I've decided to get back into Breath of the Wild due to the DLC. While it wasn't my overall GOTY for 2017, that was Hollow Knight, it was a very tough year and Breath of the Wild is easily in the top 3.
Those first 3 hours were sure something. Mostly since it was great departure from recent series tropes, excessive introductory tutorials. Great game design teaches game systems in a seamless fashion a la MMX and it seems the Zelda team has finally got the hint here.
I also forgot how well done the sound design is in the game. Yes, it lacks the ever playing tunes of previous Zeldas, but the use of music is fantastic. While I did miss being to hum the ever present melodic tunes of previous Zeldas, I think the new approach works better for open world games like BoTW.
And then there's the art direction. Originally a Wii U game, which is less powerful than the Switch, I do love the cell shaded style. However, what still seems very impressive is the environments. They're very diverse and fascinating to inspect. You want to climb the next hill or structure only to explore it. I turned off the default HUD and it was perfect. Link's design is also rather strong. I loved that they added all the armor variations and his default champion's tunic was a drastic change in the feel of the character along with him ditching the pointing green hat.
BoTW is not a perfect game. I think that discussion is a boring one honestly. There are no perfect games. However, I'm rather impressed how strong it still is, almost one year going. I've found most open world games not very compelling. My favorite before BOTW was Crackdown to give you a sense of my tastes. And I never developed much interest in the GTA series. I tried.
I've been rather jaded with 3D Zeldas and I'm glad this new direction succeeded both critically and commercially. This is the best selling Zelda game, correct?
What are your thoughts on BOTW nearly one year later?