Biggest pleasant surprise of the Switch era

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Breath of the Wild.

As soon as I saw this game at E3 2016, I knew it would be great. (And it was, and it is.)  That probably doesn't sound like much of a surprise.  For me the surprise was that this game ever got made in the first place.  For the longest time I thought that Link to the Past was the last game in the series that was true to the roots of Zelda.  Then Breath of the Wild came along and shocked me that it actually even existed.  This was Zelda going back to it's roots.  I waited 25 years for this game.  For me this was real Zelda.  

This is how I knew it would outsell Mario Odyssey, even when Odyssey released later and had a huge lead over BotW.  Back in the NES days, Zelda was Nintendo's #2 franchise (after Mario).  Zelda always had the potential to be a huge seller.  But it needed to get back to its roots to unlock its true sales potential.  That is what Breath of the Wild did.  It gave me a feeling a whole lot like I felt back in the 80s when I was playing Zelda for the first time.

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 24 November 2021