Did Breath of the Wild live up to the hype for you?

[dan_banan]

Personally i've stopped boarding any kind of hype-train ever since I was burned by the twilight princess hype. My expectations for that game were so insane, inevitably i was let down once i played it.
With BOTW on the other hand, I watched the trailers but didn't read or research anything else, it looked good enough so I knew i'd buy it, but i didn't want to spoil anything or ruin the surprise (nor get my hopes up too high again). So I didn't know much about it at release, and when I started playing I was horrified to learn that the weapons break! It reminded me of Fragile Dreams for the wii, an absolutely gorgeous looking game with some horrible game play mechanics, such as weapons having limited durability. Thankfully, the more I played BOTW, I realised that Fragile Dreams had implemented that mechanic in an annoying and awful way, while BOTW does it much more enjoyably. I quickly grew accustomed to it, and today I can even appreciate the philosophy behind it.
Quite quickly I also realised that this game is everything I didn't know I wanted from a zelda game. It is quite different from the "classic" 3D-zeldas, while still retaining some common traits. Now I've only really played nintendo-games, and not that many open world games, certainly not any with the scope and size of BOTW, so I can't really compare it to many other games in the genre, or frankly any game on other consoles. But compared to the other 3D-zeldas, BOTW is personally my favourite. It might even be my favourite game of all time (maybe! I still hold Okami (the best "zelda" ever made) very dear to my heart)!
Personally i enjoyed it immensely, I loved almost every part of it. I'm big on exploration, I could set out on a path and just wander around, or spend hours gazing at the beautiful map, planning my course. The gameplay felt satisfying, innovative and inspiring, every step of the way. I'm not that interested in story in videogames, but the story i found was engrossing enough. And I know a lot of people complain about the rain, but it has never bothered me really. So all in all BOTW suited my playstyle perfectly. The experience in genereal just feels extremely polished and the minute attention to detail makes the over-all experience so smooth and joyful. And I've never had such a strong feeling of freedom in a videogame, certainly not in any other zelda-entry. Lovely. Ooh i get all excited and eager to play it again! :D