74. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

This is probably my most disappointing game on this list, simply because I expected it to be the greatest game ever made. For many it was, BOTW provides a level of freedom seldom seen in gaming, and never in this genre. Nintendo took the idea of the open world and expanded it to include open story, open progression, open physics, everything is available to you its simply up to you to do it. I do have a long list of complaints mainly about the repetitiveness of the enemy encounters, the large spaces of nothingness, pacing being thrown out the window and the big one, no true dungeons. If the next Zelda game takes this template and adds just a few of the things that made past Zelda's great it would be my perfect game.

Still as it stands it is a grand adventure like no other, I put over 200 hours into this game, I do not do that if I don't love the game. I remember when Witcher 3 came out and how much praise that world got for feeling alive. In terms of story and NPCs no game world matched it's sheer attention to detail but it lacked player interaction, that world was static. Zelda is the opposite, very little in terms of story and NPC interaction but the world is part of the gameplay in ways I have never seen. The four powers Link aquires at the start give you all the abilities you need to solve every puzzle, part of me really misses items but these items allow you to invent ways to solve puzzles and attack enemies. No longer was zelda a game with eleborate setups for what was essentially taking a key to a lock. BOTW has the best puzzles in the series and the shrines are easily the best part of the experience. I remember seeing a chest way up on a wall and thinking ok how do I get there. So I used magnesis to stack boxes on top of one another and there was this bridge that I was trying to set at a certain angle so I had to lock it down with time so I can reach the chest without it all collapsing. I did it, I created my own puzzle solution... later I saw there was some switch that elevates a platform right to it, but it didn't matter cause what I came up with was so much more rewarding.

Thats the entire game, its the ultimate sandbox to express your creativity any way you want. My favorite moment of the game was seeing an island in the distance, grabbing a boat and sailing off and once arriving to it having all my things stripped away and now naked I had to solve three trails to escape. The only things you have are your wits and the ability to create weapons and defense from whats on the island. So I would sneak into an enemy camp and use magnesis to snatch swords in a thunderstorm and then float the sword near the enemies to have lightning strike them. I would kill chu chus and use their goo as mines and lure enemies wielding fire weapons right into my trap. For that hour Zelda became the ultimate survivavl game, it had the same quality that made me fall in love with MGS games, I can creatively take down enemies.

I would lose myself for hours on end exploring every inch of the world. Most of the time my efforts didn't reward me with much but when I found a shrine it felt so good. Sadly so many shrines were reptitive garbage combat ones but when I got my puzzles, oh so good. The sense of discovery is unmatched, I climbed the highest snow peaked mountain and slid down it on my shield. I discovered a lake filled with rocks that created wind tunnels that had to be used to launch bombs to open up caves. I battled giant sand worms while hitching a ride on a sand seal. I found dark woods where only fire is your source of light. I entered massive mazes found in the corners of the world.

BOTW brings Zelda into the modern age of gaming, the old formula absolutely needed a tune up, BOTW exceeded all expectations I could have in the gameplay mechancis department. It's just too big, of those 200 hours about 100 hours was me just messing around or trying to find something of actual interest but only finding yet another korok. Cut the fat, provide some form of pacing and progression but keep the freedom and then we have a game worthy of the top spot on my list.

travo said:

One of the best Zeldas ever should not be ranked so low.

I would not use one of the best but that’s just me.

robio said:

I need to give BotW a second chance. I made a mistake of starting it 2 weeks before Dragon Quest 11 came out.

I need to get back to it as well. I almost beat that game but I stopped right before I started the final Divine Beast just other stuff came up; also I don't have a Switch yet. I was playing it when my nephews were at school.

This list is pretty much all about being the killer of childhood dreams.