I may be a Millennial, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm on top of everything when it comes to technology. That category. of course, includes video games. I was born in 1987, so I grew around that amazing, magical time, where gaming exploded in popularity during the now legendary Console Wars of the '90's between Nintendo and Sega.
Every kid on my street had a console or a computer, and we were all playing games at least some of the time. I think my parents bought me an NES when I was 5 because they assumed that was what I wanted. Honestly, it's hard not to blame them. I barely played on my NES though, either because the blocky sprites were too crude or the gameplay was too confusing to hook me in like so many other kids.
My relationship with games have taken a few turns over the years. The first console I can remember actually wanting (and begging, lots and lots of begging) was the Playstation. I had never seen anything like it. It still amazes me how time can make you look back and think "was I ever really impressed by games like that"? Try explaining to kids born around 2000 or later, that the crude polygon models of the PS was cutting-edge once upon a time.
Indeed, games and gamer culture has evolved so much so fast, that my outlook has changed just as drastically, if not as quickly. Of course, I don't need to tell most of you this.
But for me, for a few years, I really didn't play games that much, so all these changes going on escaped my notice. I would play on my best friend's N64 & Xbox whenever I came over to visit, but outside of a few RTS classics like Warcraft 3 or playing with my little brother on my (now ancient) dependable SNES well into the 2000s.
Of course, I wouldn't be writing about the Zelda franchise if I still didn't care about video games. On the contrary, I have been left in awe but how far games have come since my childhood. Every trailer, every game demo, presents me with sound, visuals, emotion and depth, that I could not see coming all those years ago.
Zelda, among a few select other franchises like Mario, Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy, have stayed as relevant as they have ever been to the industry they help shape. The fact that these titles have stayed relevant over decades of incredibly fast change, where developers are constantly innovating and giving gamers around the world new experiences, new worlds, new hardware, new stories, is truly remarkable. You really need to see it to truly get what I'm saying. Just compare the original Legend of Zelda released 30 years ago in 1986:
Now of course you can see the differences between these two games because the jump from to 2D to 3D is a pretty drastic change. The next game in the series Twilight Princess, doesn't look much different but still pretty impressive, and this game was released just eight years after OoT, in 2006:
Now, here's what The newest Legend of Zelda game, titled The Breath of the Wild, has in store for us in 2017. If the other trailers looked good to you, get ready for an awe-inspiring 3 minutes.
Amazing, isn't it? Here's where it gets truly mind-boggling for me. The latest Zelda game is being released on two consoles, the Wii U and Nintendo's newest console, for now codenamed "NX" due to be released next March alongside the game. Neither of these systems are cutting edge; a pretty safe statement to make, even though we currently know very little is about Nintendo's latest hardware.
The way consoles are released, is that the designers and company must strike a balance between affordability and improving the performance of the hardware significantly. If consoles were truly made with top-tier parts, they would cost anywhere from $1000-2000. So what you buy for $500 dollars is a mid-level system at best, that will be obsolete in about 5-6 years. In the Wii U's case, it's a good system but there's no denying that it is significantly less powerful than the PS4 and the Xbox One.
With that out of the way, think about this. What you saw in the above trailer was made to work on older hardware. Yet, the game still undeniably looks next-gen. I can't even image what the next Zelda game will look like, and technically speaking the "current game" isn't even out yet!
I'm sure you've noticed a lot of interesting things in the trailer, but I'm also sure a lot of you are wondering exactly what the big deal is. Sure, it's big and it looks pretty, but why exactly am I gushing so much about this game.
Well, there's good news. During the E3 convention held in June of this year, Nintendo released a lot of gameplay footage. I mean, A LOT of gameplay footage. Most developers will only show you demos lasting around around maybe 10-20 minutes, sometimes half an hour, to give you a sense of the gameplay, the world that the developers created, the characters and of course, other things like the shiny new graphics engine and improved AI.
According to one member of the popular gaming forum NeoGAF, the Nintendo Treehouse livestream event showed off 5 HOURS of total footage of this game. Journalists for the video game news site IGN have at least an hour and a half of archived gameplay on their Youtube channel, which I'm sure is being dissected by millions of fans as we speak.
These two sites are my main sources of info about the game. I haven't played any of this. Heck, I haven't even played a Zelda game in years. But I can still give everyone a solid breakdown of the game, and show you how it reflects a lot of the major changes in the video game inditry as whole, as well as being a major change for the franchise itself.
Scope and Detail
When any game is made on more powerful hardware, and especially since this is the first "true HD" Zelda game in the franchise, the developers have a lot more sophisticated tools to bring Hyrule to life and more importantly, have more space to fill up to make the world feel immersive and give the player a lot of things to do. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the game is bigger and looks better.
The game is still staggeringly huge. According to the game's producer Eiji Aonuma, Breath of the Wild is twelve times the size of Twilight Princess which at the time it was released, was considered the best game in the series. He went on to say that the starting area players saw in the gameplay demo, known in the game itself "The Great Plateau", is just one percent of the final game. I watched people playing constantly for almost a full hour, and I saw an almost non-stop barrage of new things presented. This one area has everything: beautiful fields of tall grass, a waterfall, a small snow-capped mountain, and a few shrines place around the area filled with secrets and puzzles. I also saw very little backtracking or repetition. This game definitely does not lack for content.
To be fair, there are several games I've played in the past that offer almost as much gameplay as this. Super Mario World and Crash Bandicoot immediately spring to mind. But that doesn't take away the fact that this game was a massive undertaking and risk for the BIg "N".
The size of the game is complemented by lots of little touches that add to the fun and immersion.
For example, when you stand in a field, you see the grass bending in the wind, and the world around you gets slowly darker or brighter because the game has a day/night cycle; with the sun and the clouds moving quickly across the sky. But where older games would just add effects like this into a game to show off the capabilities of the graphics engine and make the world feel more ral, the wind and the time of day have a significant affect on how you play.
To give one example. if you set a small patch of dry grass on fire and a breeze happens to pick up just then, the fire will spread rapidly around the area, just like it would in real life.
Link has been given a stamina meter to make you time your moves better. While some players don't like this much realism is a game, considering that you have to stop running every ten seconds or so to "catch your breath", it adds another layer of strategy that you have to take into consideration.
Another interesting change is how climate affects you now. In previous Zelda games all you had to do was pick which outfit to put Link in that you felt suited him best. In this game, you can't go into an arctic tundra in just a tunic, or a desert wearing heavy clothing, otherwise Link will take damage. So the clothes now has a practical purpose
Breath of the Wild is hardly the first game to add this sort of complexity. In fact, several fans have already complained that it's borrowing too much from successful RPG franchises like Mass Effect and Elder Scrolls. No one is saying that making the world more detailed or adding more space and complexity is in itself a bad thing, but some Zelda fans don't want the series to change too drastically from they are familiar with.
Now, from my perspective as an admittedly non-fan of the series, all the changes I've described so far add a lot of layered strategy, choice and difficulty to the game. You can now set enemies on fire, roll a boulder down a hill, attack at night when the bad guys are asleep etc. Of course, previous Zelda games offered a wide variety of items to use or places to go. This one us just adding more to keep gameplay and exploration from becoming stale.
From what I can tell, it still feels like Zelda. Sure you have to gather and cook food to replenish health instead of going to a random patch of tall grass and start swinging away randomly with your sword, but the new doesn't doesn't seem much more time-consuming or difficult to me.
Gameplay and Content
Pack a lunch, because this section might take awhile. Since gameplay and content are two of the biggest things video game developers are constantly challenging themselves to expand on year after year, needless to say, there is a lot to do in Breath of the Wild. The franchise has taken pages out of a whole shelf of other books for this game.
You don't find hearts just lying in random breakable pots or patches of grass anymore. Much like games that add more realism to how you replenish health like Far Cry you hunt and forage for food, and even cook it over a campfire to recharge your health or cook up an elixir that will make you temporarily stronger, faster, or temporarily make you immune to the elements.
As I said before, the time of day and the weather will affect how you play. You might want to wait for enemies to fall asleep, or avoid fighting the stronger enemies that wake up at night. If a thunderstorm should break out while you're running around, be wary of getting struck by lightning if you're still carrying that awesome sword on your back.
Weapons seem plentiful in this game. You can take them from enemies in a pinch, or you can wonder around, looking for a pitchfork or ax someone left lying around for young kleptomaniacal heroes like yourself to find.
Of course, there are temples, shops and hidden areas that have special items and gear, but if you don't want to go through hurdles to get all the fancy stuff, you can collect any old tree branch lying around on the ground, build a fire, set the branch on fire. and now you can set your enemies ablaze with your new, homemade firebrand.
There's been a lot of changes, some major some minor, that makes the combat interesting and fun, All the weapons and shields are breakable, so you have to keep track of how much punishment you've dealt out or received from enemies. You can also slide on top of your shield too, whether it be on grass or on a snowy hillside. Finally, a video game that let's you pull off a Legolas maneuver!
When you dodge an enemy's attack at just the right time, Link will enter a "bullet time" state, like in the Max Payne series, where the enemies are basically frozen or move in slo-mo for a few seconds, allowing to finish them off in style.
You don't have to fight your enemies directly. Roll a boulder down a hill, fire a fire arrow into an exploding barrel, plant a bomb where they usually patrol around and detonate it remotely, or shoot arrows from the back of your faithful horse Epona as she runs circles around them. Who says you have to fight at all? You're perfectly free to avoid enemies as well, especially if they are much stronger than you.
Unlike previous Zelda games, you are given a lot more options to fight or to avoid fighting, I haven't even talked about the magic system or the awesome items you can get, like the Fire Rod, but I think we've talked enough about combat.
The magical abilities have a lot to offer outside of outside of combat. Link has access to a new tool in this game, known as the "Sheikah Slate", which is basically a Hyrulean type of tablet computer that runs on magic. By finding and inscribing different mystical runes onto the tablet, Link can gain access to a wide scope of powers.
Dotted throughout the landscape are shrines which act as "mini-dungeons", areas of the game where you solve puzzles and get through obstacles in order to get some new powerful item or skill, or if you just want to explore as much of the world as possible. By using the runes, Link is able to to move around the shrines a lot easier. One rune for example, allows him to freeze time around an object, holding it in place for Link to either manipulate it, or just avoid it altogether. There re also larger temples, where the larger set pieces and boss fights take place, and where presumably you uncover the story of the game.
The runes are just another layer on top of an already impressively deep and complex gameplay system. And remember, everything I've described is from the opening area of the game. This post would've turned into a thesis paper if I had access to the full game right now. You will be pleased to know that this post is nearly done. Just one last thing to talk about.
Going Back to the Roots and Breaking From Tradition
Whenever an iconic franchise gets a new addition, obviously there is a lot of anticipation and dread from fans. The above header shows just how hard it is to please them sometimes. If it is too different from what fans expect, then they will complain that it's not a "true Zelda game"; if it's too similar to previous games, fans will accuse Nintendo of resting on their laurels (a not unfounded accusation) and not doing enough to innovate to give fans something different.
Here's the truly crazy, paradoxical thing about this game, though. It is undeniably a different Zelda game. It has taken a lot from other non-Zelda games. Just look at all the comparisons I've made throughout this post; that is no accident. But do know what the biggest influence was on the design of this game? The original Legend of Zelda. Try to wrap your mind around that one; and after I've been constantly praising this game for all the changes it provides!
In the very first game, players had a lot more freedom to do what they wanted. You didn't have to complete the dungeons in a specific order, or gather the pieces of the Tri-Force as quickly as possible to defeat Ganondorf. You could go in any direction, explore the levels the way you felt was right
So players get the freedom they used to have, with a lot more to do and lot more ways to do it, thanks to decades of innovations in hardware and game design. Let's be completely fair here though; innovation is always what has kept the fans coming back to the world for more, and stay loyal to this series.
Yes, every game is about a hero named Link, who has to save a Princess named Zelda and save a world called Hyrule, by gathering the pieces of the Tri-Force to defeat the evil wizard Ganondorf . The core ideas of this world and these characters have always remained the same. But anyone can see that Link, Zelda and Hyrule, are very different than from where they started.
The series has changed A LOT over the years.
The third game of the series, A Link to the Past introduced, among other things: the Hook Shot, the Master Sword, heart pieces & containers, a new combat system where Link could slash side to side instead of just forward, arrows as collectible ammo, the concept of travelling between two worlds (in this game's case, a "Light" and "Dark" World), and a fairy companion for Link.
All these innovations have been around for so long now, that only older or die-hard Zelda fans would know that all these "classic" Zelda elements were not there at the very beginning. So, it seems to me, that the developers should be given due credit and encouragement to shake things up from game to game. It doesn't seem to have hurt the series' success in anyway.
It's even built into well-known Zelda lore. Each Link, each Zelda, each Ganondorf, are literal re-incarnations of the same people, finding themselves on the same world, in different eras, or, since OoT involves time travel, alternate timelines, Change and stability are reflected in every aspect of this world, it seems. It also gives the developers a very clever excuse to change and to keep what they want.
I am very glad than fans are so enthusiastic about this game so far, because this will help Nintendo keep Zelda (and Mario and Donkey Kong and Star Fox and...well, you get the idea) going for another 30 years and more. The fact that the series has managed to stay so relevant in an industry that changes so fast, is a great accomplishment in and of itself, let alone that many of the individual games are classics in their own right. I don't know how exactly, but the people at Nintendo keep refining what works while adding changes that, in retrospect, seems to constantly improve on the formula. If only everyone else could do that so consistently. There would be a lot less crappy and infuriating reboots out there.
Happy 30th anniversary Link & Zelda. Happy 30th Ganondorf. Happy 30th Hyrule.
From where I'm sitting, you've never looked better.
The game is still staggeringly huge. According to the game's producer Eiji Aonuma, Breath of the Wild is twelve times the size of Twilight Princess which at the time it was released, was considered the best game in the series. He went on to say that the starting area players saw in the gameplay demo, known in the game itself "The Great Plateau", is just one percent of the final game. I watched people playing constantly for almost a full hour, and I saw an almost non-stop barrage of new things presented. This one area has everything: beautiful fields of tall grass, a waterfall, a small snow-capped mountain, and a few shrines place around the area filled with secrets and puzzles. I also saw very little backtracking or repetition. This game definitely does not lack for content.
To be fair, there are several games I've played in the past that offer almost as much gameplay as this. Super Mario World and Crash Bandicoot immediately spring to mind. But that doesn't take away the fact that this game was a massive undertaking and risk for the BIg "N".
The size of the game is complemented by lots of little touches that add to the fun and immersion.
For example, when you stand in a field, you see the grass bending in the wind, and the world around you gets slowly darker or brighter because the game has a day/night cycle; with the sun and the clouds moving quickly across the sky. But where older games would just add effects like this into a game to show off the capabilities of the graphics engine and make the world feel more ral, the wind and the time of day have a significant affect on how you play.
To give one example. if you set a small patch of dry grass on fire and a breeze happens to pick up just then, the fire will spread rapidly around the area, just like it would in real life.
Link has been given a stamina meter to make you time your moves better. While some players don't like this much realism is a game, considering that you have to stop running every ten seconds or so to "catch your breath", it adds another layer of strategy that you have to take into consideration.
Another interesting change is how climate affects you now. In previous Zelda games all you had to do was pick which outfit to put Link in that you felt suited him best. In this game, you can't go into an arctic tundra in just a tunic, or a desert wearing heavy clothing, otherwise Link will take damage. So the clothes now has a practical purpose
Breath of the Wild is hardly the first game to add this sort of complexity. In fact, several fans have already complained that it's borrowing too much from successful RPG franchises like Mass Effect and Elder Scrolls. No one is saying that making the world more detailed or adding more space and complexity is in itself a bad thing, but some Zelda fans don't want the series to change too drastically from they are familiar with.
Now, from my perspective as an admittedly non-fan of the series, all the changes I've described so far add a lot of layered strategy, choice and difficulty to the game. You can now set enemies on fire, roll a boulder down a hill, attack at night when the bad guys are asleep etc. Of course, previous Zelda games offered a wide variety of items to use or places to go. This one us just adding more to keep gameplay and exploration from becoming stale.
From what I can tell, it still feels like Zelda. Sure you have to gather and cook food to replenish health instead of going to a random patch of tall grass and start swinging away randomly with your sword, but the new doesn't doesn't seem much more time-consuming or difficult to me.
Gameplay and Content
Pack a lunch, because this section might take awhile. Since gameplay and content are two of the biggest things video game developers are constantly challenging themselves to expand on year after year, needless to say, there is a lot to do in Breath of the Wild. The franchise has taken pages out of a whole shelf of other books for this game.
You don't find hearts just lying in random breakable pots or patches of grass anymore. Much like games that add more realism to how you replenish health like Far Cry you hunt and forage for food, and even cook it over a campfire to recharge your health or cook up an elixir that will make you temporarily stronger, faster, or temporarily make you immune to the elements.
As I said before, the time of day and the weather will affect how you play. You might want to wait for enemies to fall asleep, or avoid fighting the stronger enemies that wake up at night. If a thunderstorm should break out while you're running around, be wary of getting struck by lightning if you're still carrying that awesome sword on your back.
Weapons seem plentiful in this game. You can take them from enemies in a pinch, or you can wonder around, looking for a pitchfork or ax someone left lying around for young kleptomaniacal heroes like yourself to find.
Of course, there are temples, shops and hidden areas that have special items and gear, but if you don't want to go through hurdles to get all the fancy stuff, you can collect any old tree branch lying around on the ground, build a fire, set the branch on fire. and now you can set your enemies ablaze with your new, homemade firebrand.
There's been a lot of changes, some major some minor, that makes the combat interesting and fun, All the weapons and shields are breakable, so you have to keep track of how much punishment you've dealt out or received from enemies. You can also slide on top of your shield too, whether it be on grass or on a snowy hillside. Finally, a video game that let's you pull off a Legolas maneuver!
When you dodge an enemy's attack at just the right time, Link will enter a "bullet time" state, like in the Max Payne series, where the enemies are basically frozen or move in slo-mo for a few seconds, allowing to finish them off in style.
You don't have to fight your enemies directly. Roll a boulder down a hill, fire a fire arrow into an exploding barrel, plant a bomb where they usually patrol around and detonate it remotely, or shoot arrows from the back of your faithful horse Epona as she runs circles around them. Who says you have to fight at all? You're perfectly free to avoid enemies as well, especially if they are much stronger than you.
Unlike previous Zelda games, you are given a lot more options to fight or to avoid fighting, I haven't even talked about the magic system or the awesome items you can get, like the Fire Rod, but I think we've talked enough about combat.
The magical abilities have a lot to offer outside of outside of combat. Link has access to a new tool in this game, known as the "Sheikah Slate", which is basically a Hyrulean type of tablet computer that runs on magic. By finding and inscribing different mystical runes onto the tablet, Link can gain access to a wide scope of powers.
Dotted throughout the landscape are shrines which act as "mini-dungeons", areas of the game where you solve puzzles and get through obstacles in order to get some new powerful item or skill, or if you just want to explore as much of the world as possible. By using the runes, Link is able to to move around the shrines a lot easier. One rune for example, allows him to freeze time around an object, holding it in place for Link to either manipulate it, or just avoid it altogether. There re also larger temples, where the larger set pieces and boss fights take place, and where presumably you uncover the story of the game.
The runes are just another layer on top of an already impressively deep and complex gameplay system. And remember, everything I've described is from the opening area of the game. This post would've turned into a thesis paper if I had access to the full game right now. You will be pleased to know that this post is nearly done. Just one last thing to talk about.
Going Back to the Roots and Breaking From Tradition
Whenever an iconic franchise gets a new addition, obviously there is a lot of anticipation and dread from fans. The above header shows just how hard it is to please them sometimes. If it is too different from what fans expect, then they will complain that it's not a "true Zelda game"; if it's too similar to previous games, fans will accuse Nintendo of resting on their laurels (a not unfounded accusation) and not doing enough to innovate to give fans something different.
Here's the truly crazy, paradoxical thing about this game, though. It is undeniably a different Zelda game. It has taken a lot from other non-Zelda games. Just look at all the comparisons I've made throughout this post; that is no accident. But do know what the biggest influence was on the design of this game? The original Legend of Zelda. Try to wrap your mind around that one; and after I've been constantly praising this game for all the changes it provides!
In the very first game, players had a lot more freedom to do what they wanted. You didn't have to complete the dungeons in a specific order, or gather the pieces of the Tri-Force as quickly as possible to defeat Ganondorf. You could go in any direction, explore the levels the way you felt was right
So players get the freedom they used to have, with a lot more to do and lot more ways to do it, thanks to decades of innovations in hardware and game design. Let's be completely fair here though; innovation is always what has kept the fans coming back to the world for more, and stay loyal to this series.
Yes, every game is about a hero named Link, who has to save a Princess named Zelda and save a world called Hyrule, by gathering the pieces of the Tri-Force to defeat the evil wizard Ganondorf . The core ideas of this world and these characters have always remained the same. But anyone can see that Link, Zelda and Hyrule, are very different than from where they started.
The series has changed A LOT over the years.
The third game of the series, A Link to the Past introduced, among other things: the Hook Shot, the Master Sword, heart pieces & containers, a new combat system where Link could slash side to side instead of just forward, arrows as collectible ammo, the concept of travelling between two worlds (in this game's case, a "Light" and "Dark" World), and a fairy companion for Link.
All these innovations have been around for so long now, that only older or die-hard Zelda fans would know that all these "classic" Zelda elements were not there at the very beginning. So, it seems to me, that the developers should be given due credit and encouragement to shake things up from game to game. It doesn't seem to have hurt the series' success in anyway.
It's even built into well-known Zelda lore. Each Link, each Zelda, each Ganondorf, are literal re-incarnations of the same people, finding themselves on the same world, in different eras, or, since OoT involves time travel, alternate timelines, Change and stability are reflected in every aspect of this world, it seems. It also gives the developers a very clever excuse to change and to keep what they want.
I am very glad than fans are so enthusiastic about this game so far, because this will help Nintendo keep Zelda (and Mario and Donkey Kong and Star Fox and...well, you get the idea) going for another 30 years and more. The fact that the series has managed to stay so relevant in an industry that changes so fast, is a great accomplishment in and of itself, let alone that many of the individual games are classics in their own right. I don't know how exactly, but the people at Nintendo keep refining what works while adding changes that, in retrospect, seems to constantly improve on the formula. If only everyone else could do that so consistently. There would be a lot less crappy and infuriating reboots out there.
Happy 30th anniversary Link & Zelda. Happy 30th Ganondorf. Happy 30th Hyrule.
From where I'm sitting, you've never looked better.
