I started a new playthrough of Breath of the Wild and grabbed some clips of the little touches that make this game great. All from on The Great Plateau.
- The world behaves how you'd expect it to. Arrows stick into wooden surfaces and can be recovered. Very satisfying to run around after a ranged fight and recover all of your (and your enemies) arrows!
- But don't stick into stone! In-fact they bounce on impact or explode.
- The world reacts to your presence. Grass sways with the wind and moves as you run through it. Birdies flee as you approach. So alive!
- Torches will light up cooking fires and braziers nice and quickly, as through they're primed for burning. This feels really intuitive combined with the "hold the torch in front of you" animation Link has.
- Barrels and other flammable material take a little longer before they catch alight, so you don't accidentily burn down everything around you. Accompanied by a plume of thick black smoke as you hold out your torch. Fire even spreads onto smaller objects nearby!
- Physics! Everything has a presence in the world, and gravity makes it roll down hills. Everything from barrels being used as weapons against Bokoblins sleeping at the foot of a hill, to boulders and rocks being dropped onto a target as an element of a puzzle. And even an apple..because it's all i had. Look at it go!
- Crafted encounters. This may be an open world game but it's anything but generic. The route you approach from has been accounted for and the sight lines have been specifically crafted to direct your eyes towards puzzles, dangers, rewards, and the tools made available to tackle them. Your eyes are drawn to the boulders, then the fire below, then the ring of barrels (and the sleeping Bokoblins nearby). Just a neat little invitation to play. "hey come over and have some fun with the boulders, you know you want to!"
- Footprints in the snow. OK lots of games do this but they're always satisfying, they look great in BOTW and the crunchy snow footstep sounds are very relaxing.
- Beautiful lighting. The skies capture the soft lighting brilliantly. The switch isn't exactly a powerhouse but art style and lighting can just elevate a game to a level of beauty and more resolution or GPU power can't emulate that. Everything just has an ethereal shimmer, a soft yellow glow. Combined with the slowly floating clouds, and the minimalist bursts of piano. I sat here for 10 minutes to capture 5 seconds of video. ☺️
- And it's equally beautiful at night. The shimmering pale light changes to beautiful sombre tones of blue and green. Links cold breath puffs out a crisp white, and the moon moon sliding across the sky provides you with a reminder that the morning is not far away.
I'm still not out of the tutorial area. I can't stop taking photos, and watching sunrises, and making fun little clips. What a game! 💗