They made the best commentary about Zelda that I've read (Destiny)

by cheapLEY , Tuesday, April 02, 2019, 13:15 (2063 days ago) @ kidtsunami

I think I've finally found the love for Breath of the Wild that everyone else had. It's my current obsession.

I always thought it was good, but I never understand why so many people said it's the best game of all time. I played it for like fifteen hours or so a few months after it came out, and I've played probably five since then, in little bursts here and there. It never sucked me in. I enjoyed it, but it felt lacking in substance in a lot of ways.

I still think that. I'd love to play a version of Breath of the Wild that has a world that feels as fully realized as The Witcher 3's. There's a serious lack of truly interesting stories.

I've been playing it a lot over the last few days (I put probably ten hours in over the weekend, starting over from a new save), and, having let go of my desire for more interesting characters and stories, I've started to really find a joy in just wondering around, with no goals beyond "get to the top of that mountain and see what's in the valley on the other side."

The scale of the world in that game still feels like magic to me. You can see for what feels like miles. The next hilltop always seems like it's incredibly close, but once you get in the valley between the two hills, it feels like that valley suddenly and magically expands to be huge. What looks like a small copse of trees from a hilltop becomes a quite large forest once you actually get there. It really does feel magical, and it's absolutely incredible.

I will always love The Witcher 3's world for it's attention to detail and it's sense of being a real place. I've never seen anything like it. The Breath of the Wild's world is on the other end of that spectrum, in that it feels impossible and magic. The use of sightlines in that game is like nothing I've ever seen before. No matter where you are, there's always some landmark visible, so you always know where you are. It must have taken a monumental effort to make that world feel like it does. I still wish there was more stuff to actually do in that world, stuff that felt important, rather than always simply moving rocks around to get another Korok seed, but that world itself is incredible enough that simply exploring it is an amazing experience that is its own reward.