Title: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Developer: Nintendo
Genre: Action, Adventure
Released: 2017
Rating: 9/10
In Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (BOTW), play as Link in order to remember your past, battle Calamity Ganon’s minions, and take down Ganon to fulfill your life’s mission to restore the kingdom of Hyrule!
Pros:
Epic, beautiful world
BOTW is truly a gorgeous, massive world with tons of diverse people, climates, and creatures. The level of detail is astounding with beautiful landscapes, sunrises and sunsets. Discover your first dragon and be amazed at the majestic (and slightly terrifying) view as you watch it fly above you. Witness your first sunset over the mountains. Wander through a grassy field filled with horses. Most importantly, go everywhere or suffer the effects of FOMO.
Lots to discover and do
There’s plenty to discover and more to do in BOTW. Choose your adventure with side quests, hidden treasure, cooking, competitions, korok seeds, shrines, and more! With so much available, the game also manages to make it seem achievable instead of overwhelming. Here are some of my favorite discoveries… Find the noble and stately Lord of the Mountain amongst the blue, glowing blupees. Unlock all FIVE of the Great Fairy Fountains. Get Princess Zelda’s mount, the Royal White Horse, and talk to a stable horse handler to get her harness. Meet Hestu and make your way to Korok Forest. Buy your house and fix it up. I’ll stop there for now…
Length of game
This game felt like the perfect length of time from start to finish (beating Calamity Ganon). Of course the game can be longer or shorter if you’d like by doing more or less of the side quests and shrines. For me, I did some of the bigger side quests and completed enough shrines to get the hearts and stamina I needed to take on Ganon. I wanted to leave the rest for the post game.
Cons:
Post game
Speaking of the post game… it was a bit of a let down. After defeating Calamity Ganon, the game ends, rolls through the credits, and then takes you back to right before defeating Ganon. This is the post game save so there’s no world where Ganon is defeated and the people know you’ve accomplished your mission.
Weapon durability
In BOTW, your weapons will break. Each has a durability that wears down with each hit. But you don’t know the durability of the weapon you’re using and you don’t know when it’s about to break until the game tells you that the durability is low. It would be ideal if you could see the percentage remaining after each battle.
Start of the game
The start of the game can be a bit overwhelming learning the buttons and the starting area. There are no arrows on the map pointing you in the right direction so it is up to you to walk around, climb mountains, and discover the needed locations to get the game going. After talking to a few friends about BOTW, some said that they couldn’t make it past the starting location and gave up trying to move forward.
Overall…
I highly recommend BOTW! This was my first Legend of Zelda game and I absolutely loved it. BOTW 2 is expected to come out in 2022 and I’m incredibly excited to get my hands on it!
Caroline’s Library 