Games for Breakfast: Climbing in Zelda: Breath of the Wild

<p><span style&equals;"font-family&colon; Georgia&semi; color&colon; &num;333333&semi;">Welcome to Games for Breakfast&comma; a new feature series here on BagoGames&excl;<&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><span style&equals;"font-family&colon; Georgia&semi; color&colon; &num;333333&semi;">Games for Breakfast&comma; written by Features Editor Angelo De Bellis&comma; is a daily opinion piece of about 250-500 words—I gotta keep it brief—that engages topical game news&period; Every new post will go live at<span class&equals;"apple-converted-space"> <&sol;span>9am<span class&equals;"apple-converted-space"> <&sol;span>EST so that you can grab your cup of coffee and read a brief account of a particular gamer’s take on the latest goings-on in the industry&period;<&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p>I bought a Switch last week&comma; so naturally I&&num;8217&semi;ve been playing quite a bit of <em>The Legend of Zelda&colon; Breath of the Wild&period;<&sol;em> Amidst all the critical and fan acclaim it&&num;8217&semi;s been getting for its return to open world design&comma; its puzzle elements&comma; and its many endearing surprises&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;ve come to realize something special about Link&&num;8217&semi;s new adventure that I don&&num;8217&semi;t think has been talked about much&period; I find the world traversal&comma; the climbing in the game to be something unique&comma; something that I haven&&num;8217&semi;t seen a game before&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As far as my mind can take me&comma; I recall Prince of Persia&colon; The Sands of Time being one of the first games to introduce climbing mechanics&period; Since then we&&num;8217&semi;ve gotten tons of games that include characters who can climb&comma; leap&comma; and use their bodies to perform a bunch of other parkour techniques&period; Games like <em>Assassin&&num;8217&semi;s Creed<&sol;em> or<em> Uncharted<&sol;em> demand that players climb a series of structures to keep the game going&comma; but have any of these games perfected it as I think Zelda has&quest; Not really&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;120836" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-120836" style&equals;"width&colon; 1200px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-120836" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;03&sol;07230540&sol;z2&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;The Legend of Zelda&colon; Breath of the Wild&comma; Nintendo&rpar;" width&equals;"1200" height&equals;"630" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-120836" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;The Legend of Zelda&colon; Breath of the Wild&comma; Nintendo&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The thing is with the latest <em>Zelda<&sol;em>&comma; it gets around the trickiness of having to color interactable ledges or design architecture in such a way that makes it obvious to players that they need to press against specific structures in a predetermined order to progress&period; How does Zelda get around this design issue&quest; In a rather Nintendo way&comma; simple yet effective&comma; Link can climb essentially anything and is only held down by weather effects or his heart when it&&num;8217&semi;s unable to keep up with his appetite for adventure&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I&&num;8217&semi;m not sure if many have thought of this&comma; but it&&num;8217&semi;s a great feeling to play an open world title and not have to fight with its controls&period; I find exploring a breeze in Zelda because climbing isn&&num;8217&semi;t a hassle&period; Truly&comma; in other games that require you to climb&comma; I would be less inclined to see what waited for me over the other side of a mountain because it would mean fighting the controls to get my characters past the steep grades of ground or my eyes to locate the next ledge to grapple to&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>How are you enjoying <em>Zelda<&sol;em>&quest;<em> <&sol;em>Do you agree that doing away with the perhaps more realistic climbing mechanics used by the typical AAA titles makes Zelda a more enjoyable experience&quest; Or what new feature or function are you most proud of in <em>Breath of the Wild<&sol;em>&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;