BOTW ZELDA FULL

Sure, beating bosses would reward me with powers and story information, but I could live without either of those things. I didn’t feel much incentive to mess with them the entire game’s map was available regardless, and I could spend countless hours unpacking its mysteries. And though I made my way through a some of the Divine Beast temples, I noped out at the boss fights. I’d try to sneak past enemies, but I’d panic when groups of them ran toward me, and fast travel somewhere else just to get out of fights. I kept expecting the game to get easier - and yes, exploration got easier as I grew my stamina wheel - but even with more hearts, combat continued to be difficult, verging on inscrutable. I stopped talking to strangers on footpaths because I kept running into the Yiga Clan. But even as I became hopelessly sucked into the game, I still only really fought enemies when it was required, and even then, I sometimes simply gave up. I scaled mountains, leapt off ledges, and found hidden passageways. This is when Breath of the Wild clicked a bit more for me, becoming the kind of adventure that I could easily dump hundreds of hours into. Thankfully, I powered through those first few hours, collected my paraglider, left the Great Plateau, and made my way into the game’s massive open world. Every time I got comfortable with the weapon I was using, I’d suddenly have to find a new one. It felt like I was running nowhere, fighting random creatures with sticks that kept breaking. Nightfall was even worse, bringing with it skeletal enemies, some of whom put themselves back together after I had scattered their bones to the breeze. When I confronted them, my weapons broke, and I was hesitant to use my bow and burn through the five arrows I ever managed to keep on hand. I would run across a field only to encounter Chuchus or an encampment of Bokoblins.

BOTW ZELDA FULL

It felt like I was running nowhere, fighting random creatures with sticks that kept breakingĪfter the years I spent acting like a scummy rat in the bowels of various fantasy cities, Breath of the Wild felt vast and empty, and yet full of random and unexpected threats. In Divinity: Original Sin 2, I play as two characters, one classed as a ranger and the other as a rogue. I loot, pilfer, let Atronachs do my dirty work, and then I sell the stolen goods for profit. In Skyrim, I max out sneak, pickpocket, archery, and conjuration. I choose thief or ranger classes - ones that let me backstab and steal, or shoot from a safe vantage point. I was actually intimidated, unable to use the same strategies I’d historically relied on when playing open-world games, because I’d historically mostly played RPGs: I typically avoid head-on combat, preferring to rely on stealth traits instead.

The game was also, evidently, accessible to newcomers - a statement that foolishly made me think it would be easy. I initially delayed playing Breath of the Wild until 2018, saving it for a 14-hour flight to see family in Taiwan - at which point it had been declared 2017’s game of the year at numerous outlets, including Polygon. But the truer culprit might be the hours I spent with Elden Ring last year, and how that game completely changed my outlook on open-world games with fearsome enemies. My newfound confidence is at least partially thanks to Link’s new skills, particularly Fuse, which lets me combine items and weapons, like adding bomb flowers to arrows or sticking elemental crystals onto swords. It’s a completely different approach from the way I played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a play style so different it initially surprised me.

I’ve spent the majority of my 50 hours plowing through the Depths and taking out the Yiga Clan, tearing through Bokoblin camps as I explore the game’s overworld, and refusing to shy away from any Frox or Flux Construct I find. I didn’t expect to get sucked into The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom so quickly.

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