This was the first game I played on my Switch and what an introduction it was. The sense of freedom when you step out onto the Great Plateau for the first time is something special. You can go anywhere you can see and the game actually lets you.
The atmosphere is incredible. This version of Hyrule feels lonely and melancholic in the best way. The minimal music that swells at just the right moments. The way weather changes the world around you. Finding ruins of what used to be and piecing together what happened. It all creates this mood that’s hard to describe but easy to get lost in.
Exploration is the heart of the game and it nails it. Every hill has something on the other side worth finding. Shrines dot the landscape giving you constant goals to work toward. The puzzles inside are bite-sized but satisfying. Some are simple combat trials while others are clever physics puzzles. Finding all 120 would be overwhelming but I did about 90 and felt satisfied.
The weapon durability system is my biggest complaint by far. Your weapons break constantly and you’re always scrambling to find replacements. I get what they were going for with encouraging experimentation but it mostly just felt annoying. Fighting stronger enemies often wasn’t worth it because you’d break more weapons than you’d gain. It never stopped bothering me even after 100 hours.
Combat itself is good when you have weapons to use. The slow motion arrow shots and perfect dodges feel great when you nail them. Enemy variety is decent though you’ll fight a lot of the same bokoblins and moblins. The Lynels are genuine challenges that require preparation and skill.
The story is just okay. Finding memories scattered around the world is interesting in theory but they’re disconnected and out of order which makes it hard to follow. A forced order would have made the narrative much stronger. The characters are likeable enough but don’t get much development. The four Champions are more interesting dead than most characters are alive in other games though.
Divine Beasts are the main dungeons and they’re fine but not amazing. They all look similar and the puzzles revolve around rotating the beast to access different areas. They’re clever but lack the personality of traditional Zelda dungeons. The boss fights at the end are decent but not particularly memorable.
Cooking is fun once you figure out the system. Throwing random ingredients together and seeing what happens is entertaining. Some recipes are genuinely useful for tough encounters. The inventory management for ingredients gets tedious though.
The physics engine makes everything more interesting. Using metal objects to complete electrical circuits. Setting grass on fire to create updrafts. Freezing enemies then launching them off cliffs. The systems all interact in logical ways that reward experimentation.
100 hours flew by exploring this world. Even with the weapon durability frustration this is an incredible achievement in open world design. It respects your intelligence and lets you approach problems however you want. Not perfect but pretty close. Set a high bar for my Switch library right from the start.