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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild |OT2| It's 98 All Over Again

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CLICKCLICK said:
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.
Click to expand...
I haven't found any upgrades yet but I plan on going all in on weapons. That's where I feel most limited.
 
CLICKCLICK said:
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.
Click to expand...

Nearly all into weapons. I have gotten like 2 bow upgrades. I have upgraded weapons 7 times so far, the next upgrade costs 25 seeds (I have 23 right now)
 
Just finished upgrading the armour set
Barbarian armour
to two stars.

The set bonus is okay I guess, maybe this would be best for large weapons because I can spin around for longer.

The set bonus is Charge Atk Stamina Up
 
Holy shit!
A Moblin just picked up a Bokoblin and threw it at me as a weapon! Poor guy tried to free himself too! Haha wow i was not expecting that.
 
Finally closed the application, hadn't done that yet, activity log reports "Played for 70 hours or more." Glad for the first time this year my gaming time was flipped like that with my work time. I had 160 hours of OT going into March and took 2 extra days off for the Switch and didn't check my work email once over 4 days. It was so needed. My wife is a saint though for putting up with it for a second weekend though.
 
MoonFrog said:
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.
Click to expand...

Great post, sums up my feelings perfectly. I'm a firm believer that a game this large can't do everything perfectly and things like discrete enemy camps eventually becoming useless are a trade-off they had to make to have the open world + character growth they were going for. I'm really not sure there is a good way to solve that and preserve the true open world nature of the game.

As for the comment above. I really strongly believe that Hyrule Castle was the best content in the game. As a whole the game out shined Hyrule Castle. But if I were to take a two hour slice and point to something I enjoyed most it'd be that (maybe also because it was the climax of the game and the music was sending chills up my spine as I worked my way through). I think every fan of Zelda dungeons will feel the same. I think with more time they could have repeated that with optional dungeons such as
Forgotten Temple
or
Temple of Time
. It really seems like it was just a "we can make this massive open world and sacrifice dungeons or we can make another TP." I prefer what we got but do lament what we left behind. But hell if I'd love if they made a sequel with more Hyrule Castles (free-form and approachable from any angle but large and full of secrets) scattered throughout the world. The groundwork is there for them to deliver something absolutely massive at the end of the Switch lifespan. I'm also hoping that the DLC may be more linear with a dungeon as it'll be hard to tack on an open-world extension without it feeling linear anyway.
 
Oh my this game is amazing. Weekend flew away and I still cant be very far into the game. Already feel this is going to be up there with OoT which is my all-time favourite.
 
Can someone help me out with the Ceremonial Song quest?
I got the Trident and I'm at the waterfall, but I have no idea what to do. I've tried throwing the Trident, dropping it with the magnetic power, doing a jump attack from the top of the cliff... And I have no clue, haha.
 
I haven't played too much of this yet, but the music has been a little disappointing so far - it's the one aspect of the game I'm consistently underwhelmed by.

The sound design itself is well suited to the game, and I like the basic idea of mostly sparse piano for world exploration, acoustic ensembles for towns and synth elements for Guardian-affiliated music, but the actual pieces themselves aren't really working for me.

The piano jingles, for example; are just kind of there, with only the piece that incorporates the BOTW main theme notably standing out and serving its purpose of subtly projecting itself into the environment without also falling into becoming wallpaper. The town music is decent but not exceptional - though it's still the mode the soundtrack does its best in; the Kakariko theme deserves to be mentioned. And the battle themes so far have been the weakest of all - particularly the Guardian music, which fails completely in conveying any sense of panic and urgency. This is compounded by the fact that, despite using slightly different versions of the theme, the cues for Shrine, broken and active Guardians are still very similar tonally, even though encountering each of those enemies leads to fundamentally different situations, especially early on. It's as if they recognised the need to separate each scenario; but didn't manage to adequately express those differences in the score.

Still, it's not like it's awful music at all - I'd probably put it alongside Skyward Sword's soundtrack in terms of being serviceable but not particularly impressive - but it is a shame that the game's music falls so far short of its potential.
 
Branduil said:
I've opened chests with items having certain properties, and then reloaded and they have different properties, so yes.
Click to expand...

Mining ore is also totally random, but depends on the ore type. I fell off a mountain after mining, and on my second try mining the same spot I got totally different minerals.
 
Crayolan said:
No shrine after the plateau is forced. If you see a motion control shrine and don't want to do it just leave. There's only like 5 or so of them in the game anyway.



cryonis can break the ice. It can also make a path across the water
Click to expand...

Lilo_D said:
Your ice rune can also be used to destroy ice cube
Click to expand...

Vice said:
you can shatter them with cryosis
Click to expand...

Dragnipur said:
Stasis it back at him.
Click to expand...

linkboy said:
What I did to beat him was to use bomb arrows, that combined with the Master Sword made quick work of him.

This is what I love about this game, the openness of it.
Click to expand...

TheGeniusArcana said:
You can use the ice rune to destroy the
ice cubes.
Click to expand...
Thanks soooo much! I beat him on the first try once I knew to use the rune on his projectiles. Thanks!
 
Spinluck said:
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.
Click to expand...

Akkala
Tower? You can climb it, there is one or maybe more ways. I needed like 10 minutes to find a way which worked for me :D
 
psyfi said:
Can someone help me out with the Ceremonial Song quest?
I got the Trident and I'm at the waterfall, but I have no idea what to do. I've tried throwing the Trident, dropping it with the magnetic power, doing a jump attack from the top of the cliff... And I have no clue, haha.
Click to expand...

This stumped me for a while. Do a jump attack. Just stand on the podium, press jump and then attack while you're in the air. Link will do a piercing move down on to the podium.
 
Unlocked some more of the map today. Saved and quit out right at the tower just before
Rito village
. Going to continue the story tomorrow (I figure two days worth of exploring side content ought to be enough for now, lol.)
 
MoonFrog said:
Well, just beat it.

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.
Click to expand...
Yeah
Ganon should be hard without all four of the divine beast,weird that they designed the battle that way because some experienced players would have trouble without the "help"

Tbh Ganon hasn't had any role since Twilight Princess/Four Swords
 
Regarding looking up help with this game: I was so annoyed at myself that I looked up a side quest hint as well as the location of
a memory
, but for a game so big I shouldn't be that mad. I really don't think I would have
found that memory though, even by chance, and I would have been more annoyed not getting the full story before the end.
 
Hylian7 said:
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.
Click to expand...

There are things referenced in the overworld that we know didn't occur in that timeline like
Ruto having become a sage,which happened in the other 2 timelines but not the TP one.
. It's presumably a red herring
 
I remembered in some review Aonuma or Fujibayashi mentioned that you can bring a rock all the way to the end of the game if you want. So I did them one better (final boss spoilers):
https://d3esbfg30x759i.cloudfront.net/ss/WVW69kJeFccMC1La6D

I tried my hardest, but I could not get the cucco to aggro Ganon. When the fight transitioned to Calamity Ganon, the cucco disappeared. I suspect you may be able to bring a cucco into Calamity Ganon if you've beaten all the divine beasts though.
 
Crayolan said:
I remembered in some review Aonuma or Fujibayashi mentioned that you can bring a rock all the way to the end of the game if you want. So I did them one better (final boss spoilers):
https://d3esbfg30x759i.cloudfront.net/ss/WVW69kJeFccMC1La6D

I tried my hardest, but I could not get the cucco to aggro Ganon. When the fight transitioned to Calamity Ganon, the cucco disappeared. I suspect you may be able to bring a cucco into Calamity Ganon if you've beaten all the divine beasts though.
Click to expand...

Dude, I bursted out laughing when I opened the picture.
 
Played most of today. This is the first game in a while that I go back and forth so quickly between loving and hating. So much of it seems designed just to piss me off. I still hate the weapon degradation, the world is too big for its own good and the dungeons are too samey.

(And the music is utterly unremarkable. Definitely not a soundtrack I'll be picking up, assuming Nintendo ever bothers to release one.)

On the other hand, it's getting easier to explore with more stamina upgrades. Even if there isn't much of interest to find the vast majority of the time, at least it's not spent watching Link slowly crawl up a mountain anymore.

Also,
the stealth/escort sequence during the Goron quest was an abomination. Is there anyone who actually enjoys those?
 
jb1234 said:
Also,
the stealth/escort sequence during the Goron quest was an abomination. Is there anyone who actually enjoys those?
Click to expand...
I would have been bummed, but after like the first sentry, they give you the means to destroy all the rest.
 
jb1234 said:
Also,
the stealth/escort sequence during the Goron quest was an abomination. Is there anyone who actually enjoys those?
Click to expand...

l thought l'd spend quite some time on it and hate it but l did it in my first try and it really wasn't that bad. You can take cover if you fuck up and you can actually fight back.

lt's definitely the weakest of the pre dungeons sequences though. The other three are so much more spectacular and fun.
 
Red said:
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.
Click to expand...

I initially thought I'd try and exhaust a region before moving on but that seems a bit too ... mechanical for me. I'm just searching as I go and seeing where I end up.

Also completed the
first dungeon
. Judging by it's simplicity I'm guessing it's meant to be the first. The sequence before entering was super cool though so I'm excited to see what the others are like.
 
Finally went for it and beat the game.

WEW LADS

Loved the final area.

Don't even know what to say right now but it'll take time to gather my thoughts. Incredible game though.
 
Hylian7 said:
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.
Click to expand...
Yeah. People in the spoiler thread refuse to believe it even tho its spelled out like that lol.

Its alright, soon the official confirmation will come. (In before I'm wrong but that seems unlikely.)

Mysterious said:
But the game also references the Hero of Wind.
Click to expand...
No it doesn't. Unless I've missed it but I've been reading others people thoughts on timeline and read no such thing.
 
Lernaean said:
Btw, what happens when you beat it? Can you return to world with your equipment and stats and finish side quests etc?
Click to expand...

Game brings you back to your last save before the final boss. You get a star on your save file indicating you cleared it and you get to see your completion percentage.
 
Crayolan said:
Game brings you back to your last save before the final boss. You get a star on your save file indicating you cleared it and you get to see your completion percentage.
Click to expand...

Ah, so you do return in the game in shorts, and you can do the final boss again if you want at some point? Not bad.
 
Also, were the cutscenes for the blood moon necessary at all? Were they just intended to hide loading? Because the mechanic isn't so central to the gameplay loop that it needs to be covered in such extensive detail, and having it occur without (unskippable, critical path) explanation would have been so much more effective.
 
So, despite this being one of the better Zelda games and a phenomenal game overall, there are still some things I wish the Zelda team would address for the next game:

- Better overall storytelling
- More fleshed-out and satisfying ending
- More musical variety
- Link absolutely needs to react to the persons around him, especially in cutscenes. It's just ridiculous how stoic he appears at times
- Less shrines, more traditional dungeons
- Better inventory management
- Even more meaningful overworld secrets
 
Golnei said:
Also, were the cutscenes for the blood moon necessary at all? Were they just intended to hide loading? Because the mechanic isn't so central to the gameplay loop that it needs to be covered in such extensive detail, and having it occur without (unskippable, critical path) explanation would have been so much more effective.
Click to expand...

It's skippable and yes, it more than likely hides a world loading restart.
 
Golnei said:
Also, were the cutscenes for the blood moon necessary at all? Were they just intended to hide loading? Because the mechanic isn't so central to the gameplay loop that it needs to be covered in such extensive detail, and having it occur without (unskippable, critical path) explanation would have been so much more effective.
Click to expand...

You can skip it. It still does load either way.
 
Finished the main quest stuff in rito. I wish I did it first because the main quest aspects of it seem underdeveloped compared to the other regions. It was over before it even felt like it was getting started.
 
random25 said:
You can skip it. It still does load either way.
Click to expand...

sanstesy said:
It's skippable and yes, it more than likely hides a world loading restart.
Click to expand...

I should have said "unavoidable" - my issue is much more that they had Zelda do full narration for it than the fact that a cutscene is there at all. Just showing the moon without the narration or camera pans to respawning enemies would have felt so much more intriguing to encounter for the first time - players would still have the purpose of the moon explained if they ask Hino.
 
Beat Ganon tonight. I'm not really done with the game yet (sitting at 80 shrines among other things), but I really wanted to see how the story wrapped up after I finished unlocking all of the lost memories. I gotta say, I appreciate that
Hyrule Castle is so huge and allows so many options for where you enter, what you fight, etc. I fought my way through the Lynel gatehouses and one-shot some sentinels with ancient arrows, but there's still a lot of hallways and rooms I need to go back and explore later
. You guys weren't kidding about the music, either.

Now I need to decide how "complete" I want to get with this game. I'll definitely get every last shrine. Already did all the dungeons, found all four
great fairies
, etc. I continue to be amazed by how much stuff there is to do in this game, and how great most of it is.
 
Golnei said:
Also, were the cutscenes for the blood moon necessary at all? Were they just intended to hide loading? Because the mechanic isn't so central to the gameplay loop that it needs to be covered in such extensive detail, and having it occur without (unskippable, critical path) explanation would have been so much more effective.
Click to expand...

It's annoying since it's basically the only thing in BotW that interrupts the flow of gameplay but it is necessary due to it basically being a world reset, it has to reload everything.

It's exacerbated by seeming kinda buggy right now.
 
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