Breath of the Wild

Breath of The Wild has caused many Nintendo fans to believe in the future success of Nintendo, while proving their contender status among its competitors such as Microsoft and Sony. With the release of Breath of the Wild came differing opinions from fans, as well as the general public. However, most of these reactions have been positive and quite optimistic. Breath of The Wild takes place in Hyrule and follows Link, the protagonist who awakens after 100 years of slumber to find that he has to save Hyrule from the antagonist, Ganon. While the familiar concept of defeating Ganon is true for many Zelda games, the open world aspect of Breath of The Wild is an entirely new concept, and a unique one at that. Nintendo is not new to open world games. In fact one of their other open world games, Xenoblade Chronicles, was very successful and still holds status as a classic among many Nintendo fans. However, this is the first time that Nintendo decided to switch up their usual formula for Zelda games to do something entirely different.

Along with Breath of the Wild came the Expansion Pass which allowed players to obtain three new treasure chests in one of the game’s main areas, one chest is clothing for Link to wear and the two useful in-game items. The Expansion Pass can be purchased for $19.99 on both the Wii U and Switch versions of the game. In my opinion, this is a smart move on Nintendo’s part. By releasing additional content that the user can purchase upon the game’s release, they are exciting fans for the next batches of DLC that will be coming out in the near future. I spoke to Nicole Maiello, a student at SUNY Poly who has been playing Breath of The Wild almost since its initial release. Nicole spoke on the graphics, difficulty and the storyline of the game, however, I thought that the most vivid part of her review was based on the graphics. Nicole specified that, “...the most impressive asset of Breath of The Wild is the stunning graphics...it seems as if not a single detail was missed during the animation process,”. As someone who has taken some Game Design classes as well as someone who has been avidly playing video games since childhood, I see Breath of the Wild as a very well produced game, especially as the first Legend of Zelda open world game. Nicole also mentioned that the difficulty of the game was dependent on the area, as well as the equipment that you acquired at that point in the game. Like most open world games, Breath of The Wild is heavily influenced by the amount of effort that you put in. It’s an integral part of the game to acquire the pieces of protection and weaponry that you feel is necessary in order to progress within the game. While Breath of the Wild seems to incorporate most open world aspects, this game is unlike many others because it has the “Nintendo magic” that many fans still believe in.

Breath of the Wild is set to release its first DLC (Downloadable Content) during the summer of this year and the second one during the holiday season. The hopes of fans are high for this game and the future of Nintendo. Based off of the recent ratings and reviews of this game, it seems that the only direction that Nintendo is going, is up.