The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild – takes your breath away

GameCentral gives its verdict on the first five hours of the Nintendo Switch’s biggest launch game.

CLICK HERE FOR OUR PREVIEW OF THE NINTENDO SWITCH HARDWARE

Before we got our own Switch console we’d already played Breath Of The Wild twice before, once on the Wii U and once on the Switch. It was the same demo both times: the first 20 minutes of the game, that allowed us to try out the basic controls, explore a bit of the countryside, and dip our toe into the first dungeon-like shrine. It all seemed very promising, but there’s not much you could draw from such a short time on such a large game. But now we’ve played it for five hours…



Actually, we’ve already played it for much more than five hours, but it’s only those first 300 minutes we’re allowed to talk about today – a full review will follow next week. That means we’ve had to play that same intro three times now, but what we didn’t appreciate before is just how short the introduction is and how quickly Link is thrown out into the game’s gigantic open world. Nintendo has talked about how they went back to the very first NES game for inspiration, which sounds like hyperbole given the technology gulf between 1986 and now. But actually, the comparisons are entirely valid.


One of the major complaints about Skyward Sword, the last 3D Zelda, is that it spent far too long in its preamble and was obsessed with tutorials and reminders about every little gameplay or control quirk. In Breath Of The Wild though you wake up from some sort of induced slumber, and after a brief chat with a mysterious old man that’s it. It’s strongly suggested you go and activate a nearby tower, but if you want to wander off and just explore you can do it from the very first instant. The game won’t stop you, and nor will it cajole you into following its preferred route.

Getting to the top of the first tower is probably a good idea though, as it activates others across the world, allowing you to use what are essentially binoculars to view the world and plan your next move. We’ve heard so much about games with huge open worlds over the years that we’ve become inured to the concept, and in truth we don’t how Breath Of The Wild compares to Just Cause 3 or whatever game is currently the biggest. What we do know is that Breath Of The Wild appears almost endless, and yet filled with so much detail it seems almost impossible that Nintendo could have found the time to add it all in.

That thought permeates throughout the whole game, as it becomes clear just how different Breath Of The Wild is from other Zelda titles. Not only is it almost entirely non-linear but it’s one step away from being a straight survival game. You can’t die of starvation, but there are no magic hearts to heal you. Instead you have to collect food and eat, or preferably cook, it to regain health. (Hunting animals is an option but playing as a vegetarian is also entirely possible.)



There’s a whole complex crafting system where different food gives different bonuses, from extra stamina to improved stealth. Plus, you have the ability to mix the body parts of monsters (mostly horns and claws, but also the occasional beating heart) to create elixirs that only give a stat boost.

And these are not optional extras, because one of the other main ways in which this reminds us of the very first Zelda is that it is surprisingly hard. In many of the more recent games we barely ever saw the game over screen, but here it’s a constant companion. It’s not quite at Dark Souls levels, but Breath Of The Wild is a game that will test even the most experienced gamer. Although it avoids frustration thanks to an excellent autosave that always seems to put you back in just the right place.

The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild – this giant is smarter than he looks

The survival aspect continues in terms of the clothes you wear. Link wakes up in only a pair of boxer shorts, and the clothes he later acquires have not only a defensive rating but also offer protection against the elements. Upon activating the first tower it’s suggested you visit the four shrines in the area, in order to collect their treasures, but one of them is covered in snow and if you try to trudge through it in your ‘well-worn trousers’ you’ll quickly freeze to death. We never found any cold weather clothes though, and so we had to resort to specialised cookery in order to survive.


All of this means that Link is dressed in whatever you can find, and we’ve seen no sign yet of his traditional tunics or silly hat. One area of the game that is more similar to the originals though, is the combat – which still uses the Z-targeting system from Ocarina Of Time. There’s only one button for melee combat, one for your shield, and another for jumping and dodging, but the use of 3D space is nicely tactical and the camera does a great job of framing the action.

Enemy artificial intelligence is also very impressive, as groups try to mob you or run back to claim dropped weapons. One fight with a giant in a forest saw a tree get knocked down with an errant bomb blast, at which point the monster decided to pick up the fallen trunk and start using it as a cudgel.

And then there’s your weapons. They are many and varied, with no sign of the Master Sword in the first five hours, but they last only a short amount of time before they break and become useless. This is true of shields and bows as well, and you must learn to carry multiple replacements and choose carefully when to use your most powerful equipment. In the past, we’ve always corrected people when they try to describe Zelda as a role-playing game but with its numbered stats for equipment and complex crafting system Breath Of The Wild definitely blurs the lines.


Although the game is impressively non-linear from the start you’d have to be pretty perverse not to do as the old man at the start suggests and visit the nearby shrines (especially as he promises to give you his paraglider if you do). Shrines are a new idea and are essentially mini-dungeons of two or three rooms. There are over 100 in the game and each seems to provide a Spirit Orb for completing it, which are used to increase either your maximum health or stamina.

They also contain at least one optional, harder-to-reach treasure chest, while the first four have a special item each, such as bombs, a magnet, and the ability to freeze objects in time. How many traditional dungeons there are, or exactly what form they take, Nintendo won’t say. The rumours suggest a fairly small number, which given the number of shrines is fine, but you don’t reach one in the first five hours so we can’t really comment.

The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild – don’t take any fight for granted

These are the big takeaways from the game’s opening hours, but as impressive as the scale and rejection of formula is, it’s the little details that really stick in our minds. For example, when it starts raining it becomes much more difficult to climb because it’s slippery, while campfires go out because of the rainfall. You can judge which way the wind is blowing from the grass, and if you have an Octo Balloon (from killing an Octorock) you can tie a bomb to it and have it float towards higher up enemies – and use a Korok Leaf to waft it on its way.

Having just completed it, we couldn’t help but think of Horizon Zero Dawn while playing Breath Of The Wild, and how simplistic it now seems compared to Zelda. You also have a bow in Breath Of The Wild, but you have to account for how arrows arc through the air, rather than it just acting like a low-tech sniper rifle. Boomerangs have to be caught manually on their return and the best way to defeat the skeletons that appear at night is to chop off their head and punt it into a river, like a goalkeeper trying to make a clearance.

This is just the first five hours, and we still haven’t even mentioned the stealth (there’s an onscreen indicator to show how much sound you’re making) or the horse-riding where you have to catch horses yourself and tame them (by praising them when they do what you tell them). You can have five horses at a time that you keep in a stable, and each has their own unique stats and can be individually named.

You always expect a Zelda game to be good, but the attention to detail and willingness to innovate in Breath Of The Wild is well beyond our expectations. We wouldn’t suggest that any of this necessarily has anything to do with the Switch though, as the game was originally designed for the Wii U. As such the graphics are certainly not a match for the likes of Horizon, with often very simple geometry and textures. The frame rate sometimes becomes a little syrupy too, and there’s obvious object pop-in if you look for it.

The scale and interactivity of the game world more than compensates for this though; as does the art design, which is able to effectively blend realistic-looking characters together with those that debuted in more stylised games like The Wind Waker (we won’t spoil the first cameo). We’re still upset we can’t rename Link to our own name, but the limited amount of voice-acting is fine, with most minor characters still only talking via text. Although the way this repeats if you talk to them a second time seems old-fashioned in a way the rest of the game is not.

We’re doing our best to find faults here but the truth is we’re hugely impressed. We already know some things we can’t talk about here, and other secrets that have been hinted to us by Nintendo. At this stage we’d shocked if this didn’t turn out to be the best Zelda since Ocarina Of Time. It may even surpass it, and since many still regard that as the best video game ever made it becomes almost impossible to overstate just how good Breath Of The Wild is.

CLICK HERE FOR OUR PREVIEW OF THE NINTENDO SWITCH HARDWARE

Formats: Switch (previewed) and Wii U

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Nintendo EPD

Release Date: 3rd March 2017

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