Climbing Away from My Problems

(originally posted 11/14/2017 on my student blog caitlinrwoods.oucreate.com)

Following a year-long trend, the past couple weeks of pop culture have been exhausting. It's hard to say anything that hasn't already been said, and I don't think it's necessarily my place anyway. And while I don't think it's a great practice to generally avoid uncomfortable or challenging topics, for my own mental health I've been trying to find positive things to focus on. I would have loved to be playing Super Mario Odyssey this week, as it came out last Friday, but unfortunately I don't have a Nintendo Switch. Instead I'm playing Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which came out earlier this year and is available both on Wii U and Nintendo Switch.

There isn't much to say about Breath of the Wild that hasn't been said, so I'm not going to try. Instead I want to focus on my personal experience with Breath of the Wild's incredibly lush and immersive environment, and how I want to escape into it forever. Well, considering it's a world that's been conquered by the forces of evil, maybe not.

Something that I love about Breath of the Wild is its expansive and complete open world. It's something I really loved in the 2002 Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, and fits with the spirit of exploration that the Legend of Zelda series was built on. It's so surprisingly open that when I play other, earlier open-world games (Skyrim, Dragon Age: Inquisition to an extent), I get frustrated at their limitations.

There really is nowhere you can't go in Breath of the Wild. My favorite thing to do in Breath of the Wild is climb mountains. Mountains usually serve as barriers in games, even open-world games, but in Breath of the Wild they're just another challenge for you to overcome. I usually hate climbing in games, but the constantly changing world of Breath of the Wild and added challenge of maintaining stamina makes it a really enjoyable and rewarding process. Sometimes a storm will start up when I'm close to the summit, making the rocks really slippery and hard to hold on to. I think you're supposed to look for shelter and wait the storm out when this happens, but it's so rewarding when I actually make it! Most Legend of Zelda are pretty plot-focused, so the tendency when playing them is to just get through the main story as quick as you can, enjoying the world along the way. But Breath of the Wild is really all about the world. There are thousands (no, literally, thousands) of secrets to discover, so you never feel like you've really beaten the game. It's so much fun to explore and experience the world, and definitely a great palate cleanser after playing other games or having been bombarded with terrible news for a... year.