The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I've just finished Breath of the Wild, and it's time to post my thoughts.

General Remarks

Obviously, Nintendo paid close attention to the people who complained that the Zelda series was getting too formulaic, because they have thrown the formula out the window.

Three mystical doodads to collect to unlock the Master Sword? Gone.

Pieces of Heart? Gone.

Key items obtained one at a time in dungeons? Gone.

Dungeons as we know them? Gone.

Rupees under every imaginable object? Gone.

In a move most uncharacteristic of Nintendo, they allowed modern game design trends to influence one of their flagship series. This is Zelda by way of Skyrim (and possibly the Ubisoft open-world games. I haven't played any of those, so I'm not in a position to make an informed judgement.). You're let loose in a vast country with nothing more than a polite suggestion that you might want to head in one particular direction.

This is a game of epic vistas.

And this game is vast. The world map is two-thirds larger than Skyrim. Unlike Skyrim, it is also aggressively vertical. Mountain climbing is a major mechanic, and you will be thrilled to complete the armor set that boosts your climb speed. Getting down is much easier thanks to the inclusion of the paraglider, an iteration on the sailcloth from Skyward Sword. Also returning from Skyward Sword is the stamina meter, which is now upgradable and drains when you do things like sprinting or climbing. My only gripe with the new stamina meter is that if you drain it completely, you can't use stamina again until it completely refills. The issue is that upgrading the meter causes it to take longer to refill, thereby increasing the penalty for using it completely. It would have been better to only penalize you until the meter refilled to its original length.

Non-linearity

Skyrim may have an open world, but its story is still essentially linear. In order to defeat Alduin, you will accomplish a set list of goals in a set order. You're free to do whatever you want between those things, but the list is nearly identical for every player. Not so with Breath of the Wild.

There are exactly two things that Link is required to do in this game.

1. Complete the tutorial area, activating the Sheikah Tower and obtaining four Spirit Orbs to receive the paraglider and leave the Great Plateau (an area roughly the size of Ocarina of Time's entire map).
2. Destroy Ganon.

The music that plays at a Sheikah Tower is amazing; both haunting and wistful.

Everything else is optional, including the dungeons and the Master Sword. This has obvious consequences for the game's story. The initial post-tutorial quest is to travel to Kakariko Village (which is much more Japanese than usual) to learn about the dungeon locations from Impa. There are four self-contained story segments revolving around each of the game's dungeons, each of which revolves around one of the games non-human races (Gorons, Zora, Rito, and Gerudo) and that race's champion, a successor to the champion who died 100 years ago. I expect that most players will deal with the Zora first, since they are the closest to Kakariko Village, but the Rito may actually be a better bet, since you can buy cold-resistant armor and acquire Revali's Gale, an extremely useful ability. Apart from the dungeons, you can also track down the Master Sword and complete a flashback quest, which is the real meat of the story.

The flashbacks detail Link and Zelda's adventure 100 years before the events of the main game take place. They go on a quest to awaken Zelda's power to seal Ganon, and they fail miserably. Ganon awakens, hacks the robotic Guardians and Divine Beasts, kills King Rhoam and the champions, and mortally wounds Link, who is taken to the Shrine of Resurrection while Zelda, her power finally awakened when she needed it to protect Link, heads to Hyrule Castle to contain Ganon.

Your home for the past century. Cozy!

This serves to give some personality to Zelda and, amazingly, to Link as well. Zelda is incredibly envious of Link. He can wield the Master Sword and is obviously the prophesied hero, the chosen one that Zelda apparently is not. After Link saves her from an attack by the Yiga (evil Sheikah who worship Ganon for no adequately explained reason), she softens up and starts treating him better.

Well, excuuuuse me, Princess!

Link is the usual silent protagonist, but here it is clear that he isn't mute: he is deliberately holding his tongue, initially because he has the thankless task of protecting someone who can't stand the sight of him, but later to serve as a good example for his companions.

This sentence may have given Link more character development than every previous Zelda game combined.

The fact that the different facets of the story don't interact in any significant way is an inevitable consequence of the game's radically non-linear design. The game cannot assume that the player has done Event A before Event B at any point except the very end. Even then, it's necessary for Zelda to hand you the Bow of Light during the final boss battle, even though it's not particularly special in gameplay terms, simply because there's no guarantee that you have a bow in your possession!

Dungeons

The four dungeons in Breath of the Wild are the four Divine Beasts, giant animal-shaped robots (an elephant, salamander, camel, and condor). Unlike other Zelda dungeons, these areas are a single continuous space; there are no keys and locks. Additionally, there are no dungeon-related key items. You do get four special powers that serve a similar purpose, but they are implemented as functions of your Sheikah Slate (essentially an in-game Nintendo Switch) and are acquired during the tutorial. Thus, you have access to all of them in every dungeon. Link's purpose in each dungeon is to activate the five control nodes scattered around, then proceed to the main node, fight the boss, and allow the deceased champion to re-assert control over the Divine Beast so it may assist in the battle against Ganon. Upon entry to each dungeon, you will obtain partial control over the Divine Beast, allowing you to manipulate the dungeon in some way to facilitate access to the control nodes. After defeating the boss, you will receive a Heart Container and a power associated with that Divine Beast's champion. At the beginning of the Ganon fight, any Divine Beasts you've cleansed will fire at Ganon, depleting up to half of his health.

Some more traditional Zelda dungeon elements have been transplanted to the shrines. Shrines are mini-dungeons constructed by the ancient Sheikah 10,000 years before the events of the game. Each contains a Sheikah monk, and Link must navigate the shrine to reach the force field containing the monk. Here you will find locks and keys as well as puzzles that require creative use of your Sheikah Slate powers. There are scores of shrines in Hyrule, and the reward for completing one is a Spirit Orb. You are highly incentivized to collect these, as four Spirit Orbs can be traded in for an upgrade to your health or stamina. Without these upgrades, Link will be limited to a maximum of seven Heart Containers, assuming you complete all of the dungeons. Shrines also serve as fast-travel points, although you need only discover the shrine in order to travel to it.

He's been waiting a looooong time.

Shrines are probably the area where experienced Zelda players will have the greatest advantage over newbies. Skills honed in the Water Temple or the Arbiter's Grounds will have their greatest application here. (In what is surely not a coincidence, the shrines are described as the creations of an ancient race built with technology and magic unknown to the modern world.)

Timeline

Another Zelda game, another interminable argument over its position in the series timeline(s).

I have strong opinions regarding this subject.

The game itself establishes that at some point after Ocarina of Time, the now technologically advanced Sheikah built the towers, shrines, Guardians, and Divine Beasts. No indication of how long after Ganon was first defeated this occurred is given.

10,000 years later, Ganon is prophesied to return. The Guardians and Divine Beasts are reactivated, but are co-opted by Ganon instead. Link is mortally wounded and placed in the Shrine of Resurrection.

100 years after this, Link awakens, defeats Ganon, and reunites with Zelda.

It seems incontrovertible to me that Breath of the Wild takes place in the timeline following the adult ending of Ocarina of Time, i.e, in the same universe as The Wind Waker. (See Hyrule Historia, p.69.) How else would one explain the existence of Koroks and Ritos? It's implied in The Wind Waker that Ritos evolved from Zoras at some point after the great flood. They now evidently coexist with other unchanged Zoras.

This last is obviously a reference to Twilight Princess, but there's no evidence that Ritos exist in the child timeline.

Given the vast gulf of time separating Breath of the Wild from Ocarina of Time, it seems likely that this game takes place in a new Hyrule created by the Deku Tree and Koroks reuniting the islands of the Great Sea post-The Wind Waker. (Note that this is not the new Hyrule of Spirit Tracks.)

And that's it, timeline argument over. Obviously, everyone who reads this will immediately recognize that I'm correct and no further discussion will be required.

While I'm wishing, I'd also like a pony and the next winning lottery numbers.

The Future

So what's next for Zelda? Critics raved over Breath of the Wild, but I can easily see how fans of the traditional Zelda experience might feel disappointed. There are certainly people who treat Zelda as digital comfort food, and changing the formula is tantamount to sacrilege. There's nothing wrong with this view, but I hope Nintendo doesn't get the wrong idea and throw the baby out with the bathwater. As detailed above, much will depend on whether Nintendo decides to maintain the non-linear approach with which they flirted in A Link Between Worlds and embraced in their latest outing.

The dungeons seem to be the obvious point of contention. They simply aren't particularly Zelda-esque. There are no keys, no compass, no eye switches to shoot. This looks like a good opportunity to placate traditionalist fans. However, acquiring key items dungeon by dungeon likely won't be back. Total non-linearity demands that no other key item could be required in a dungeon. Even A Link Between Worlds required that the first three dungeons be completed before progress to the non-linear portion of the game was possible. This would probably serve to make the dungeon puzzles unacceptably simple. In a sense, every dungeon would need to be the "first dungeon."

Personally, I wasn't a huge fan of the new dungeons. The novelty of exploring the interior and exterior of a giant robot animal wore off after the first time. The exception was Hyrule Castle. In keeping with the rest of the game, almost none of the castle needs to be explored. Again, its interior is almost completely devoid of essential Zelda dungeon elements. However, I love the aesthetic of Hyrule Castle as a dungeon, and I'm always thrilled whenever a 3-D Zelda game lets us explore it. (I still haven't forgiven Ocarina of Time for its unopenable door that serves no purpose other than to tease the player.)

I think this hybrid approach, with a Breath of the Wild-style overworld and Ocarina of Time-style dungeons, is the most likely approach going forward. An alternate approach would be for Nintendo to steal a page from Activison's playbook and have teams alternate between both game styles. This would have the advantage of a faster release cycle, but that has never been Nintendo's priority and I don't expect that to change.

I may return to Breath of the Wild in 2018 once all the DLC has hit the market. Any new thoughts will be posted here.