Exciting so far, except for one thing.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/hands-on-preview/44143/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild
I was fortunate enough to stop by Neal’s house the other day in order to get my hands on the Nintendo Switch and its most anticipated launch title, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Finally getting to spend some time in this massive world was thrilling.
Most of our readers have probably already seen the trailers and E3 footage of the opening moments of the game, and that is what I mostly got to experience in my three hours with the title. I didn’t leave the starting area, but I managed to encounter many things and uncover several secrets just in that first zone. Some of these secrets Neal, someone who has put substantially more time into the game than I have, didn’t even uncover yet for himself. Neal also mentioned to me how I completed some of the same challenges and puzzles he had done in different ways.
It’s a somewhat well known fact that Shigeru Miyamoto, Zelda’s creator, designed the original Zelda on NES in a fashion that would get players talking about the game in order to share secrets with one another. That was, however, in an era before the Internet was readily accessible to most people. I feel as though that the communal discussion is a part of Zelda that has been lost thanks to easily obtainable guides online. The fact that the world in Breath of the Wild is so vast, and seems so much more free than previous Zelda titles, will probably lend itself to similar discussions that Miyamoto and the original Zelda team shot for from players. Yes, guides will still exist, but there appears to be a lot more to try on your own before really getting stuck in this game since it is way more open ended. I’m very interested to see how this plays out over the next several weeks.
Another observation I had during my gameplay session is that Breath of the Wild can be quite challenging. Enemies exist early on that will totally wreck you if you try to mess with them. This reminded me a lot of the original Zelda since it’s possible to get past them, but if you don’t have the right items and gear, you are in for one heck of a challenge.
I enjoyed my time with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, however, one thing about the controls really bothered me. The B button is mapped to run, while the player has to use the X button to jump. This meant that if I wanted to do a running jump, I had to do some crazy finger gymnastics. Neal referred to my technique as “The Claw” as I’d use my thumb to hold down the run button (B) while using the side of my index finger to hit jump (X).
An option to change the controls exists, but all it does is swap the run and jump buttons. So “The Claw” will still be necessary if players want to run and jump. I really hope Nintendo quickly patches Breath of the Wild to allow users to run by clicking in the left control stick instead. The left control stick currently toggles Link’s ability to crouch and I feel that this is a button that could easily be mapped to B instead. Not being able to easily perform a running jump became a rather frustrating part of the experience even though I never found myself in a position where the technique was necessary.
Control problems aside, I still had a blast playing Breath of the Wild. The world appears to be filled with so many places to find, secrets to discover, and enemies to defeat. And the fun doesn’t end there since there are multiple ways to solve some puzzles and interact with the environment. Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a different type of Zelda game and it’s one I’m excited to continue exploring. Just please Nintendo, patch those controls!
Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Read 2021 times)
