Zelda Wii U Impressions From a Gamer Who Got Breath of the Wild Early (Performance, Graphics, Etc.)

Although most of The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild's spotlight has been shined on the Switch, it isn't exclusive to the platform. There is actually a Wii U version with a release date similarly on Friday. Though, Nintendo hasn't said much about it, leading to plenty of speculation.

Ahead of release, thousands of gamers have found a way to mod their Wii U to play the latest Zelda ahead of launch. Although we will not be advertising how you can do the same, we know one of the few people who has already played Breath of the Wild on Wii U for more than a couple hours. His name is Jared, and I struck up a quick chat with him this afternoon to talk about his experience with this mysterious Zelda port.

GameRevolution: Can you briefly describe what the hack is? Did you have to mod your console?

Jared: It's all soft-modding, which requires an SD card and a flash drive/external hard drive.​ It can take around 1.5 to 2 hours depending on how you want to mod it. ​You don't have to do anything hardware related.

GR: How are the graphics? Do you think people will say it's the best looking Wii U game?

Jared: Personally, I'm really impressed with it. Technically, it could be the best Wii U game [visually], on par or maybe a little bit better than Xenoblade Chronicles.

GR: ​How's performance?

Jared: It's 30 fps most of the time, though there are framerate issues at times. Sometimes when you're switching weapons the framerate chugs. There are just some unoptimized areas in the game where it slows down.

GR: That applies to the Switch version, but only in docked mode in my experience. How are loading times?

Jared: I'm really impressed with how fast it loads. Loading screens can vary from around 10-15 seconds.

GR: Do you think this game has game of the year potential?

Jared: Possibly, it could be. There are a few problems physics and AI related, but if people are willing to look past that, hell yeah it is. At worst, the best I could compare it to is MGSV with how much freedom you have. It's just fun to play and mess around to see what new stuff you could try to do.

If you have any questions for Jared, leave them in the comments section below.

 


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