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'Breath of the Wild' sends players back to the future

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I spent last Friday riding down to Jasper, Arkansas to enjoy a weekend in a cabin near the Ozarks. It was going to be a beautiful weekend “free of screens,†I told my drivers. “I spend all day looking at screens,†I said. “At work I look at a computer all day. When I get home I watch TV and stare at another screen. It rots my brain.†It was then mentioned that a friend was bringing the now-unattainable-Nintendo Switch video game system to the cabin, complete with “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.â€

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Nevermind, I love screens. 

Zelda, any Zelda, brings back memories. I remember renting “Majora’s Mask†from Blockbuster (freshmen might have to look that up) and popping that beautiful, golden sucker into my N64 as soon as I got home. What followed completely mesmerized me. There are just certain characteristics of Zelda games that make them Zelda games. Cinematic intro sequences have been one of those traits since the N64 days.

In every Zelda game you give yourself a silly name, meet the village idiots, jump by walking off of ledges and you always, always, always wear green ….. or so I thought (none of these characteristics are the same in the new game.) While the new “Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild†still feels like a Zelda in many ways, subtle changes to the formula make it the biggest modification to the series since 1998’s “Ocarina of Time.†This can be a good or bad thing depending on how much the player expects the normal Zelda experience.

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What can’t be argued is that the game does play well and these changes can make the experience unexpectedly fun. Somehow by incorporating aspects from newer titles like “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,†“Assasin’s Creed,†and what I detect is a hint of “Lord of The Rings: Shadow of Mordor,†the newest Zelda game somehow, at it’s core, feels like the oldest Zelda title. Nintendo went back to the future with "Breath of the Wild," giving the player both the freedom and the exciting fear found in playing the original “The Legend of Zelda†for the NES.

Hear me out: in the 1986 8-bit Zelda game you are dropped off with little to no introduction. You wander in different directions discovering places you can go, and places you shouldn’t go as powerful enemies wreck your heart meter. Soon you find out you can upgrade the ways you can fight, (specifically shooting light beams out of your sword) ...but eventually that upgrade wears off and you are left feeling weaker against all that oppose you.

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“Breath of the Wild†incorporates a similar feel from the original, in it’s own modern way. Just as exploring the world both excites and punishes the player in the NES Zelda, so does exploring the world both excite and punish the player on the new Nintendo Switch installment (this time with graphics so good it will make you think twice about enjoying actual nature while staying at a cabin near the Ozarks.) The element of surprise is always present as Link turns corners to meet bigger and badder beings he’ll have to face, constantly swapping out his arsenal of weapons like a modern RPG.

“The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild†is about survival, more so than any Zelda title since the first. Yes, it switches things up considerably by incorporating those elements from recent games, but this game ultimately proves that Nintendo was onto something in 1986. All the “Skyrimâ€s and “Assasin’s Creedâ€s of modern gaming don’t have the history that the Legend of Zelda does and this game flaunts that simple fact. Sometimes 8-bit ideas are timeless. 

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