There are people who are good at fighting in The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild, and then there’s Japanese player Peco, whose skill transforms brutal battles into expertly-choreographed ballets of creative violence, making his foes look like fools in the process.
Take the poor Lynel atop this post. The powerful, centaur-like boss is used to instilling a certain amount of fear and respect in its opponents. There is no respect in what Peco does to the beast, effectively combating it with Breath of the Wild’s equivalent of a Three Stooges skit. You can’t hit what you can’t see rarely works in video games, where enemies are programmed to be aware of your character’s presence. Were I a bit of enemy code, I’d quit after this.
In the video below we see Peco pull off some incredibly classy moves. At one point, they use their enemy’s flaming arrow to light his own before shooting it right back. The way they dismember Guardians, some of the game’s most-feared foes, makes me wonder why I ever feared Guardians in the first place. Then, adding insult to fatal injury, they walk away in slow-motion as the beast explodes.
Peco’s strategy here seems to be using every tool at their disposal to make Breath of the Wild battles more cinematic and exciting. It’s like their own enemy humiliation mini-game, and it’s just breathtaking. Watch.
Because of this video I now plan and re-purchasing a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, half-heartedly trying to mimic some of Peco’s moves, and then trading it back in for something more my speed, like Horse Club Adventures.