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However, some elements, like cold and heat, will drain your health, so assuming you haven’t found special armor to protect yourself from these conditions, you may have to flip the circumstances in your favor by crafting the right kind of meals and elixirs, which require components scattered on the ground, under rocks, in chests and trees, and so forth. Nature’s elements will prevent you from doing what you want, and when these factors force you to adjust your actions in the moment, like not using a torch in the wind so as to avoid setting the grasslands around you on fire, the environment feels dynamic and alive. Once you attain a paraglider, Breath of the Wild’s exploratory promise is fulfilled, but only up to a point. Your weapons also deteriorate very quickly at this early point in the game, and even though switching between items is more convenient here than in most inventory-focused video games, it’s reasonable to balk at this tutorial-like annoyance of incessantly needing to replace your equipment. If you’re well versed already in the fight mechanics of recent Legend of Zelda adventures, you’re certain to find a run-in with a giant hidden rock enemy to be anticlimactic at best, especially given that this foe telegraphs its attacks too transparently and has an obvious weak point. You cannot leave the plateau until you follow the orders of a mysterious old man, and as you explore this area, ransacking the same type of Moblin camp can get old fast. Here the rules of gameplay, such as nearly every weapon breaking after repeated use, inspire a type of urgency and forethought that wasn’t demanded by the game’s predecessors, and variations on familiar elements of the series, such as having infinite bombs with cool-off times, allow you to develop fresh, individualized approaches to combat and puzzle-solving.īut it can take a player hours to leave the Great Plateau, Breath of the Wild’s introductory area, and actually experience the massive world beyond its seemingly mile-high walls. This time, Link can jump whenever you want him to (as in the side-scrolling sections of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link), climb any mountain (provided that his paltry stamina wheel doesn’t run out), cook a stunning variety of dishes (you’re frequently rewarded for trying different combinations of ingredients), chop down trees, and more. You may even experience a sense of déjà vu while climbing yet another tower that, for the most part, isn’t that distinguishable from the last few you scaled in disparate parts of the game’s open world.įrom a standpoint of action, Breath of the Wild goes out of its way to step beyond every Legend of Zelda title before it. Indeed, after you’ve traveled back and forth enough times through a particular territory, you can become desensitized to the sight of the same three or four types of animals-especially if you aren’t in any need of hunting them for their health-replenishing meat. But there comes a point in this game where its pleasures begin to feel like the engine of its tedium. A bow that can mightily shoot arrows across long distances feels like a godsend after having to make do with one that couldn’t help you get past the first round of a basic sharpshooting competition. In Breath of the Wild, things appear to happen at random, so there’s pleasure in finding an item that makes your journey a less arduous one. If you sneak up on monsters guarding a road, you can sense a collegial expressiveness in their grunts, and you may wonder what malicious tales they might have told each other as they sealed shut the treasure chests that the game’s hero, Link, seeks to pry open. And throughout your adventures, you may stumble upon technologically advanced temples that walk, or tucked-away cities where citizens remark about the harshness of the landscape.
#ZELDA BREATH OF THE WILD CASE SWITCH WITH MORE STUFF SERIES#
The latest entry in the storied Legend of Zelda series invites players to gaze at and traverse natural wonders as diverse as dry grassy valleys and slippery mountainsides. The audiovisual beauty alone of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is liable to convince you that this is actually true. By overwhelming players with tons of stuff to do, see, and collect in a “free” zone, open-world video games speciously condition us to believe that more is better.
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