Why Breath of the Wild’s Great Plateau Is Gaming’s Greatest Tutorial | Art of the Level
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- čas přidán 26. 12. 2021
- The goal for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was to break the conventions of the Zelda series, and so the opening section on The Great Plateau - a raised landmass representing a microcosm of Hyrule - was cleverly designed to showcase just how different this game is from what has come before.
On The Great Plateau players learn to fight, forage, cook, use their new Sheikah powers and think laterally, discovering that Breath of the Wild is defined by its emergent gameplay. The Great Plateau cleverly sets players up for success in the game's sprawling open world, and in this Art of the Level, we explore how Nintendo's designers achieved this impressive feat. - Hry
The Great Plateau’s greatest detail is that most players probably won’t even realize it’s a tutorial. I know I certainly didn’t.
This is so true
If you've played Hollow Knight the whole game is the tutorial
@@jordanlee6885 What a game
Nor did I until second playthrough.
i know right! then i left and i was blown away at how huge the map is
I really wish I could play this game for the first time again.
I'd pay $500 for that without having to think about it. Those first 20 hours were magical
Lets hope the sequel will deliver the same experience
Truly a game worth buying a system for.
I’m about to play it for the 1st time myself
Honestly, this is one of the few games where you can play it a second time around and feel like you are experiencing a whole new adventure
I remember how big the great plateau seemed when that was the whole map. When I realized it was only a small part of the ACTUAL game map, I was floored.
Oh yes, I miss those days
This
I remember Nintendo said it's only 1% of the entire game map. I didn't believe them at first but it's crazy that it's actually true.
same here, I almost gave up 😁
@@stretch90 It’s definitely not 1% of the whole map
Every time I start this game up again, that scene of walking out of the cave and getting a sweeping shot of Hyrule with the music is always breathtaking
That shot alone just makes you feel it in your core that you’re in for an amazing adventure. It’s unmatched
@@bboypressure1 Even on portable it's a good intro
You're Breathtaking.
@@007GoldenLion you're overdone
Just wait until the next one...time can't come soon enough.
One tiny detail you missed: If the player knocks any of those apples off of the first tree, they will roll perfectly down the hill into the fire, becoming a baked apple before eventually getting burnt.
One of the thousands of tiny details I haven't noticed in my over a thousand hours of playtime. God, I love this game to bits.
The first time I played this gem of a game, I remember thinking ‘how does this huge, massive game fit inside my tiny switch?’ I love that my first time was so blind, and I had no idea how huge and deep this game was. It gave me fond memories of playing WOW for the fist time and discovering the vast map beyond Elwynn Forest. That feeling of being really tiny and vulnerable in a big, merciless, exciting world, but feeling so eager to learn and skill up and take it all on. I didn’t think a game could ever do that to me again, but I was so wrong, and that’s why I love BOTW so much. It stunned me in the best way.
Dude this is most comment ive ever read in youtube that said what exactly in my brain .. couldn’t find anything make feel like the first time played wow back then until this game. That magic omg.👏🏼
Big time Zelda fan here. The irony of this video coming out now is unreal. I just bought myself an OLED Switch and BOTW for Christmas. Though I'm 4 years late to the party, I only purchased the system for this game. I literally just completed the Plateau last night and fully appreciate the attention to detail in this video. This game is amazing and I'm just getting started.
Here after beating the game with my first run account literally 8 hours ago! I do speedrun and 100% runs, but I must say that nothing really beats that chill you got at first! Take your time my man, I do suggest that play it completely with no other infos or spoilers, completely blind playthrough. It’s still fun when you know the things from others and it’s more convenient, but it’s not as fun as discovering themselves (Unfortunately I watched other ppl’s combats and stuff so I didn’t have the opportunity to figure the fun of combat myself), even you’re late to the party, take your time!
Try to stay away from videos to experience everything for the first time :)
You'll have an even better first time experience if you stay away from guides and just let your creativity/imagination help you deal with the obstacles and take you where want to go.
I just started the game last November after purchasing the OLED switch and I was in awe. Fast forward, I’m 135 hours into the game lol I told myself to finish older Zelda games but I got really addicted to BOTW, I couldn’t stop playing 😭 I’m halfway through Spirit Tracks but BOTW took ALL my attention. 😂
Man, I envy you, playing for the first time.
I didn't even think breath of the wild was worth paying attention to until I got my switch. I got it as my first game on the system and it was just magical. I was lucky I stayed away from all the guides and videos there is on botw and just going wherever I wanted is an experience I never got playing any other video game
The biggest tip I can give for new players of this game is that if you can think of it, try it, it may work.
I remember leaving the Plateau after having all that fun there and realizing how much more game there was - an awesome feeling.
I've beaten this game, gone back to it many times, and watched every single 'things you didn't know' video put out... I still learned new mechanics and details just by watching THIS video. I love this game.
The thing I hate is when they call glitches " mechanics" thats really aggravating.
I will never forget the first time I left Geat Plateau, I landed in front of a Moblin and even tho I already faced the Talus, it was a whole different enemy and challenge. I put up a great fight but I was beat down to the ground, but hey! Guess who came back with the barbarian armor and full set of savage lynel weapons?
Yes! A very similar thing happened to me as well. The first time I flew off the Great Plateau I was surrounded by about 5 moblins and I was so scared of them lol. Fast forward to now 4 years later and a couple of hits brings them down. 🗡🛡⛏👹
PROUD OF YOU
I'm a teacher in real life and I could see the gentle way Nintendo was guiding me on an invisible path. I've often used 1-1 from Super Mario Bros 1 as a tool to demonstrate to other teachers the principle of showing not saying. BotW matches SMB's masterful teaching in an infinitely more complex scenario. Great video. Well done.
Super Mario bros is a 2D platformer that from the beginning you understand the goal is to get the the end of the screen on the right side after the screen moves it locks so there is no going back, you only have one decision non that level, so it doesn't guide you at all it literally tells you what you have to do and it gives you one way to accomplish that.
@@ailbrown1000 It's pretty clear you don't know what you're saying. First of all: the only reason you understand that you go from left to right to reach the goal is because you already understand what Mario is and how it works. A kid playing the game for the first time when it originally came out would have to learn that. Super Mario's level design at the beginning of 1-1 teaches the player that they cannot go left, that goombas are bad, that question mark blocks can be hit for goodies, that mushrooms are good, and that you can stomp on goombas. None of that is told the player; it's all intuitively learned through the level design, which funnels players into the corridor with the goomba, forcing them to jump into the blocks above to avoid it. If you're interested, there are plenty of video essays about the topic.
@@ailbrown1000 L
IGN, please allocate more budget for video content like this. Yes, it is more expensive, but it increases the quality and value of your company. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to take IGN seriously, but video essays like this are fantastic.
Agree 1000% percent. I remember watching IGN in 2010-11 and how much better they were back then. It's before almost every video had a woke political point to score or a virtue signal to make. If IGN can keep up this quality content then I am back with them- finally............(I unsubbed back in 2015).
After meeting Impa I started making my way to Zora's Domain. I got lost earlier in the game and got somewhere close to that area and then I warped to somewhere nearer to Impa. Thus now, when I was ready to actually travel to Zora's domain, I was standing on one of the high hills looking at it, and was checking to see if I had enough equipment and food for stamina, cause I knew traversing the hills in the rain would take up a lot of stamina. At that very moment, I finally "got it" and realised the genius of this game.
Just like real life, if you wanna get to an objective, you've got to mentally and (most of the time) physically prepare for it. This game made me a better gamer all around.
Still can't flurry rush to save my life though.
The thing where you press y to dodge and attack the enemy?...same...I only did it once though other than the tutorial for it
@@Jay-mt6nu I've finished this game thrice and probably can count in one hand when I've been able to do it on purpose.
The only enemies I can flurry rush with a nearly perfect success rate are the lynels. I've fought them a lot during my first playthrough when I was not really equipped to beat them yet. That made the flurry rushs the most viable Option to have a shot against them. Died a lot during that "training" but it paid of later in the game :D
Every other Enemy types attack patterns were to erratic for me to bother to learn. Lizalfos especially are just nuts movement wise.
When i first played the game and was trying to get into Zoras Domain i waited for the Rain to pass for 3 in game days without realising the rain would be forever until i took care of the beasts
@@kirbyfazendoummoonwalk9214 Yup I remember the horror. I decided to go from the back cause I was too scared to fight the monsters. It took forever but it was worth it.
You have defended your argument successfully. It makes me want to play this game all over again for the fourth time.
Same
Exploring the Great Plateau for the first time I felt overwhelmed, there was soo much to take in. I cherish this game dearly. Wouldn't be surprised if it goes down as top five nostalgic places in video games within a decade.
Something very interesting to note is that I've gotten a few family members into this game and those "obvious" context clues like bright orange mushrooms or a stick right in your path with a menu prompting you to pick it up... Go 100% unnoticed. People who aren't avid gamers can miss some of the most obvious things.
thats the reason why they have many clues all over the place, because no one will ever see all of them. the tutorial is non linear.
I also had a friend who doesn’t play video games try it and he walked right by the mushrooms and tree branches. It’s interesting to see that what’s second nature to experienced gamers is probably learned behavior and not the obvious thing to do 🤷♀️
I'm more of a gamer thanks to this game, but on my first playthrough I was significantly more of a casual gamer. I completely ignored the very intentional camera change to the Temple of Time and somehow climbed up the cliff the tunnel is in as my room mate at the time said that I could climb basically everything. To this day, I'm still not sure how I managed it. At the very least, I did know that I had to pick up everything I saw. When the game opened up past the plateau I was floored at the sheer size of it. Then I promptly managed to miss more obvious things that are key to how I now play. It's funny in hindsight.
@@IsThisThePrizeIveWaitedFor I also had a friend try out the beginning Section. He is a very experienced gamer, he just didn't show any interest whatsoever in straying from the path, collecting, exploring and trying out stuff and went pretty much straight from leaving the cave to the sheikah tower map Point. When I first started out in this game I did so many things just on the way Down there to see what was possible and how things work. I guess everyone approaches things differently
This was my first game back from years of not gaming. My last zelda game was windwaker.... let's just say I also passed up a lot of things and literally didn't realize an axe could cut a tree until AFTER beating 3 of the divine beasts. I didnt realize you could kill enemies with your powers like stasis or the one where you fling metal objects at them, I thought those were purely for "objects". And the raining and climbing thing really got to me.... but i never passed up a mushroom or branch lol, just might not have known how to use it properly 🤣 i felt like I finally got the hang of the game when I beat it.
I cannot wait to learn literally ANYTHING about the sequel.
It technically could release in 4 days from now
I know right
@@garethmillar8590 check the eshop every day for a shadow drop lol
@@garethmillar8590 I’m 8 minutes away and crossing my fingers lol
@A B duhhh lol
With every second I watch or play breath of the wild, it only makes me more exited for the sequel. Hang in there guys, just a few more months.
Is it gonna come in 2022?
@@Jay-mt6nu you don't saw the trailer?
@@Jay-mt6nu yep
*years
@@deathmountain9506 I hope not dude
This is one of the reasons why Breath of the Wild has SO MANY game of the year awards.
I spent 6 months living in this game's world. It may as well have been VR as I was so immersed.
I cannot wait for BotW2. If they capture even 50% of what made this game so magical it will be bloody brilliant.
I remember cutting down a tree to use as a bridge across a crevasse thinking "oh wow, I'm going to keep an axe so I can do this all of the time" and then never did it again because there's no similar crevasses with trees at the edge and you get the paraglider so you can just clear gaps and climb the rest.
The tutorial is great but the game itself rapidly changes as you uncover the map, gain warp points, improve your stamina and gear, it goes from a survival adventure game to just an action adventure game, a great action adventure game but it's a shame that the survival aspect is so fleeting. You quickly go from having to plan out your path to pretty much being able to travel there in a straight line regardless of canyons and mountains.
This is true. I’d say it doesn’t ruin the fun, it just becomes a different fun. Fortunately Eventide island exists and brings back a lot of that survival charm from the tutorial.
@@denimchicken104 oh for sure. It's less that I'd want them to change it and more that I want Nintendo to create a survival game like those first few hours even if it's not Zelda.
Tbh the survival aspect never really occurred to me because of the fairly low penalty for death lol
I really hope there are more areas like evantide and trial of the sword in the sequel that takes away everything from you and forces you to only use what’s on the area.
There another location or two you could use this lesson. There are dead trees and a piece of land surrounded by a bog. Cutting one provides a safe path across the gap (I didn't think cryonis would work or else just to wanted see if the tree could reach all the way across). There is the korok seed in lurelin village on the roof of treasure game house that's a pain to get that combines two elements that the plateau teaches you. The cutting down a tree to bridge a gap - direction being important - and stasis. I've had the most success with cutting down and stasising the tree at the right time and angle, taking a rock and walking up the stasised tree to reach the god-foresaken roof.
It’s not hyperbole, it’s such an amazing tutorial, it’s so packed full of stuff to try that it could make for a pretty satisfying game all by itself.
When you're first playing BotW and first exploring the Great Plateau, it feels like the area is massive, because it really is massive when exploring on foot. I think that when you start getting into the rest of the game and exploring the openness of Hyrule as a whole, you just see the Great Plateau as a small area on the map. Because it's elevated above everything else, there's no real way to naturally get back there easily without Shrine warping, and because it is a tutorial area, there's no forced in-game reason to go back until the Champion's Ballad DLC, and that effectively rebuilds the Great Plateau into a massive one-hit-KO deathtrap. Only once you start exploring the Great Plateau again do you realize how big it is and how well designed it is. It's kinda just a mini Hyrule, you have a cold area, you have a mountain, you have a forest, you have the Temple of Time which acts as a Goddess Statue and as what could possibly be construed as a mini Hyrule Castle, it has most of the components that make up the rest of Hyrule. I went into BotW vastly spoiler free because I didn't like watching videos or trailers of it and just wasn't overly interested in the game until I played it, and now I wish I could play it for the first time all over again, just to get addicted to it all over again, playing at least 5 hours a day if I could.
The Great Plateau feels like a complete game in itself. Then, it opens up to the whole WIDER world and made me felt so small and overwhelmed. I had to stop playing the game for a while before venturing to the world.
The Great Plateau was honestly my favorite part of the game. The amount of variety in such a little place, getting all your skills at once, and the fact that the game lets you figure out how it works rather than tell you. And that cutscene on the Temple of Time is hands-down the most cinematic moment in the entire game. Everything about the Plateau is simply perfect.
When I looked at the Gerardo highlands from the great plateau, I thought it was just a boundary for the map like many other games, but as I ventured beyond it, I was amazed at this game and how well it turned out. This was my first ever Zelda game and this got me into the franchise. I say this is a great game for anybody whether they like Zelda or not, it’s still a great hunting/adventure game
I JUST started a new playthrough right now and I'm on the Great Plateau as this video published. I gifted BOTW to my niece's for Christmas with no prior experience to Zelda and yet just from the box they wanted to play it ASAP. I'm sure I'll hear lots of stories of their adventures just from the Plateau soon enough.
Update: THEY LOVE IT
This game will always have a soft spot in my heart. What an amazing experience it was🤧
I'll never forget how I felt discovering all these things for myself for the first time. A one in a lifetime experience...
An absolute masterpiece and in my opinion the best game ever made, and this video shows just some of the reasons why.
I remember my first days playing this game, just amazed by this little design decisions (and of course, the beautiful scenario). It takes a very special place in my heart, I was living through some of the worst times of my life, spent weeks just locked in my room and botw helped me see that there was still life and beauty out there, I just needed a small breath of courage
It's so well designed as you can't veer off too early due to the landscape being inaccessible. I would say I sometimes felt a tiny bit lost, but that was all part of the charm. I'd then discover I wasn't lost, I was just discovering something new
Big fan of these “art of the level” videos, best produced IGN content 🥰 I’ll keep saying it hoping for more 🙂 Great video ❤️
Watch gmtk..
@@rinyuni thanks, I’ll take a look 🙂
Nice recommendation - great content 😉
@@creativerayn i really like the boss keys series of gmtk
Link walking out of the shrine to the ledge looking at the Hyrule Castle, getting the hang of the fighting mechanics against those bokos, obtaining the 4 runes, getting blasted by decayed guardians, getting smashed and squished by a Talus, and so much more.. God, I wish I can experience this "tutorial" for the first time again...
This much freedom is truly a breath of fresh air for this franchise in several decades
I got to the shrine at the top of the snowy peak using only a torch on my first playthrough
I hear the question a lot where people ask what game would you play again for the very first time. It would certainly be BotW. After learning everything and even still discovering new things about it, I think it would feel refreshing to go back and learn it all again!
Small addition tutorial moment for returning players is the lack of bombs being a counter for guardians. Once I got the bombs I thought "okay, well, this item is to counter the guardians" the way that many items have before. It didn't counter.
This is easily my favorite game of all time. Seriously, I'm almost embarrassed by how much I LOVE this game. ALMOST
BOTW is literally one of the best games I’ve ever played. I only bought the Switch specifically for it. So excited for the sequel.
Same here same here
Going from the tutorial of TP and SS to this... what an upgrade!!
i'm not an experienced gamer and i've never played previous LoZ titles. i remember being so frustrated with botw's lack of tutorial that i stopped playing for a year. then i saw a reddit or youtube comment that said that the great plateau IS the tutorial. made me retry it and i've since beat the game!!
This game truly is something special. It will be played and remembered for decades.
I just cannot finish this game 160 hrs in and I am still exploring. I am still on the 3rd Divine beast, once I beat the 4th one will sink my teeth into the DLC. I will keep playing this game till BOTW 2 comes out. :)
This game is so good I'm never getting tired of recommending it
cant believe it took till this video to realize woodchopper axes can break wooden stuff better, or that wooden barriers can be broken at all
This video just sold me on playing breath of the wild for the 5th time thanks ign
I'm sad that BOTW2 won't have the same sense of exploration with it's reused overworld map. The underworld gives some hope but it won't be on the same epic scale. Exploration was what made BOTW so good for me.
Somehow I doubt that the map is gonna be exactly the same, if only because of the length of time the game is taking to come out and because Nintendo is hiding its name which is supposed to be reminiscent of a previous game of the series (my money is on Skyward Swords).
@@Manganization Oh i know there will be changes. But the majority will be the same. i will know where villages are, desert, mountains etc. It won't have the same level of discovery. Reusing the map can only be freshened up so much.
@A B Well i think the sky islands are more or less replacements for shrines. Stand alone little puzzle areas and probably combat challenges. They certainly won't give the same level of wonder of exploration as we can see them from the ground. So you aren't going to be stumbling on them and surprised. As for rebuilding areas... yeah that will happen but that's not addressing my issue. My issue is we will know the top left is the Hebra region, Snow, bottom left will be a desert, death mountain is what it is. etc... So we won't have that same level of wonderous discovery from exploration which inevitably comes when a map is reused. Which basically leaves my entire hopes of genuine new exploration lying in the underworld areas where the dungeons will probably be. But he problem with that is we aren't going to be getting the breath taking views we got when exploring BOTW for the 1st time. Just a lot of dark places. I have already prepared myself to be let down by the exploration aspect of the sequel so i have my expectations set low. The rest of the game could well improve on every other aspect of BOTW. More varied enemies, item improvements, inventory improvement, side quest improvements, Story improved. Etc... I just don't see how it's possible for them to equal or surpass BOTW when it comes to the open world exploration. It's just not going to be possible with a reused map.
@@Tass... Its entirely me but personally I think we can go to some of the unexplorable places in the first game...for example
-the unclimbable mountain
-yiga clan seemingly bottomless pit
Seriously one of the best games I ever played. You could buy the switch just for this game
Honestly just did last week. Bought switch lite + botw+animal crossing+mario odyssey
@@cybersamovar should have got a regular switch to play it on a large screen
@@tebhernandez you can buy me one if you want
I DID buy the Switch just for this game 😀
@@cybersamovar will do, send over your information.
OMG! the music! you started just there, after all the noise of the launch of the game, new system, old system (I played it on the Wii U), trailers, delays, you are just there, experiencing for the first time that minimal music, it feels magical and epic and simple at the same time. This was an experience that no other videogame gave to me to this date. We are so grateful to have it and how everyone's journey was so different, the paths, the feels.
The first time I saw a Dragon flying left me speechless
I've literally never tried to keep swinging a two-handed weapon when Link's all out of stamina. That's such a cool animation!
Absolutely fantastic breakdown!
So well described, and yes, the Great Plateau could be a perfectly complete and charming little game of its own, Breath of the Wild in miniature.
To say nothing of how instantly recognisable the temple of time is! It's immediately obvious to anyone who knows the zelda name, and the first thought in the player's head after 'omg temple of time?!' is 'I wonder what else I'll recognise??' With the thousands of Easter eggs and references in the world building, telling players to look and they will /find/ is absolutely necessary to get them to understand that they WANT to explore if they want to find /everything/, and it does so in the most delightfully nostalgic way it can. It puts the player on the lookout from the second it pans over to the huge, ruined building, and it also teaches us to infer and extrapolate from what we know.
i played this game more than 10 times already but i never got bored playing it. one of the best and probably the best game that i ever played
The amount of thought that went into every single aspect of this game is unreal
I remember starting out in BOTW and not knowing how I felt about the game. It didn't hook me the first few hours and I thought maybe the game was vastly overrated. But once I finished the plateau and got off it and opened up the rest of the map I was completely hooked and knew the game was really special. It ended up being my favorite game of all time when I finally beat it over 100 hours later.
One of the games that redefines Open World RPG.
You could tell how Nintendo was so confident with BoTW, they don't need fancy CGI or graphic to reach the peak, it's the GAME itself that won the players' heart.
I always tell my friends this is the game that worth greater than the Switch, a truly Micheline 3 star game.
To me the greatest achievement of this game is that it brought back feelings of mistery, discovery and surprise of when I was gaming as a child.
I honestly want that opening scene to happen again in BOTW2 but more of a welcome back kind of vibe but how link was falling in the trailer I want that to be the opening
This a really well done video. I’d like to see more videos that revisit excellent game design from the past.
Just got back into gaming after 15 years with this game…it’s been amazing. Just a fun, interesting, funny and rewarding experience.
Incredible video. I hope there are more of these to come 😍
1:29 that part of the opening in the intro made my eyes water the first time and still does.
Isn’t it crazy that it’s been almost 5 years since the game was released and we are still talking about this masterpiece!
People will be talking about this game for decades to come. Truly an instant classic.
Yep, even now people are still finding new things in it. It rivals and even exceeds games like RDR2 in that area. :)
Totally loving this video series! Great job Cam and IGN staff! KEEP THESE ART OF THE LEVEL VIDEOS COMING!
Absolutely.........THIS IS WHAT IGN USED TO DO A DECADE AGO until they fell into a woke stupor. Maybe the IGN of old is coming back and actually respecting its core audience:))))
cant believe this game will be 5 years old
Great video Cam, great highlight
Seeing the world from up on the Plateau felt surreal, almost like it didn't exist. I remember actually feeling scared when I left the Plateau.. the world just seemed enormous
the only part that wasn't covered in the plateau is that you can deflect guardian beams with a shield. Although it is hinted later in the game, the fact that you need that to defeat Ganon is quite annoying, when you played the whole game without doing that and then facing Ganon and don't exactly what to do...
It was so refreshing to go from Skyward Sword's refusal to let the player figure out so many obvious things by themselves to this.
I hope BOTW2 offers the classical water and fire temples. With these physics it could be so amazing!
I completely agree, but I think the reason they didn't do it in BOTW was because climbing makes lots of puzzles pointless and they didn't want to take the climbing ability away for such a large portion of the game.
Some people get frustrated when they can't climb in a shrine, let alone in the divine beasts. A water temple would probably feel like Zora's Domain with it's endless rain and unclimbable walls. They would have to be very clever to make it work while allowing Link to climb and having the climbing not mess up the puzzles.
I'm a 40 year old mom, who just recently got addicted to this game because my 7 year old son is addicted to it for the past year. Lol I'm not great at many things with the game like fighting alot of the bosses, but I find myself often playing the game when my son is at school. Lol
5 years. This game came out 5 years ago, and I’m STILL learning things about it, even as I watch this video. For instance, I knew the Korok leaf blows enemies away, but I never thought of blowing them away after freezing them 😅
Whenever I froze enemies near a ledge, I would nudge them by running into them, but blowing them back is way easier! Anyway… my point is: this is the only Zelda game I know of that people are discovering things, and ACTIVELY playing 5 years after it came out, as if it was brand new. I mean, I see people on Reddit who just now got the game and are having their introduction of this fantastic game, who are just as awe struck as veterans like myself, who have put over 500 hours into this game.
I’ve been only playing BotW for one year. I’ve played plenty of Zelda games before, but but by far, this is my absolute favorite Zelda game of all time. Scratch that. It’s my favorite GAME of all time 🙌🏽
To all of those in the comments who wish they could experience this game new all over again, please do yourself a favor: show this game to s younger sibling, a friend, a spouse, anyone close to you who hasn’t played this game yet. It’s just as amazing to watch others play and discover this masterpiece of a game as it is to play it for the first time 👌🏽
One of the reasons why I was drawn to this game is the fact that you can try everything. That for me is a game changer, since majority of RPG tend to have at least a fix amount of 'possible' solutions to a couple of 'scenarios' or 'problems' but BOTW isn't like that. Combining game physics with player gamestyle and approach to the game, you'll have endless solutions if not tons of it!
This is why I recommend anyone who plays this does it without watching anything first. It’s fun to watch how people solve problems. Like I had a friend who made it to the cold area using a torch for warmth when I just cooked stuff
Fantastic video.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the Lynel in the plateau. It's a combination of an enormous challenge (for that point of the game), or just them telling you that there's things you won't be ready for a long time. Even more humbling than the rock monster.
Thats only in hero mode tho
@@Excalibur5k are you sure? I seem to remember it, but I've only played BotW in normal mode.
@@carlosfer2201 yea 100% sure. The birch tree area with the cabin is normally lynel free.
The Great plateau felt like an entire game honestly, a cool new indie game
This video is amazing! I can tell a ton of hard work and thought went into it AND it's talking about my favorite game of all time (until Nintendo inevitably remakes Ocarina of Time again). Seriously thank you for making stuff like this.
Nobody can change my mind on this: best game ever. I still get chills when I start a new game.
I really hope the skies in BOTW2 are the tutorials. That's be fun
Well the trailer of the game shows underground so I guess it'll start there probably?
I'll never forget my first encounter with a guardian. It was genuinely scarier than any horror game I've ever played.
The tutorial which didn't feel like an tutorial. It was just a masterpiece. I goofed around for quite a long time. Just amazed by the possibilities the game gave me :)
But in the tutorial I learned one important thing: the rain is the true villian!
Man... I just want to forget everything about this game. I want to experience this game like I did when I played it for the first time!
In total I played this game for over 1000 hours. And every year I start a new game to play it.
Nintendo REALLY produced a masterpiece with BOTW.
Cam Shea, from hyper magazine. I grew up reading that magazine. You are a dead set legend. Keep up the good work 👍
Loved it! Well written piece!
Wonderful video.
And agreed! Spectacular starting area.
One of my top 3 favorite games of all time, and I've been gaming since the 80s. I can't help to think that there's no way the sequel can be as good as the original, but I'm holding out hope. BotW is an absolute masterpiece.
There are many ways it can be much much better, to be honest BOTW is FAR from perfect and have a lot of things that can be fixed with some fine tuning. Lack of enemy variety, the weapons break too but really tooo fast, some enemies are kinda bullet spongey, too much empty space, raining and climbing, some pointless quests, lack of dungeons variety, you can trivialize the game by healing off menu (with virtually infinite capacity to have potions and shit), lack of cooking shortcuts (like, cant i just make this recipe x 50 times and not watch all the animations????)
@@rmv9194 I agree with some of that. I personally like the lack of durability of the weapons, I just wish there was a gauge to show you how much of the durability you've used up. The lack of enemy variety is probably due to the amount of memory it takes to store each enemy sprite type and this game was originally made for, and plays on the Wii U, so it has it's limitations. It's supposed to feel like you're out in the wild, and if you've ever gone out in the wild (I live in Canada, I grew up camping a lot) there are lots of big open areas with nothing... You could travel for days and come across almost nothing. To me, this gives it realism. I know it sucks that you can't climb in the rain (or cook, or use bomb arrows, etc) but have you ever tried to do any of those thing in real life? I thought it was unrealistic that you can climb the second that it stops raining... like, did the surfaces dry instantaneously? I totally agree with they type of dungeons, though it is part of the story and how the monks created them to teach the future hero. Since they were all made by the same monks, it's not surprising that they all look the same. It would also be a lot harder to make regular Zelda dungeons with the climbing ability because you could just climb over most puzzles. I personally didn't realize that you can stack potions because I just made them as I needed them. I mean, if you hate that you CAN hold so many potions, don't make the same recipe 50 times... then you don't have to worry about the cooking animation (which you can skip). Maybe the cooking animation is there to discourage people from cooking more than they need while still giving the option for less experienced players that actually need the help. When my son plays, he needs that help. As far as the sponginess of the enemies goes, I'm really not sure which enemies you mean. Sure some are at the beginning of the game, but by the end, you're so OP that you can kill any enemy easily and rarely even take damage. So you have to learn when to fight and when to retreat. I personally like the challenge of the more difficult enemies and figuring out tricks that can deal more damage and save your weapon's durability. That's all part of the strategy of the game. In my last play through, I didn't kill a single enemy before getting to Ganon (though I tricked some enemies into killing each other or themselves so I could progress certain parts of the story, because I like the story stuff). There's nothing that says that you NEED to fight any of them.
@@commenter5901 you make very good points with which I agree :)
I'd be happy to see more Enemy-, Quest- and Dungeon Variety in the sequel (and it certainly seems like we will) but I'm not complaining about anything in that Department for the First installment. BotW was such an enormous Coup design wise and I am happy it turned out the way it did.
The Great Plateau is great the first time you play the game. Every new start after is just really annoying because you can not skip it, you have little stamina, no glider, and it takes really long till you can finally start off into Hyrule.
@A B Yeah but many Games you can Skip the Tutorial or at least they are less tedious. Super Mario Odysseys Beginning is really almost like the normal path you would take if it wasnt a tutorial. New Super Mario Bros. or Mario Kart doesn't even need a tutorial. They just say: "look up how the game works or figure it out, idiot"
Masterpiece of a game
I remember the first time I saw a blood moon, I absolutely freaked out I didn’t know what it was I thought I broke the game for a minute .
i got a switch mid last year and got botw for christmas- and it's unbelievable how good it is. i knew it was but had never played it. i'm just under 10 hours in but i know there's gonna be a ridiculous amount of time put into this game. it's sometimes overwhelming How much there is to do and hwo many different ways there are to do it. i won't be getting the sequel until i'm convinced i've done pretty much everything lol. even just watching this i've realised how many things i missed in just the great plateau
It's masterpiece, really, I could cry just remembering how it felt when I played it for the first time
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼. Great piece!
Every time I see him cook and eat sautéed peppers first thing after waking, it makes me think that it would or might be his first meal after 100 years.
We can thank Monolith Soft for helping making BotW's world
while they were also making Xenoblade Chronicles 2 🤯
This tutorial should be used as a study for game developments
A most excellent and detailed video I say and thank you IGN for bringing back memories of my starting days via the Great Plateau.
I've played for a thousand hours and I had no idea that bar was a weather forecast.
It's kinda amazing that botws biggest flaw is that you can't recreate the first playtrough and it becomes a different game then, still great but not the same.. That said 6 years later and just today I was in a location I had never seen before.. I always walked passed it..
Absolute masterpiece of gameplay, design and creativity