The Legend of Zelda Breath of The Wild (Switch)

It's sacrilege to say it, but I think this is my favourite Zelda. Even over OOT and Skyward Sword, this Zelda game set late-era on the timeline is hugely enjoyable, the lack of confusing dungeons and optional boss fights definitely means that for the most part you can play your way. The open world also allows for totally free movement, with no areas blocked off until later, which was nice to see in this game. The only real issue- and it's a biggie- is the utterly broken weapon durability system. With no means to upgrade or repair your weapons and the weapons you pick up breaking in 10-20 hits you really can't fully enjoy ripping through enemy camps and taking on the bosses scattered throughout the map, because you will end up with a weapon deficit if you do. I'd ... MoreIt's sacrilege to say it, but I think this is my favourite Zelda. Even over OOT and Skyward Sword, this Zelda game set late-era on the timeline is hugely enjoyable, the lack of confusing dungeons and optional boss fights definitely means that for the most part you can play your way. The open world also allows for totally free movement, with no areas blocked off until later, which was nice to see in this game. The only real issue- and it's a biggie- is the utterly broken weapon durability system. With no means to upgrade or repair your weapons and the weapons you pick up breaking in 10-20 hits you really can't fully enjoy ripping through enemy camps and taking on the bosses scattered throughout the map, because you will end up with a weapon deficit if you do. I'd have loved the challenge of the Lynel fights if not for each fight taking 3 of my best swords- so the game isn't as fun as it could have been, and the master sword's 'specialness' is ruined by the fact that, as the only rechargable sword, you end up using it to get firewood and smash rocks. Master quest is also entirely unplayable- the weapon durability doesn't scale up and enemies regenerate health (but you don't!) So even the weakest enemies end up using all your weapons and not dying. Definitely unbalanced and not enjoyable like previous hard modes! Overall though a wonderful story and fantastic musical score make this an enjoyable game.

My boyfriend gifted me a Nintendo Switch with a variety of games. I saw that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was one of them. The reviews for this game really sold me, so I decided to try and play it. I’m not much of a gamer, but I have experience with Mario classics and some Indie games. Let me just say, this is a game that I’m so happy to have played and COMPLETED. Over 300+ hours of gameplay and I’d do it all over again. When I started to play this game, I obviously had to learn the button controls and mechanics. It was confusing at first, but it became VERY enjoyable once I got the swing of things. Also, I just want to mention that I played this whole game on the switch handheld, comfortably throughout my home, without connecting to the tv screen. The ... MoreMy boyfriend gifted me a Nintendo Switch with a variety of games. I saw that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was one of them. The reviews for this game really sold me, so I decided to try and play it. I’m not much of a gamer, but I have experience with Mario classics and some Indie games. Let me just say, this is a game that I’m so happy to have played and COMPLETED. Over 300+ hours of gameplay and I’d do it all over again. When I started to play this game, I obviously had to learn the button controls and mechanics. It was confusing at first, but it became VERY enjoyable once I got the swing of things. Also, I just want to mention that I played this whole game on the switch handheld, comfortably throughout my home, without connecting to the tv screen. The option of using a handheld is impressive and convenient, but I wasn’t sure if I’d miss the bigger picture with such a small screen. Well, it turned out that it didn’t matter. I was still captivated by this game from start to finish. The resolution and frame rate are perfect, and I didn’t experience any glitching or rendering. The color choices for each region, character, monster, and so on are just beautiful and memorable. As you travel throughout each landscape, the weather will change, and the contrast from day to night takes place blending smoothly together. Time does pass you by the more you play. I loved watching the animated short stories, the art is just super pleasing to my eyes. Without revealing too much, the game has 77 Side Quests, 120 Shrine Quests, 15 Main Quests, and much more! The beginning will be slow because you start with nothing. It requires curious thinking and some patience. You only have 3 hearts and very little stamina. Remember, you were awakened from a hundred-year slumber. Like the player, Link also has no idea who anyone is, where anything is, and you both learn as you go. It may feel challenging at first, but this is nothing compared to when you get deep into the game. Just hang in there. You got this! The world is meant to be unstructured and it encourages you to explore absolutely everything, interact with everyone, and experiment with the items you collect. After a while, you may feel like you’re an absolute assassin, master chef, and a natural puzzle-solver. Well, you’re right. It’s because you have transformed from a korok seed into the Hylian warrior - you are becoming Link. You’ll understand. If you feel lost in the game, but are curious to continue playing, just search for walkthroughs or go on youtube. I’ll admit at times, I was completely unsure of where to go next, how to locate and activate a quest, cook elixirs, or just needed tips to proceed, etc. I suggest using these websites: IGN, Polygon, EuroGamer, Zelda Dungeon, and Underbuffed. They offer an extensive guide to make your gameplay continue. Just use it. It’ll make you feel good. Overall, Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an A+ game, and I commend the developers for doing their damn thing. Purchase it, play it, and have fun. May the Goddess smile upon you.

An evocative and exhilarating open-world adventure

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s sheer freedom and sense of adventure is a remarkable achievement. Right from the start, the vast landscape of Hyrule is thrown completely open to you, and it constantly finds ways to pique your curiosity with mysterious landmarks, complex hidden puzzles, and enemy camps to raid for treasure and weapons. The fact that you can tackle any one of these things at your own pace and almost never get pulled to the main path is liberating, but the way all of Breath of the Wild’s systems fit elegantly into complex light survival game is even more impressive. I’ve been running around for over 50 hours and I still have plenty of mysteries left to track down and lots of wonderfully crafted puzzles to solve. I’m in awe of the scope and ... MoreThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s sheer freedom and sense of adventure is a remarkable achievement. Right from the start, the vast landscape of Hyrule is thrown completely open to you, and it constantly finds ways to pique your curiosity with mysterious landmarks, complex hidden puzzles, and enemy camps to raid for treasure and weapons. The fact that you can tackle any one of these things at your own pace and almost never get pulled to the main path is liberating, but the way all of Breath of the Wild’s systems fit elegantly into complex light survival game is even more impressive. I’ve been running around for over 50 hours and I still have plenty of mysteries left to track down and lots of wonderfully crafted puzzles to solve. I’m in awe of the scope and scale of this adventure, and I often find myself counting the hours until I can get back in. The untamed, post-apocalyptic, techno-fantasy land of Hyrule is the main character in Breath of the Wild. Not only is it vast, beautiful, and filled with a diverse set of locations from grassy fields to craggy alpine mountains, but it follows surprisingly realistic rules that let you pull off solutions so intuitive that you might be surprised they actually work. The trees bear fruit, grass fields can be set ablaze, and even enemies and animals behave in a believable manner, based on the skittish and aggressive reactions I’ve seen in the wild. But the realistic touches don’t end there. Each object you encounter, from sticks to apples to rocks and metallic blocks, is made of a material, and those materials usually respond to forces like fire and magnetism as you’d expect. It all sets up a surprisingly fun and responsive sandbox to interact with, and one I’ve rarely seen executed so well in an action-adventure game. If you think something should work, it usually does, and that led me to all kinds of fun and hilarious experimentation. You can stand under an apple tree with a torch and bake the fruit into a quick-healing snack before you even pick it, or drop a metal sword in front of a weaponless enemy and watch it get fried by a bolt of lighting. Meanwhile, Link needs warmer clothes to survive the cold and flame-resistant gear to near the volcanic Death Mountain. It’s consistently amazing to learn how all of these systems interact with each other while you play.

Best Zelda experience to date

TL;DR The game has its gripes but is near perfect. This is how you revitalize a franchise that was starting to grow stale in it's formula. I bought a Switch just to play this game and I do not regret my purchase. PROS: + HUGE OPEN WORLD - Lots of interesting places and things to discover. It's quite exhilarating to scale a mountain in order to get a better view of everything around you and then paraglide to points of interest. If you can see a place on the map, you can get to it. + COMBAT EXPERIMENTATION - Combat experimentation is fun and rewarding, for awhile (more explanation in 'cons' section). + FUN AND VARIED COMBAT (FOR AWHILE) - Different enemy types are interesting and have specific tactics that clearly telegraph their moves making combat a rewarding ... MoreTL;DR The game has its gripes but is near perfect. This is how you revitalize a franchise that was starting to grow stale in it's formula. I bought a Switch just to play this game and I do not regret my purchase. PROS: + HUGE OPEN WORLD - Lots of interesting places and things to discover. It's quite exhilarating to scale a mountain in order to get a better view of everything around you and then paraglide to points of interest. If you can see a place on the map, you can get to it. + COMBAT EXPERIMENTATION - Combat experimentation is fun and rewarding, for awhile (more explanation in 'cons' section). + FUN AND VARIED COMBAT (FOR AWHILE) - Different enemy types are interesting and have specific tactics that clearly telegraph their moves making combat a rewarding learning experience and almost never feels cheap. + RPG ELEMENTS - The RPG elements fit very nicely into the Zelda universe and give the game a lot of depth. Mountable horses have different stats, enemies can have different elemental types along with stronger variations, weapons, armor, and shields have wildly different stats and abilities, food and elixirs provide different buffs, etc. + GAME DIFFICULTY - The game is relatively difficult compared to previous Zelda games. You really have to assess combat situations before entering the fray and many enemies are punishing. You will die, many times, but you do learn, with time, and with learning comes triumph and satisfaction. There's a DLC that adds Master Mode for the most hardcore players or those who found Normal too easy. + WEAPON DURABILITY - Weapon and shield durability forces you to continually hunt for new gear and keeps combat interesting and tense. + SHRINES - There's over 120 'shrines' which are peppered all over the map which act like mini-dungeons. They usually can be completed in 10 minutes or less and usually involve the use of several of Link's Runes that give you the ability to move metallic objects from a distance, throw bombs, summon ice pillars, or even freeze objects and apply force to them to launch into enemies or to other places to help solve puzzles. + NO HAND HOLDING - Doesn't explain much, doesn't hold your hand, and expects you to learn everything from the world, NPCs, and experimentation. CONS: - COMBAT GETS STALE - Combat experimentation becomes less effective as you become stronger. Ambushes with bombs, chu chu jellies, stasis, etc, all become less and less rewarding as enemies become stronger. - CAN'T SUMMON HORSES FROM ANYWHERE - Horses cannot be summoned from anywhere. The DLC solves this with 2 different solutions, but it should have been in the base game and been an early quest/reward before you spend 50+ hours exploring the map. - INVENTORY MANAGEMENT AND GENERAL UI - Inventory management and the menu UI could use a little work. You will fall in live with this game.

Fantastic Open World Game; Best Game for Switch

This game is amazing. It's beautiful, has a good story, is challenging, fun, sometimes quirky (in a good way), and has garnered my attention almost every day since the day I bought it. I have an XBox, Playstation, and Switch and the XBox dominated my game playing for years. I played the other consoles from time to time, but I never focused on the others for a specific period of time without going back to the XBox. Since buying this game I haven't touched the XBox or Playstation. I knew this game was good from reviews, but I was not prepared for how much I would enjoy playing it. In the beginning there was a lot of frustration with weapons breaking, learning the combat system (dodges and parries are everything in this game), and not having the right clothes for the ... MoreThis game is amazing. It's beautiful, has a good story, is challenging, fun, sometimes quirky (in a good way), and has garnered my attention almost every day since the day I bought it. I have an XBox, Playstation, and Switch and the XBox dominated my game playing for years. I played the other consoles from time to time, but I never focused on the others for a specific period of time without going back to the XBox. Since buying this game I haven't touched the XBox or Playstation. I knew this game was good from reviews, but I was not prepared for how much I would enjoy playing it. In the beginning there was a lot of frustration with weapons breaking, learning the combat system (dodges and parries are everything in this game), and not having the right clothes for the right environment. Once you learn these, the game becomes much more fun. Also, there is a lot of flexibility with the environment. It can be used in combat situations quite effectively and certain environmental items collected from fallen enemies can have interesting effects. The game itself lets you go where you want, when you want. It's not linear at all. That may be daunting if your used to going from point A to point B and being told what to do. This game will easily soak up hours of your life and keep you coming back. I highly recommend it. My favorite open world game is Assassin's Creed Odyssey, however this game has quickly become my second favorite and in time, might exceed my current favorite. I am still just over a couple weeks into playing the game.

Get it! My only regret is , I got it so late!

Wow, Zelda BOTW is just an amazin game. The mechanics is great. There is so much freedom of what you can do in the game. Gliding, swiming, sailing, climbing or even "surfing" in dessert. You can also cook and make your own dishes. The main story line is very interesting and keeps you playing. And there are endless side quest that you can enjoy. There are so many shrines each with witty puzzles which is either too trivial or too difficult. Compared to previous zelda games' dungeon, I prefer these shrines much better , they are like puzzles in bite size. Main quest and side quests can be switched anytime you want and the destinations are mostly marked, So you don't feel lost, not knowing where to you. YOu still need to do some searching, but it's mostly directed. The ... MoreWow, Zelda BOTW is just an amazin game. The mechanics is great. There is so much freedom of what you can do in the game. Gliding, swiming, sailing, climbing or even "surfing" in dessert. You can also cook and make your own dishes. The main story line is very interesting and keeps you playing. And there are endless side quest that you can enjoy. There are so many shrines each with witty puzzles which is either too trivial or too difficult. Compared to previous zelda games' dungeon, I prefer these shrines much better , they are like puzzles in bite size. Main quest and side quests can be switched anytime you want and the destinations are mostly marked, So you don't feel lost, not knowing where to you. YOu still need to do some searching, but it's mostly directed. The graphics style is work very well on switch. It looks very nice and yet quite smooth despite Switch's limited graphical power. The game is partly voice acted. Most cutscenes have great voiceovers. Sound effects are excellent. It doesn't have background music all the time, but when there is background music, you know that you have reached certain milestone and the music and sound effects are excellent. It's many games into one. There are the RPG , hit and slash, fighting, puzzles elements etc. The game has so much depth to it. What you where can affect your body temperature. And what you cook and eat can affeect your stamina and health. The world is huge and there is so much to do. Overall, this is a must play game on Switch. Just get it.

Loved it, until the glass bottle shattered

I really loved0 this collection of items, well mostly... The bag, bento box and water bottle are pretty cool. The bento can be used for game pieces or food. The bag can carry a number of items at once. But the notebook is the best part! It is one of the nicest notebooks I've seen designed similarly for other collections. There is a catch though. The glass bottle is very fragile. I dropped a small ice cube into it and the bottom shattered... I didn't realize until I started pouring water into it from my water filter and it went all over the floor though. The pen is a huge letdown, very cheap plastic and the pins are very poorly designed. The stickers are just stickers, nothing special. I returned the collection because the bottle broke. I might buy another set and ... MoreI really loved0 this collection of items, well mostly... The bag, bento box and water bottle are pretty cool. The bento can be used for game pieces or food. The bag can carry a number of items at once. But the notebook is the best part! It is one of the nicest notebooks I've seen designed similarly for other collections. There is a catch though. The glass bottle is very fragile. I dropped a small ice cube into it and the bottom shattered... I didn't realize until I started pouring water into it from my water filter and it went all over the floor though. The pen is a huge letdown, very cheap plastic and the pins are very poorly designed. The stickers are just stickers, nothing special. I returned the collection because the bottle broke. I might buy another set and never use the bottle, maybe... I would really be cautious if you buy this set. Don't expect something amazing...

No complaints here :)

Some background, I haven’t played a game since i was in middle school and i’m currently 24. I also have no gaming experience with Legend of Zelda. So far after a few days of playing the game.. I have been OBSESSED with the game. This game doesn’t give you a complete guide on every thing. You have to figure out a lot on your own especially as a first time player with no prior knowledge. HOWEVER, this is a complete dream for me. The open world concept and ability to play my own way makes it soooo much fun to figure things out in my own. There’s so many things going on which can get overwhelming but it keeps the game fresh and on my toes. I don’t see myself finishing this game within a month which is a huge plus for me because I want to explore every inch of the maps. ... MoreSome background, I haven’t played a game since i was in middle school and i’m currently 24. I also have no gaming experience with Legend of Zelda. So far after a few days of playing the game.. I have been OBSESSED with the game. This game doesn’t give you a complete guide on every thing. You have to figure out a lot on your own especially as a first time player with no prior knowledge. HOWEVER, this is a complete dream for me. The open world concept and ability to play my own way makes it soooo much fun to figure things out in my own. There’s so many things going on which can get overwhelming but it keeps the game fresh and on my toes. I don’t see myself finishing this game within a month which is a huge plus for me because I want to explore every inch of the maps. Granted there are areas with harder enemies, but it’s a challenge for me to try to find a way around them and learn better ways at fighting them. I’ve managed to get into some areas being way weaker than my opponents and it’s thrilling. Only “complaint” I have is trying to figure out how to fight the monsters. I wish they could teach you right off the bat but you kind of learn as you go. Even then It’s hood instead of overwhelming you with so many ways. I can keep going on for days but i have to get back to playing. Def recommend if you’re into a long term game and love solving problems.

The Verdict

This is how you revitalize a franchise that was starting to grow stale in it's formula. I bought a Switch just to play this game and I do not regret my purchase. I'm going to go over pros and cons to make this review a little easier to read. PROS: + HUGE OPEN WORLD - Lots of interesting places and things to discover. It's quite exhilarating to scale a mountain in order to get a better view of everything around you and then paraglide to points of interest. If you can see a place on the map, you can get to it. + COMBAT EXPERIMENTATION - Combat experimentation is fun and rewarding, for awhile (more explanation in 'cons' section). + FUN AND VARIED COMBAT (FOR AWHILE) - Different enemy types are interesting and have specific tactics that clearly telegraph their moves ... MoreThis is how you revitalize a franchise that was starting to grow stale in it's formula. I bought a Switch just to play this game and I do not regret my purchase. I'm going to go over pros and cons to make this review a little easier to read. PROS: + HUGE OPEN WORLD - Lots of interesting places and things to discover. It's quite exhilarating to scale a mountain in order to get a better view of everything around you and then paraglide to points of interest. If you can see a place on the map, you can get to it. + COMBAT EXPERIMENTATION - Combat experimentation is fun and rewarding, for awhile (more explanation in 'cons' section). + FUN AND VARIED COMBAT (FOR AWHILE) - Different enemy types are interesting and have specific tactics that clearly telegraph their moves making combat a rewarding learning experience and almost never feels cheap. + RPG ELEMENTS - The RPG elements fit very nicely into the Zelda universe and give the game a lot of depth. Mountable horses have different stats, enemies can have different elemental types along with stronger variations, weapons, armor, and shields have wildly different stats and abilities, food and elixirs provide different buffs, etc. + GAME DIFFICULTY - The game is relatively difficult compared to previous Zelda games. You really have to assess combat situations before entering the fray and many enemies are punishing. You will die, many times, but you do learn, with time, and with learning comes triumph and satisfaction. DLC adds Master Mode for the most hardcore players or those who found Normal too easy. + COOKING SYSTEM - Cooking system is deep and rewards experimentation. Cooking not only allows for the crafting of meals and elixirs which gives you numerous buffs, but it's also one of the best ways to make money. + WEAPON DURABILITY - Weapon and shield durability forces you to continually hunt for new gear and keeps combat interesting and tense. While I didn't think I would like this system at first, it makes for a much more engaging game than just getting a single, over-powered item and just relying on that the rest of the game, which would get boring, imo. + SHRINES - There's over 120 'shrines' which are peppered all over the map which act like mini-dungeons. They usually can be completed in 10 minutes or less and usually involve the use of several of Link's Runes (that you get at the beginning of the game) that give you the ability to move metallic objects from a distance, throw bombs, summon ice pillars, or even freeze objects and apply force to them to launch into enemies or to other places to help solve puzzles. I love these shrines because they're fun to solve, and due to the game's physics engine, many can be solved in ways the developers probably didn't intend (look up YouTube videos on it). Shrines are short enough that they're not a huge time investment like normal Zelda dungeons that used to demand an hour+ of your time to complete, making them ideal for short gaming sessions. + NO HAND HOLDING - Doesn't explain much, doesn't hold your hand, and expects you to learn everything from the world, NPCs, and experimentation. CONS: - BARREN FEELING OPEN-WORLD - The world feels very barren and empty, much of the time. Many say the map is 'dense' but I don't think that's an accurate word to describe it. The map is loaded with things to do, but there is lots of empty space between those points of interest. Think if you took the map of Skyrim (a game I would call 'dense') and expanded it by 3 times the size, including time to travel between points of interest. Horses don't really help with traversal especially when you're moving across mountainous or rocky terrain. - COMBAT GETS STALE - Combat experimentation becomes less effective as you become stronger. Ambushes with bombs, chu chu jellies, stasis, etc, all become less and less rewarding as enemies become stronger. Before, a carefully aimed bomb could kill an enemy, outright, or roll into barrels which would take out an entire encampment, now a bomb does roughly 5% damage and most other means are hardly worth the effort over just using brute-force. For a game that really rewarded this kind of behavior at the start, I was bummed that I couldn't rely on those tactics later in the game, adding to the combat feeling stale and repetitive after awhile. - CAN'T SUMMON HORSES FROM ANYWHERE - Horses cannot be summoned from anywhere. The DLC solves this with 2 different solutions, but it should have been in the base game and been an early quest/reward before you spend 50+ hours exploring the map. This was super frustrating to me when walking to Gerudo town, which ended up being close to 25 minutes of walking/running from the nearest shrine. A horse would have made this trek much more bearable but there were no stables nearby to even take it out of. - INVENTORY MANAGEMENT AND GENERAL UI - Inventory management and the menu UI could use a little work. While I loved having so many interesting items and ingredients to discover and experiment with, moving through the menus got tedious, especially when you have multiple pages of stuff to sort through or when you find new, better weapons/shields and have to go back into your menus to drop some to make space. Menus felt cluttered and even after 80 hours, I would still fumble through menus trying to do specific things. - PERFORMANCE AND LOAD TIMES - The game runs pretty well a majority of the time, but there are certain places where it will chug, specifically when there's lots of particle effects on-screen or there's a lot of things to render. This also makes load times get kind of old, as it can take up to 20 seconds to load into new areas or even just reload the area you are in, after dying. Even dying in a shrine results in a 10 second reload, which is baffling since they're not in the open-world and shouldn't take that long to render, especially when they've already been rendered before your death. - GRAPHICS - While the game looks pretty good most of the time, there's other times that the hardware limitations really show, like when you're trekking across big meadows or rocky mountains with little detail. It looks really good for a handheld system, but doesn't quite hold up to console standards, even compared to last gen. - EXPLAINS NOTHING - While I love that the game doesn't hold your hand, I was equally frustrated by not having a clue how to do certain things. While a purist would argue that all the answers are SOMEWHERE in the game or that you should just experiment, someone like me just doesn't have the patience to play 90% of the games content to then find out that a certain ability will significantly help map traversal and reduce travel time. I want to know these things up-front or at the latest, halfway through the game, since getting an ability to improve travel time feels less rewarding when I've already slowly trekked through a vast majority of the map at 60 hours. DLC rewards are not as great if you have nearly completed and covered the entire base game... what's the use of a horse or motorcycle you can summon anywhere if you don't have anything left to explore? Anyways, I absolutely love this game. Given the number of rather large gripes that I had with it, I felt like a 4 is a fair score. I really look forward to the next game but I hope people can acknowledge and admit the game's shortcomings, otherwise, these things won't be fixed in order to give us the most refined and amazing follow-up that we all are already salivating for.

The definitive 3D Zelda game!

Breath of the Wild is simultaneously a Zelda game and not a Zelda game. If you're like me and you've always loved the 2D Zelda games better than the 3D Zelda games, you can rest assured that this is not a run-of-the-mill 3D Zelda game. The heavy focus on open world exploration, weapons, food, wardrobe, side quests, and doing whatever you want has never been seen in a Zelda game much less any first party Nintendo title, and it is absolutely refreshing. I have personally spent over 120 hours in this version of Hyrule, and very little of my experience has been linear. You want to go that direction? Go that direction. You want to climb that tower and glide to wherever? Do it! You want to try to ride that horse and get bucked off repeatedly? Go for it! Do you want to ... MoreBreath of the Wild is simultaneously a Zelda game and not a Zelda game. If you're like me and you've always loved the 2D Zelda games better than the 3D Zelda games, you can rest assured that this is not a run-of-the-mill 3D Zelda game. The heavy focus on open world exploration, weapons, food, wardrobe, side quests, and doing whatever you want has never been seen in a Zelda game much less any first party Nintendo title, and it is absolutely refreshing. I have personally spent over 120 hours in this version of Hyrule, and very little of my experience has been linear. You want to go that direction? Go that direction. You want to climb that tower and glide to wherever? Do it! You want to try to ride that horse and get bucked off repeatedly? Go for it! Do you want to destroy hordes of enemies, collect supplies and treasures, and talk to all the NPCs along the way? Nothing is stopping you! Do not let your preconceived dislikes of 3D Zelda stop you from playing this 3D Zelda title; the battles are fluid and not "Z-targeting" stiff like the previous 3D games in the series, and the enemies are actually smart... usually. A few issues arise: The text on the screen is so small that playing in handheld mode is challenging, and even playing on a larger screen can have you squinting from time to time. Some of the requirements to trigger certain challenges are never explained in-game, which forces you to rely on online player's guides to explain some of the mechanics, which is disappointing for a series that prides itself on its intuitiveness. Finally, almost nobody will 100% complete this game; there are so many things to collect that you will probably quit way before you have them all, and a player's guide is absolutely needed to 100% it. Overall, though, this is my absolute favorite 3D Zelda game, and it stands a good chance of being yours, as well.