The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild reviews

Never has a game felt quite as alive as Breath of the Wild. Initially I was a little put off by the differences between this and previous Zelda entries, but that soon changed to absolute adoration. Not only does it have a massive world, but it's a massive world filled with characters, animals, quests, mini-dungeons (shrines), and secrets. It plays surprisingly smoothly on the Wii U. I've heard things of frame drops, but I haven't experienced that at all (though, to be fair, this could be because I've been playing exclusively on the gamepad). One thing I truly love about Breath of the Wild is the challenge. Standard Bokoblins aside, every battle legitimately feels like a punishing life or death situation with little room for error. Weapons break fairly quickly and I love this. It adds to a frantic sensation of wild survival. What's more, there are little surprises around every corner. I have yet to find an area where exploration didn't bare fruit. While damn near perfect, it has a few minor issues. Firstly, the control scheme may take a while to get used to - the button configuration is kind of all over the place (some commands could probably have been simplified to one button rather than multiple). Secondly, the English voice acting is horrendous, and as far as I know there's no way to change it on the Wii U version. Finally, the actual dungeons aren't nearly as massive as pre-release rumors suggested. Naturally, this isn't the game's fault, rather misinformation leading to speculative hype. The dungeons are fun, but pretty short. The true satisfaction comes from the exploration of the seamless world.