Okay, so that first trailer we got of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild , back when we called it Zelda Wii U , did not look anything like Twilight Princess . The guardian has a lot of trademarks from various Zelda enemies but it is more or less unique Breath of the Wild . Now that we’ve seen over an hour of gameplay, which was so boring even the Hinterlands from Dragon Age: Inquisition started to look fascinating, I can say with confidence that the resemblance to Twilight Princess is disappointing. This isn’t rethinking the conventions of Zelda , this is copy and pasting.
The sounds used for picking up items, combat, dialogue, and menu selection are exactly the same and it was utterly crushing to hear it. The Zelda series has sounds so unique and distinct to each game that I can identify them instantly. Why didn’t they do that for this new game? Did they somehow run out of creativity after attempting to convert a linear game to open world? It is inexcusably lazy for Nintendo to do this and completely out of the norm for the series.
The music is different enough so far. The almost-silence to Breath of the Wild is very unlike any Zelda game and it is greatly appreciated. I don’t mean to say that the sweeping orchestras of the previous games are not good, they’re wonderful, but it is cool to find something a lot more like the atmospheric music found in most Western games.
The sounds, though lazy, are probably only a big deal to really hardcore fans like me, but it does lend to a bit of doubt about the game itself. There are a few more similarities that that push this doubt to the point of copy and pasting. The Bokos of Breath of the Wild are almost exactly the same as Twilight Princess’ Bokoblins – they’re just colored in and smoothed out a little. Bokoblins have been used in Skyward Sword and The Wind Waker in varying colours , so this isn’t a major slight against the game itself. It is, however, a huge surprise considering the hype for this game being completely different. Again, this isn’t rethinking the conventions of Zelda , this is utterly the same.
Now, the rest of similarities are not exclusive to Twilight Princess , but they hinder the ‘rethinking conventions’ thing even more. There is the character of the old man from the very first The Legend of Zelda , the inside of the Shrine of Resurrection looks like the Twilight Realm, and Korok is straight from The Wind Waker . Even if all of these are some sort of awesome plot device, this isn’t breaking the Zelda conventions. All the Zelda games have been connected in such ways before. That’s why we have the Hyrule Historia now.
For all that I hoped Breath of the Wild would be different, it looks so much like Twilight Princess that I might as well play that game again. The differences are almost too subtle to mention, as the combat style and weapons are entirely unique, as is the ability to climb anything and everything. That the enemies we fight and the sounds we hear are exact copies from Twilight Princess takes away from the beauty of Breath of the Wild when there should be so much more.
Image Credit: Eternalegend