Coming up to maybe 2 weeks before the release of BOTW, I for some reason wasn't following it too much or all that hyped. I was basically just waiting for Yooka-Laylee, and then I was like "Ya know, That Zelda is coming out soon... I have a Wii U. I guess I'll pre-order it! That could kill some time.", and I'm glad I followed through on that random thought. Previously I had enjoyed the N64 & previous generations of Zelda, but I hardly remembered anything from Wind Waker, and even less from Twilight Princess, which I stopped playing at the final dungeon. I out-and-out have not touched Skyward Sword, although I did play through A Link Between Worlds. I got it a day before the official release in the mail, and have been playing in most of my free time since. It's rare that I find a game these days that can draw me in enough to while away my pathetic life, and knowing next to nothing about the game enhanced the experience a lot.
These days, as I mentioned, I find it hard to get absorbed in video games like I used to. Open World western RPGs are the only ones that tend to do it for me, such as the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series, but so few are made I have to remain lucid of the world too long in between each entry. Well, here comes BOTW and it draws me in like I wouldn't have expected. Overall, the experience isn't quite to the level of a Bethesda RPG, but it is close enough an exceeds it in certain fields. One big thing it does so right is the climbing and gliding. Ever since Morrowind changed the way I thought about games forever with it's levitation magic, no future entries have given you that much freedom. However, being able to climb anything and glide around gives BOTW a sense of verticality that is frankly unmatched, even by Morrowind. The natural world of BOTW is the best in gaming because of it's ability to me rise in altitude naturally, as you don't need a level path to climb high. Climbing a big mountain just to know what is up there is a pretty exhilarating experience. Where I think it falls behind is the options in the world. While the overall outworld is great, the lack of interior locations really brings it down. A big part about Elder Scrolls for me is finding random dungeons and caves, and BOTW hardly has any of this. You also have much less chance to find something unique and useful, as the powers are all off the bat and a new item is only useful for a short time until it breaks. The Compendium improves this a lot for me, as I love filling up arbitrary catalogues (why do you think I'm at this site?), but in the end it isn't as fulfilling as the possibility of better equipment. The shrines are the closest it comes, and they puzzles and reward are satisfying enough. If there is one thing I LOVE, it's the non-linear puzzle solving in them. There is always an A to B solution, but if you think outside the box, you can break them in logical ways and I love that. Metal weapons completing electric circuits, fire arrows for torch puzzles, Stasis to make a chump out of complex puzzles, it feels like the game isn't treating me like a trained rat and this is hands-down one of my favorite aspects of the game.
The overall combat and weapon systems aren't as annoying as I thought they'd be. My natural hoarder of course wants to get all the best items, and never use them because I might need them later. This Elixir-Syndrome as I call it is why I never use elixirs in Final Fantasy games, the rarity of the item making it useless because I am afraid to use it. I had to force myself to overcome this, and it's a much different experience to use all my best stuff and break it all the time. For the most part, after upgrading my inventory slots and gaining a better understanding of the world and combat, has led me back to some hoarding, but it still doesn't feel as obsessive. The combat is pretty good Zelda-style, and it is really refreshing to not have them hold your hand. In the early game getting one shotted all the time for being careless is interesting. Big enemies, when first encountered, are truly frightening. When I encountered just the broken Guardian and seemed like I couldn't hurt it at all while it one-shotted me from seemingly miles away really set a frightening tone. The same can be said of my first Lynel encounter. Now I know how to just make even the legged Guardians into chumps with a Boko-bow and tree-branch if need be (it'll just take 2 hours), and can counter every Lynel attack, but it was getting there that made it worthwhile. Yet if I mess up a silver club Lynel could STILL two shot me, or even one-shot me if I am really sloppy, even with like 15 hearts and good armor. Even the first time I fought a Wizzrobe I had to just run away, and that's not even a mini-boss type monster. The first legged guardian I beat was way early, and I had around like a chicken while strategizing and getting lucky to knock it on it's side and break 3 weapons on it's bottom to kill it. In comparison to just world enemies, the actual bosses are pushovers, which is a bit sad. That early game combat experimentation was still phenomenal, and the first time you hear the Guardian's theme is really terrifying.
The crafting and gathering is pretty ok. I wish there was as much variety in the effects of the food as there is different types of food. Link can prepare many 4-course dinners worth of meals, but in the end a spicy egg roll, pumpkin pie, spiced steak and greens with a nut milk pairing is not as good as just cooking a single durian. As much as it's funny that this version of Link is a foodie with no tolerance for anything but the freshest ingredients I wish making the complex recopies was worth it. As for the gathering, I enjoy it too much. I used to just talk to my Ex on Skype while idly gathering a bunch of ingredients in Skyrim, it's a whole new level here. I have run around for hours and hours just exploring to collect a lot of mushrooms I don't need at all. It has somewhat payed off for upgrading items at the great fairies, but I still have 100s of Hylian Shrooms and Restless Crickets I'll never use. I could sell them, but their price is tiny compared to easily farmed meat. Overall it's just relaxing to me to run around, search every cranny for lizards and find a lot of Koroks along the way (and I don't even have 1/5th of the 900...!) as I do.
As for flaws, there are some. I have traveled everywhere on foot because the horse controls are BEYOND awful. I was trying to do a horse challenge where I rode it through checkpoints in a time limit, and I tried so many times just to even hit the first few checkpoints. I get so frustrated I just gave up on horses forever. Another thing that rustles my jimmies is the rain's effect on climbing. All that praise I gave the world for it's verticality? Well, it washes away in the rain. You can't climb anything while it's raining, and it just kills the pacing. All you can do is wait it out, which is made harder by the fact you need to light a fire to pass time fast. The motion control shrines can sometimes be a huge pain in the ass, especially with the Wii U pad. A lot have cheats, but it's still a problem. The same can be said of some of the physics puzzles, especially when you need to bust your weapons just to attempt them. That's really all I can think of for now... there are a couple more I probably just can't remember.
Overall it's a pretty great game. I haven't beaten it yet, but I have put dozens of hours into exploring and messing around.
