The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild — Creando a un héroe

The Legend of Zelda

by Nintendo

¡Prepárate para un apasionante y exhaustivo repaso al proceso artístico y creativo de uno de los videojuegos más rompedores de los últimos tiempos! Hablamos, por supuesto, de The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Esta aventura da comienzo con más de 50 páginas cuajadas de bocetos, ilustraciones promocionales y arte conceptual de los personajes de mano del diseñador Takumi Wada. A continuación, podrás explorar más de 300 páginas de arte conceptual llenas de notas, anécdotas y reminiscencias de los desarrolladores. Podrás tomarte un respiro mientras aprendes sobre la historia de Hyrule y cómo son sus gentes en la actualidad. Y para finalizar, ¡conoce a los maestros en persona mientras el director Hidemaru Fujibayashi, el director de arte Satoru Takizawa, el ilustrador Takumi Wada y el productor de la saga Eiji Aonuma analizan su viaje para crear a un héroe!

Genres: Art, Video Games, Nonfiction, Gaming, Reference, Games, Collections

424 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 2017

About the author

Nintendo Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational consumer electronics and video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. Nintendo is one of the world's largest video game companies by market capitalization. Founded on 23 September 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as cab services and love hotels. The word Nintendo can be roughly translated from Japanese to English as "leave luck to heaven".

Abandoning previous ventures in favor of toys in the 1960s, Nintendo then developed into a video game company in the 1970s, ultimately becoming one of the most influential in the industry and Japan's third-most-valuable company with a market value of over $85 billion. From 1992 until 2016, Nintendo was also the majority shareholder of Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners.

As of 31 March 2014, Nintendo has cumulative sales of over 670.43 million hardware units and 4.23 billion software units. The company has created and released some of the best-known and top-selling video game franchises, such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokémon.

Reviews

[CZ (Moonrise) [HAF] · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breath of the Wild is by far the best game made by Nintendo.

I spent countless hours playing and grinding on it. I started out running away from Lynels, Guardians, and even Blue Bokoblins! But now, I know that I've done too much in the game that I farm Silver Lynels FOR FUN!! I did glitches, some easy, some hard, I've collected Koroks (though I didn't collect all of them xD), and I've defeated Calamity Ganon at least 5 times already.

Then, one day, I found out about this book.

This book, called The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Creating a Champion, made my love for books really harden. I spent hours and hours reading it, looking at all the unreleased character designs, ideas, and BTSs (behind the scenes).

So yeah, 5/5 stars by CZ :D

[Thesi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy 5/5 for a lifelong Zelda fan
(I absolutely recommend getting the hero's edition - it really elevates the whole experience even more with the included extras.)

If you enjoyed Breath of the Wild you will LOVE this book! It's obvious how much work they put into it. You get to see early concepts of characters, props, landscapes, tons of illustrations, extra information, all with creators' notes and so much more.

The book takes you by the hand and shows you around Hyrule; how it was built by the Nintendo team and what thoughts and ideas went into it. There are so many small details and random bits of information, it really makes the world feel even more fleshed out. I absolutely adored that. I loved seeing how the characters came to be, how the different regions were developed, etc. ...
As someone who's persuing a career in this field it inspires me greatly. I also think that from an artistic and story telling perspective, you can draw plenty of things from this book.

Aside from the development process, the book also delves into the history of BotW's Hyrule, starting all the way back more than 10.000 years ago until the present time. They tell the story of each race and how it was affected and shaped by past events, explain the origins of the ruins you come across when playing the game and really giving everything a new twist; a new depth. Makes revisiting those sides in-game a lot of fun. They both answer questions and add new mysteries at the same time. (Like the ancient Zonai people.)

Lastly, you get to read interviews with the development team, learn about their thoughts, opinions and wishes for the series. They give great and interesting insights and it's a nice heart to heart talk.

All this combined makes for a really intimate experience. I can only recommend this book, it was a pleasure to read and filled me with childlike excitement and even made me shed a tear.
I hope you will enjoy it as well! ♥

[EndOfInfinity · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would highly recommend this for any Zelda fans who are interested in the lore of the series and want a look into the development of Breath of the Wild. The artwork is beautiful and gives you a real insight into what went on to create the game we have today. The later section outlining the events of the great calamity is written like a history book and all the comments from the developers at the end really reflect why this game is so well loved. I was gifted it for Christmas and absolutely love it.

5/5 stars

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since I started reading this Thanksgiving last year, I figured it was time I finally finish!

I loved seeing the character and setting development, artwork process, etc. Breath of the Wild is possibly my favorite video game of all time, and this is a gorgeous book.

[Lidia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Qué pasada de libro. El libro de arte más completo y trabajado que he visto nunca, al menos para un videojuego. La edición es preciosa y desgrana con todo detalle el universo de Zelda Breath of the Wild y también de personajes de Hyrule Warriors. Se centra en todos los aspectos del videojuego con todo detalle, hasta tal punto que parece que lees sobre un mundo real. Diseño e historia de los personajes, desarrollo de la historia de Breath of the Wild narrando acontecimientos anteriores y posteriores a la principal, paisajes, armas, fauna, monstruos, vestuario, muchísimas ilustraciones a color y de gran tamaño,...
Se nota que tanto el libro como el videojuego se han hecho con mucho mimo. Una delicia para cualquier fan.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was hoping to read this cover to cover but about halfway I must admit that I did just go for the "oooh let's look at pretty pictures!" route. So I'll come back to the rest later. It's so detailed and the art is stunning. It's fascinating to see how the world developed, becoming so beautiful in-game.

[__yassbooks__ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este es el último libro de una colección especial de tomos sobre la saga de videojuegos y universo de The leyend of Zelda. Así que si no sabes de la saga o no te gustan los libros de arte e ilustración en general, puede que no te interese, pero yo ánimo darle una oportunidad porque de verdad que es precioso. De todos lo otros que he leído por el estilo este es mi favorito. Poder conocer el proceso de creación, anécdotas y datos curiosos de los personajes y mundo del juego Breath of the wild ha sido una muy buena experiencia (al contrario que los anteriores libro aviso de que este solo cubre ese título de la serie). La edición es muy buena y el texto está dividido en cuatro partes: la primera de ilustraciones promocionales, la segunda ya sobre la creación artística, la tercera más ambientada en la narración y explicación de la historia del juego y ya la última parte dedicada a entrevistas de los desarrolladores.

[Isabell Stråle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I mean.. i'm allowed to log this. Right.?

[OOF_SUPREME OOF · Rating 5 out of 5]

IT IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breath Of The Wild was my first Legend of Zelda game. Yes, that is embarrassing as a lifelong nerd and gamer. But considering how many hours I've sunk into this game since then, I think I've made up for it.

Like all game art books it's filled with concept art, abandoned ideas and alternate versions of what actually appears in the game, but I really appreciated the detailed timeline of events from each character's perspective. It's a nice contrast to the mostly image heavy first three quarters of the book.

This book obviously has a very specific audience, if you've not played the game maybe it'll convince you to fork out the money for a Switch, if you've already played it then you'll definitely appreciate just how much thought and effort went into creating this world.

[Mohammed Alshehhi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw this book in my child library so browse through it. It was listed in Good Reads so it will help with my reading challenge😃 target.
The drawings are amazing with so much details
There are so many characters associated with Zilda
My child has helped me to understand the relations between them.
My challenge now is to play the game itself.

[Essi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love dwelling deeper into this game and this book told me so many cool little facts and ugh I loved it. Only giving 4 stars though because it was quite repetitive.

[Pepijn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 5/5 book rating for a 5/5 video game. The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild is one of my absolute favourite games. And it's awesome to read a behind-the-scenes book containing interviews, (concept) artwork, design philosophies, elaborate maps, lore, and so much more!
What a piece of art.

[Nicole ᚦᚬᚱᚠᛁᚾ · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful love letter to those who admire the designs and inner workings of this game

I could marvel at these drawings and details for hours on end

(Page 61 did give me quite the scare for a moment, however)

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creating a Champion is a behind-the-scenes collection that Breath of the Wild fans will appreciate (but beware of spoilers if you haven't seen everything in the game!). The concept art for the many characters in the game was quite interesting, though I agree with others who have said that more commentary from the creators explaining their design process would have been nice. The concept art for the locations wasn't quite as engaging--I wish the screenshots showing the final versions had been larger and better-lit for more effective comparison with the art. Finally, there's some worldbuilding info about the history of Hyrule and what exactly happened during the Calamity. It was interesting to see how much detail the creators had put into envisioning what occurred and then figuring out how they could hint at it within the game. I do think this section could have been less repetitive, though, and the font got really small for some reason.
So, from a book-review standpoint, maybe not the most well-put-together, but still interesting.

[Talbot Hook · Rating 4 out of 5]

From an enthusiast's perspective, this book was a good read, for the most part; while I never need to see another piece of development art again, I recognize the need for such things in a book about game creation. The sections on history and culture were what I came for, however, and they were less disappointing than in previous books. The series producers seem to think that people want vague, multi-interpret-able answers to all their questions, which strikes me as patently false. Nevertheless, there was a solid amount of information in this book, most of it useful in some way. As always, however, the Get-to-Know-You interviews at the end of the book were an utter waste of time.

Great art, decent info, solid formatting, trite interviews. The Zelda formula has its own manifestation in the scope of its books, it seems.

[Ken Yuen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cool art!

[Jacko P · Rating 5 out of 5]

looking through this and the beauty of the art and storytelling got me into and addicted to the game so yeah i guess it’s good. can’t wait to look through it again after finishing the game

[Lena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ich habe bereits das Spiel zum Buch und habe schon viel von Bücher über die Zelda-Reihe gehört. Als ich dann vor ein paar Tagen in einem Buchladen war, und dieses Buch entdeckte, musste ich es einfach kaufen. Und ich bereue es DEFINITIV NICHT!!!

Im Buch werden die verschiedensten Dörfer, Bewohner, Monster, Tiere, Waffen usw. vorgestellt, die im Spiel zu finden sind. Daher ist das Buch nicht nur für Profis, bzw. Personen, die das Spiel bereits gut kennen, geeignet, denn auch blutige Anfänger können durch dieses Buch die wunderbare Welt von „The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild“ kennenlernen.
Das großartige Nachschlagwerk erklärt sehr anschaulich, wie an einem Videospiel, wie TLoZ:BotW gearbeitet wird. Zwischen den Kapiteln findet man die Designvorschläge, in denen die Entwickler zeigen, wie die unterschiedlichen Bewohner, Tiere, Monster, usw. zu Beginn der Spielentwicklung aussahen.

Besonders beeindruckt hat mich die Information, dass sich die Entwickler über jegliche Sachen Gedanken gemacht haben. So wurden in Buch beispielsweise die Verschlüsse von Umhängen oder Schnallen an Pfeilköchern beschrieben und es wurde klargestellt, dass diese tatsächlich funktionieren würden.

Hinzu kommt die ansprechende Gestaltung, die mir wirklich SEHR gefallen hat.

Daher bekommt dieses Buch von mir 5 Sterne.

FAZIT: Durch die ansprechende Gestaltung und ausführlichen Erklärungen ist das Buch für jeden (werdenden) Zelda-Fan geeignet und ein Muss in jedem Bücherregal.

[Kimberlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this book! I loved looking through all the concept art and information provided in Creating a Champion. Though it's quite a bit of information, it was interesting seeing how the game developed during production and the amount of work that was put into the new Zelda lore that's introduced. I've heard a lot of praise for the intricate programming and gaming features since Breath of the Wild came out, and I certainly have sunk A LOT of time into the game, but I really fell in love with the aesthetic the most while playing.

Great read for any Zelda fan or if you just want more info on Breath of the Wild. 5/5 stars.

[Adriii · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poder leer sobre el proceso creativo de un juego con un mundo tan vasto y cuidado como este es una gozada. No es sólo un libro de arte, sino que se refleja todo el trabajo con las físicas del juego (incluso en detalles que parecen tan nimios como el broche del cinturón de un npc) y también cómo se ha trabajado todo el diseño en relación a cada región, a la mitología, las misiones, a sus referentes e inspiraciones de la historia o la arquitectura, etc. Lo dicho, una gozada.

[Patrick Lum (Jintor) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Far and away one of the best, most detailed artbooks I've ever read. Not only does it have the standard concept art and exploration of ideas behind the creation of the game on which it is based, but there's even a completely detailed guide to the history of actions including things like projected troop movements, determining what characters knew what at what times and the influences that had on their actions, and all kinds of other behind-the-scenes guff that will fascinate a fan. And the art is, of course, absolutely gorgeous.

[George Dibble · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

A 5/5 for people who love and want to learn every detail about BoTW: art, lore, how it came to be and interviews with the lead creators. I'm just sick in bed and only really paid attention to the character/creature designs and the head illustrator's notes, as well as the game's inspiration/creation. Then looked at the pictures. Pretty and beautiful. I like this game a lot.

[snailz_]

i'm gonna cry i love this game so much and i'm glad i stayed up until midnight to read this entire thing. the art is gorgeous and i loved reading the developers notes. we love late christmas gifts. and yes this does count towards my reading goal <3

[Nicole CeBallos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading the developers notes and getting the backstory for the game. The artwork was great. I liked seeing the different drafts of the characters. The level of details the developers put into the game is mindblowing.

[Joni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book filled with so many beautiful art pieces!! I love how it goes more in depth about the development of the game, and the design! Definitely a rec if you loved breath of the wild!

[Brett Plaxton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A large and vast book for a large and vast game

[Elise Belleville · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me in, LET ME IIIIINNN

[Tessa Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best game I’ve ever played. Love the concept art for the characters, lands and world building that went into this! It’s deepened my appreciation and is very inspirational

[Idde Lindberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it