AI’ve logged maybe 3-4 hours in this so far (Wii U version) and I have been utterly blown away. There’s SO MUCH to look at and do, and yet you’re free to do whatever you want at your own pace. There’s none of the handholding that Nintendo has been notorious for in the last 20 years.
At the same time, it feels like none is needed because if you can conceive it, you can do it. Need to cross that gap? Chop down a tree and run along the trunk. Or just climb the nearby wall. Or climb something else and jump off and float over it. I knocked a bokoblin off of his horse and thought “I bet I could tame that.” So I whistled at it, fed it an apple, and climbed on. No horse tutorial. No drawn out race to teach you the basics. Just perfect horse controls and simple commands.
I was just as blown away by the shrine that gave link the ice block power. It said “you can make ice out of water” and set me free.
It honestly makes me feel like I’m a kid again (I just turned 35). When you’d chat with your buddies about “what if you could climb up the volcano? What if you could take the enemies’ weapons? What if you could set everything on fire?” No the creators thought of the same things and just said “ok” to all of it.
I have to work the next 3 nights and it’s killing me that I can’t put more time into this. I’ve been playing with my 8 year old son and I feel like our minds are on the same wavelength with everything.
It really does feel like I’m playing Ocarina again for the first time, in terms of sheer awe and a sense of discovery.
I spent the first few hours yesterday literally just fucking around and seeing if I can do something, then giggling hysterically when I figured out I could. The first weapon you find is a woodcutter’s axe, so I immediately went and tried to cut down trees. You can. Then you can go to work on the trunk and turn it into firewood. Then you can take the apples that fell out of the tree and eat them or fucking bake them in the fire you make with your new firewood to make them more nutritious.
If you come across a bokoblin camp, it’s your choice on how to handle it. Run in weapon swinging. Take out the look-out with arrows before he can sound his horn. Wait until they fall asleep at night and steal their weapons. Or just kill them in their sleep. Or, or, or…
It’s a sandbox in the grandest sense, but everything you can do (and you can basically do everything) has a complete purpose to it, and it feels great.
It also completely works that you’re finding new weapons and gear all the time. It’s a crazy and dangerous world, and finding new weapons and clothing makes you feel like you’re constantly adapting to it.
Day two and I’ve only just left the Great Plateau. I’ve probably spent at least an hour within a stone’s throw of the edge of the Plateau nearest the tower.
I encountered something neat, too. Not a spoiler, but I’ll hide the text anyway:
So if you’re like me, you noticed that enemies don’t respawn. I scoured pretty much all of the Great Plateau killing all the bokoblins, finding all the Koroks and doing pretty much anything and everything I could before moving on. After spending a couple of game days down below the Plateau, the sky very slowly started turning grey and little embers started slowly gathering in the air, despite there being no fires. The sky started swirling with red clouds and a cutscene started. When the game calendar hits a blood moon, Calamity Ganon’s power peaks and all dead enemies are resurrected.
Unfortunately, that cut scene happened for me when I called it an early night and rested until morning. It would have been bad-ass to experience it live.
I am lovingthis. It’s the first open world game that feels like a proper adventure. If The Witcher 3 felt like I was playing through an R-rated, cynical version of The Lord of the Rings, Breath of the Wild is more like enjoying the journey in The Hobbit.
AI still haven’t quite gotten the hang of cooking, but I never get tired of the pixelated “dubious food.” I found a badass bandana that makes Link look like Brett Michaels and helps with climbing, though, so things are looking up.
Still super early, still on the plateau. One last shrine to hit. Have’t tried cooking anything yet. But I blew a blue bokoblin off a cliff with a blue bomb. This early I feel pretty helpless, but also in total control. What an adventure this will be!
Revisited the opening shrine and just wandered inside, for no real reason. Link did a little clumsy stumble, and I was like “Yup, that’s me. THIS is the goofy guy that’s out to save the world (again).”
Yeah, AI is pretty damn creative; I was fighting a small horde of bokoblins, when two of them that were wielding large bats side stepped from the rgoup and flanked me, only to do a 360° spin attack taht had me bouncing right and left, and almost killed me.
Managed to kill some guardians; hacking their legs off to inmobilize them and chip away at their health, arrow shot to the eye to interrupt their beam attack, and then more close attacks; felt good, since heavens know how many times I’ve been sniped by these bastards from across an entire field.
Loved that storming an enemy camp during a lighthning storm played to my advantage, as lightning made short work of metal weapon wielding enemies.
The sense of accomplishment when I was able to figure out the spot of two memory linked photos was amazing.
Its an amazing game, and more impressive is how it still feels and plays like a Zelda game despite the changes.
I encountered a funny bug last night. I was frustrated at first, but after some distance it was hysterical.
I was in the ruins of a town in a marsh, and I came across one of those giant rock mini-bosses. They always have a lump of black ore on them that acts as a weak point, and this one was right in the middle of his damn back, which meant I had to climb him, drop down on the black ore and attack it that way. I did this for an hour, not getting anywhere because he’s tough as shit and I was using shitty weapons.
So he attacks three ways: throwing his rock arms at you, slamming his arms down, and falling forward and crushing you with his body. He hit me square on with that last one, and drove me into the ground. I glitched out and fell beneath the ground and drowned. I respawned under the ground again and drowned. I had to reload the last save, then kicked his ass with an eight-folded blade.
A few days ago I took on a nest of bobokins that were too strong for me (the brown variant). I managed a successful opening bomb blast, and they all funneled out of their skull cave. I pulled out my bow… and the SOBs parted down the middle, running to the sides and flanking me.
There’s voice acting, but it’s limited to mostly cutscenes. Otherwise it’s the usual Zelda idiosyncratic “Hmmm?” and “Ohhh” type sounds when you approach and NPC.
The score is orchestral, but it’s used sparingly. It’s very atmospheric and compliments the ambience sounds nicely. “Wild” is very much the leitmotif in everything.
The Gamestop manager I usually speak to said the AI ramps up the more enemies you kill. He said he killed EVERYTHING on the Plateau and when he jumped down everything was too powerful for him. True or did I misunderstand him about the difficulty level?
That’s interesting… I killed anything and everything on the Plateau, and the first Mobilin I faced down below fuckin’ creamed me.
I don’t think the AI ramps up. I think we’re just comfy with killing Bokoblins by the time we make the leap, and squaring off against a Moblin just takes us all by surprise. Once I got the hang of it, Moblins turned out to be not too big of a deal.
Club Nintendo is giving away a PDF of the first chapter of the strategy guide, and it says enemies do ramp up in skill and equipment as you progress; that whole red moon event that respawns enemies every few days also seems to make them stronger and better equipped.
There is a shrine were you need to avoid stepping on the flower patches that surround it in order to enter it; fail to do so several times and you will probably hear Link’s longest soundbit in the game.