I’ll admit, my experience with the Zelda series has been a tad of a rocky one. My first experience of it was through the rather… interesting gameplay experience of The Phantom Hourglass. Or as young Caitlin remembers it, the utter anarchy that was The Temple of The Ocean King in the days where I didn’t realise, I could look up a walkthrough instead of just smashing my head against my DS for hours on end. To this day I still haven’t finished that game. Though I am a pro at the multiplayer minigame, where you chase your friend around as a series of phantoms (yes, this is how we spent our bus journeys on school trips).
A little while later, I tried Spirit Tracks and was immediately furious because WHY AM I ON A TRAIN NINTENDO THIS MAKES NO SENSE. Thankfully, my next two games were the 3DS remasters of Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask so I finally got to experience what everyone was on about when they raved about the Zelda franchise. I was then quite excited when they announced BOTW because it’d be the first Zelda game that I got to experience alongside the rest of the world, rather than having my playthroughs tainted by my friend’s opinions.
So, I saved up money from my job and spare bits from my maintenance loan (#Student Life) to buy a Nintendo Switch with Breath of The Wild. My mum described my face as I turned it on for the first time as a “child in a sweet shop with pocket money to spend”. Anytime I get to experience a new piece of technology that fascinates me, I revert to my five-year-old self. It’s apparently quite funny to watch (according to my family). During our nine-hour car ride up to visit our family in Edinburgh, I sat on my Switch and booted up the game, excited to lose myself in it as the countryside whipped past my window.
I’m going to talk about a few mechanics that I really enjoyed, as well as the atmosphere and vibe that the game gave me but I’m not going to spoil any of the storyline. Obviously, a few familiar locations crop up as this is Nintendo and they’re the kings of recycling content (*cough* Mario *cough*) but anything you haven’t heard of before won’t be mentioned because there are always a few people who haven’t had the chance to experience it yet because consoles are expensive dammit.
Most people talk about the grand unveiling of the land in the tutorial, where Link steps out and stares out at the expansive wilderness. As beautiful as that is, something that caught my attention throughout the game was the voice acting. For those who don’t know, I do voice acting on the side as a hobby – helping with fan projects and contributing my voice where I can. So, to play an entry in a game series that has never really been touched by the voice acting community (no Link’s screams do not count), where the first thing you hear is a desperate call for you to rise and face your destiny, is phenomenal for someone like me. I can’t help but appreciate the nuance of each of the VA’s performances, the range of emotion and wisdom you can hear, as well as the personal touches each of them brings to the game.
Like voice acting, the soundtrack can make or break your experience of a game. I know I say this a lot but considering it’s all you hear for however long the campaign is, never mind any additional content, it needs to be good. I can confidently say that like many of the entries in the series, the music does not disappoint. From original compositions to twists on fan favourites, this game has a sound for everything. I can’t think of a single point where I deliberately turned off the music because I didn’t want to listen to it. When the endless stream of videos online that show off the music has over a million views a piece, you have done something right (or horribly wrong if you didn’t intend it)
Every Zelda game has a “signature mechanic” – be that the Temple of The Ocean King, Rewinding Time or Kinstone merging. Breath of The Wild, though drastically different from many instalments in the franchise, does have a signature mechanic in the form of the Sheikah Slate. This magical I-Pad wannabe is one of the only things that DOESN’T BREAK. You can view your map on it, mark key locations, track your various quests and make use of the runes aka let’s kill everything with SCIENCE. One thing I will point out though is why on earth we are dropping what looks like some kind of magical water on this clearly advanced mechanical creation, I know Link can get rice but I doubt Ganon is going to sit and wait whilst you dry it out.
The runes available to you (after the tutorial) and their uses are:
- Remote Bomb (Round) – When in doubt, blow it up with a bomb. Explosions are your friend, if you aren’t standing right next to it. The round ones can roll downhill and ruin the dinner of the enemies below you.
- Remote Bomb (Cube) – Also good for blowing things up but doesn’t roll, making them better for when you’re being chased and can drop them behind you. Try not to mix the two of them up, I’ve blown myself off a mountain by accident far more times that I wish to confess.
- Magnesis – Allows you to pick up and manipulate magnetic objects, mainly used for solving puzzles. Or if you’re my friend, picking up a metal block and using it to whack every enemy in his radius like a magic wrecking ball.
- Stasis – Using this, you can temporarily stop time of a specific object e.g. that giant boulder that’s about to crush you. Sadly, you can’t slow down time and have Link do his best Neo impersonation, but if you hit a stopped object enough, when time resumes it will fly off and probably ruin some architecture.
- Cryonis – Channel your inner Katara and bend the water into ice blocks that you can use to cross rivers, act as barriers against jerks throwing projectiles and raise treasure chests out of the water like the all powerful being that Link wishes he could be.
There’s also a camera if you want Link to become Instagram famous. It’d probably be the closest Link would get to talking and communicating with those around him.
Breath of The Wild is a vast, open-world experience. Once you’ve completed the tutorial, you can do anything and go anywhere you like – though I don’t recommend it. Want to climb a mountain in your underwear? Go for it. Have an urge to hit Ganon in the face with a mop? Try it. This game is one that rewards you for exploration and trying things, there is no defined way to do anything. If you meet the base objectives, it doesn’t care how you get there. Much like Skyrim, you are thrown into this massive expanse of a world and just left to it. Now that can seem scary to a lot of people because it can get overwhelming but the sense of freedom the game provides you with is a real breath of fresh air for the series, considering the NPC, problem, dungeon, reward cycle can get old very quickly.
If cooking in real life was as simple as cooking in Breath of The Wild, my student diet wouldn’t mostly consist of cereal, pasta and grapes. All you must do, is throw some ingredients into a cooking pot (available at most stables and in various towns/villages) and listen to the happy music until your meal is ready. Obviously, there is some finesse to it, as different combinations of ingredients will have different effects and rarer ingredients/recipes will have a stronger impact but the system for all of them is the same. Just don’t mix monster bits and regular food, keep the normal ingredients for meals and the monster bits for elixirs. Plus, some side quests require you to cook specific meals so it’s a nice respite from the various combat encounters you face on your adventure.
If you’ve never experienced a Legend of Zelda game before or are just unsure about whether you’d enjoy it compared with the other entries in the series, give it a shot if you can. Even after completing the main story, I went back and travelled around the world on my horse, completing side quests, battling monsters and hunting down every shrine in the game because those missing heart containers were taunting me. It’s also a very good entry point for newcomers as there’s no real reliance on prior knowledge. After exposition grandad explains what tragedy befell the world whilst you were in your weird waterbed, whether you unlock the backstory is up to you. If you want to learn the truth and search for hidden lore, it’s there for you. If you want to run around burning everything to the ground like some demented pyromaniac, go for it. Just don’t blame me if you catch alight.
What game would you like me to cover next? Leave your suggestion in the comments! If you enjoy my articles, hit that follow button and go follow my twitter @OurMindGames to keep up to date with my various antics. I often do polls on there to determine future content so don’t miss out on having your say!
Until next week,
CaitlinRC
Ooh, I would love to see an article about Alien: Isolation (what with Ian and Aoife finally doing the let’s play I’ve been waiting for ever since the LTTP).
can confirm i am a giant coward and have never played it myself but ive watched far too many letsplays so i think thats be a great idea 😀
Same here. Interested to see your take. Glad to hear you think it’s a great idea!