Switch 2 week two: A short Breath of the Wild retrospective
... and some housekeeping
Happy Sunday, I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend.
First, some housekeeping.
The past few months have been a little difficult for me. I’ve had whooping cough (yes, really) for about 80 days, which made me pretty unwell for a long time. As a result, my work output was limited and my income has taken a hit as such. Obviously, not quite as bad as the hit it took last summer when I lost my job of eight years, but still, it’s not been the best of times.
As a result, I am going to start publishing some paid-for posts. I will probably try and stick to a publishing schedule and reserve some bits of reporting and my quite brilliant insights. I will hang off pitching stories to papers and magazines and see if I can make them work financially here.
Anyway, if you have read my work and are interested in reading more, please do consider chucking me some cash. If you are a paid subscriber, I will take requests. I am not entirely sure how that works, but it could be entertaining.
Anyway, here is a (free follow-up) to my post about the Switch 2 last week.
Oh, and if you are reasonably wondering why a man financially struggling managed to afford a Switch 2 – I put aside the money for it quite a long time ago. And, you know, I don’t drink or smoke anymore, so I need *something*.
More to follow and if you do end up giving me money, thank you very much.
All the best,
Luke
Breath of the Wild is still brilliant … but …
A couple of people got in touch last week after I said in a throwaway comment that Tears of the Kingdom is a better game than Breath of the Wild. One of my least favourite things in gaming is people ranking an original better than a sequel purely on the nostalgic reason that it came first. Your memories of something being special don’t make it better than an improvement, nor does it take anything away from your memories.
Anyway, I have been playing the updated Breath of the Wild, the first time I have played the game since pre-pandemic. What strikes me about BOTW compared to TOTK (which I last played the complete story back in March) is how much harder it is as a game. Where TOTK is a classic where you build up a team of buddies to take down the ultimate bad guy, BOTW is a lonely slog against something that feels intangible for most of the game. Unlike TOTK, you cannot blast yourself into the air and see what lies over each mountain; you have to build up your strength so you can climb a little higher. It takes hours and the game offers you so little guidance or help. But it’s so rewarding and if you have the Switch Online Expansion pack, I’d really recommend going back to this masterpiece. Even though I think TOTK is a better game, I still sunk over 1,000 hours into BOTW and I am remembering how much I enjoyed it.
It’s nice to be playing it on a new console, remembering how much fun those first few weeks of the original switch were. That is probably nostalgia … but TOTK is still better.
Right, back to real journalism at some point this week,
Luke