CREDIT: NINTENDO
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild brings fans of the franchise a world vastly larger than any in the series thus far.

This may be a few months after the hype of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild made its debut on the Nintendo Switch and Wii U, but that doesn’t mean the impact of the game needs to die down.

I’m proud to admit that to me, Breath of the Wild is very addicting. Now I may be overexaggerating, or maybe not, but out of all the Legend of Zelda games Breath of the Wild by far is the most expansive, exploration oriented and lore filled one yet.

As the creators stated from the beginning, ‘you can literally climb any mountain from the very start of the game.’

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild takes place in a desolated land of Hyrule, where monsters roam about freely under the evil command of a monster known as Calamity Ganon. You awaken as, Link, an amnesiac who is told that he has been asleep for a hundred years and that it is his duty to fight against Calamity Ganon. Upon further exploration, you meet people who reveal Link’s past in further detail, who and what he did and just how his role to save Hyrule was determined a century ago.

Breath of the Wild is a massive game. In total, there are 15 regions to explore, and each are filled with lots and lots of plains, valleys, ruins, and mountains. Using your trusty hands and paraglider, you as Link get to explore the entirety of this land called Hyrule. Not only is this world large, but as you see within the game, it must have been meticulously planned out so that you can navigate the land and all its secrets without missing a detail. Mountain are purposely sloped gently in many places to make it accessible for climbing at any time and high level monsters can be defeated easily if you pick up a powerful weapon.

This beautifully rendered and meticulously planned environment, perhaps, plays the biggest role in gameplay.

The environmental hazards of snow, deserts, rain and lighting all play their role in hindering or assisting you when navigating Hyrule. Rain will cause rocks to become slippery, making it so climbing is nigh impossible. Lighting strikes at random places and if Link is wearing any equipment with metal you better believe lightening will be coming after you. All the aspects of weather create a more realistic effect on the adventure through the wilds of Hyrule.

And like so many of the Legend of Zelda games, the passage of day and night bring with it its own share of troubles for our hero. Not only do certain monsters appear only when darkness falls, but certain events are activated only at this time. The dreaded Blood Moon, a feature unique to Breath of the Wild, is the most horrid part of night for players. Appearing on random nights, the Blood Moon revives monsters once killed by you in the game, which practically makes half your efforts in clearing out monsters wasted. Avoid being in an enemy camp you have cleared out when that happens, because you will most likely be surrounded when all of them respawn once more.

Link is given a substantial past in Breath of the Wild, and in my opinion, this is what makes him more appealing as a character compared to his previous incarnations.

I’m not saying that he had no past in other games, on the contrary, he’s had quite a bit of background stories added to his character per game. I personally feel, however, that in Breath of the Wild the creators flushed out a story that gave Link more substance compared to the other Links. The fact that half the game is focused on Link recovering his lost memories really adds to his character growth. Not only does one get to see what brought Hyrule and Link’s journey to the point of his sleep for a hundred years, but players also get to know the interactions Link had with characters who are not alive anymore, whose actions clearly had an impact on the denizens of the present.

The lore of Hyrule flittering all across the land is substantial and revealing to the plot of the overall game as much of it talks of what transpired a hundred years ago, but also reveals how the actions all that time ago was influenced and shaped by events that happened long before then.

Overall, I would recommend any fan of the Legend of Zelda franchise, or any gamer who has a Switch or Wii U, to play Breath of the Wild just to explore and experience its breathtaking world