Mini Review: I Played Breath of the Wild For the First Time
P.S. It was my second time and for 2 hours. Here’s what I thought.
I usually do reviews for games after I finish them, but I realised it’s a lot of commitment to finish games (there are so many other things to do!), especially if I don’t enjoy them as much. Therefore, I decided to start a mini-review series, where I record my thoughts for 2 hours of gameplay, before determining if I will continue the game, or not.
Where Do We Start?
The Legend of Zelda, of course!
You might think, “Michelle, you’re joining the party a bit late.” And honestly, I agree. Other games just always took priority, and my first experience with the game wasn’t as ideal as I thought.
For one, I was on a plane. Then, I mixed up the Skyview towers and the shrines (which, in hindsight, is so stupid, but I was half-asleep on the flight so give me a break.)
I also never played a Zelda game before, so I was just blindly thrown into a world of confusion. I got upset by the constant kills from Decayed Guardians, so I closed the game and never looked back.
Let’s Give it Another Go
Today, I decided to give myself 2 hours to restart the game. Within 2 hours, I managed to complete the introduction (all four shrines), and I was on my way to Kakariko Village when my timer went off.
Here is what I think of the game so far.
The Shrines were Easier than I Thought
I gave up after completing the first shrine on my first attempt, so I had no idea what to do on the second run. For one, I was misguided by the Old Man, and thought there were four more shrines around the area, instead of four shrines in total, so I took way too long searching for a fourth nonexistent shrine.
Eventually, I gave up and decided to pursue the three shrines I pinpointed first (which turned out to be all that I needed to find), and I was relieved to find that one was nearby.
After expertly avoiding the Decayed Guardian, I found that the shrine took no time at all to complete. So did the others.
I understood that the purpose of each of the shrines was to show us the slate abilities in action, but it got repetitive quickly without a real challenge.
My challenge was mostly on the road, and maybe that was what the game intended, it was just the introduction after all, but I got quite bored after the two hours, and was glad to finally embark on my next main quest. The introduction didn’t pique my interest.
The game did start to pick up with our final conversation with the Old Man, but by then, my timer rang.
The Cooking System is Amazing
The cooking in Breath of the Wild is amazing, if you figured it out in the first place.
I reached Mount Hylia in search of Owa Daim Shrine when I realised I ran into the same problem as I did the first time I played this game.
The cold mechanic.
I hate the cold mechanic. It gives me traumatic flashbacks to when I was getting through Dragonspine in Genshin Impact. But thinking that, like Genshin Impact, there may be torches along the way, I ventured in several times looking for a corresponding heating mechanism, and failed miserably.
This time, I thought, I would be smarter. And my keen eyes finally noticed the peppers in the corner of the entrance. It clicked; I have to cook them!
I turned around and found a Bokoblin camp nearby. Finally! I can use fire to cook for the very first time! I ran towards them, destroyed them and walked up to the fire, looking for the cook button.
Nothing.
I was so confused. Is this fire not enough? I turned to see meat grilling at another fire, and tried it once there again. Again, nothing. Where’s the stupid cook button?
I went through the ingredients again, thinking maybe I could just eat the peppers, when I realised there was a “hold” tab. I clicked it, found out I could hold several peppers and apples in one hand, and walked again to the fire.
Aha! It worked.
The moment I figured out the cooking mechanism, I was hooked. So, that’s how you make food in the game, it was so unlike how I’ve experienced the mechanism before, that I promptly cooked up all my ingredients for fun.
Thanks to the cooking mechanism, I was able to venture through the mountains for the first time and complete the remaining two shrines. I thought I couldn’t wait to cook more. Such a fun discovery.
Exploration is King
My final realisation as to why I was able to progress so much more in this playthrough than the last was because I started exploring. As the game intended with the open-world setting, I walked off-path and ventured into little nooks and crannies, finding a lot more powerful weapons and ingredients than my last playthrough.
Exploring helped me go through the game easier, which sounds stupid in hindsight, but was a critical lesson I learned on the way. If I hadn’t explored, I bet I would’ve tried to climb the mountain without the peppers and never got through it (I tend to climb mountains in Genshin Impact to avoid enemies).
The map was supposed to feel vast and neverending because it wants you to experience what Link would’ve experienced, a person, with no memories, plopped into a world of unknown. After I figured out the cooking mechanism, that thought stuck, and I embraced the exploration aspect of the game a lot more (which is also why I found the shrines so boring in contrast).
Conclusion
My goal for these two-hour sessions is to determine whether I'll continue playing the games. And for Breath of the Wild, now that I’ve completed the initial shrines and progressed with the main quest, I can say that I would continue playing in my own time.
Though I am not as obsessed as others online claim they are yet, the game has a lot more content to unpack and poses a great challenge with their enemies and exploration (I am pretty sure that I need to use a bow and arrow on the horseback bokoblins, but I need to figure out how to use it first). So, I am excited to see whether I'll get obsessed too.
I would like to continue doing these mini-reviews in the future, maybe once every two months? Have you played through Breath of the Wild? Are you obsessed with it? Make sure to tell me all about it.
Thanks for reading!
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