Several months ago, Nintendo put out a new game in the Legend of Zelda franchise that had and has a lot of people excited. Out of the many Zelda games I have either played myself or watched playthroughs of, Breath of the Wild is by far my favorite one. It has everything that a Zelda game should have; adventure, discovery, and most importantly fun and interesting gameplay. Each Zelda is unique in its own way, whether you like it or hate it, but Breath of the Wild is the first Zelda in a while that really came up with its own style of enjoyable gameplay. It has so many small touches and bigger additions that really make it a game worth spending time on.

For example, an advanced climbing mechanic was added, to make it possible to climb everything you come across (as far as I can tell, at my early stage in the game). This is not to say you can get to the top of everything you climb. You have to mete out your endurance and figure out if you’re going to have enough to get to the top, and if you don’t have enough endurance to get to the top you have to figure out other ways. It gives the player a level of freedom and engagement that few videogames foster, let alone Zelda games. The creator of the Zelda series, Shigeru Miyamoto, spent his first hour of gameplay in the early stages of testing and development just climbing trees because he enjoyed the mechanic so much. It engages the player in a way that further heightens the sense of reality, in a way that just having beautiful graphics can’t.

Another great thing about this latest installment of the Zelda series is the fact that the entire map is open to you, and it’s a vast amount of running space. As you go along your way, you get pieces of the map to add to your picture, so you know the names of the places you are. However, you can go absolutely anywhere on the map, even before you have the pieces necessary to see where you are. No place is blocked off, no area is inaccessible. There are places you don’t want to go before you're at a certain level, because whatever dwells there will probably kill you immediately. But that doesn’t stop you from travelling anywhere you want to go. It’s totally up to you. Despite all this roaming space, the size of the map doesn’t really cause the game to be slowed down, or make it feel like you have to wait forever to get to the next place you need to be. You have a teleportation power that can take you to specific spots on the map, so if you need to get all the way across the world to do the next mission, you won’t be spending 45 minutes just running to the next place.

However, if you like taking time on the world and not just getting to the next thing, this is still the game for you. It has incredible graphics and a gorgeous asthetic that makes everything pleasant to take in. There’s endless opportunities for interaction with the normal world, not just your quests; hunting, fishing, doing sidequests for villagers or travelers, foraging, cooking, battling the various nasties that now roam Hyrule. You could conceivably just use this as a pleasant sort of life simulation and not play the quest at all, even buying a house in Hateno Village and just spending your days exploring. The quests are so challenging and fun though, I can’t imagine why you’d want to limit yourself.

Obviously there are other open world games; it’s not as if Nintendo has suddenly invented something no one has ever seen before in all of videogames. However, it is the best open world that Zelda has offered us so far, and I think that’s why fans are so excited about it. They’ve seen their dreams about what the franchise could be come true in Breath of the Wild, and it has made a lot of people (including this newbie) very happy.