The very best demakes and retro-style fan games (think Wit.NES) capture the essence of their official inspiration, but in a smaller “box.” Minus the full-scale environments and massive scope of Breath of the Wild, WinterDrake’s fan game is a very cool, delightfully robust exploration of some of the systems that make Nintendo’s game so special, and goddamn if it doesn’t look fantastic with The Legend of Zelda-era sprites.
In the game, you take your nicely-animated Link through several biomes inspired by Breath of the Wild (and the Zelda series as a whole)—there are forests, caves, desert areas, a haunted graveyard, etc. There are enemies to kill (some of whom drop arrows or precious food to replenish your hearts), rocks to break, and best of all, dynamic fires to spread. It’s still a work-in-progress, so don’t go in expecting hours of endless entertainment, but what’s here is impressive.
Videos by VICE
All Breath of the NES screens courtesy of WinterDrake
Some of the main items from the game made it in too—the sledgehammer is perfect for mining, and you can find arrows and bows all over.
But best of all, the sense of freedom, exploration, and experimentation that’s made Breath of the Wild my gaming obsession for the last two months has made it over. It’s fun to see just how much fire you need to clear a bunch of trees obscuring the entrance to a cave. Or to perfect an arrow shot through the flames to nail a mischievous Octorock and turn it into calimari (cooking made it in!) There are several systems at play here under the hood, and the version we played this afternoon is pleasantly fully-featured.
The trailer for the work-in-progress promises even more, with pretty lighting effects, a quick menu, and more mechanical depth (watch Link to use logs to smash an Octorock to the bottom of the screen!), and options for improvisation.
You can play Breath of the NES for free here. It’s an extremely cool fan project, and I can only hope the devs don’t get hit with any unwanted attention from Nintendo proper.
