The newest, and already one of the hottest, Legend of Zelda games just came out- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In this game, you play in a world that is a combination of the realistic looking Hyrule, and you have details of that which were in Toon Zelda games such as Wind Waker.
The story takes place 100 years after a war between Hyrule and Calamity Ganon. After Ganon defeats Link and the others by turning the Hyrulian weapons against them, Link is put into a deep sleep for a hundred years. You start of the game with absolutely nothing except a Sheikah Slate (an advanced piece of technology similar to a tablet) and underwear (You get your shirt, pants, and boots later). When leaving the place that you started off in, you will see a large field with numerous animals, large mountains, and tremendous forests. This is nothing! The game map is so big that it will probably take a player over an hour to run from the most eastern part of the map to the west!
What makes this game different from other Zelda games is the new open world. The player now needs to gather resources and hunt for food in order to make it through the game as well as cut down trees to obtain wood for campfires. The player will also need to obtain different kinds of armor and weapons with different stats to enter certain areas without freezing or burning to death, challenging gamers to explore and talk to NPCs (Non-playable characters) in the game in search for these items or simply making potions using the resources you have collected by hunting.
A down side that a few are upset about that adds a major struggle to the game are a stamina bar and durability. When Link performs certain tasks in the game that require a large amount of energy (Running, Climbing, Gliding, etc.) his stamina bar will go down, requiring to player to stop that action for a brief moment to catch a breath. What happens if the stamina bar runs out? Let’s just say you don’t want to be gliding if that does happen. Durability follows the same kind of rules. If Link attacks an enemy with a weapon too much, shields himself too much, or uses a bow too much, it’s durability will decrease leading up to the equipment shattering once it reaches its breaking point. However, you can repair your equipment through various ways but I’ll leave it up to you to explore them.
Another feature that have people either really happy, or really angry, is the new blood moon. Every so often, you will come to a night where the moon will be a bright red color in the sky. When this happens, Zelda will give you a message telling you to be careful, because all the monsters that you previously have defeated are now back to life. You can either spend your time in a town hiding from this, or you can take this golden opportunity to kill the monsters again and obtain more rare items from defeating them.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is now available for the Nintendo Switch and the Wii U. If you are into open world games, are a fan of the Zelda Series, or a Skyrim fan, I highly recommend buying this game. For a $60 game, this is worth it for both the story, the graphics, the gameplay, and the fact that even after playing the game for over 24 hours, I still haven’t beaten it, making it a game for long time enjoyment!