THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD (Nintendo, 2017)

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Being among the first games I purchased when I bought a Switch Lite last summer in order to train to defeat my niece at MARIO KART and being the game that led me to a.) immediately go buy the OLED Switch so I could behold this thing on the big screen and b.) give the Lite to my wife and get her hooked on video games for the first time (ANIMAL CROSSING and LUIGI'S MANSION 3 being her particular jams), finishing – or at least finishing the story (much to my dismay, you can't go back into the game and play around after the main story's end – will remember for TOTK) – BOTW has been a long time coming and I already miss it terribly (in spite of taking six months off because the totally open nature of it wasn't a good fit for my weary brain at that point; couldn't do ELDEN RING either).

A few quick observations:

  • Goron Town is my favorite of the Hylian 'burgs.

  • I'm proud that I remained alive even though my cooking skills weren't up to snuff and yielded many inedible one-heart concoctions in an effort to make elixirs which I never figured out how to make.

  • I loathe destructible weapons and major tests of strength.

  • On that, my reflexes are nowhere near as good as they used to be in my nascent gamings and as such, I fail miserably at blocking and parrying.

  • The levels in the snow are achingly beautiful. Games are art.

  • I want a sand seal.

  • SHIELD SURFING IS GREAT (if I can remember the button combo to get to it)

  • While this is indisputably one of the greatest games ever made, my favorite Zelda game remains, after more than 30 years, A LINK TO THE PAST.

Not sure what else I can add that hasn't already been said about this triumph but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the (INSERT ELEMENT)blight Ganon fights: perhaps it's that I'm a classically trained gamer (read: NES on Christmas '85 or '86) but there's something about a Nintendo boss fight that's more thrilling than any other company's boss fight, a hardfought success that elicits a string of profanities both in that success and in the seemingly interminable heartbreaks that precede it.

And now, a break for the more contained METROID PRIME REMASTERED (and I really need to finish METROID DREAD) and perhaps something else (I do need to actually play ELDEN RING) then, depending on how long my willpower holds out, it's back to Hyrule to lose all of my powers and weapons for TEARS OF THE KINGDOM to gain them back amid a slower exploration and more complete completion. For now, though, I’ll bask in the unmitigated triumph of this work of art.