The Legend Of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Hands-On

No game is more anticipated for the Nintendo Switch than The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I got to try it out. So far, it’s exactly what I’ve been hoping for.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild I ended up waiting an hour for this. It was worth it. This game was played using a JoyCon frame controller, on a TV. For transparencies sake, i was required to take off screen footage, incorporating the Switch Dock in the shot.

The version of Breath of the Wild I played did not have the capability to be played in portable mode, but I did see this accomplished. When the system is switched from portable to docked and vice versa, there is an almost seamless transition, punctuated only by a pause screen asking the player to confirm the controller they want to use for gameplay.

Speaking of Gameplay, I know this is somewhat of a generalised meme, but this really feels like an easily accessible dark souls. In combat anyway. There are a multitude of weapons within the game. Five minutes in, I had a tree branch, an axe, a torch, a club and a sword.

Each weapon, accordingly, plays with a different style and has different statistics. Same with armour. Changing weapon was as simple as pressing right on the DPad, and moving the right control stick to the weapon I wanted. The Dark Souls allusion comes from the fighting style. That series always seemed to have used Zelda bosses as a baseline for how combat should be fought.

Find opponent, lock on and engage, discover weak spot and utilise that to defeat them. Now Zelda has cribbed back with weapon switching and styles to engage the player fully. Using only the normal movement and jump buttons, Link is jumping and dancing around his opponents, moving out of weapon arcs, parrying (not just blocking) with a shield and trying to work out weapon timing. It’s great fun. While fighting a moblin, I found I had to approach things with more consideration as a result of the massive wind up on my axe. When I switched to a sword, I had a much shorter range, but struck faster. It was very pleasant to play, with the player constantly engaged in thinking about what worked, as opposed to simply swinging vertically/horizontally/spinning.

All in all, it spoke to something I noticed in that the mechanics of the game are like a buffet.

  • World physics left me able to chop trees and push boulders onto packs of enemies.
  • Really good climbing mechanics let me reach anywhere my stamina bar allowed.
  • Collecting food let me craft recipes, which the rep explained could offer resistance benefits and bonuses to strength.
  • In the opening moments of the game, Link activated a pedestal which caused gigantic towers to shoot into the sky across the world. These Ubisoft style way points allowed link to map the world around him.

 

The core of the buffet that is Breath of the Wild is still the joy of discovering a new place, uncovering the secrets and exploring. There’s just a whole lot more on the plate around it to improve the experience. It all works too, contextual buttons appearing on the screen to highlight options. Everything feels fluid and natural to control.

On the Switch, Breath of the Wild looked astounding. The colour palette wasn’t quite as bright as that of Wind Waker HD or Skyward Sword, but still kept a vibrant tone. The Voice acting on the mysterious voice that seems to be supporting Link was fairly emotive, and actually called the Player Character Link. This might suggest a lack of Player Names, and a more heavily incorporated narrative in place about Link himself.

There were hints of what this story might entail too. Confirmation came that Hyrule Castle itself was the only thing keeping Ganon (now going by Calamity Ganon) from destroying the entire world. There were also suggestions that Link should be aware of what’s going on, but can’t quite remember. As a hypothesis, I imagine we might be seeing some flashbacks or time travel to show what happened before Link was put into his Sheikah Sleeping Tank.

Twenty minutes of gameplay was not enough. I didn’t see enough story, didn’t get enough gear, didn’t get a chance to test the new sheikah slate tools that use the Switch features. I want more. March 3rd can’t come soon enough.