6 reasons to play Breath of the Wild before Tears of the Kingdom

My first encounter with what it was considered to be an open-world Zelda game concept was with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, back in 1998 for the Nintendo 64. I used to wonder about how would it be for me to explore a bit farther from the limits of Hyrule Field, Death Mountain or the vast Gerudo Dessert.

It took me a whole year to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I was in fact avoiding any kind of spoilers everywhere and the main reason why I didn’t played it until after a year of it’s release was because I didn’t had a Nintendo Switch back then and yes I could play it on the Nintendo Wii U but I wanted to fully immerse on it’s vast open world on the Nintendo Switch for the first time.

This Zelda game is no stranger to the franchise when it comes to the basic plot of the story, we start with Link our protagonist waking up from a 100-years slumber with no kingdom and no memory. The legendary hero must explore a vast and dangerous land to regain his memories and prevent Hyrule for being lost forever by defeating Calamity Ganon and of course save Princess Zelda who has been containing Calamity Ganon at Hyrule Castle for 100 years.

To help you on your quest, Link must regain the power of 4 Devine Beasts which are enormous animalistic machines developed by the ancient Sheikah race, that were piloted by 4 great warriors that were given the tittle of Champions.

There, very simple, right? Link must save princess Zelda by defeating Calamity Ganon and restore peace to the Kingdom of Hyrule. But of course they are a lot of things that unravel as you keep playing through the main story so it’s up to you to find out the rest of the story.

1. Each player’s journey is entirely unique

The game’s main objective is the same for everyone, each player’s journey will be entirely different and that’s because Breath of the Wild is not just an open world game but it’s a living world, on in other words it is truly Wild as it’s tittle intends it to be, and let me explain.

Basically the world responds to many different inputs, if it’s raining you won’t be able to climb anything as all the surfaces get slippery, if there’s lightning try to remove any weapon, shield or bow with metal or else you’ll regret it, if you reach one of the tall towers where it’s very cold you’ll start loosing hearts as time passes, or on a active volcano where you need either a potion to keep you cool or getting a heat resistance suit to survive those extreme temperatures.

And let’s not forget about nature. As you’re climbing up a hill you might see a sheep grazing or a fox wandering around, wading birds that will fly away if you approach them, all kind of wild animals that you can also use to make meals that will help you on your journey.

If you’re waiting the perfect time to beat bokoblings or Moblins just wait until is late at night when they fall asleep. Wherever you go there’s always a feeling that the world around you is alive and it’s not just a set of parameters waiting to get triggered.

All of this it’s part of the same objective when it comes to solving puzzles like trying to find a Korok, complete one of the over 100 shrines scattered all across Hyrule, completing missions and even defeating enemies that will make it unique to you, no matter how many times you re-start your game you’ll always have a different experience.

2. Perfect for handheld gaming

I can’t believe I’m actually adding this to the list but after looking into it I have to admit that Breath of the Wild it’s perfect for handheld gaming but not the strongest for me and that’s because I never owned a Game Boy in my childhood, I’m the kind of person that likes to play her games on a screen lying in the couch; however, this game does have great features that even though it’s a huge and vast world to explore you can always continue your journey from anywhere.

They are a lot of articles and videos out there that will tell you that it actually runs better handheld than when docked on the Nintendo Switch, specially if the console resolution is 720p and it’s trying to push 1080p on a bigger screen.

The game automatically saves your progress from where you’re currently standing, but if you’re paranoic like me you can always open the menu to save it manually. Additionally to this, the Nintendo Switch does have an amazing sleep mode that will let you resume your gameplay almost right away and of course those tilting motion features that makes it interesting to use on some parts the game and I did enjoyed being able to play it wherever I went, but again I am not a fan.

And finally let’s not forget that this is one of the best Nintendo Switch games so if you’re planning on getting a Nintendo Switch sooner than later you should definitely get Breath of the Wild with it.

3. An Epic Gameplay

We already covered how the environment has a lot of influence on the gameplay but here I want to focus a lot in combat rather than inventory which I’m going to cover as well in a bit.

The initial part of the game is more of a tutorial that will prepare you for more challenges that will come as you start to explore the world. As you progress on the game you’ll come across increasingly powerful opponents and we’re not even talking about Master Mode yet.

Sneaking on your opponents to bypass a numerous enemies without alerting all of them at once. Using your bow instead of melee weapons as an element of surprise, or taking advantage of the time-slowing mechanic while jumping using your bow to find your enemies critical hit to knock them down, or you could aim at explosive barrels or even a bee hive to turn the fight around and these are only some of the mechanics in the game.

Now switching over to melee encounters, as usual you can block using your shield but with the right timing you can Perfect Guard to perform a parry that allows you to neutralize the strongest attacks of your enemies to counter-attack. When is time to dodge almost like the Perfect Guard you can Perfect Dodge to perform a strong counter-attack known as “Flurry Rush”. Blocking and dodging are essential for combat and you should definitely master these technics.

Afraid that you might end up defeating every enemy? Don’t worry all of them resurrect during a Blood Moon. When the red moon rises all the enemies on the map have been resurrected.

The Stamina concept was first introduced to the franchise on The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword known as the stamina gauge; however, there was no way to increase it and honestly it wasn’t necessary but on the other hand the more you explore Breath of the Wild you will start to realize how important is to increase your stamina wheel, specially while claiming enormous mountains for long periods of time. As the heart containers and hart pieces increased your hearts on any Zelda game, in breath of you wild you will have to choose between exchanging 4 Spirit Orbs that you have been collecting from Shrines for a heart container or a Stamina Vessel, which to be honest is always a smart move to pick the Stamina Vessel specially because it’s easy to recover hearts o even increase them temporarily if you cook the proper meal or brew a good elixir but it will be your own decision to make.

And now that we’re touching basis on cooking. Breath of the wild offers you a lot of ingredients that you can find across Hyrule, some ingredients can only be found on specifics regions of the map. Here you can get creative and learn which ingredients will recover you hearts, increased your hearts, increase your stamina and even resist extreme weather temporarily.

Along with the nice combat mechanics that we just discussed, you will have 4 rune abilities that you can use with your Shikah slate and combine them in combat, for example, hitting your enemies with any metal object with the magnesis rune, or throwing bombs at explosives at an enemy camp that will annihilate anyone on the camp or at least give them a hard time or even freeze your enemies with stasis and finally making an enemy crash at one of the ice blocks while using cryonis, you name it, you can even fly far distances when you hit a tree trunk several times while using stasis, you can use any combination while fighting your enemies and even bosses.

Yes, breakable weapons could be annoying and while is true that you were have your own playstyle and build it’s important to learn to use your weapons wisely, for example if you’re just starting the best way to approach enemies will be by sneaking at them or using what’s around you to beat them rather than using your best sword. You should use your best weapon only when necessary and find the method that will make you succeed but never forget to be free to try out something new.

4. It’s rewarding difficulty

Let’s be honest, The Legend of Zelda franchise has never been recognized for it’s difficulty and on Breath of the Wild you’ll be defeated many times. You can select Normal Mode vs Master Mode if you have the DLC but there’s not an easy difficulty setting, the beauty of this is that you’ll have to learn from your mistakes to try again or get stronger or a better build to win a fight, which makes it very interesting and challenging.

You can defeat most of your opponents with skill, but achieving such skill takes some time, patience and effort and the reward is satisfying, you can get better armor and better weapons, so practice your timing on blocking and dodges to get each reward.

The shrines are worth mentioning as you’ll find over 100 shrines scattered all over Hyrule, some well hidden and some appearing only by completing missions. Although some Shrines are interesting and challenging to solve them over time it does feel a bit repetitive and annoying at some point, but you will always get rewarded with 2 chests in most of them and with a spirit orb when you figure things out.

Without spoiling too much about this neat plus, Breath of the Wild did a great job on making sure long-time Zelda Fans gets rewarded for their loyalty with plenty of references to past games. These references are not that easy to spot if you’re a Zelda newcomer, so don’t feel left out if you miss them.

You might already noticed that I haven’t include the story to this list and that’s because I think that those are one of the several things I didn’t liked about it; however, Breath of the Wild does quietly teaches us about respect, honesty and helping others.

5. Positive message and memorable characters

You’ll find towns full of people and each citizen is ready to chat, some will have side missions but many just have silly stories to tell or a song to sing. Reacting to what you say, what time of the day it is, many characters will also notice if you’re walking around in your underwear, that’s the level of attention to detail with Breath of the Wild.

Hey, you can even help found a new town from the ground up!

6. A Vast, Open World

I didn’t leave this reason until the end because it’s the least important but it is the most controversial on the game.

There is a weird combination of story and gameplay that it might not feel right at some point. You will need to recover memories and flashbacks to tell the story, but it still feels disconnected from the main quest and this is one of the biggest reason why I did not included the story as one of the reasons to play the game.

All the freedom in the world can easily get you lost and make you loose interest to follow our hero’s predetermined destiny. Few friends of mine even stopped completely playing Breath of the Wild because they got annoyed after trying to figure out what to do or which path to follow.

However, even after what I just said, I honestly still believe that this is one of Breath of the Wild’s most satisfying features.

It’s important to have 2 things in mind when playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. First, do not play this game with any other open-world game in mind because you’ll end up comparing it with those games, and second of all, be open minded that even though this is a Zelda game, it’s way different compared to previous releases.

Breath of the Wild offers and entire world that was carefully designed as a playground in which developers anticipated the way we could explore and discover without jeopardising the freedom to experiment on our own. It’s no secret that this game is not as linear as many games on the franchise.

This is not an open world adventure experience like Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption or The Witcher, no, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a game about discovery in its purest form. You can play for a month and still not see everything.

Climbing, gliding and riding a horse makes navigation a treat. You’ll see sunsets, waterfalls, lakes, forest, shrines, stables, towns and towers and the beauty of the world will leave you breathless.

By exploring the world you’ll learn valuable lessons through trial-and-error, and the solutions are often completely logical. This repeated cycle in the game it’s part of what makes it so magical. It give you a sense of mystery and discovery on your entire journey, it even gives you a sense of being the first person to discover its treasures & secrets.

The only real limitation will be yourself, if you’re not well equipped you will die many times, you won’t be able to reach an specific area without a certain weapon or item, or perhaps the climate is too extreme for you to reach the place you’re trying to reach.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild it’s a game full of mystery and discovery that will give you hours and hours of fascinating moment and each adventure will have a unique story, so it’s worth giving it a chance.

And that’s it. What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with this list? Or did I missed one, let me know in the comments down below.