Breath Of The Wild Is NOT A Masterpiece... But It IS Something Special...
88Hardest I've ever worked on one video, to the point that I think it made the injury in my left wrist return, too bad I can't go back to physiotherapy during this pandemic... I've been working on this video for two months, I'll try to avoid making 3 hour videos in the future, haha
Breath Of The Wild really is incredible with the ways it challenges the conventions of progression within the gaming industry. But the game has always really thrown me off for a couple reasons, mainly with it being vastly different from expectations, and the sheer amount of praise of "masterpiece" this game received.
In this three hour video I discuss almost all my thoughts on Breath of the Wild, both positive and negative. Sometimes I'll also go on tangents about game design, such as fostering engagement or what it means to be "realistic" in video games, from subjects I've learned from my game design courses in university. So even if you disagree with all of my opinions, I hope you can still take something from this video, and maybe learn something along the way. (Also because this is a hella long video I would highly recommend taking breaks)
Some of the negative points I make about Breath of the Wild might make you think "that's not that bad, plenty of games do/don't do that, so what if it's not perfect", and you'd be right. This video is not meant to call Breath of the Wild bad, only to say it's not a masterpiece.
(Also if I need to explicitly remind you this is my opinion and you're entitled to your own, you should probably leave the video now before you get butthurt)
(P.S. Please don't complain if I "missed" something you hoped I'd talk about, like a particular theme in my music discussion for example, considering the video is already 3 hours long and I've either got an old injury back again or carpel tunnel or something in my left wrist after this project... I did my best to include as much as I could in this video without getting too repetitive)
🌼Legend🌼
___________________________
🌼 0:00 Intro
📖 3:44 Story
3:57 Story Summary
6:51 Retaking Divine Beasts
8:19 Ganondorf's Absence
9:22 Tidbits, Zelda's Design, Realism In Media (Game Design Tangent)
13:34 A Fragmented Story, Consequences Of An Open World
26:22 🎵Music
27:18 Engagement In Video Games (Game Design Tangent)
39:40 Impression Opportunities, Title Screens (Game Design Tangent)
49:58 World Themes, Creating An "Atmospheric" Environment
59:20 Battle Themes
1:05:33 Town Themes
1:12:30 Champion & Companion Themes
1:18:12 Dungeon Themes
1:29:28 Final Boss Theme
1:31:17 Piano Player F***ing Dies
1:35:08 Ludoharmonic Dissonance
1:39:56 Leitmotifs (Game Design Tangent)
1:50:36 Final Boss Leitmotif
1:54:40 Music Closing Arguments
1:56:14 🎮Gameplay
1:56:29 Great Plateau, First Impressions
2:00:35 Starting With All Tools, A New Stance On Progression
2:03:59 Shrines, Dungeons, Bosses
2:09:06 Replayability
2:11:25 Weapon Durability
2:18:07 Champion Abilities
2:21:13 Gameplay Mechanics & Systems
2:24:27 Final Boss
2:28:24 DLC (I just say I haven't played it yet)
2:29:26 Gameplay Closing Arguments
3:26:53 🌼Conclusion
2:37:13 Summarizing Arguments Up To This Point
2:44:38 Trailers False Promises
2:48:58 My Experience With Breath Of The Wild
2:54:44 What Does It Mean To Be A "Masterpiece"?
2:57:39 How Story And Music Immortalize An Experience
3:02:39 Closing Arguments
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🎨Thinking Link On Thumbnail By Undermised
📷Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/undermised_potatosalad/
🎨Original Thumbnail Thinking Link By AcousticHarmonia
I drew the original Thinking Link on the thumbnail once this first published, but then commissioned Undermised who did a waaaaaaaaaay better job than I did. You can find the original thumbnail along with my art here if you're interested
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/679921114213777411/734339393309114418/Thumbnail_1.png
Thumbnail Background
https://wall.alphacoders.com/big.php?i=863434
🎨"Story, Music, Gameplay" Map By NotSoFormal
🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/ns_formal
🎵Music & Video Credit
Well this is usually where I'd put my full credit, but YouTube has a description length limit (and music credit alone exceeded that cap)
Check my pinned comment for full credit to all music and other footage used
🌼My Breath Of The Wild Series - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQtuKItcZ24qGpKPpl86pclt0SFC9kyxg
🎥 Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/acousticharmonia
🌐 Discord - https://discord.gg/G335hnJ
🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/AcoustcHarmonia
🎼 Playthroughs - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvzTK_dCNePpGQ6KsQ2r6GA/playlists?view=50&sort=dd&shelf_id=2&view_as=subscriber
🎨 Art - https://twitter.com/i/moments/1089979002830241792
#BreathOfTheWild #BoTW #LegendOfZelda
Game: The Legend Of Zelda Breath Of The Wild
Platform: Switch
Released: March 3, 2017
Developer/Publisher: Nintendo
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AcousticHarmonia presently has 11,792 views for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild across 150 videos, and roughly 3 days worth of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild videos were uploaded to his channel. This makes up 1.70% of the content that AcousticHarmonia has uploaded to YouTube.