Windbound Preview

It's almost impossible not to fall in love with Windbound the minute its opening cutscene begins to play. Its music enthralled me, its aesthetic warmed me, and its potential excited me infinitely. I love everything that Windbound wants to be, and I feel like it knows that. Developer Five Lives Studios is very pleased in letting Windbound wear its Zelda inspirations on its sleeve and I admire them for it. Its boat-building mechanic and focus on sailing are very proud in reigniting memories of Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass, and the DNA of Breath of the Wild can be seen in - well, quite literally everything else.  Windbound isn't embarrassed about that - and nor should it be - there's no shame in mimicking some of the most beloved games of all time if you do it as superbly as Windbound somehow manages to do.

However it's precisely the fact that I love everything that Windbound stands for, and more so the potential that it represents so much that left me was so disappointed walking away from the early build of the game that I played.