Switch's debut and Wii U's demise are marked by a radical reinvention of The Legend of Zelda that will go down as an all-time great. Here's an unusual admission for a reviewer to make. I haven't finished The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

I've yet to uncover swathes of its vast map. Much remains for me to do and discover, and my game is still rife with rumour, mystery and surprise. This is partly because my life is no longer compatible with monstering a giant open-world game in a week, even when it's work.

But it's also because of the kind of game that Breath of the Wild is. The reason I feel comfortable telling you this is that this isn't a game that any one player can just know.

You can map it out, sure - spend weeks or months enumerating all its components and secrets. But the game's magic resides in its combination of sheer size with sheer openness, with apparently freewheeling yet meticulously interlocked systems, and with a scarcely credible level of detail and craft in its making.

When a game world like this meets players, alchemy happens. My meandering and half-complete run, full of digressions and doubling back, feels as meaningful as the game of a completist, or of a player who skipped the main quest to take a run straight at the end boss with armour and weapons scavenged from the map's darkest corners, or a player who chose to ignore the storyline altogether in favour of unlocking the mysteries of Hyrule's most elusive Shrines, or of a player who simply headed north to see what lay there.

Rarely has a game been so tempting to restart while you were still playing it. Our hero Link awakes on a high plateau in the middle of Hyrule's rugged vastness.

Sheer cliffs drop off all around, which conveniently confines us here until we've learned the ropes and earned the paraglider that will guide us safely down to the world below.

But those cliffs are also there to give us an unhindered and honestly breathtaking view over the world we're about to explore, from cursed castle to hazy wetland, boiling volcano to parched desert. Amid the misty watercolour washes of this fantasy landscape, you can pick out the sharp glow and alien forms of ancient Sheikah technology: It's an incredibly promising view, and not a misleading one.

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Nintendo's first open world is up there with Azeroth and San Andreas as one of the greatest game worlds ever created. Link, it turns out, has been asleep for years, having failed with Zelda to defeat the apocalyptic evil known as Calamity Ganon. Ganon is contained at Hyrule Castle - as is Zelda - but it's up to Link to take a second stab at him.

If he wants help, he must journey to the four corners of Hyrule to rehabilitate the Divine Beasts, giant mechanical creatures originally created to defeat Ganon that have now run amok. This is what you would consider the meat of a regular Zelda game - yet, while strongly advised, it's entirely optional. On your travels you will meet the charming and familiar tribes of Hyrule: The Korok - cute, rattling woodland sprites that first appeared in The Wind Waker - are here too, and they are vital to the tapestry of Breath of the Wild.

But you won't be guided to their well-hidden homeland by any quest marker; you'll have to follow rumours and suggestions to find it and know its importance. That is as good an example as any of the remarkable confidence Nintendo's developers have in their world to draw players in, and the trust they have in those players to explore it freely and inquisitively.

Few games in this waypoint-infested genre have that courage. Visually, Breath of the Wild finds a perfect balance between expressive cartooning and epic lyricism, rendered in rich, painterly colours.

You'll also learn about the Sheikah tablet you're carrying, a sort of fantasy iPad that summons bombs and ice blocks, and commands the forces of inertia and magnetism. Although you can upgrade it, its core abilities are all unlocked by the time you leave the starter area.

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Gear-gating - using the acquisition of new items to manage the player's progress through the game - is one of many year Zelda traditions that Breath of the Wild bravely discards, in favour of giving you pretty much all the tools early on and sending you off to find your own path. Bombs aside, the power-ups you get aren't the ones you're expecting, and they upgrade in unpredictable ways, branching off in new directions rather than simply getting stronger.

The best Legend of Zelda costumes from Jelly Deals. You'll also learn more about what happened years ago Link is an amnesiac, of course in a series of cutscenes. If Breath of the Wild has one weakness, it's as a story. Easy way to get rupees in wind waker grand events of the past seem remote from the teeming world around you, not to mention rather hackneyed, while the English voice acting - sparingly used, thankfully - is stiff and cheesy.

Unlike such soulful adventures as Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, Breath of the Wild isn't unduly interested in ordinary people and their stories, and it musters neither the poignant little vignettes nor the strong emotional tenor of those games.

It doesn't have the memorable characters and simple, pure narrative purpose of The Wind Waker, either. It's a shame - but it doesn't need these things. Arguably, a stronger storyline wouldn't have been compatible with Nintendo's decision to grant the player so much freedom. You really don't get this level of openness anywhere else this side of a Bethesda role-playing game.

The Elder Forex-gold - trade - v.1.0.ex4 5: Skyrim is an obvious inspiration. You can do whatever you like, and go wherever you feel, greatly assisted by Link's ability to climb almost any surface. This is a game that wholly rejects artificial barriers. The further away you get from the centre, the stronger monsters are, but there's no grind to meet their level and make money at home stuffing envelope means to match them can be found just through exploring.

Breath of the Wild also rewards your curiosity with constant and dazzling inventiveness. It's dumbfounding that such a vast space should be so packed with things to find, observe and do.

You find and tame horses out in the wild: The designers are squarely focused on keeping you out in this world, and for Zelda traditionalists, that means one major and potentially painful casualty: There isn't anything you would describe as a classic Zelda dungeon here, no huge and devious labyrinth of locks and keys, boss fights and puzzles. The gameplay survives in the Shrines, which house the cleverest puzzles in chambers tinged with Portal's austere lab aesthetic, and out in the world, where boss monsters roam and elaborate combat gauntlets await.

The Divine Beasts are relatively compact but extremely intricate and rewarding challenges that are probably the closest thing to a dungeon per se. Some Shrines take much longer to complete than others, and are introduced by involved and mysterious quest lines.

Underpinning the whole game is an extremely strong and multifaceted suite of linked systems, including weather, stealth, cooking, and a fantastically fun and convincing physics simulation.

Even item drops from enemies are fully physically modelled. Cooking, which provides useful buffs as well as refilling your health, isn't the recipe list you'd expect; it's a system where the same dish can be conjured from different ingredients and at different potencies. It's not about collection or rote learning, it's about understanding the rules and then improvising with what you have.

This is true of the game super teacher worksheets earning money a whole, especially in combat, where all Breath of the Wild's tools and systems meet. There are so many variables in a fight - what you happen to be holding, what your enemy is holding, if there are any fires or boulders around, if you're in the eye of a lightning storm and so need to unequip everything metal - that it's almost always better to wing it and try new tactics on the fly than to settle into a groove.

This is a game that can play like Dynasty Warriors one minute and Metal Gear Solid the next. A wonderful soundtrack channels the plaintive melodies and lush arrangements of the great Joe Hisaishi's work on Studio Ghibli films. Food buffs can help you out hugely if you're under-equipped - and being over-equipped isn't always a good thing.

Breath of the Wild's disposable weapons may 60 seconds binary options signals demos to be the most controversial aspect of its design; weapons wear out fast, and only a few very special ones can be repaired.

You're even encouraged to throw them away as they get worn down, as a easy way to get rupees in wind waker lob will earn you a critical hit. It starts out stressful, but it's ultimately a liberating change that's reminiscent of Halo's weapon-swap philosophy.

It also has brilliant consequences for Breath of the Wild's sweeping reinterpretation of role-playing game convention. With no experience points to grind, Link's progression is entirely dictated by gear: A great stock broker job profile find is doubly precious for being temporary, so you won't want to waste its short life on weak enemies, and it's always good to have one or two lesser pieces on hand.

Thus you're voluntarily scaling your power to the situation at hand, which makes you feel smart and still gives you a strong sense of advancement, without the deadening effect of a level-balancing set-up such as Skyrim's. Plus, all the equipment looks really cool, and collecting and upgrading Link's outfits is quite compulsive.

What this all adds up to is superb sandbox game design, free of fiddle or bloat, unencumbered with preconceptions, and executed with the rock-solid reliability, tactile feedback and arcade brio for which Nintendo is justly celebrated.

The map and soundtrack are littered with references to many past Zelda games, from Ocarina of Time to Link's Awakening. As much as it moves away from their template, Breath of the Wild seeks to synthesise what made them all special. In case it isn't clear, this is a very different Legend of Zelda game. Until very recently, Nintendo has made its games in a bubble - not that this was necessarily a bad thing, as its priorities were unique, and its standards were uniquely high, but it seemed quite unconcerned by what other game makers were up to.

Zelda, one of the most widely admired, finely honed and carefully iterated designs in gaming, was a bubble within this bubble. Its recurring plots about the hero in green echoed its well-worn, smooth patterns of play: It was a ritual incantation, a myth that ticked like clockwork. All that has been either swept aside or remade from first principles.

It's hard to overstate the courage and conviction with which producer Eiji Aonuma, director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and their team have rewritten their own work, and the size of the risk Nintendo has taken with a beloved property. Breath of the Wild isn't just the most radical departure from the Zelda tradition in its year history, it's the first Nintendo game that feels like it was made in a world where Half-Life 2, Halo, Grand Theft Auto 3 and Skyrim happened.

It's inspired by those greats and others, but it doesn't ape them any more than it rests on its own laurels. And if we're talking inspirations, we have to recognise one game above all others, an uncompromising adventure from that dared to take gaming off the rails, that put a whole world beyond the TV screen and invited the player to explore it: Buy The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild from Amazon [?

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Games featured in this article The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Wii U, Switch Follow Zelda: Breath of the Wild DLC 1 The Master Trials - Trial of the Sword, Master Mode, Hero's Path and everything else we know Zelda: Breath of the Wild Master Sword - location of the legendary weapon and how to complete The Hero's Sword Zelda: Breath of the Wild cooking explained - ingredients list, bonus effects, and how to cook with the cooking pot Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Hylian Shield location, how to beat Stalnox for the best shield in the game Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Shrines of Trials, how to get Shrine Orbs for Heart Containers Zelda: Breath of the Wild Rupees - How to get easy Rupees and quick Rupee farming spots Zelda: Breath of the Wild walkthrough - Guide and tips for completing the main quests Zelda: Breath of the Wild horses - how to tame a horse, use stables and get Epona Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Captured Memories locations and how to get every Recovered Memory Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Great Fairy Fountain locations and how to upgrade armour Zelda: Breath of the Wild best armour - Ancient Armour, Robbies Research, and the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab Zelda: Breath of the Wild Guardians - How to beat Guardian's easily and get Ancient materials Nintendo Switch games list, release dates and everything we know about the hardware Follow the games you're interested in and we'll send you an email the instant we publish new articles about them.

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