Zelda Breath of the Wild—First Zelda game

[Jumpin]

As people have brought up, Zelda has never been much about narrative story telling. Most have a very bare-bones fairytale plot. The original Zelda game had almost no narrative and focused on a more “your adventure forged is your story” type emergent storytelling, Breath of the Wild does something similar. There’s actually a lot more dialogue and sub-plot in Breath of the Wild than others, but the game is designed mainly to tell your own story in this vast world. It’s not a “Cutscene for plot point 1” then “cutscene for plot point 2” “etc...” type game.

In short, Breath of the Wild is emergent storytelling rather than a plot based story.

Controls, I think it’s just a matter of getting used to. Same with most new games. Breath of the Wild is more advanced than any previous Zelda game in this regard, though, due to the large number of weapons. Older Zelda games leave you with just 2-3 basic attacks (slash, stab, spin attack), and a few secondary ones. Anyway, for a full Zelda experience:
Zelda 1 and 2 for the roots, Link to the Past for 2D games, Ocarina of Time for the 3D formula, and Breath of the Wild for the next big step that kind of unifies everything, and then expands on it significantly.

One tip is that it’s best not to look at Breath of the Wild as a linear experience, rather an exploration one. When you come across a challenge that causes you to get stuck, go someplace else. After the Great Plateau the only thing on the critical path is finishing the game. The rest of the game provides you with cash, items, and power-ups that will make that task easier. It’s really about exploration, and not trying to do everything you come across.

A second tip, some enemies are a lot more difficult, it’s not necessarily because you shouldn’t be in that area, almost every area is filled with some enemies that are much more powerful. It just means that you should go around them instead of through them. You can explore anywhere you want to, really.

Register your horse at a stable.

Third tip, don’t try to 100% it. It’s not designed for that. I think every player I have come across who attempted it complained about it. Some even said they should cut down on content so that it is easier to 100%, which really hammers the point home that the game is not designed to be played that way. Nor should it be.

Last edited by Jumpin - on 10 April 2020