Finally had a chance to play last night and completed everything I needed to on the Great Plateau. Even though I watched so much footage of this part at E3 and after E3, there were still areas I hadn't seen and how I routed through to each shrine gave me a unique experience. I even got the Warm Doublet without having to cook anything. (Which, by the way, that's super cool how an item like that has multiple ways you can get it).
I'm playing the Wii U version and while I did notice a few hiccups here and there last night, I still had a fairly good experience and I'm looking forward to playing more later for sure.
Man, once I figured out how cooking works I just spent 15 or so minutes trying out different combinations. I wish I figured it out before I got to the village though..
Right so what are the ways around climbing in rain. It's really aggravating having to sit here for minutes just waiting for the rain to stop for 30 seconds so I can climb.
Game is constantly surprising me with the amount of things that can fuck you up in one hit. 8-10 hours in and I haven't gotten much of anywhere, just exploring and being regularly surprised with new things around every corner.
Man, wiiu version sure is framey whenever there are effects going on.
Still, pleasantly surprised at how much fun the world is to fart around in. They handled the open world trope quite well. I carried a boulder up to the top of a spy tower using the first rune just to drop it off.
Ah so that's it, here i thought it was done with the deflect, haha.
By the way, didn't reviews say NPCs had dynamic conversations? So when Link would walk without clothes they react to it? And reacting about the weather? I haven't seen that yet. Do you just see random text balloons appearing?
Just started the game. Man, what a slap in the face.
"Head for the point in the map marked on your Sheikah Slate".
The slate clearly resembles the Wii U tablet. And yet I have to press a button to open the map on the TV...can't just view it on the tablet. All so that Nintendo couldn't give any reason for the Wii U version to stand on its own.
Game is constantly surprising me with the amount of things that can fuck you up in one hit. 8-10 hours in and I haven't gotten much of anywhere, just exploring and being regularly surprised with new things around every corner.
Right so what are the ways around climbing in rain. It's really aggravating having to sit here for minutes just waiting for the rain to stop for 30 seconds so I can climb.
Perhaps you could find a nearby place where the rain isn't touching (under a roof or tree or whatever), drop flint and wood down, and strike it with your sword for campfire, and then change time of day.
It would suck if you were on a cliffside when it starts to rain though lol
Ah so that's it, here i thought it was done with the deflect, haha.
By the way, didn't reviews say NPCs had dynamic conversations? So when Link would walk without clothes they react to it? And reacting about the weather? I haven't seen that yet. Do you just see random text balloons appearing?
This is my biggest gripe with the game. Jump on X is team ico levels of dumb. And if you switch it in the options, then Sprint is X which is just as dumb.
Perhaps you could find a nearby place where the rain isn't touching (under a roof or tree or whatever), drop flint and wood down, and strike it with your sword for campfire, and then change time of day.
It would suck if you were on a cliffside when it starts to rain though lol
Just beat a boss after about 20 tries, but it feels so good. It was a great experience to get destroyed, leave, and come back prepared and finally win. This game!
This is my biggest gripe with the game. Jump on X is team ico levels of dumb. And if you switch it in the options, then Sprint is X which is just as dumb.
Started last night on Wii U, game is immense. Framedrops are unavoidable, Blighttown like at times, but the game is so damn good I really don't care. It feels magical to play, and its difficulty caught me by surprise. Didn't expect to get my ass kicked after beating Bloodborne, but here I am. Combat isn't the best, again, especially after playing such a combat-heavy game, but it's easily the best in any Zelda yet, and the survival mechanics are great. Cooking and leveraging all of your resources are great fun in this game, really make ya weigh what items you use.
A dozen hours in, the only story event I have bothered to complete is the one that lets you leave the Great Plateau. But I need a break to collect my thoughts after the gruelling hour-long tower siege that I put myself through at the end of my last session.
General impressions of the game can wait. I want to talk about that tower.
Like others here, on departing the Plateau (which took me about five hours in its own right, in line with the press preview embargo) I headed straight towards Hyrule Castle, though in my case I was diverted by further exploration. The whole time I was still at three hearts and in my introductory set of clothes, but weapon damage rose sharply right away thanks to a handful of enemy camps and shrines.
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No story spoilers, just information on enemies that await in west central Hyrule, environmental effects, minor weapons, and a place that has by itself accounted for the majority of my deaths in the game thus far:
From a distance, Ridgeland Tower looks like it sits in a crater, but it is actually set in a large pond—wide enough that you need to swim between shallows and mushroom caps or make liberal use of Cryonis to get to it. It is guarded by three rings of enemies—Lizalfos archers, Wizzrobes, and an inner ring of Lizalfos spearmen—and all of them use electric attacks. At three hearts, most of these attacks (combined with a few surprises like the Lizalfos tongue lash and a ranged projectile from the water reminiscent of the Zoras in LttP) kill you in one shot or reduce you to half a heart.
It took me over an hour to make it to the centre of the pond and up the tower, pulling one enemy at a time (to dry land if I could) to methodically pick them off. For the Lizalfos archers, I either had to zig-zag in to rush them while dodging one-shot Shock Arrows, or use the terrain on the edge of the pond as natural cover while lobbing a bomb at the time.
The Wizzrobes, though: there were three of them, and while their attacks didn't hit as hard, each one of them felt like a major dungeon boss—or in the case of the one I fought during an overnight lightning storm, a Demise-like final boss.
Let's go over this again: I was fighting them in and around water, against electrical attacks, in a lightning storm.
I had only recently found out about the lightning storm interaction, too, that punishes you for brandishing any metal weapons: no swords—you have to rely on non-metallic weapons like clubs. (And don't even think about pulling out electrical weapons like the Guardian Sword while standing in the water.) Well, before too long, I had broken all of my clubs, and was perilously low on arrows as well. So for the Wizzrobe I was fighting while the storm broke out, I had to run around like a chicken with its head cut off, predict its movements and lob bombs at it while dodging its lightning wand, occasionally knock it down with the Deku Leaf (my only remaining non-metallic melee option), and completely avoid the yellow Chu Chus it summoned because they acted as lightning attractors. It was entirely dependent on my positioning and my ability to pull out and aim a bomb while tracking the 'puddles' that the Wizzrobe leaves behind as it moves about invisibly.
The Wizzrobes took me ages, though the Lizalfos were probably the bigger frustration because in most cases I couldn't take a single hit from them.
But I had to finish what I started. And now that I've made it through, this single location stands as the defining memory of my experience with BotW thus far—until the next one.
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I occasionally have control issues with this game, partly as I tend to press sticks hard enough when I move that I unintentionally click them (an issue for me as a Splatoon player as well). L-targeting just isn't that useful here outside of melee attacks: it doesn't switch within a pack of enemies like it used to, movement in battle is too quick for recentring the camera to reliably do what you want, and it doesn't help at all with ranged attacks like bomb throwing.
Free-hand aiming with motion controls is as wonderful as ever, of course, for thrown weapons and the bow and arrow. I've been alternately playing on-TV with detached Joy-Cons and on the handheld with controllers attached (they were charging), and the detached, free-hand setup is more comfortable by far.
Initially I remapped B to jump (to match Splatoon 2 and most Nintendo platformers since SMW) but I've since gone back to X for sprint and B to jump, and there is a certain logic to it when you climb: X is up, B is down.
BotW certainly the most tactically complex action game I've seen out of first-party Nintendo, and the exploration loop—see a beacon/tower, mark it, clear a path if you can—is just like everything I enjoyed most about Xenoblade X but with the fluff stripped out, such that the combat system is lean but more responsive and no less complex. The difficulty is snug: it fits you like a tailored suit to precisely the level of challenge you are willing to embrace. Thus far, my whole experience has literally been a three-heart challenge, but I never had to go out of my way to make it so; it was just a consequence of my priorities for what I wanted to see and do first.
So many times, I've asked myself excitedly, "Can I do this? Does it work?"—and what distinguishes BotW is that in almost every case, it hops up and down and raises its hand (pick me, pick me!) out of eagerness to say yes.
Absolutely loving the game so far, but I have a technical question... In portable mode, is anyone else's Switch fan kicking into overdrive? I guess it's not terrible but I can definitely feel a little gust of air being blown out. The system also gets warmer to the touch than I was expecting, nothing major but definitely noticeable. Normal?
I have to say I am loving weapon durability, there's nothing more satisfying than smacking the weapon out of their hand with a parry and picking it up to throw into their face. In a big fight I've found that if you get rid of the enemy's weapons really fast they won't be so hard.
I also love that there's stealth, you can sneak into hyrule castle and grab some phat loot before hussling out of there.
Gyro, not IR (just like Skyward Sword, but with the bow pointing forward in the TP style, not in the Wii Sports Resort vertical style). But if you play with detached Joy-Cons, yes: rune powers, thrown weapons, and the bow all respond to motion aiming with your right hand alone. Otherwise, it's gyro aiming with the full unit (or controller grip, if you are using that) just like on the Wii U, but it isn't anywhere as comfortable.
No, and it's a damn shame. I know Nintendo said they wanted people to experiment with ingredients but plasters should have the choice to log their findings.
