THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD
Breath of the Wild is the kind of game that comes along very rarely. It is a seminal, generation-defining title, a blueprint for what open world games and emergent, system-based mechanics should be like- a sandbox that players can mess around in for dozens upon dozens of hours at end. But do you know what boggles the mind? That in spite of all its accomplishments and all its greatness, this is still very much a game that has a lot of room for improvement. There are many issues in the game that we could talk about, such as the lack of traditional Zelda dungeons, or the clear shortage of enemy variety, or its sparse narrative, but perhaps the one flaw that irks fans more than most is its boss fights. Since its inception, Zelda has been known as a series that has incredible boss designs and memorable encounters, but that simply wasn’t the case here. The Blight Ganons that we face off against throughout the game have little to no variation, and fighting against them is more a matter of attrition that strategy or reading patterns, while the very final boss against Ganon himself is, to say the least, sourly disappointing. And while it’s true that Lynels are a fearsome enemy out in the open world, can they really be called boss fights? The future looks bright, though- because if, with all these issues, Breath of the Wild was still as good as it was, imagine what Nintendo could do with its improved sequels in the future.
