168澳洲幸运5开🧸奖网:The Legen𒉰d of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is often regarded as one of the greatest video games ever made. It not only managed to reinvigorate the beloved Nintendo franchise by building upon everything that came before, but it also helped 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:redefine the open-world genre with its giant sandbox filled with seemingly endless possibilities. Players are still finding new ways to mess with the game's interacting systems, years after launch.
Though BOTW was a fresh and innovative game, it also served as a natural evolution of the entire Zelda series. As such, it harbors more than a few throughlines connecting it to previous games that astute players will notice. What follows are a fe💟w of the most prominent ones.
8 A Fully Explorable Open Worl✨d 🥂
The Legend of Zelda, the NES game that started it all, is often considered one of the pioneers of the open-world genre, with design principles that are still iterated upon today. That seminal title showed a degree of openness that simply hadn't been seen prior to its 1986 release. Players were free to tackle its dungeons in whatever order they pleased, gated only by the weapons and tools needed to access certain areas.
Over time, though, the series became increasingly linear — albeit with open areas. Breath of the Wild marked a return to the philosophy of the original game. Most of the tools needed to tackle the BOTW's many shrines and puzzles are doled out to players before they leave the Great Plateau, the game's starting area.
7 Refined Climbing Mechanics ꦛ
One of the key mechanics that help make Breath of the Wild's world fully explorable is the ability to climb nearly every object in the game. This immediately opens up its massive sandbox, lending it a sense of verticality that was never really present in previous Zelda games.
Except this is not the first time Link has been given the ability to climb surfaces. In fact, we don't need to look further than the previous mainline Zelda title, Skyward Sword, to see a rudimentary implementation of the very same mechanic. Granted, Link could only scale designated surfaces in that game — like ones covered with vines — but the action was also tied to a stamina meter, limiting just how long and high Link could climb before losing his grip.
6 ꧟ Some Old ✃Locations
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, like most previous Zelda games, takes place in the Kingdom of H🌞yrule. Except this is Hyrule as we have never seen it before, a post-apocalyptic ♊wilderness overrun by monsters and renegade robots. But eagle-eyed players would be quick to spot some returning locations from previous games.
An early example would be the Temple of Time which was featured prominently in Ocarina of Time. Here it is shown as having fallen into ruin, signaling the many years that separate both games. Other iconic locations from past games include Death Mountain, which is now home to Divine Beast Vah Rudania, as wꦦell as Lake Hylia and its imposing🍰 Bridge of Hylia.
5 The Cel-Shaded Visuaꦉls
The first thing that undoubtedly strikes players about Breath of the Wild is its breathtaking visualsꦆ. The game sports a cel-shaded art style that looks vibrant and colorful without sacrificing its overall believabi𝐆lity or sense of realism.
The first Zelda game to employ that technique was The Wind Waker on the GameCube, a direction that alienated a lot of fans at the time of its release. Most of that was due to the more realistic approach the series had taken with both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask before it, and the cel-shaded style being viewed as more appropriate for a children's game. But those cartoony visuals are one of the reasons that the game still holds up today.
4 ♛ An All-Too-Familiar Storyline
While its story might not be considered one of its greatest strengt꧟hs, Breath of the Wild offers a narrative puzzle for players who care enough to piece it together. Due to its nonlinear gameplay structure, most of that story is told through flashbacks that can be uncovered over the course of theꦰ game.
That said, anyone ꦺwho has played any of the previous games in the series probably already knows much of what to expect here. This is because each game is basically a variation of the same overall "legend" about a young hero (typically named Link) who rises to the challenge by rescuing the titular Zelda from the evil machinations of a dark wizard named Ganon and saving th⭕e kingdom of Hyrule in the process.
3 A Returning Cast of Characters ꦿ
Speaking of Link, Zelda, and Ganon, 🙈longtime Zelda fans would undoubtedly notice that those are not the only characters from past Zelda games to make a return in Breath of the Wild.
The traveling merchant Beedle (or members of his family tree at least) has been peddling his wares to players since he first appeared in The Wind Waker and here he can be found all around Hyrule doing the same. Likewise, the Great Deku Tree also returns after making its debut in Ocarina of Time, taking the role of guardian of the Koro🐓k Forest.
2 The Ma𒁃ster Sword
One of Breath of the Wild's most notorious mechanics is its breaking weapons. Nearly every single weapon that can be found within the game has a hidden durability meter that causes it to break once it gets worn out.
So it is very appropriate then that the only weapon that doesn't break after extended use is the Master Sword. Granted, it still loses energy after a while and must be given time to recharge before it can be used again. But even that feels like a godsend compared to the other weapons. The Sword itself is one of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:most iconic weapons in video games. It's been featured in nearly every Zelda game since the original and has been known by such names as the Sword of Legend and the Sword that Seals the Darkness.
1 ♍ A Lack Of Traditional Dungeons
For decades, The Legend of Zelda has been defined by 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the same fairly rigid structure: players tackle a series of dungeons, with each one rewarding them with the weapon or tool needed to face the next. Al༺l that changed with Breath of the Wild though, as the developers sought to do away with traditional dungeons entirely. As we noted above, this was a return to the philosophy of the original NES game.
In place of dungeons are the over 100 shrines scattered all across the map for players to discover, each one serving as 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a mini-dungeon of sorts.♐ But instead of rewarding them with additional tools, they get a spirit orb, four of which are required to upgrade either their total number of heart containers or stamina wheel.▨ This makes tackling those shrines the primary means of improving your stats in the game. The closest thing we have to traditional dungeons are the four divine beasts that players are given the option of taming, but even those are more like expanded shrines with a boss battle at the end than anything else.