5/5 ★ – chozobro's review of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Breath of the Wild refreshed my appetite for open world games. Nintendo managed to create a world that made me WANT to explore instead of feeling like every new area i came across was a checklist of samey activities to cut through before marching to the next location. The reason this game is so able to avoid that old feeling is through such subtle details in the world design, sure, I might know that I need to make my way to Kakariko Village and I could just take the road there on my horse, fighting hordes of moblins and bokoblins on the way, but when I pan the camera slightly and see a crevice or a cave or a mountain that piques my interest? You know I have to go check it out. This only works because every one of the hundreds of these locations spread over the game reward you for finding them, whether it be a NPC with a sidequest, a korok seed or a shrine for you to solve, exploring always feels like the right thing to do. After all, Kakariko Village will still be there waiting for me, right?