Of course, everyone experiences games differently and what actually impresses or catches your interest is very personal. What amazed my with Ocarina of Time wa

Of course, everyone experiences games differently and what actually impresses or catches your interest is very personal. What amazed my with Ocarina of Time was the incredible freedom, variation and sense of scale _for its time_. It came out more than 20 years ago, so it's obviously not groundbreaking anymore. If you look at that game and don't see what amazing freedom it gives compared to more recent titles, that's definitely understandable. In case you played Breath of the Wild and didn't see why this would impress, let me explain what blew me away. There's a whole host of things, mainly centered around how the world feels very dynamic. Much of this has to do with what they refer to as their chemistry engine and how different materials react to different "elements" (wind, water, fire, heat, cold, lightning, magnetism...). It makes everything feel less like just 3D meshes with some few pre-programmed interactions with key objects and more like an immersive world. My favourite example was when I, thoughtlessly, cut down and chopped up a tree in high grass using a fire sword. The grass caught on fire, the fire spread and engulfed the wood I'd cut up, which turned into a campfire, complete with a button prompt to sit and wait by the fire. The apples which fell out of the tree also caught fire, turning into baked apples. All these dynamics bring life to the game in a way you don't often see. The environment, its climate and weather also feel more real than in most games and interact in more ways than just visually. Going to a cold area you need to plan for how to survive the cold. Very hot areas will cause things to catch on fire, which burns up wooden weapons and cooks raw foodstuffs. Rain is a serious problem because surfaces become slippery and electricity gets amplified by the moisture. Some of the dynamics in the game are very fantastical and unrealistic (e.g. the way lightning acts, striking almost exclusively metal and signalling for a few seconds ahead of time where it will strike), but that doesn't matter to me. They still help establish the dynamics and laws of physics of that world and in manages to help it come alive.