bite sized: breath of the wild

Hey loggers, welcome back to another bite sized episode of the Backlog Breakdown where I am going to attempt to break something down today. And that is one of my favorite games of all time, the Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild. And you know, some games just come along at the perfect time. I'm sure you've experienced this, but this is one of those games for me. Now why am I talking about Breath of the Wild and why did I decide to do a bite sized episode on Breath of the Wild? Well, I, we've, we've said, both me and my co host Nate have, have talked about our top 10 video games of all time. So I wanted to go kind of bottom to top, just do little episodes on why it's one of my favorite games of all time. I did one at Yoshi's island for number 10 and then as I go up the list, number 9 is Shin Megami Tensei 5. We have an episode on that planned for sometime this year that will be coming out. So I don't want to preemptively release an episode on that after that is Bloodborne. And we do have content on Bloodborne other episodes. So go check those out. You can get more information there as to why I really enjoy that game. So the next on the list is the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. Now surprisingly we don't have like a full episode kind of dedicated towards it. And maybe it is the ambivalence of my co host. I don't want to lay that at his feet. But I did want to create some content here and, and talk about again my experience with Breath of the Wild and why it's one of my favorite games of all time. And so in order to do that I want to have a little, have a little story time with Mr. Josh. Okay, come, come around kitties. You, you young. You young children with big bright shiny eyes that, that did not know of Nintendo before the Nintendo Switch There was, there was time. The before times of the Nintendo Switch. The Wii U had been released and Nintendo was struggling to find its audience. Now they were still putting out great games. Smash Brothers ultimate was released. Mario Kart 8 was released on the Wii U. We were getting. We gamers who enjoyed the Wii U were actually eating pretty well. It just did not seem to be resonating. We got HD remakes of Legend of Zelda, Wind Waker and Twilight Prince. Wii U is a great time. Pikmin 3 was on Wii U. Star Fox Zero was also on Wii U. I enjoyed that game, but I Know most people don't anyways. Wii U was a time of struggle for Nintendo. They had not captured the market. They'd actually towards the tail end of the Wii a lot of people had kind of dispersed and said okay, these waggle games are not capturing us any longer. And so the follow up to the Wii, the Wii U just did not connect very well with the gaming populace. But there was hope, there was hope that the special game would be released by Nintendo and people would buy a Wii U just to play this special game. Like I said, Smash Brothers came out. It was a hit relatively with the people who played it, but not very many people played it. Mario Kart 8 was another one that was, that was great and people really enjoyed it. But again it just did not move very many numbers. Even when Oprah gave away we use it still just did not seem to connect. There was confusion about even what the Wii U was. But looming on the horizon these, these Zelda HD remakes were coming out as well. But looming on the horizon was this new Zelda game that was coming out and Nintendo had announced it. Of course they have some, some pretty long development cycles for the Nintendo or excuse me, the Legend of Z. But there was this promise that this new Zelda was going to come out and we die hard. Nintendo fans thought maybe this will be the game that will capture the imaginations of gamers everywhere and the Wii U will, will rise to, to stardom that it, that it rightfully deserves. Well, it continued to be pushed, but it was unveiled, it was pushed back. It was in a bit of a. It took a long time for come out. Finally when the date was announced for Breath of the Wild, it was also announced that the Nintendo nx, the project for its next console was going to be was revealed as the Nintendo Switch. And so Breath of the Wild would not only be released on Wii U but also on the Nintendo Switch. That's great for the, the gaming public. That's great. Actually it was a great business move by Nintendo release a new console with this new Legend of Zelda that they're hoping to do really well. It. It hurt. It stung a little bit. As a Wii U die hard, it stung that the game that possibly could have changed minds and hearts was also being released on this new system and the Wii U was being quietly kind of pushed off into the old folks home. While that did sting, while that did hurt and I did not get a Nintendo Switch day and date with release, I did pick up Breath of the Wild and I did get it for Wii U and I did play the entire game on Wii U. I still actually don't have a Switch copy. I need to do that. But the, the Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild provided people with a world to explore. And it did, in a way. It set, it set things on fire. People really connected with this game. It was, it was the new hotness. Okay. And Nintendo Switch number, sales numbers, you know, shot through the roof. And Switch is a great console. I love Switch. Yeah, it's better than the Wii U. I still just love, I also love the Wii U, but yeah, it's better pretty much every way. But yeah, it stung at the time, but Breath of the Wild was a fantastic game and it deserved the notoriety that it got. And for me personally. So this came out in 2017, the Switch. The 2017 was a great year for video games in general. The Switch came out, but also my daughter was born, my first daughter. And so my experience playing Breath of the Wild was that there was this huge open world that I was able to explore this game that I had been waiting for for a while, for, you know, for years I was able to play this game while also, you know, outside of the video game, my daughter, who I had also been anticipating, because I don't know if you know this, but it takes about nine months of gestation before a child is born. My wife and I were anticipating the birth of, of our daughter and she was born. And for me, life kind of slows down. It's a lot of hurry up and wait. When you first have a baby, they sleep a lot and then when they're awake, you want to be watching them. Absolutely. Every second. Both there's this bonding that happens, but also you want to make sure you're providing towards the child's needs. So you've got this slowing down of life for a week or two and very much kind of hurry up and wait when she's awake, you're paying attention to her. When she's asleep, okay, you've got free time. What are you gonna do with it? And so I was able to explore this digital world while also caring for this newborn. And we had another child. You know, our son was also 18, 19 months. So figuring out life with two kids, having this baby in this, what feels like a very focused time, what feels like you are hyper fixated on this child for a while before you kind of get your feet under you. And then going into this digital world that is open, that is all about exploring the grandeur and the, the magic under every rock. It was a nice juxtaposition of things I remember. I remember times when I would have my stationary bike and be holding my daughter while she's asleep. Maybe she'd be on my chest or something like that. And this is a recumbent bike. That's what it's called. So you're kind of laying back. She'd be sleeping on my chest and I'd have the Wii U controller and playing this game. And so I've got great memories. All this story time is just to set up the landscape of video games. But my personal experience with where video games were, where Nintendo was, where my head was at at the time, and then my experience with this game because that largely colors the way that we play video games. Our experience in the time of our life outside of the game. You know, some games can be better or worse depending on the games that we already have played or what we're comparing it to, or what we're looking looking for in certain video games. So all that taken into account, that's one of the reasons why this is one of my favorite games of all time. Obviously this is a bite sized episode. I'm not here to give you a comprehensive review of Breath of the Wild. There'd be way too much to cover in this bite sized episode. In fact, well, yeah, it would just take a much longer episode to go through everything. I'm going to largely talk about this game as if you've already played it. So I'm going to reference things without giving too much explanation. So if you haven't played this game, go play it. It's one of my favorites. Let me tell you why. So instead, yeah, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to let you know why this is one of my top 10 favorite games of all time. And oddly enough, I'd like to start talking about the game with some acknowledgments of its faults. Okay. Breath of the Wild is not a perfect game. There are compromises that this game made to the the Zelda formula that can be disappointing to a lot of people. There's only four short dungeons in the game. There's weapon durability, so you've got weapons that are breaking kind of left and right and even some annoying weather patterns like rain. Things like this come to mind when, when people kind of push back. Ah, this game isn't that great. It follows one of those hype cycles of a general Zelda game where it gets released to absolute critical acclaim. Then a few years later, people kind of reevaluate. It's probably not as great as, as everyone thought. I think one of the games that were hit the hardest by that effect was the, the game on Wii. What is that called? Skyward Sword. Yeah, that's one of them. Anyways, so there are compromises that were made for this game. I, and I, I, I think they are actually compromises, okay, in that they were deliberate choices that were made for the sake of the overall experience of the game. I think that the overall theme of this game is exploration, and I think that's where you get even the title of the game, the Breath of the Wild, you know, And I think these decisions that they made were actually done deliberately to push you to explore the world. So this, this smattering of dungeon like temples all over the world, they push you into new areas. They don't want you to stay in one place. They want you to go and explore and find these temples. As opposed to just stay in one section of the map and, and go through a huge dungeon. They want you out and about. Go look, search, find, see what you can find out. As opposed to having all of their puzzles tightly packed into a dun is not a bad thing. Okay, But I'm saying that the theme of this game, if, if exploration is the main point of the game, that's why they broke these, these puzzles up into small bits and pieces in these temples, is so that you would go and you would explore these, these constantly breaking weapons. They also force you to go out and find new ones. It kind of knocks you off your footing, so you rarely feel safe or comfortable, change out what weapon that you're using. It's almost like you, you feel like an intruder in an alien landscape where, where the elements are against you, and it forces you to think on your feet. Okay. And even, even the weather, weather patterns do a similar thing. It makes it feel like you're in a living, breathing world. Because Link is fighting, literally fighting against the elements in order to accomplish his goals, eventually learning how to harness these things within the world for his own good. Like, I remember when you first learned how to updraft, you build a fire and it, it creates, you know, the hot air rises, and so you can actually use that to fly up into the air. You can create a fire and fly up into the air. So eventually you're not just fighting with the elements, but you're using them for your own advantage as well. And so I'm not saying that you're gonna agree with these game design decisions, but I am saying that I understand why they were made. And personally, I think the game is better focused because of these decisions. The game's theme of exploration of this world, it shines so brightly throughout the entire experience. Rather than the game feeling like a scattered experience of really good ideas that were mashed together, it brings a cohesion to this game that for me gives this sense of wonder of this, hey, there is a big open world. And I know that that's a video game term, but I mean in that, hey, there is an entire world to explore and there's so much again behind up underneath every rock. No matter where you go, you'll learn something new and cool and different. So go. So explore. See what you can find. Go into those ruins, you know, traverse the that mountain, climb up that wall, go and do it. And you'll be rewarded for it. The game feels very cohesive now. I've identified the main theme of the game as exploration, but where did I get that from? I should probably be better at actually citing my sources, but I remember reading an interview in the lead up to the game's release. Okay, in those years that were. That were leading to when the game was released, I believe it was. Shigeru Miyamoto could be wrong about that, but one of the game designers said that the idea behind this game was to call back to the original Legend of Zelda on NES and the sense of adventure in that game. In fact, some of the key art for Breath of the Wild references the original Legend of Zelda. And though this game, Breath of the Wild, plays nothing like that original, that first one, the idea from that first one of walking into the cave and seeing the old man saying, take this sword, it's dangerous to go alone. That's the feeling that you get from Breath of the Wild. Go out into this wild and dangerous world, grow as a player and as a character, and all of these small individual steps of growth will crescendo into your ultimate goal of saving this dying world. And I want to touch on just a few ways that this game communicates this. The first one is that this game really trusts you as the player to go. It is. It is truly an open world after the tutorial area. So in the tutorial is pretty substantial. It's a couple hours that grand plateau. And that feels. It feels pretty grand because of its length to get your feet under you in this world and you get some sense of exploration there as well. However, when you first are able to glide off the grand plateau, when you first see how much grander and Greater the world is and that there's no, there's no one directing you, oh, you need to go over here. There's no fairy saying, hey, listen, go check this thing out. It is simply go where the wind takes you and find stuff. And again, you're rewarded for that exploration. I think, I think it's wonderful that this game actually trusts you enough that it does not feel the need to handhold. Even while the game is pretty difficult in terms of it's. It's not as easy as, as most modern games. You're gonna die a lot in this game. Now. There's not too much. You're. You're not penalized very much for dying, but you are gonna die quite a lot. And I appreciate that the game trusts you and the game is not constantly whispering in your ear outside of maybe the map itself, but it's not telling you where to go. In fact, there's really not much dialogue in this game compared to other games when, when, when you see how long the game is and how big the game is in scope. So while there might be, you know, just pound for pound, you know, the amount of words in the game, the experience is not that you're constantly talking to people. You're not. They're big open stretches where you're not hearing from everyone. In fact, even music is pretty subdued. It's just seeing the wildlife, wildlife and seeing what's going on in the world. Seeing the, the ruins, you know, that, that pop out of the ground, not, not literally, figuratively and things like that. And, and so the game feels like again, it pushes you to explore at your own pace as well. And, and the way that the physics and the way that the game systems kind of come together provides opportunities for moments that you experience as the player that other players may not experience. You don't have to explore the entire, the, the enormous world that's here in order to beat the game. You can go do what you want to do. You know, things might not go your way and all of a sudden you're in the middle of a forest fire. You know, from, from just lightning can do that. You might accidentally, you know, start trying to move something in a boulder rolls on top of you or you fall down somewhere and you kind of ragged all physics your way down and die. There's lots of little moments and experiences and kind of stories that you can be a part of in this game that not everyone is going to experience because it trusts you as a player to go and explore. And exploration includes danger. It's not always going to be a safe experience. And I. I appreciate that about this game a lot. So these are just some of the reasons why I love Breath of the Wild so much. And yes, it largely has to do with my own experience, but I want to. I want to kind of conclude with talking about one of the most memorable things about this. When I think of Breath of the Wild, I distinctly remember a few things. And again, it has to do with my own experience. Okay. I feel like this game for me was not just an escape or a reprieve from reality, but that it was a fictional world that actually encouraged me to go out and to explore as well, to go in touch grass for myself. This game reminds me of the wonder of creation. And yes, it's in a concentrated form. Okay. This video game has more to do in it, moment to moment, than real life does. Okay. But it teaches me that I so often take the beauty of creation for granted. The life that is literally all around me. I take the birds in the air, you know, chirping as I. As I go to work. I take that for granted. The bugs in the grass, the living, breathing world that God has created were a part of. I take that for granted so often. And this game, Breath of the Wild, as an act of sub creation, I think this game points towards the grandeur of what God has created in the world and what he has given us. Genesis 1 tells us that God made mankind to rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and all livestock and to fill the earth and to subdue it. And I think that that natural proclivity that we have to explore and understand and map out and categorize things, it comes from that creation mandate. And my experience playing Breath of the Wild, it captured that sense for me, but not in a way that removed me from reality, but it propelled me back into the world with that sense of wonder. I distinctly remember a time in the middle of playing this game, driving somewhere. It wasn't my normal drive, but it was maybe across town and just driving by a field and seeing trees and thinking, man, I want to. You know, if I had the time, I wish I could just pull over to the side and go and explore that. Because I had been exploring this digital version of that. Like, I just want to go out into, you know, the woods, into this field and just see what I can find. And I don't get many of those experiences, at least not in the same way. Maybe not in such a potent way as I did as when I was playing Breath of the Wild, and maybe that's a different game for you, okay, but this one, Breath of the Wild came at the right time for me, with the proper scope of a game world that impacted me in just the right ways. And that is why it's one of my top games of all time. If it is a different game for you, if you've got some pushback or if you, you know, just want to agree and I was going to say commiserate, but that's usually a negative thing. If you've got your own experiences that you want to share, I'd love to hear them. So comment, you know, or, or hit me up on social media or whatever you want to do. I'd love to hear what you have to say as well. But hopefully, hopefully this is helpful. Hopefully this was an encouragement and hopefully you don't take for granted again the grandeur of this world, but remember our purpose, what we were created for. And that in fact, as a follower of Jesus, to know that eternally we have this purpose, to live in relationship with God and there is work to do, even eternally as well. And that's exciting to follow after our Lord and Savior for all eternity and that he will give us good and fruitful work to do even beyond this life. That's exciting. So anyways, guys, I've enjoyed doing this. Hopefully you've enjoyed listening. But until next time, you guys keep beating down your backlogs and we'll keep breaking down the benefits.