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Breath of the Wild Was 'Breath of the Wild' a fitting title?

Joined
Aug 30, 2018
Where you live? In a home with internet access? Sounds more like civilization than wilderness.
I live in Finland.

After hiking couple of weeks in northern Finland far from civilization, I found our nature calm and not hostile. In north you can find deserted areas that are thousands of square kilometres wide and do long hikes without seeing another human being. And it's safe. We don't have dangerous animals except bears but it's extremely rare to see one so if you have good survival and orienteering skills, nature can offer amazing experience. When I stood on top of high arctic hill hearing absolutely nothing, not even wind, and seeing only forests and lakes, or when swam in still lake in middle of a night, I got feeling that nature is calm. But my experiences are limited, I haven't done hikes outside of Finland so there where you live nature might be different.

I find Breath of the Wild good title because I don't associate it with anything negative. I'm a person who loves nature thus BotW was perfect game for me. When I think the title, it reminds me my hikes. It brings back the memory of sleeping under the stars in sleeping bag and hearing nothing else but subtle breeze of wind in trees.
 
Joined
Feb 27, 2019
vague name for a game with a story that is, for the majority of the game, vague. it fits! but it also highlights the game's faults
 

thePlinko

What’s the character limit on this? Aksnfiskwjfjsk
ZD Legend
I thought it was weird at first, but it eventually grew on me.

To me the title of the game doesn’t quite matter that much. Just look at WW, I love that game to death and I think it has a stupid name considering how useless the windwaker actually was to the rest of the game. The only name in the series I hate is LttP. Link to the Past. What’s in the past? Why are we linking to it? I know they wanted to make a pun on the word “link” but why LttP? Why not LBW? I know the Japanese version was called triforce of the gods, which sounds cooler but still makes no sense. But now I’m off topic.

Back to BotW, I’m not sure if they really could have named it anything better. Maybe something like ”Wake of the Calamity” or “the Sacred iPhone.” My only complaint is that how newbies keep wanting to call it “Call of the Wild” and it drives me nuts.
 
I dislike the title a lot but I think the game itself makes up for it. I don't think it's fitting and it just sounds kinda stupid.

Though I'm also biased because I really wanted that shards of nightmare one that turned out to be fake which granted is probably a horrible title itself
 

Pik

Joined
Jun 27, 2018
Breath of the Wild is a very fitting title for a couple of reasons, but mainly it ties nicely into the Chemistry system that BOTW's overworld runs on. "Breath" in "Breath of the Wild" is really just referring to the living, breathing nature of the world. The natural world of BOTW reacts to Link's actions in appropriate ways - whether it's elemental fire spreading (and the updraft it creates), whether it's currents of water that send items across rivers, et cetera... the world has life in the way the freeform ways the player can interact with it.
If you look at the environment, no aspect of it is static. Grass is always moving with the wind, most trees can be cut down (used as bridges, impromptu falling weapons, or farmed for resources) and flora and fauna are in logical places.

You can argue that there still isn't a lot of content for Link to do in the overworld as a whole, but that's a separate matter. I know everyone on this subforum thinks BOTW is absolutely barren of content. That doesn't take away that the overworld has a lot of working systems that evoke life. That's why "breath" fits in the title - the world has the breath of life in it.
 

DarkestLink

Darkest of all Dark Links
Joined
Oct 28, 2012
You can argue that there still isn't a lot of content for Link to do in the overworld as a whole, but that's a separate matter. I know everyone on this subforum thinks BOTW is absolutely barren of content. That doesn't take away that the overworld has a lot of working systems that evoke life. That's why "breath" fits in the title - the world has the breath of life in it.

It feels dead tbh and that is linked to the lack of content...or rather the lack of anything living. BOTW's Hyrule is in this weird state where it feels like ruins, but it also feels like nobody has ever lived here--almost like an untouched Garden of Eden state. There isn't much wildlife and there's very few settlements or people. That's because it's supposed to be post-apocalyptic and yet even then that doesn't feel quite right. In a post-apocalyptic setting, the world should still be lively--lively and dangerous as it is absolutely overrun by monsters who threaten to bring Hylians to extinction, but no...there are very few monsters and rather than actively threatening Hylian civilization, camp in remote areas, living in fear of the Hylians.

The mountains in particular have an untouched feeling to them. I know it's because the developers didn't bother making paths because the player can climb, but it's like nobody has ever scaled them before. Never set paths or landmarks. Like they've never been touched in all of Hyrule's history. And that's the overall feeling I get from Hyrule--not lively, not in conflict or chaos...just unliving. Dead.
 

Mellow Ezlo

Spoony Bard
Joined
Dec 2, 2012
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Slothkin
I would say it is a fitting title, though not particularly catchy. Most Zelda games, with some exceptions, have titles that are simple yet eye-catching, and they also fit the game well. Breath of the Wild is a fitting title for a game with no overworld music largely dedicated to exploring the wild. But it doesn't really catch my eye. It just sounds generic and like it could be the title of a nature documentary.

But then again, The Legend of Zelda: Sheikah Slate wouldn't be much better, nor would The Legend of Zelda: Remote Bomb, or The Legend of Zelda: The Great Calamity, so I suppose they did the best they could.
 
Joined
May 7, 2018
When playing the game did you feel as if Breath of the Wild was an apt and fitting title?
Lucky I don't judge games based on the titles. It does not have any sense of inspiration at all, kinda meh, but I'm not really bothered by it either... I mean it could have been worse, Nintendo could have named it Toilet Princess 2.
 

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