Every time boot this game feels like a different adventure. So awesome lol.
Today I got fucking destroyed by
flying
Guardians. Was climbing this hill that had a tower at the top but it wasn't even worth it in the end. The tower was covered in that corrupted purple mass, or whatever it is called.
Anyway, I killed like two guardians but blew through all my gear and my fairies :'(. I've been trying to get the timing down to shield deflect them but I can't be consistent dammit. The rain didn't help either because of my metal gear and losing my climbing advantage.
After getting my ass kicked, I paraglided from the top of that peak, across a river to a shrine waaayyy across the way. Completed it, and upgraded another stamina vessel.
Tomorrow I'm going to stack up on gear and cook a shit ton of food. I had like +100 arrows and now have 0 lol. While I'm doing that I'll probably try to uncover more of the map and do any shrines I see along the way. Oh yeah, I also found two of those little tree people who give you seeds.
This game is fucking amazing. No way I'll finish it before Mass Effect or Persona 5 with work and school in the way. But I ain't gonna rush it. I'm having way too much fun.
Btw, wtf do I do in the Lost Woods? I got there but had to leave after spending about 45mins not knowing what the hell to do lmao.
I used an Ancient Arrow on a Lynel because I was panicking, and it just vanished. I was sort of shocked that using the things actually deprives you of any item drops.
Well I had a good guess of where this game went in the timeline, but something I just saw blew the lid off of that.
Memory spoiler:
From the ceremony, Zelda says "Skyward bound, traveling through time, or lost in the embers of twilight." I had initially thought this game was WW timeline, with something like an alternate ending to it where Hyrule was restored. This must be in the Twilight Princess timeline though.
As someone that has played many, many hours since launch, rain is still awesome. It's just an environmental factor you have to adapt to, which is a lot of things this game does.
I used an Ancient Arrow on a Lynel because I was panicking, and it just vanished. I was sort of shocked that using the things actually deprives you of any item drops.
Up until 110 shrines I loved it. The last few open world ones were so tucked away that I overlooked them several times and the time based Shrine Quests are annoying. Other than that it's been exceptionally fun.
Ugh fuck that, a blood moon just happened at like 6AM...
The rain is frustrating until you figure out you can make your own fires, now It's kind of a non issue, 95 percent of the time I can find a place to make one if I need to go climbing, and otherwise the rain isn't an issue.
I do like how most of the hurdles in this, have some means to overcome it even if it's a bit obscure.
Anyone else experiencing a glitch where the game freezes momentarily when performing a critical strike on Moblins? I've noticed it happening frequenly since I've been traversing the Eldin and Hebra regions, if that helps at all.
Oh thank god, even though the blood moon happened at 6AM I was able to warp to the location, set a fire, rest til night, and the platform was lit. Really inconsistent mechanic, my only issue with the entire game. Anyone figure out what the real story with it is? Truly just a respawn mechanic or are they doing some kind of memory dump?
I paraglided over this big maze-like area, dropped down at one end, landed in front of a shrine. Got a quest marker "The Desert Labyrinth." Then immediately after, the quest resolved.
Did I miss something? I am guessing the shrine is meant to be the end point and I was just lucky. Is there anything else in this area worth searching for, or can I just climb back out?
I reached Goron City without any kind of fireproof elixir. I managed to glide in from the west side. I ran into the armor shop and the dialog with the clerk was hilarious.
I paraglided over this big maze-like area, dropped down at one end, landed in front of a shrine. Got a quest marker "The Desert Labyrinth." Then immediately after, the quest resolved.
Did I miss something? I am guessing the shrine is meant to be the end point and I was just lucky. Is there anything else in this area worth searching for, or can I just climb back out?
Usually really good loot throughout them. One of them has a really special piece of loot not associated with the Shrine, but you'll have to figure out which one and where
Well I had a good guess of where this game went in the timeline, but something I just saw blew the lid off of that.
Memory spoiler:
From the ceremony, Zelda says "Skyward bound, traveling through time, or lost in the embers of twilight." I had initially thought this game was WW timeline, with something like an alternate ending to it where Hyrule was restored. This must be in the Twilight Princess timeline though.
As someone that has played many, many hours since launch, rain is still awesome. It's just an environmental factor you have to adapt to, which is a lot of things this game does.
Just beat my 2nd Divine Beast Vah Rudania and watched the cutscene at the end of the fight.
I am not crying.
I cried a bit
I kind of love a lot this area even if I miss some dodongos here and there. Also the shrines in Death Mountain are incredible! The one called Blue Flame in particular is challenging and filled with secret treasures.
I reached Goron City without any kind of fireproof elixir. I managed to glide in from the west side. I ran into the armor shop and the dialog with the clerk was hilarious.
Rubber hat can be gotten from a side quest, at the ranch in the jungle area. A lady complains about lightning, you must remove an axe from the top of the ranch.
As someone that has played many, many hours since launch, rain is still awesome. It's just an environmental factor you have to adapt to, which is a lot of things this game does.
I'm all for adapting, but it effectively closes off portions of the map and you have zero ability to change Link into someone that can dismiss it like temperature, so no, I'd say you are not adapting to rain, you are just living through it.
Day ten,
I have 52 korok seeds. Completed 15 shrines. Have not entered a dungeon. Have not found a village. I've activated all towers on the west side of the map. It is time to turn east.
How are you guys prioritizing inventory upgrades? I started doing 1 for weapon, bow, shield, but lately I'm just dumping it all in weapon upgrades. I'm not going through my shields and arrows that quickly.
Kicking myself a bit, got to 118 shrines before caving and looking at a map. I missed
the shrine next to the banana alters
, which, okay. The real kicker was
that I had myself convinced that Impa wasn't going to give me that ball until I had done the other 119 shrines. Or got my champion's shirt fully upgraded or idk...but anyways, so it turns out it is not that I need to beat all 119 other shrines and I'm getting a bit frustrated because I had just broken my no spoilers thing for the 119th shrine. So I look it up. Turns out I completely missed the firefly quest becoming a thing. And I get some only reward shrine from an opening story quest as my last shrine. I felt so stupid.
.
Ganon was
meh. And it really wasn't because I had good gear on or really good stats. I had the green tunic on I'd just gotten, and yes I had crazy stats but it never came to that. I'm wondering if I just got lucky with my parries and dodges? Or if he's something when you don't have the divine beasts taking half his health? Final form was pretty lame too.
Overall thoughts:
Going forward, I think the thing to work on, if the series is going to continue in this vein, is sorting out how to get the simulation, survival, exploration, and puzzle sections of the game to work well together.
I think this is at the core of issues people have with this game. Take durability. There is a strong case to be made for it vis-a-vis keeping loot and combat fresh and relevant. at least when it is at its best. But it also works against tool usage of those same devices. So perhaps have tools separated from weapons, but that runs up against another strain of BotW: the sandbox and sense of freedom where the attempt is made to perform all actions with one set of items and have those actions be relevant across general overworld play and combat. I think BotW prizes the fact that you can use any sharp edge to chop down a tree, that setting campfires has combat relevance, that you can use hoes and mops as weapons, etc. So what you have is a nest of competing design priorities as I see it that do, I think, manage to come together in an extremely compelling product but also have their areas of tension.
As another example, take the discrete nature of shrines and dungeons in BotW. A lot of us want more dungeons, better situated dungeons and shrines, etc. But the shrines function in part by limiting the traversal mechanics at your disposal, bringing you sort of halfway between BotW overworld gameplay and traditional Zelda gameplay. So the question becomes, how do you bring the Zelda dungeon into BotW gameplay? And I think that is a constant challenge to consider. Climb anywhere, fly anywhere, completely seamless world is quite an extreme design to accommodate. And it is also a huge part of what makes BotW compelling as an open world.
As to content (please keep in mind that I played this game like a madman. I am currently in-between in my life and I literally played Zelda almost non-stop for nine days now.):
-I think the shrines were good. I could enjoy them as bite-sized and when exploration was fertile and shrines common, there was quite a nice gameplay rhythm. Sometimes, though, I was definitely left feeling "that's it?" And I'm not talking about the reward shrines, in particular. Many of those are behind the best overworld content that had the most "Zelda" feel. Some aren't, but I am talking about standard shrines.
-Dungeons didn't cure me of this. There aren't enough of them. They aren't long enough. They are good, but they come across as extended shrines. Their situation, their bosses, etc. didn't inspire me.
-As I alluded to above, I think traversal, terrain, and the way the world came together made it very fun to explore. Shrines were an excellent carrot, but the world was also extremely fun to move around in.
-Korok seeds...are nice as little things you pick up on while looking for a bigger thing. When I got up past 100 shrines, had all my towers, all my dungeons, my
Master Sword,
then they became a bit annoying. Finding an area that was just a Korok seed ground became tiresome. Doing the same puzzles became tiresome, etc.
-I think combat is a weak link in the game. I followed the main quest after the plateau and played the game like a TES, going into the camps, killing the enemies, getting the loot and the chest. As the game wore on, however, the combat camps became largely too discrete from my core interests in the game and I just avoided them. Moreover, they generally weren't enticing on their own, with little variation in structure and result. The enemy types also got old.
I enjoyed the combat trials. I enjoyed the Lynels. I enjoyed some of the core combat setpieces. I think that the combat centers were often too discrete from the puzzle centers.
I do think in general mechanics, the combat is a clear step forward for the series. At least not counting the bosses, which weren't as formulaic as their predecessors, but also weren't charismatic or compelling fights imo, which plenty of classic Zelda bosses can claim to be.
-Town life was pretty weak, much like in other post-MM Zeldas. The villagers are charming to look at, to listen to, and are fairly well situated in their towns, but interaction with them is never very meaningful.
-Music was passable for a series with traditionally extraordinary OSTs. Compounded, imo, by them toying so much with "modern technology fantasy" and not (as far as I know) giving us music playing powers. Even Kass didn't play renditions of much of anything.
-Thematically, the game matches up very well to what the developers were trying to do with the series. The ruins of Hyrule. Zelda
unsure of her destiny and trying to do things another way
. The
late arrival of the tunic and Hylian shield
. The story
100 years ago being a failed version of the classic Zelda tale.
All of this fits very nicely with the rebuilding of Zelda from new roots but towards a Zelda-like end.
As do Zelda's final words.
-I think Zelda herself was a refreshing take on the Princess.
-I liked the core conceit of exploring a ruined Hyrule as a returning hero. I think the rest of the story was pretty forgettable. Ganon is fairly tapped out and hasn't had a good role since WW. His golden age was aLttP, OoT, and WW and Nintendo has yet to do something to match his pedigree. I'm really not sure where they can go with him, besides retread old ground, maybe with a fresh coat of paint. I, mean, that is what WW did, giving us more insight into what drove him in OoT.
-In a lot of ways, this game delivered where TP didn't, with respect to giving us those Ocarina moments made epic and large.
All in all, I liked the game a lot. I hope the series corrects a bit towards classic Zelda going forward, but I think, at this juncture, this was an important step forward for the series and it is to the future to sort out what to do in its wake. I don't get the impression that Nintendo is clueless in that regard at all, so my outlook on the series is positive.
I'll need to digest it more to see just how I feel about it with respect to the other games. Chances are it is high among them, I'm thinking. But not at the pinnacle.
Oh well.