That final boss was fucking terribad. Jesus for such an amazing game to stumble at the very last moment.
Remember how good Twilight Princess', hell even Skyward Sword's final encounters were? What if this Ganon had shrunk down to a dense, mechanical version of Demise? Or if they had even given Ganon just a bit more in the attack department. I didn't feel in danger at all during that last encounter because all he has is an extremely slow beam.
Scourge of Hyrule Castle is pretty good though. If it had just been that encounter I might have been pleased--although his shield was total garbage to suddenly prevent all damage unless you were dodging perfectly in a game that didn't really bother to encourage or require it before hand.
Having just finished it, this is an opinion I don't really understand. The first form was incredible. The second form, while easy, I really enjoyed the spectacle of it. Even though it wasn't the most challenging thing, it was fun, with the challenge really coming in the first form. The second form was more like flair and it worked really well in my opinion.
Overall, I can still say that this is easily my favorite game of all time, and of course favorite Zelda game.
This is the Zelda game I have always wanted. Over the years, I still enjoyed the series, but it was slowly becoming bogged down with elements that were dragging it down. Handholding and linear maps being the biggest ones. Skyward Sword, while still a good game, was when this stuff reached a critical mass. Fi, and the maps feeling disconnected and like corridors (with some exceptions) were it's biggest issues.
Breath of the Wild took all of this and shed it, and kept the good aspects Zelda has built up over the years. The type of Zelda I have always wanted, was basically a Zelda 1 in 3D. BotW accomplished that, and far exceeded the hype. It's been stated many times, but this game took many risks and changed the conventions of Zelda, just like the developers stated. While many of the conventions of more recent 3D Zelda were gone, there were MANY from Zelda 1 back in.
The new conventions were also excellent as well. Most of the puzzles in previous games, while intuitive and logical, generally only had one way to solve them. Breath of the Wild presents many ways to tackle a problem. The shrines are some of the examples. There was the one where you had to roll the ball through the maze, and as an alternative solution, you could just flip the maze over and bounce it to the goal that way!
You can do the game in whatever order you want, or just go straight for the end (good luck with that). And no matter what stage you take on areas, they always have a challenge to them.
The game really takes open world to a whole new level. In many open world games, they will have cliffs they don't want you climbing over, or areas they don't want you to go in for whatever reason. BotW only has one such area, and that's that mountain north of Gerudo Desert (I forget what it's called). Seeing the sprawling landscape really changes how you play the game. Getting from point A to point B is not just walking along. Maybe you're gliding, riding your horse, or you're just walking and get distracted and go to something else (which will happen a lot).
Probably one of the most frequent debates I hear about Zelda games is story vs gameplay. Some people want more story-focused Zelda, some want more gameplay-focused Zelda. I'm personally on the gameplay side, but I want the story told more subtly. BotW did that particularly well. The story sequences are light, but definitely there, and go even deeper if you are wanting to see it, especially with the memories. The memories give you background to Link and Zelda, but they're completely optional. You don't have to sit through any lengthy exposition. You don't have to wait 30 minutes just to get a sword at the start, you get one within 5.
Many of the areas were really cool. The Lost Woods was incredible, with it's chilling atmosphere and yet having a method of navigating it. Getting the Master Sword was a nice throwback to Zelda 1's White Sword, being based on how many hearts you have.
Exploration in this game was much more satisfying than it's ever been in a Zelda game, or hell any game for that matter. Often times in other games, you would "climb" death mountain, and it didn't really feel like a climb, you were just walking up a path. In BotW, you actually climbed that mountain, and barely made it with your stamina.
I absolutely love the weapon system and variety it presents. Weapon degredation has never bothered me in games for the most part, and I thought BotW's implementation of it was particularly good, since you see weapons all the time, and you have to experiment and try different weapons. You get to expand your inventory, and of course if you buy the house, you can save up to three items of each category with the displays.
The game is also full of the "Holy shit you can actually do that?!" moments, which are always incredible. I just learned the other day that if you stun a Lynel, you can mount it and hit it that way. Last night I managed to mount the Lord of the Mountain, and rode it to the stable to try to register it, but was denied sadly. All the antics in the dunkey video were incredible, with how they all actually worked.
Eventide Island deserves discussion on it's own just because of how well it was executed. You were expecting to maybe just find treasure on this island, or a shrine or two perhaps, but you get there and are in for a surprise. The Links Awakening/stranded on an island nature to it was amazing, given the game's capacity for many ways to solve a problem. Discussing my experiences with people on that island, I didn't know you could climb onto the Hinox and steal stuff off of his necklace.
I could sit here and talk all night about how genius this game is. Nintendo really nailed this one, and all it's high praise reviews are deserved. It's easily become my favorite game of all time now, and definitely exceeded the hype I had for it. I like this direction Zelda is taking, and while I realize they won't recycle all the same ideas from BotW for the next Zelda, I'm sure they will definitely take core concepts from it and reuse them.
When A Link Between Worlds came out, I really enjoyed that game, and loved the freedom in it. It gave me a good feeling about what would we would come to know as Breath of the Wild. Turns out, I was right, they were headed in the direction I thought they were, and wanted them to go.
