get destroyed. This can be shocking to players, who come from other games, where cool weapons they find stay around forever. Here, you can get a beautiful unique sword, and have it destroyed a couple of fights later. This issue is especially bad in the beginning of the game, because at that point, all you get are weak, makeshift weapons such as clubs and bone shields, and these tend to go after every single fight. By mid-late game, this issue gets mitigated to a large degree, because you find much higher quality items, which last longer. And eventually you get some items which can either recharge durability, or are so durably, they last almost forever.
Aside from exploration and combat, you will also spend a lot of time solving the ton of puzzles in BotW. Most of these are inside the 120+ shrines hidden throughout the world. Completing 4 shrines gives you the ability to increase your hearts (healthbar) or stamina by one unit. This serves as the character development part of the game, but along the way, you get to play around with the runes and physics and your brain. Each shrine is a self contained mini-dungeon usually revolving around some concept, such as the wind or fire or something else. The solutions to these generally aren't rocket science, but they are fairly intelligent, and a lot of fun.
In conclusion, Zelda: Breath of the Wild manages to build on the high quality open world games of the past and introduce a lot of its own mechanics to create a new watermark in the genre. Its extremely polished combination of limitless exploration both in terms of the game world and the game mechanics, together with a challenging and deep combat system, significant player agency, stimulating puzzles, and overall charm make it THE open world game to date. If you own a Nintendo console or can run the CEMU emulated version, and like open world games, you owe it to yourself to try this.
Lately, everyone has been getting on the open world bandwagon, and Nintendo decided to try their luck at it as well. So after several years of work, they released Breath of the Wild in 2017 as an open world adventure game or perhaps lite RPG. It was released for the two Nintendo consoles, the Wii U and the Switch, but fortunately for those of us who wouldn't be caught dead owning those, it is now also playable on the PC thanks to the CEMU emulator software.
The result of their work is quite surprisingly the best open world game released in the last 10 years or so, and arguably ever. Whether you want to compare BotW with other action-adventure games such as the GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Far Cry or Assassin's Creed franchises, or with the distinguished open world RPGs of the period (Witcher 3, Skyrim, Fallout 3-4), BotW blows the competition out of the water with its excellent gameplay and amazing world. While some of these other games might outshine BotW in certain areas, as a whole package, it is on a completely different level in terms of quality of gameplay.
The main thread that runs through BotW's excellence is what is typically called player agency. Modern mainstream games often suffer tremendously from the lack of this active participation by the player. Think about a typical AAA game these days. The developers and publishers are aiming for massive sales, and so they are afraid to introduce any challenging gameplay that might alienate potential buyers. The logical outcome of this is to dumb the gameplay down to the lowest common denominator, that usually being some casual player who can barely chew gum and tie their shoes at the same time. And so you get games with quest compasses, location of interest markers, quest broken down into tiny steps so simple and mindless that you feel more like an errand boy village idiot running to and fro on everybody's behest instead of the hero you are supposed to be.
BotW spits in the face of all these trends and builds its entire game around the notion of player agency. It's not quite as cruel or hardcore as the old games, and there are various aids to the player that prevent you from being too lost in any particular task, but overall, the game is refreshingly free. From the moment you start it, it places you on a plateau overlooking the entire game world, with the ultimate arch-villain and the goal of the game visible in the far distance, sets you free to do as you will. If you want, it is entirely possible to work your way directly to the end goal and take a stab at it, although this would certainly not be recommended for most players.
The game gives you some general goals, but they are so high level (e.g. kill the main villain, conquer 4 mega-beasts to help in the previous task), that no two players will experience the same journey. It is up to you, the player, to figure out which direction to go into, what to do, how to interact with the massive highly reactive world, and how to slowly, over the course of a hundred or more hours, build up your character in power and knowledge of the game in order to tackle its more challenging aspects. Over the course of that time, you will fight hundreds or thousands of intense battles, explore a beautiful continent, solve hundreds of elegant puzzles, have heart-touching moments, and slowly unravel the subtle story behind the game.
The player agency also comes through in solving of the many puzzles in the game, of figuring out tough fights, and uncovering various game mechanics without the benefit of a detailed hours long tutorial common to other games.
The story is probably the weakest aspect of BotW just because it's so understated, when you compare it to the cutscene and dialogue heavy games such as Witcher 3 or Red Dead Redemption. It's a very simple story at its heart too, there a recurring evil that comes around once every age, and every age, a noble princess and her loyal knight also appear to face it. A 100 years before BotW's events take place, the princess and the knight expected the evil to come, so they used ancient technology to build up a vast army of robots and 4 mega-beasts to help defeat it. Predictably, the evil took control of these helpers and used them to help itself win. The loyal knight was gravely wounded, and as her last act before being imprisoned by the evil, the princess put the knight to rest in a secluded shrine. So now, a 100 years later, you wake up in the shrine, extremely weak, without your equipment, with lost memories and only the barest of instructions. The world is overrun by evil monsters, corrupted robots and other adversaries, and it is up to you to gain your strength back and defeat the evil.
However, in its defense, while the story is understated, what is there is well written and animated. The rare tidbits of dialogue and cutscenes are all produced in a mature way that evokes strong emotions, and this is much better than the typical heavy story game with terrible writing. It also frees you from the heavy handed "interactive movie" approach now common in the industry, and lets you write your own story by actively participating in the gameplay.
The game also absolutely oozes charm. Everything from the gorgeous vistas to cute looking characters and NPCs, to tiny woodland spirits called Koroks that sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks to cutscenes of Princess Zelda's memories is just so emotionally touching or cute or funny that you can't help but be drawn in.
Most of the time you spend in BotW will be dedicated to exploration, and this is one of the areas in which the game absolutely shines. It is probably the best exploration game ever created, which can be attributed to two main features: the massive, wonderfully crafted world, and the myriad of ways in which you can interact with it. The world of BotW is called Hyrule, and it is essentially a massive continent, consisting of a vast landmass made up of various regions with their own climate and vegetation. In the Southwest, you have the Gerudo region which is a huge desert, covered by sand dunes and dotted with ancient ruins. In the Northwest, you have the Hebra region which is a mix of snow covered mountains and tundra plains. In the center, you have the Hyrulean plain, massive flat grass covered fields. To the south, there are the tropical jungles of Faero, gradually leading to the waterfalls and mountains of the Zora region. Throughout, there are long rivers, large and small lakes, towering mountains, islands off the coast, swamps and forests, plains, volcanos and lava, and every other kind of terrain you can imagine. In a first for video games, each of these has a name, so you can zoom on the world map from seeing the entire continent at large, to each individual landmark. This actually helps you navigate for certain quests and puzzles.
The differences between different regions are not just cosmetic either, they have a direct impact on gameplay. Horses are logically found only on plains, and can only travel across relatively flat terrain. They cannot travel on sand, so if you are going to the desert region, you might have to use a sand seal instead. Cold regions have lower temperature, which will hurt you, gradually decreasing your health until you die, unless you somehow warm yourself up. You can do this via warmer clothing or by cooking up foods/potions that warm you up (for example adding hot peppers to regular dishes). The desert on the other hand, is very hot, so you will need cooler clothing or foods/potions that cool you down. Volcanic regions will burn you unless you wear a special flame resistant suit, or use another appropriate consumable. Forest regions can easily catch on fire. Swimming takes stamina, so if you try to cross a wide river in the early game, you might easily drown. This encourages the player to look for bridges and fords instead of haphazardly running around as in other games.
The world is also full of various wildlife (besides the monsters), which is generally neutral toward you, but can be hunted and will sometimes attack. Everything from various birds, insects, foxes, wolves, bears, buffalo, wild pigs, goats, deer, ostriches and many others is included. Hunting them with your bow can provide various types of meat, which can then be combined with other ingredients, but you can also tame and use some of these animals as mounts, if you want something more exotic than a horse.
Other than the dominating wilderness, there are also several settlements in the game. These include 2 human villages, 4 towns of non-human races, 1 town that you help create and build, and some ruined castles/citadel. Each one is fairly simple but lively, with individual NPCs and fairly complex behavior. At night, NPCs go into their houses to sleep, during rain they run under the cover of buildings or overhangs, and during evenings, sit around fires or sing songs. Besides the towns and villages, there are also a lot of stable inns around the world, where you can also interact with various NPCs, get quests, board or take your horses, cook, and some other stuff.
All of this is nice, but what really makes the exploration come alive in BotW is the immense level of interactivity in the world. Where in many games the world is just a passive background prop against which you do other things, here it is an active participant in the flow of gameplay. One of the biggest innovations in BotW is your ability to climb vertical surfaces. If you come up against a wall or a side of a mountain or a tree or even some of the larger monsters, you can climb whichever vertical surface is on front of you. This ability is tied to your stamina pool (which you can increase over the course of the game), so for every second that you actively climb, some stamina is spent. If you exhaust all of your stamina before reaching a flat surface, you will fall down, possibly to your death. The exact angle of the slope being climbed determines how fast the stamina is spent and also how fast you move, which adds an entire level of strategy to climbing. Do I climb here, where I might never reach the top, or look for a more favorable drop?
Another novel ability that you acquire early in the game is being able to para-glide. You quickly obtain a glider, which is a like a mini-parachute that you can release whenever you are up in the air, and then use it to float down instead of falling, or glide atop air currents toward your destination. This also uses stamina, so it's something that must be used strategically as well. Later in the game, you will also come across other ways of doing this, such as by grabbing on to a flying chicken.
At the beginning of BotW, you also gain access to various runes which allows you to interact with the world in different ways. Two of them let you know use remote bombs. These don't really do much damage, but can be used to get around certain obstacles in the world. For instance, detonating them near a cracked wall will blow it open and let you pass through. You can also throw them near an air current to have them float up and get to a more favorable detonation point. Another rune is Magnesis, which lets you manipulate metal objects, similar to the gravity gun in Half Life 2. You can raise them up in the air, drop them on enemies, open massive metal gates, drop metal planks to create makeshift bridges, and other useful actions. Yet another rune is Stasis, which freezes objects in time for a few seconds.This doesn't seem that useful, until you realize that you can hit frozen objects with weapons, and accumulate force, and then, whens stasis wears off, this force will be magnified and the object will fly off in the direction of the force. This can be a very useful tool in various puzzles or other interactions. The statis rune can also be upgraded to freeze monsters in place, which can come in handy against certain enemies. Another rune is Freeze, which lets you grow ice pillars on top of water surfaces. These pillars can be used to traverse bodies of water, raise gates, and other useful stuff. The final rune lets you take pictures of the world with your camera, and add them to a game compendium. Not too useful in gameplay terms, but lets you role play a naturalist cataloging the world fauna.
So imagine being able to climb almost any surface in the world, paraglide around, and play around with the runes above. But this is just the tip of the iceberg in gameplay possibilities in BotW. Below are just some of the many things you can also do in Hyrule. Shoot an explosive barrel with a fire arrow to set off a cascade of explosions. Tame a wild horse in the plains, bond with it, and bring it to your stable. Feed a dog food to become friendly with it, then it might show you some hidden treasure. Combine hundreds of different ingredients you find in the world to create different foods and/or potions, each with different effects. Surf mountain slopes on your shield. Attach balloons to objects to make them float in the air. Use large leafs to generate air currents to power sailboats across the world's rivers, seas or lakes. Set off massive fires by applying torches to burnable materials. Mine ore deposits for useful materials and gems. Cut down trees to get wood, then use the wood to create campfires. Shock enemies with electric arrows to make them drop their equipment. Apply electricity to water to shock things in the water. Push rocks down slopes, cut trees down to create makeshift bridges. Leave food outside in hot or cold places to have it automatically cook or freeze. Start fires to create updrafts which you can then use to glide up high.
These things above are just some of what I discovered so far, but since none of this is communicated to you outright, there could very well be many other possible interactions of which I am not even aware of yet, or have forgotten. And these are all not some scripted events for a particular quest, but things that can be done at any time.
Contrary to most modern open world games, BotW does not use quest compasses, but it does provide some help to the player in the form of map markings. These however can be enabled or disabled at will, and generally do not get in the way of active exploration, since there are also instructions given, and considering the size and verticality of the world, even knowing where on the map you must get to still results in an exciting journey. The way the map is handled is always quite novel. By default, your sheikah slate (a sort of primordial tablet) starts out blank, meaning the entire world map is blank, but scattered throughout the world are Sheikah towers. By climbing these and activating them, you are then able to download the map of the surrounding area to your slate. Eventually, by activating all of the 10-15 towers in the game, you can uncover the entire world map.
When you are not exploring, the second most common activity in the game is probably combat. The world of Hyrule is populated by numerous monsters, Guardians (corrupted robots), and other enemies, and you will often have to match your battle prowess against them. The good news is that BotW features one of the best combat systems in any action-adventure/RPG game. One of its best characteristics is that it allows for many different kinds of approaches, depending on the player's preferences and ability.
For players who hate (or are unable to master) the actual combat, there are all kinds of non-combat or alternative combat options. The main character is able to sneak, for example. This can be improved by mastering the sneaking system (for example getting better at staying behind cover, out of sight, making less noise moving around), but also utilizing certain equipment (there is a stealth armor set available for purchase which makes you make less noise), and using stealth related abilities. If you shoot an enemy in the head with an arrow when they haven't seen you yet, it's an automatic silent one shot kill for most lower level enemies. Sneaking up right behind them lets you execute a sneak attack for massive damage. You can also sneak in the rain, which covers your sounds even more effectively. Line of sight also seems to play a big role, as things notice you a lot less when you stay at their back.
If stealth is not your speed, you can also bypass standard combat by resorting to all the neat stuff you can do with the game's physics engine. Use the Magnesis rune to lift a metal box high in the air and drop it on an unsuspecting Bokoblin. Put a large rock in Stasis, hit it a few times with a metal sledgehammer, and then watch it fly through a Lizzalfolo. Shoot an explosive barrel with a flame arrow, and watch a whole camp of enemies get barbequed.
Bows are also quite effective. Headshots do a lot of damage, so being accurate pays off, and there are many types of arrows, for different situations. Flame arrows set stuff on fire and do extra damage to cold creatures. Ice arrows freeze things, shock arrows electricute, bomb arrows, well, you get the idea. If you are falling (with or without the glider), and start aiming with your bow, it will automatically place you in a few seconds of slo-mo bullet-time, letting you get off an accurate shot more precisely.
Once you get in melee range, you can just run around freestyle, and try to manually run around attacks and get your own in, but this will not work well against tougher enemies. Instead, the game's preferred way of melee involves two approaches, the perfect dodge, and the perfect guard. The perfect dodge requires you to lock onto your opponent, and then jump sideways or backwards (depending on enemy attack type) right as they attack. This requires good timing, but once nailed, leads to something called Flurry Rush. During a flurry rush, time freezes for everyone besides you, and you can perform a large number of attacks in the safety of this slo-mo effect without any fear of retaliation.
The perfect dodge is a higher skill maneuver with a good pay off, but it does have some limitations. It does not work against certain attacks, and also, it can sometimes be hard to select the right kind of dodge in the heat of the battle, especially against faster enemies.
The highest level skill, in my opinion at least, is the perfect guard, or parry. This is done using a shield. By default, when you lock onto somebody in combat, your shield will come up, and you will block their attacks. However, blocking does not incapacitate them in any way, so they can still attack you. Also, most shields can't take much damage, so blocking will lead to their destruction very quickly.
With the perfect guard, you lock onto the enemy, and parry at a very precise time during their attack animation. This timing varies from enemy to enemy, and even depends on what exact weapon they are using, so it takes quite a lot of time to perfect. But once mastered, it is an extremely effective way of fighting pretty much anything. A successfully timed parry will put the enemy into a helpless state for a couple of seconds, letting you get off a few attacks on them in safety. It also might disarm them, if the shield quality is higher than the weapon quality. Unlike dodging, parrying works against almost any attack in the game, including ranged attacks, spells, and everything else. It will take a lot of effort, but someone learning the ins-n-outs of perfect guard will be able to face almost any enemy with ease. In fact, this particular style of combat in BotW is very reminiscent of Dark Souls series combat, and was probably inspired by it.
The variety of enemies is sometimes criticized, because the game uses about 13-15 base templates, but this is misleading, because each template can have many different variations, and each variation can use different weapons and other things. For instance, for the Bokoblin template, you can have Red, Black, Blue, and Silver Bokoblin varieties, with better stats and more advanced combat behavior, and each one can use everything from clubs to swords to spears, and some can even be mounted on horses and use bows.
One of the more novel and frustrating for players mechanics is that of item degradation. All weapons and shields have durability, and once their durability goes down to zero, they get destroyed. This can be shocking to players, who come from other games, where cool weapons they find stay around forever. Here, you can get a beautiful unique sword, and have it destroyed a couple of fights later. This issue is especially bad in the beginning of the game, because at that point, all you get are weak, makeshift weapons such as clubs and bone shields, and these tend to go after every single fight. By mid-late game, this issue gets mitigated to a large degree, because you find much higher quality items, which last longer. And eventually you get some items which can either recharge durability, or are so durably, they last almost forever.
Aside from exploration and combat, you will also spend a lot of time solving the ton of puzzles in BotW. Most of these are inside the 120+ shrines hidden throughout the world. Completing 4 shrines gives you the ability to increase your hearts (healthbar) or stamina by one unit. This serves as the character development part of the game, but along the way, you get to play around with the runes and physics and your brain. Each shrine is a self contained mini-dungeon usually revolving around some concept, such as the wind or fire or something else. The solutions to these generally aren't rocket science, but they are fairly intelligent, and a lot of fun.
In conclusion, Zelda: Breath of the Wild manages to build on the high quality open world games of the past and introduce a lot of its own mechanics to create a new watermark in the genre. Its extremely polished combination of limitless exploration both in terms of the game world and the game mechanics, together with a challenging and deep combat system, significant player agency, stimulating puzzles, and overall charm make it THE open world game to date. If you own a Nintendo console or can run the CEMU emulated version, and like open world games, you owe it to yourself to try this.
