Take a Breath

While the rest of the Nintendo world is losing their collective mind over Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, I am just now getting into Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and I am loving it. Possibly a little too much.

When I first got my Switch, BotW was the game I saw recommended repeatedly. I would look through the game play descriptions, the mechanics, see things about the open world, and weapon durability and say… “nope.” The last two things were the biggest deterrent to me, because I kept thinking I was going to get lost in this world and just never have a clear enough objective which is pretty much always the thing that derails me by the time I hit year three in Stardew Valley. The weapon durability was also something I straight-up feared. As someone who is terrible at combat in video games, the idea of a weapon just falling apart on me without a moment’s notice felt like an invitation for perpetual failure.

Once I actually started playing the game, I encountered situations where those fears were realized, but it didn’t really seem to matter the way I thought it would. Part of that came down to learning how best to use my weapons. There was a point when I agonized over the fact I was going to have to drop something in order to add a more powerful tool to my inventory, but at some point I stopped worrying about it. The wandering an open world aspect of the game has also ceased to be a major issue to me at all.

I think I was worried the game would offer me so many options I would end up torn over what to do, but it turns out the variety of options is definitely a feature for my busy brain, and not a bug. Do I want to spend a bunch of time running through a desert and trying to locate a shrine? Or, maybe I don’t have hours of time to put into it, but I know that I could take 15 minutes and take on a short side quest or something simple, or maybe I just get on the back of a horse and let it take me down a road for a little while.

Most of the time, it feels like the only person rushing me towards an objective is me, it’s rarely ever the game. Sometimes it’s me feeling like I haven’t done “enough” for a little while, other times I’m just excited to see what’s going to happen next with the story.

The other night, I managed to make it a decent distance into the castle. I was almost giddy over it, because all I could keep thinking was “I’m definitely not supposed to be here right now!” but I had enough supplies, health, and endurance at that point that it didn’t feel like death awaited me around every corner. Even though it felt very risky, it was a satisfyingly thrilling risk. (I managed to take out several of the guardians in the process, which even a week before would have been unfathomable to me.)

I’m very close to conquering my third Divine Beast, something which has somehow felt easier with each one; I definitely didn’t expect that. I guess kudos to the game for making leveling up and working on skills organic enough so it’s not just that I’ve increased my health and endurance levels?

I came dangerously close to skipping this game entirely and just jumping in with TotK, all because I had a game voucher burning a hole in my pocket. What a mistake that would have been. Now I have something to look forward to, probably in a year or so. I get why everyone recommends it every time someone asks for “first game” suggestions on this platform. It has so much to offer, if you want puzzles, if you want a good story, and if you just want something interesting to look at. Seriously, the world itself is just great to inhabit. I’m already sort of picturing having some cabin fever next winter and maybe enjoying a nice horse ride through some fields. So many aspects of the game have exceeded my expectations in some surprising ways, I’m curious to see what more it has to offer since there’s still a lot of the story ahead for me.