Zelda: Breath of the Wild is truly one of the greatest games ever made. Seriously - it's just ridiculous. It's beautiful, it plays like a dream, the game mechanics are great, the puzzles are good, the AI is brilliant, the quest is varied, interesting but never anything that stops you going off on a side quest, which are just as strong as the main campaign.
Somehow, Nintendo have managed to create the best open world I have ever encountered in a game. I'd say Skyrim was the best up to now, but even that doesn't have the scale or variety of this. Nothing is out of bounds, yet every area has something in it that you'd need to return to once you've got better gear, more stamina/health etc.
It's so meticulously made as well. With regards to the game physics, if you think something should work, it almost always does. I needed to get onto a ledge from a flat area, and as it was raining it was too slippery to climb up. So I wondered if I could make a fire and use the updraft from that to glide up using the incredibly useful parachute. It only bloody worked.
Combat is perfectly pitched. There are some badass monsters out there - but you're not supposed to tackle those straight away. The satisfaction of returning to them with better weapons, a longer health meter, more armour and defeating them is immense.
Apparently, there are 4 big 'dungeon' quests to go through, all in separate parts of the map that look and feel totally different. I've only done one of them and I've clocked in 25 hours +. And I could easily double that with general exploring before I even think about heading towards the 2nd dungeon, and I wouldn't be running out of things to do.
I don't know how much work the designers have put into this game but there's no wonder it's been delayed for so long. It's an absolute masterpiece. And yes, I'm rating it higher than even Skyrim.
