Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch) Review

[Ian Sane]

Like Khush I noticed that the Central Best Buy in Surrey had copies so I reserved one and got it.  Actually it worked okay as I had business in Vancouver in the morning and stopping in Surrey on the way home wasn't too much of a detour.  So the weekend is saved!

So far so good though this game is kind of hard.  Having to constantly find new weapons and not getting hearts from defeated enemies are things I'm not used to in a Zelda game.  Not saying it's bad but it's something I have to get used to.

[Mop it up]

After playing the game some, I'm glad Neal had the guts to not hand out a 10 like candy. If it were me, I'd probably give the game an even lower score...!

[Circasurviver]

First off - I love you all. The comments made me laugh so far. I really stressed over this review because as much as I wanted to just salivate all over this totally rad game, I kept noticing little things that bugged me throughout the 50+ hours I've played so far. Breath of the Wild is incredible, but it's not flawless. Really though, for how big and complex it all is, it's amazing it works as well as it does.

Just a few questions: How does saving work?  Can you save the game whenever you want?  Also, how long are the dungeons? 

Auto-saves pretty regularly. You can save *almost* anywhere you want. Like, you can't save mid-boss battle and stuff like that.


Depends on how stuck you get in the dungeons. I had one I blazed through in under a half hour. Another had me flummoxed and it took me an hour or so. They're very straightforward and no nonsense, which I could see appealing to some people. Didn't really appeal to me as much as I'd like.

Great review for a great game.

[Mythtendo]

I am still early in the game (just got to Hateno Village), but not sure how it would take even close to 30 minutes for easy shrines. The easy ones took me less than 5 minutes to solve. The only one that has given me trouble

Overall I am loving the game, though I agree that inventory management sucks. With even strong weapons breaking eventually, I find myself reluctant to use certain items. I hate that you can only carry a very limited amount of weapons, and some are harder to find again. And cooking becomes less fun when you have to try and catch certain critters that are hard to find. I like the IDEA of cooking, but a lot of the good recipes require critters and I find it hard to find stupid things like frogs.

And the game is very hard lol, but luckily if you die you just backtrack a little since the game saves so often. And because I intentionally went on media blackout before launch, I didn't know about some things. This resulted in me dying in the first 5 minutes when I jumped off the cliff outside the Shrine of Resurrection and died LOL.

[Mythtendo]

I am still early in the game (just got to Hateno Village), but not sure how it would take even close to 30 minutes for easy shrines. The easy ones took me less than 5 minutes to solve. The only one that has given me trouble

Overall I am loving the game, though I agree that inventory management sucks. With even strong weapons breaking eventually, I find myself reluctant to use certain items. I hate that you can only carry a very limited amount of weapons, and some are harder to find again. And cooking becomes less fun when you have to try and catch certain critters that are hard to find. I like the IDEA of cooking, but a lot of the good recipes require critters and I find it hard to find stupid things like frogs.

And the game is very hard lol, but luckily if you die you just backtrack a little since the game saves so often. And because I intentionally went on media blackout before launch, I didn't know about some things. This resulted in me dying in the first 5 minutes when I jumped off the cliff outside the Shrine of Resurrection and died LOL.

LOL, forgot to add in the shrine that is giving me trouble, it's the Daka Tuss Shrine

[Kairon]

Great review! We all know a 9.5 from current-day Neal is equivalent to an 11 from any other reviewer. I'm hyped!

I came here to lambast Neal for not giving this a perfect score (I'm far from experiencing everything the game has to offer, but I'm still on the "ten! Ten! TEN!!!1!!" hype train) but this made me LOL because it really is true. <3 Neal.

[pokepal148]

Neal is just trying to sabatoge BOTW's Metacritic score with a 9.5. This is Mario Kart 8 all over again.

[Lemonade]

After speding a lot of time with the game, I agree with 9.5

[Kairon]

I'd just like to point out that a game doesn't have to be perfect to earn a 10 as per official NWR review policy.

[Shecky]

So the back of the Wii U box for this game lists the Wiimote + Nunchuk as a control option... I have been unsuccessful in figuring out how to use that.  Is that just a "typo"?

[KeyBilly]

Great review Neal.

I am curious about the amiibo, specifically the wolf link one. Was the wolf useful or is it a gimmick? Any thoghts on the uses of the other amiibo?

I have been using a lot of the Amiibo, and they surprisingly add a lot to the game.  Wolf Link is a fun companion that makes the game less lonely and actually helps in battle without helping too much.  He distracts enemies, so good for fighting groups.  The negative side is that he tends to make a lot of noise and rush ahead, and will quickly get himself killed with enemies that have projectiles.  Make sure not to use him when stealth is needed.

Oh, and Wolf Link will also sniff out nearby shrines once you get the little radar option for that.  It doesn't help much in the sense that you already have something telling you one is nearby, but it is fun to follow your dog friend as he sniffs.

As for the other Zelda Amiibo, I was afraid that they would be overpowered, but they don't really give you that much of an advantage.  Instead, they give you a regular supply of random ingredients, making cooking more fun.  There are also a lot of costumes from earlier games that are fun to slowly collect.  They don't have high stats or anything, but are fun to use.

My main annoyance now is a lack of inventory slots.  I need to figure out how to expand that.

[nickmitch]

There's been some discussion over the inventory slots over at the game's thread.  You should be able to find it without getting anything spoiled.  We've all been pretty careful over there.

[KeyBilly]

Cool, thanks.

[Order.RSS]

So the back of the Wii U box for this game lists the Wiimote + Nunchuk as a control option... I have been unsuccessful in figuring out how to use that.  Is that just a "typo"?

Yeah I think that might be an error? Fairly certain it only supports Gamepad and the Wii U Pro Controller!

[Stratos]

Have you checked the main menu for the game? It is easy to miss as it is so easy to use the freeze-state feature and play continuously. It has a few big options there like amiibo support and clean HUD toggle switches. If anything it would be there.

EDIT: Officially confirmed to not be supported, though they did say it was possible a future update could add it.

[Shecky]

Have you checked the main menu for the game? It is easy to miss as it is so easy to use the freeze-state feature and play continuously. It has a few big options there like amiibo support and clean HUD toggle switches. If anything it would be there.

EDIT: Officially confirmed to not be supported, though they did say it was possible a future update could add it.

Thanks for digging up that info.  Hopefully they will add some button mapping options as well in a future update.

Still odd that they would stick those options on the back cover when this was a Wii U game first... you'd think those forms of controls would be sorted out without a patch.

[Stratos]

It had to be a printing error with the cover designers. They probably were so used to adding Wiimote support on the back covers that they just kept it out of habit. Or the cover was made what it was still going to include that support and it was cut in the revision where they had to rewrite the story to account for the Switch version.