Link reunites with the Master Sword in “Breath of the Wild” an award-winning video game.
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By Rachel Barnes
Editor-in-chief

The 2017 game of the year, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild continues to achieve awards for very good reason.

About a year after its release, Breath of the Wild has won the game of the year award as well as best design and best audio at 18th annual game developers choice awards this year in San Francisco.

Breath of the Wild sparks nostalgia for many gamers, as the franchise is nearly 30 years old. Many, like I do, remember playing the older Zelda games as children. When the game started up, it felt like coming home and memories came flooding back.

Though I, personally, am not a video game person I have been playing games in the Legend of Zelda franchize for as long as I can remember. When I finally got my hands on this game I was incredibly excited to jump in.

Firstly, the Nintendo Switch was the first obstacle to master in playing this game. It was new, but familiar territory as the controls were pretty intuitive. In game, however, was a different story.

Within the first five minutes of me playing the game I fell off of a cliff and died because the game doesn’t have an automatic camera option. That might say more about me than it does the game, but that feature was certainly a challenge throughout the game.

Despite that, the console had many short cuts set up that made changing weapons, shields, or runes quick; which came in handy during the many fast-paced battles.

The story of BOTW was addictive. I would find myself at work, or in classes thinking about what to do, where to go, who to talk to next. The map was ginormous and gave so many options to explore and try many different experiences.

I got around on my trusty steed Hermopoli, I can’t really explain the reason that I chose that name as it sort of just came to me, and it was one of my favorite aspects of the game. He took me from corner to corner across the map at a quicker rate than walking, because Link is a super slow walker.

Some moments I was awestruck at the absolute beauty of the world that the game designers created. From atop mountains one could see sprawling fields with grass that was animated to blow in the breeze or a sea during a lightning storm, or a town just up ahead.

The scenery and design of the game was absolutely the highlight for me. From the glowing shrines and Shiekah towers to old characters, like beautiful princess Zelda, the world was a pleasure to see.

The final battle, which I won’t discuss in detail for spoilers sake, was easier than I had anticipated. The bosses of the Divine Beasts that guarded champion territory prepared me for this battle really well, but I still had difficulty. I was on edge the whole time because I was so immersed in the story.

With the game and map being so expansive; and having many different side quests to accomplish, it took over two months for me to finish. Even still, I do not feel like I’m done with the game.

On trend with the rest of the Zelda games, there is no post-game after players beat the main story. However, with how much goes on in this game, I feel like it needs one. I was so disappointed to log back on to the game and be put back in before I had beaten the main boss.

Like mentioned before, I am not good a video games so that fact disheartened me knowing that I’d have to do it all over again. The game was so fun, though, that I would consider it just to get to keep playing.