Patatoa

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild single-handedly rejuvenated the medium of video games for me. The 2010’s was a dark time in video games. I wasn’t into what was mainstream at the time. Even my reliable franchises left me wanting. Microtransactions ruined NBA 2K. Pokemon struggled its glacial transition into 3D. Even Mario languished, stuck in his "New Super Mario" phase. The last two Zelda games, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword were okay but perfunctory. The Wii U didn’t sell well and Nintendo allegedly was grim as the Switch launched. I picked it up as soon as I could mostly because I thought it might be the last console they released, a real concern at the time. Video games left me behind years ago by this point, but when I booted up Breath of the Wild, I was swept back into it.

The beginning of Breath of the Wild, the Great Plateau, is the single finest chapter in any video game (even better than that moment in Mario 64 where the painting of Princess Peach fades to Bowser and you fall through the floor.) The game feints a linear quest at the very start. Get this thing. Walk outside. Follow this guy. Climb up this tower. Now go to those spots. But in that last direction lies the real trick. The spots the old man tells you to hit up are deceivingly far from where they appear from top of the Plateau Tower. As I trekked to the first shrine, I noticed there were no towns, no houses with pots, no characters to talk at you. The old man seems to disappear, no one to bestow upon you your sword and shield. No one to dump story on you. The only character was the Great Plateau itself. A land that felt like real land. Vast, with forests, lakes, icey mountains; teeming with life.

show don't tell

As you walk by decrepit ramparts and sheds and broken statues you get to piece the story together yourself. Abandoned huts next to monsters. Crumbled walls and not too far away ancient alien-looking mecha-spiders (that occasionally explode you with lazers.) Grass triumphing over tile roads. You get to figure out how to restore hearts on your own, where the best orchards and hunting spots are. What baddies give the best weapons and how best to get the jump on them. No tutorial whatsoever. While there are moments where you get absolutely clobbered, the game is very fair. When you do it’s because you kept snooping around one-eyed Shrek while he was sleeping. Try not to do that next time. Even with the shrines, and are greeted with some familiar puzzle action. You think, Zelda-time! Dungeon ho! And instead it was two rooms of puzzles and a mummy guy to give you a — whatever. Back out into the wild world with you.

I disagree with anyone that points to Breath of the Wild’s lack of Zelda tropes as a bad thing. Zelda became boring. Nintendo made A Link to the Past and essentially riffed off it for the next twenty years. The time they made superficial changes to the plot, Wind Waker people whined and moaned. After that we were welcomed each time with the familiar: forest dungeon, fire dungeon, sand dungeon, sky-or-light dungeon, bombs, hookshot, Master Sword somewhere in the middle, Ganon(dorf), fin. It’s Groundhog Day. No matter that Link can turn into a wolf now, that doesn’t matter. Motion controls, doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change that I know this is the hookshot dungeon, so get on with it.

Breath of the Wild reintroduced the surprise to Zelda. You got fewer tools, but each tool had dimensions of utlity. No set order to reach anything. There was no safe space that re-filled all my hearts. A camp of three baddies can easily wreck you, but they also have weapons and food. Essential in the early game, and challenging later. That’s a cool hill, or rock, and if explored always yields something useful. These secrets were more rewarding and organic because you could approach them in your own way. You’re not following a set path and pass the too recognizable bombable wall in frame, maybe with a character telling you something subtle like, "Boy, I sure wish you would bomb that wall there. I’ll even let you keep the rupees!"

Later in the game, I’d be in-between guardians and I’d boot up the game just to walk around. No goal, no mission I needed to clear, just wanted to explore. And there was always something cool to find. There was always mountain to climb, or a forest trawl, or a weird looking spot on the map to check out. Maybe there’d be a Korok seed, or a weapon, or grr — a sapphire. Or maybe you’d find a gigantic skeleton that never gets fully explained. Breath of the Wild is the first game since Grand Theft Auto San Andreas where it was just fun to wander around and see what happened.

When I completed the four shrines on the Great Plateau, I was hesitant to progress. When the old man revealed the plateau was only 10% of the full map, I felt vertigo. The plateau seemed adequate and well-designed. Was a much larger map going to be as well crafted? (It would be, but I didn’t know that yet.) The old man began the story dump I was happy to be free from. It was an enjoyable scene, but I already longed for the non-story that preceded. After I descended the plateau, there were characters to interact with, and story points to sit through. It was better communicated than most of the post-Wind Waker Zeldas, minimally. But it was the map the parts of the story not told that remained endlessly interesting.

I was right to feel a bit wistful about leaving the Great Plateau. The game opened up and changed. Link wasn’t the only thing that re-awoke there. So did the feeling of fun, excitement, curiosity that I hadn’t felt in a very long time when playing a game. When I glided down, I wasn’t just jumping into the next section of the game. I was jumping back into video games.