The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Initial Impressions

A lot of the initial praise for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild stemmed from the expansive nature of the world around Link, with the promise of being able to reach every landmark seen in the distance from atop large heights. This is certainly no exaggeration, as even in the first few hours of play almost every nook and cranny had been ventured to and explored in the hope of uncovering the deepest, darkest secrets within, digging out as many treasure chests and early dungeon trials as possible.

Weeds, herbs, creepy-crawlies, frogs, fish, and all manner of other weird and wonderful items lying around after slashing through trees, grass, and so on, had been collected to find out their purpose, be it simply regaining small bits of health, or cooking them in various combinations to create delicious meals that add numerous different status upgrades to Link. Trees had been chopped down (or even blown up!) just for kicks because it is so enjoyable to roam around, killing time and destroying as much of the surroundings as possible, and boulders had been pushed and rolled about to squash enemies, simply because it saves the hassle of hand-to-hand combat at times. There is much to enjoy from traversing the land, rather than just merely focusing on the core objectives; and even the objectives themselves can be done in different orders, for those that prefer freedom.

Despite being a hero of time, Link has never been deemed a 'superhero' but in Breath of the Wild he becomes almost like Spider-Man, with the ability to climb any structure - even seemingly flat walls! Run at something you want to scale, and maybe get Link to do a little jump before making contact, for good measure, and up and off he goes, like a professional, scaling even the steepest of structures. As long as his stamina bar (also used when dashing or swimming) has some juice left in it, watch the courageous (or foolhardy?) chap get down to business, opening up areas that would have been simply impossible to access in other similar games. This latest Zelda outing has all the vastness of the Xenoblade titles (handy warp points alleviate lengthy treks - never fear!), but without the constant mini-missions to slow things down. The cooking side for creation potions/elixirs - rather than shopping for them - may not be everyone's cup of tea, but once new abilities are learned, gathering the required ingredients becomes far quicker and easier to do, and, thus, makes the trial-and-error process of cooking at campfires not as frustrating as at the very beginning.