My Favourite Game

My Favourite Game

Hi! I'm Kay, and I'm here with my first blog post. Today I will be discussing my favourite video game, why I enjoy it so much but also some criticism about the game.

 I play many games in my free time across varying genres, but I typically enjoy open world games the most. I play across multiple platforms but have been an avid Nintendo fan from a young age. 

So, I enjoy open world style games the most, and am a Nintendo fan. So, naturally, my favourite game as of right now is..

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild!

The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild official artwork

Source: Here

This game follows the protagonist Link- who awakens from a 100 year slumber to a Hyrule overtaken by the Calamity Ganon, who he must stop to bring the land to peace once more. He is a knight to Princess Zelda, who has been fighting Calamity Ganon for the past 100 years. Link must find a way to defeat Calamity Ganon with the help of the Divine Beasts from the main 4 regions of the game- or he can charge straight to Hyrule Castle and fight Ganon in his underwear with a few twigs as weapons. That is the true beauty of this game- you don't have to play in any specific order to beat it. You can charge in to save the day at any moment you'd like. Even in just your underwear. 

This game is one of the latest releases in The Legend of Zelda series, with it's sequel having been recently announced to be in the making. (I may or may not have screamed when I was watching the Nintendo Direct for this). It won Game of the Year in 2017- and for good reason. This game is not like the traditional Legend of Zelda game full of dungeons and temples, it's very free with its open world structure and story. There are shrines with puzzles which are somewhat reminiscent of the temples in other games, but they are all optional bar the few at the very start of the game, unlike the other games where you need to complete every temple to unlock the next part of the story. 

The gameplay is quite refreshing; featuring an advanced combat system, many weapon types, shields, and many different types of enemies with different attacks, strengths and weaknesses. Link can climb up pretty much any surface in this game- which is a welcome change. I can recall countless times of trying to struggle and jump up mountains in another famous open world game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, so being able to simply climb them is far easier and less time consuming. There is also a temperature mechanic which adds a sense of realism to the game- if you want to traverse the snowy regions, you have to hold a torch close or have extra warm clothing.

The map is huge- it's composed of many different regions all home to different races of people. Most notably, The Gerudo Desert homes the Gerudo people- a race of almost entirely women, Zora's Domain which features the fish like Zora race, The Rito village which houses the bird like Rito people and Goron City which houses the rock like people who are extremely resistant to heat (naturally since they literally live on a volcano). There are so many lovable characters scattered throughout all these regions which add a charm to the game. I personally am a sucker for lovable and/or complex characters in media so exploring all these different regions and meeting all these characters is my favourite part of the game.

The story is arguably not very long- you can beat the game by skipping all the Divine Beast questlines and making a beeline for Ganon, and some of the side quests are very obscure and in odd locations so they can be difficult to find. The land itself is also very empty; while this makes sense because the land of Hyrule has basically been destroyed by Calamity Ganon, but I feel that some regions of the game suffer very badly from the barren and plain look and could benefit from more destroyed structures and places to explore. I also find that a lot of mechanics are easily missed as not much is explained to you which can be very confusing for new players.

Despite the criticisms this game faces, I still love it to bits and find myself playing it often and revisiting it as the region is so vast and there are so many shrines and puzzles and things to collect. You can basically find something new whenever you play (unless you're a completionist and have 100% cleared the game which is arguably extremely difficult to achieve).

I highly recommend this game to anyone who has a Switch- it is so different from the other games in the franchise so you don't need to have played any other Legend Of Zelda games to understand what's going on. It is a great experience playing this game and often wish I could play it for the first time again.

Thank you for reading my first blog!