It had been 100 years since the times that I remembered, and all but a few that I cared about were long dead. I stopped my training and preparations short to finish the mission by destroying Ganon and saving Princess Zelda. Afterwards I went back out into the land I now remembered was known as Hyrule to continue finding the ancient shrines that granted me strength and to continue doing what I knew how to do, help people. I helped a man build a town from nothing and find a wife. I showed weapons to a child who had heard about them from his now gone grandfather and who desperately wanted to see them himself. I helped so many people it became hard to find more people who needed help. I found some men tearing down an abandoned house down and bought it for myself. I invested in that house, made it nice, made it my own. I settled down. Hyrule is safe, I hope.
I finished Breath of the Wild this week for the most part. I beat the game, all the shrines, and the side quests. I still have some unupgraded armor and some side tasks that aren't tracked that I haven't done, but I've done the things that I really care about. Truth be told I don't have a lot of experience with open world games. Prior to BotW I guess you could say the last ones I played was Metal Gear Solid V and Shadow of Mordor though Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is more similar to BotW. I'd say that the closest experience that I've had to Breath of the Wild would be World of Warcraft. They both really capture a feeling of exploration, especially during the my early time playing the WoW in the base game and its Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King expansions.
The Legend of Zelda series of games is one that's near and dear to my heart. If you take the original game's release date of Feb 21, 1986 and do the time conversion to American Central Time, my birth was only a handful of hours off. Like Link, I'm also left-handed (though that's changed for Link since motion controls) and I have pointy ears. I saw people play the first two Zelda games but the first one I really got to dig into and beat for myself was A Link to the Past. I've been hooked ever since and now that I have Breath of the Wild done, all I need to do is wrap up my playthrough of Majora's Mask and I'll have completed every canonical Legend of Zelda game, console and handheld.
Running out of significant things to do in Breath of the Wild has been bittersweet. I've loved the game immensely and I've been glad to do everything that I've done and am sad to have run out of major things to do. If the game would let me I'd gladly cross the great canyon that separates Hyrule from the rest of the world to the north and west or drive a sand seal through the Gerudo Desert to parts unknown.
It was so amazing to play a game, not just a Zelda game, that pushes you out into the world and says "Go where you want. Here's your goals, but I'm not going to stop you from doing what you want to do." There are entire zones that aren't necessary to any of the main quests. This is very different from the previous entry Skyward Sword which was very structured/linear. Like many people I enjoyed Skyward Sword but I didn't finish it until a year or more later because I just wasn't drawn to it. I've been consumed by Breath of the Wild for the past week and a half and I really think that's because it's really earned being called an adventure game. You quest and explore and are HEROIC. It's truly amazing to not know exactly how to get somewhere or what you'll encounter along the way.
One of the recurring complaints about Breath of the Wild has been w/ the durability system they added for weapons and shields. While it is frustrating for a great piece of gear to break, it creates a tension and adds a layer of strategy to the battles that I really enjoy. It adds value and strategy by forcing you to consider what weapon you want to use against a particular enemy and making you make sure you have a good spread of weapons for the enemies that you're encountering. Finally breaking out the weapon you've been saving for a special occasion or an enemy that's just pissed you off is incredibly satisfying. All they really needed was a nicer UI for dropping/exchanging items.
The oddest thing is that I don't know if I'd want a Breath of the Wild 2. The Zelda games generally have the same rough story/map, it'd be too much if they had the same gameplay as well. For a mechanical successor to BotW to succeed it's going to need to take place somewhere new or have a different story archetype. Even if there's never another Zelda that I love as much as Breath of the Wild I'll still be incredibly happy. They've done something incredibly magical with it that was the Zelda game that I wasn't even aware was the one I've always wanted.
