4 ms·
My 6yo son really, really wanted to play Breath of the Wild. He loves Zelda, my wife loves Zelda, my best friend's girlfriend is over the moon with Zelda, etc.
by danudey 5y ago
My 6yo son really, really wanted to play Breath of the Wild. He loves Zelda, my wife loves Zelda, my best friend's girlfriend is over the moon with Zelda, etc. I always played Link in Mario Kart, to the point where, when he was 2 or 3, he was in Best Buy with my wife and saw a Breath of the Wild Switch case and said "is daddy!"
Of course, after a few requests a year and a bit ago, my wife had to give him an ultimatum: "I'm not going to come over here every time there's words. If you want to play this game, you have to read it yourself."
Apparently, it worked; he's about to go into Grade 2 but already has incredibly strong reading skills, including about a grade 2.5 reading level in French (we're English-speakers but he's in French immersion).
I didn't like how much Switch he was playing last year when the pandemic started and schools closed, but he wouldn't have learned to read nearly as fast if it weren't for Breath of the Wild. He seems to be well ahead of his classmates, and he's only getting stronger (and more independent as a result) as time goes by.
We're pretty particular about what games he plays, but the ones he's interested in typically have a substantial amount of reading involved (compared to, say, Doom when I was a teenager).
I'm excited that he'll be able to (if not willing to) play my old favorites; Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and Secret of Mana, to name a few. I guess we'll see if he's interested.
- Dig1t 5y agoThat's so funny this exact thing happened to me at the same age, and with Zelda as well. I was 6 years old when Ocarina of Time came out and had this exact experience of my parents getting fed up with reading the text to me and being forced to read it myself. I definitely think it helped me become a strong reader early in life. Good for you, I think this is a good idea.
- mlindner 5y agoIdentical thing happened between me and my younger brother. He'd use me to read game text to him for a while until I got fed up with it. I had learned to read from the game text myself. (The game was an old space RPG-like game called Escape Velocity.)
- BobJackienine 5y agoEvery modern gamer knows that this is an exception nowadays most kids just want to play a looter shooter point click rinse repeat for a thousand hours
- rowanG077 5y agoYes Zelda BotW being the 33rd(1) most sold video game ever shows that this is an exception! 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_gam...
- ethagknight 5y agoWhat other games do you recommend? …uhhh asking for my 6 year old son who loves Super Mario 3D World… Zelda BoW is my next purchase I fortunately bought a used Wii U bundle with a stash of games and controllers off eBay pre pandemic “for the kids” and I realized while playing with them that I far prefer them playing games than staring at the TV. We are talking and laughing and arguing and explaining the whole time during Mario. Kids TV shows just seem to send kids to this zombie state. I hadn’t considered the reading aspect of certain games.
- jamesnadeau 5y agoThe Labo sets are a blast, although not much reading, but good hand eye coordination