Glass Shark
Banned
I thought I knew all the Korok hiding places but the last few pages have added so many! This shit is like The Witness.
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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild |OT2| It's 98 All Over Again
- Thread starter vehn
- Start date
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Member
You want a crazy location?
Whenever there are three trees next to each other with a fruit, two will have one and the third one will have more. Pick only the ones in the third tree that aren't in the other two trees. This goes for apple trees and others.
I found this by pure chance when I used a hammer because that's just way easier.
Fata1moose
Banned
I was so excited when I randomly stumbled upon this last night.
No, they're still great polished games. What would be hard to accept is a new Zelda game that regressed to the old formula and forgot the openness and interactivity with the world BotW introduced.
yeah, same here. i have only 1 fragment at the moment. i would've had enough by now if i hadn't blown them on the twilight princess outfit like an idiot. hunting for all the dragon scales/teeth/claws is a pain too
I'd be all for another linear Zelda, or even just a smaller more dense one.
QuixoticNeutral
Member
I'm done.
Completion statistics:
- 120 shrines
- 430 Koroks
- 60.13% map completion
-
shrine quests (i.e. I missed a quest for one completed shrine)
-
side quests
- All memories recovered
- 303/385 compendium entries (missing 6 monsters (bosses) and 76 pieces of equipment)
-
unique articles of clothing, all fully upgraded, with no Amiibo scanned
- Highest weapon damage:
- 3 bridles and 2 saddles collected
- 0
mounted
- 19
obtained, with none used and none purchased
- 833 screenshots with the Capture button saved (including post-completion statistics)
- You don't want to know how many hours played
- Many adventures to come
*
Yesterday I posted that I was finally ready to see Ganon. But I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Hyrule, and I'm still not, though making it to the end credits is always a moment that demarcates two different levels of involvement with the experience, a clear before and after. So for my last session before I confronted the final boss, I thought I'd play the way some people here with better navigational skills than mine have sworn by: in the Pro interface, and with no resort to fast travel. It started with (unsuccessfully) combing the southwest for something I knew I was still missing (
). Then I made my way over to where I left my horse by the
, diverted several times along pathways in the world that, after all this time, I had never seen before. I rode:
Rode all the way to Hyrule Castle, past as many Guardians as I could, until I dismounted by the Castle Town walls for the safety of my horse and broke in through the front gate.
It prolonged the session by hours. I stopped for photogenic screenshots everywhere and revealed over a dozen Koroks along the way. It was Breath of the Wild in its purest form.
I had already explored the lower levels of Hyrule Castle quite thoroughly before, so I zipped right to the final area (though not without
). The ascent to its highest point was the real treat. Were it not for that, the trek to the final boss would have felt far too short, and I was stunned to find just how close I was to stumbling into it on previous visits, as I'd come as far as
twice before.
As with Majora's Mask, everything in BotW's main trunk comes off as abbreviated and straightforward as it is utterly swallowed by the rest of the game around it. (And the Majora fight may not be anything to write home about, but it was preceded by that absolutely transcendent scene on the grassy hill.) There was really no way for Ganon to compete as the pinnacle of the experience, especially right next door to something that does compete to be a highlight of BotW and the Zelda series as a whole, the traversal of Hyrule Castle.
On the final sequence: I can see why people found it underwhelming, almost like something you do on the side so you can get your map percentage to show up before you get back to the real game.
For the record, while TWW's finale has the best atmosphere of any in the series, I think it was TP that nailed the ideal of how to structure a final boss. First phase, old-fashioned ping-pong deflection as a warm-up and a series throwback. Second phase, Beast Ganon: a counterpart/rival fight set up thematically as a foil to Wolf Link. Third phase, a test of a TP-specific mechanic, the horseback combat. Fourth phase, a sword fight, up close and personal, with the additional easter egg of the fishing pole. It has a rhythm of escalation that recapitulates the game before it and says, "This is what TP is about."
Likewise for TWW, where the cooperative positioning with Zelda resonates with the partner mechanics of the game as well as Tetra's active role as a character, and Ganondorf matches Link's dynamism as a swordsman and tests the player on the parry mechanic: the fight doesn't take advantage of TWW's unique item/weapon interactions, no, but it still captures a sense of what TWW is about; it's unmistakable which game you're in. Skyward Sword's fight with Demise is literally about pointing a skyward sword.
With Calamity Ganon,
I mean to revisit BotW with a straight-to-Ganon run someday: frankly, I would expect the finale to be a much better experience this way than in the standard course of doing everything you can to empower yourself and stack the desk in your favour first, which makes sense story-wise but throws off the progression of the game when the boss doesn't scale reactively in mechanics, AI, or damage output the way the
do. Perhaps it was too easy at my power level for me to appreciate its nuances.
*
I've written extensively on my experience here over the course of the month, and for my own convenient reference more than anything, I've indexed the more significant posts that serve as an informal play diary charting my course through the adventure, something that seems more valuable for BotW than for most games given the flexibility of how to proceed. Spoilers are generously tagged to permit reading at any stage of completion.
OT1 (by my estimate of hours played, not yet displayed on the system at the time):
- 12 hours — dawn of the second day
- 35-40 hours — exploring the west
- 50 hours — world map completed
- 75-80 hours —
constructed
(Meanwhile, on Eventide...)
OT2 (by shrines / Koroks completed):
- 85 / 105 — interim statistics
- 94 / 153 — first Guardian and Lynel killed
- 108 / 314 — fourth
unlocked
- 109 / 368 — what do you mean, I have to do the main quest?
- 109 / 377 — all Divine Beasts, with extensive remarks on dungeon design
- 117 / 396 — as far as I made it without looking anything up
- 120 / 402 — all shrines completed
I'm not ready yet to reflect on whether this was the best time I've ever had with a video game; that's too audacious a claim to make without the benefit of considerable distance. Ask me in a few years. (A top-two Zelda, let's say, right next to The Wind Waker—which BotW objectively expands upon and surpasses in many respects, though as we all know, what makes a game an all-time favourite can't be reduced to a checklist or a comparison chart.) It would be more accurate to say that Breath of the Wild was consistently great for the longest. It now accounts for the lengthiest single-player save file in my entire life of playing video games (surpassing the Xenoblade games combined, or any of my Animal Crossing towns)—yet I am less fatigued with it, less ready to put it away, than I am after most experiences of 20 to 30 hours in length. It is, in a word, inexhaustible.
I still have no intention of collecting every Korok seed. But it's good to know that hundreds of them await should I ever feel like booting up the game to go for a leisurely drive.
Completion statistics:
- 120 shrines
- 430 Koroks
- 60.13% map completion
-
41/42
-
59/76
- All memories recovered
- 303/385 compendium entries (missing 6 monsters (bosses) and 76 pieces of equipment)
-
59
- Highest weapon damage:
103 on a Savage Lynel Crusher, followed by 96 on a Savage Lynel Sword
- 0
Lords of the Mountain
- 19
Ancient Arrows
- 833 screenshots with the Capture button saved (including post-completion statistics)
- You don't want to know how many hours played
- Many adventures to come
*
Yesterday I posted that I was finally ready to see Ganon. But I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Hyrule, and I'm still not, though making it to the end credits is always a moment that demarcates two different levels of involvement with the experience, a clear before and after. So for my last session before I confronted the final boss, I thought I'd play the way some people here with better navigational skills than mine have sworn by: in the Pro interface, and with no resort to fast travel. It started with (unsuccessfully) combing the southwest for something I knew I was still missing (
sand boots, though as consolation for venturing all this way I killed an Electric Lizalfos with a Molduga
horse archery camp
rode under the sweep of a dragon on the Bridge of Hylia, rode home to Hateno Village to display the Gerudo souvenir scimitar and shield on the wall, rode all the way through Kakariko to pay one last visit to Impa and continue northeast to Tarrey Town for one restock of arrows.
(I could have ported to the shrine by the docks, but what fun is that?)
It prolonged the session by hours. I stopped for photogenic screenshots everywhere and revealed over a dozen Koroks along the way. It was Breath of the Wild in its purest form.
I had already explored the lower levels of Hyrule Castle quite thoroughly before, so I zipped right to the final area (though not without
peeking into the the Second Gatehouse first, as I had strategically evaded its interior on previous occasions expecting it to be a trap—and of course the portcullis came down and trapped me with a Silver Lynel, which I didn't end up fighting as I had slaughtered so many of its kin before and needed nothing from it; that didn't stop it from raining Shock Arrows on me even after I left the building
Princess Zelda's Study and Room
As with Majora's Mask, everything in BotW's main trunk comes off as abbreviated and straightforward as it is utterly swallowed by the rest of the game around it. (And the Majora fight may not be anything to write home about, but it was preceded by that absolutely transcendent scene on the grassy hill.) There was really no way for Ganon to compete as the pinnacle of the experience, especially right next door to something that does compete to be a highlight of BotW and the Zelda series as a whole, the traversal of Hyrule Castle.
On the final sequence: I can see why people found it underwhelming, almost like something you do on the side so you can get your map percentage to show up before you get back to the real game.
Calamity and Dark Beast Ganon desperately sought to recall the Twilight Princess encounter, but they wound up feeling like two out of four phases in TP without serving similarly as a capstone of the game that came before it.
Likewise for TWW, where the cooperative positioning with Zelda resonates with the partner mechanics of the game as well as Tetra's active role as a character, and Ganondorf matches Link's dynamism as a swordsman and tests the player on the parry mechanic: the fight doesn't take advantage of TWW's unique item/weapon interactions, no, but it still captures a sense of what TWW is about; it's unmistakable which game you're in. Skyward Sword's fight with Demise is literally about pointing a skyward sword.
With Calamity Ganon,
I never got the message that "This is what BotW is about." I get that from Eventide Island; I get that from Hyrule Castle; I get that from the best boss in the game, Thunderblight Ganon, which draws on everything from the electricity mechanics to Magnesis usage to exploiting the layout of an unconventionally shaped room. I don't get it from Calamity Ganon, though I also got through the fight feeling like I didn't get a chance to properly learn any of its mechanics, partly as I was able to take a few hits. To its credit, it was here that I figured out how to shield-parry Guardian beams, which I had actually never done over the whole course of the game despite destroying dozens of Guardians in the field. But once I figured that out, the entire fight reduced to dodging, parrying the beam, and slashing with the Master Sword, with the sporadic aerial bow-shot just for style. Surely there is more to it than that? Where is the test of your game knowledge, the way that Lynels press you to learn your combat timings as well as your mastery of the elements? Did I just never learn the pattern?
Meanwhile, Dark Beast Ganon was more like a dessert than a final phase: you're back out in the world, like you are in TP's horseback phase, but the terrain is too open and blank for you to feel grounded in the same world that you've just spent weeks exploring, and again it's a straightforward test: dodge the beams, get some elevation, hit the targets with the Zelda's bow. About the only BotW-like thing you can do here, as far as I could tell, is create updrafts; and I suppose the game responds to your personal journey, like so many of its other scenarios do, by bringing in your favourite horse (unless everybody gets the royal white horse)—though I played the whole fight dismounted anyway. Maybe there is a range of openness to experimentation I wasn't seeing, but even so, the standard approach to this phase already felt singularly efficient.
I mean to revisit BotW with a straight-to-Ganon run someday: frankly, I would expect the finale to be a much better experience this way than in the standard course of doing everything you can to empower yourself and stack the desk in your favour first, which makes sense story-wise but throws off the progression of the game when the boss doesn't scale reactively in mechanics, AI, or damage output the way the
Silver Lynels
*
I've written extensively on my experience here over the course of the month, and for my own convenient reference more than anything, I've indexed the more significant posts that serve as an informal play diary charting my course through the adventure, something that seems more valuable for BotW than for most games given the flexibility of how to proceed. Spoilers are generously tagged to permit reading at any stage of completion.
OT1 (by my estimate of hours played, not yet displayed on the system at the time):
- 12 hours — dawn of the second day
- 35-40 hours — exploring the west
- 50 hours — world map completed
- 75-80 hours —
Tarrey Town
(Meanwhile, on Eventide...)
OT2 (by shrines / Koroks completed):
- 85 / 105 — interim statistics
- 94 / 153 — first Guardian and Lynel killed
- 108 / 314 — fourth
Great Fairy
- 109 / 368 — what do you mean, I have to do the main quest?
- 109 / 377 — all Divine Beasts, with extensive remarks on dungeon design
- 117 / 396 — as far as I made it without looking anything up
- 120 / 402 — all shrines completed
I'm not ready yet to reflect on whether this was the best time I've ever had with a video game; that's too audacious a claim to make without the benefit of considerable distance. Ask me in a few years. (A top-two Zelda, let's say, right next to The Wind Waker—which BotW objectively expands upon and surpasses in many respects, though as we all know, what makes a game an all-time favourite can't be reduced to a checklist or a comparison chart.) It would be more accurate to say that Breath of the Wild was consistently great for the longest. It now accounts for the lengthiest single-player save file in my entire life of playing video games (surpassing the Xenoblade games combined, or any of my Animal Crossing towns)—yet I am less fatigued with it, less ready to put it away, than I am after most experiences of 20 to 30 hours in length. It is, in a word, inexhaustible.
I still have no intention of collecting every Korok seed. But it's good to know that hundreds of them await should I ever feel like booting up the game to go for a leisurely drive.
thechristoph
Sir!
Yeah, I suppose so...but having to stay by your "base" or within a safe zone is the part that isn't any fun to me.
I played for about 90 minutes earlier today and found things pretty uneventful. Only found two koroks and two shrines the whole time I played. Around the Hateno fort area.
I have a feeling I am missing a lot in this area. I covered a lot of ground without running over anything interesting. Will have to go back later.
The shrine that takes three Hinox bosses to reach is pretty neat, was a nice change of pace. The last fight was dynamic. I had stalbokoblins, bokoblins, and lizalfos chasing me with shock weapons as I lead the senior Hinox around in circles, dodging tree swings as it approached me. Miraculously, I did not die.
I was searching for a while for the eye the man in the forest clued me in to shoot. He doesn't provide a location, so I guess I won't know where to find it until I stumble into it.
I saw Hateno village but haven't approached yet. Paraglided from nearby to Eventide, where I stopped playing.
I was searching for a while for the eye the man in the forest clued me in to shoot. He doesn't provide a location, so I guess I won't know where to find it until I stumble into it.
I saw Hateno village but haven't approached yet. Paraglided from nearby to Eventide, where I stopped playing.
I have a feeling I am missing a lot in this area. I covered a lot of ground without running over anything interesting. Will have to go back later.
There's one on the great plateau
.Revali's voice actor made some amusing recordings:
https://soundcloud.com/anime_sonicmega/revali-cdi
https://soundcloud.com/anime_sonicmega/revalio-kart-8-double-dash
https://soundcloud.com/anime_sonicmega/revali-cdi
https://soundcloud.com/anime_sonicmega/revalio-kart-8-double-dash
There's a
Zora plaque that tells the story of Link defeating the Lynel at the ruins by a lake that has a name with 4 letters. I just searched around the area with ruins on a lake.
I had already knocked two out before activating the quest. I knew something was up because of the orbs.
Went from 120 to 15 arrows by the end of the quest
Waddle Dee
Member
Got to Goron City yesterday and it really felt like a breath of
fresh air. Also did a Shrine with some sort of balancing scale puzzle but I'm pretty sure I bypassed it in a way that wasn't entirely intended. I didn't understand what to do so I just used the
to skip the puzzle.
burning hot
shield-boarding double jump exploit
Loved following your stories. Thanks for the posts.
Yes! I agree completely. I have solved several quests before ever activating them just by playing with interesting things in the environment.
Where can I wait out the ice dragon? For the horns
Ah yes I've done the latter one numerous times. Came across the first one just today but couldn't figure it out. Didn't even left a memo on the mark to come back pity me.
Vault Dweller 111
Member
I've told myself that I will do my first divine Beast after I defeat a Lynel in combat. Based on trying once, I'm pretty far away.
I've just been wandering around since I started playing last Wednesday. Yesterday I got lost in the Hebra mountains for hours. Didn't get much done, but I have plenty of prime meat now. And every tower except one.
4/5 of an extra Stamina bar and 9 hearts in total. Hardly any actual questing, I feel like I haven't even started the game yet.
Have a bunch of seeds in my inventory but haven't found Macarena Man in awhile.
Loving every minute of it.
I've just been wandering around since I started playing last Wednesday. Yesterday I got lost in the Hebra mountains for hours. Didn't get much done, but I have plenty of prime meat now. And every tower except one.
4/5 of an extra Stamina bar and 9 hearts in total. Hardly any actual questing, I feel like I haven't even started the game yet.
Have a bunch of seeds in my inventory but haven't found Macarena Man in awhile.
Loving every minute of it.
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
IIRC the eastern edge of Lanayru Promenade is a good spot in the mornings.
EatinOlives
Member
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
MikeyKlump
Member
StAidan
Member
It's a little silly, but I have 81 shrines (going for 120) and 2 divine beasts down at 75-ish hours, and I keep dreaming up the new ways I'll play the game in future playthroughs already. Right now, I feel like I'll probably try a warpless/towerless (no map) run, with no armor and 3 hearts. Sounds like loads of fun honestly, I'm excited about it already even though I could have another 30-40 hours left on this first run.
WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
Ah, kind of expected that given what a I've done thus far. My friend's guide mentions the percentage but doesn't actually say it's an unlockable lol.
KillerDark
Member
Up to 81 shrines, 2 beasts and 170 something korok seeds... and like 85 hours haha. Absolutely loving this game so far, just want to keep playing it.
I don't think I'm going to get that. I'll go through the process of getting up to it but I don't want the advantage it confers. In lieu of hard mode I have to limit what I access in game.
Version 3.0
Member
No, all you can see is 3 different states:
brand new - will have a little sparkle on the weapon, top right, similar to the lightning warning but smaller
used - just looks normal
about to break - flashes red
The game could really use a number on durability. I'm sure we've all spent quite a lot of effort deciding which weapon to discard. If we could see which had the least durability remaining, it would sure help.
No, other than "this weapon is badly damaged" and flashing red in the inventory. Shield numbers might correlate with their durability because otherwise shields work the same? Some weapons have "fragile" in the description, and later on there's
random weapon modifiers like "Durability+".
How are yall mixing things up on your second play through? I'm thinking about starting up a second profile to play the game in Japanese, but I want to try doing things different. I'll probably explore less overall, and focus more on completing quests and all that. I mean, I already know where most everything is, so it'll be shorter no matter what I do.
MikeyKlump
Member
Did you 100% the game? I personally wouldn't really think about a second playthrough with so much still to do in this one.
Milly Osworth
Member
Im kinda sad I beat the game now. Bring on the dlc!
CharminUltra
Member
I'll probably do a story-only run in LA Spanish.
Also planning to do a naked run straight to Ganon as soon as I leave the GP. Not a speed run or anything, just want to test myself really.
Nah, I only care about finding all the shrines, and I'm currently at 89 completed, with probably ten or so found but not done. I'm guessing the remaining shrines will take me a few months to find, and I'd rather not wait that long to start a new game.
Skeletos311
Junior Member
I'm paying the Wii U version while my Switch is getting repaired. I want to fight Ganon before doing any dungeons, which I didn't even know made the fight different when I was playing on Switch.
A no map, 3 heart, max stam run sounds really fun one day. It would be great to actually learn the terrain without referring to the map all the time.
After the plateau, I'd probably gun it for
Faron first to grab all the durians to max out my hearts 
victreeb3l
Member
Memory #9...OMG
Zelda is so goddamn adorable in this game. Must..protect...that smile, Link!
😡😡😡
Zelda is so goddamn adorable in this game. Must..protect...that smile, Link!
Oh wait, you already failed once.
HawthorneKitty
Sgt. 2nd Class in the Creep Battalion, Waifu Wars
Been keeping up with a couple play throughs on YouTube. The surest sign of personal improvement is when you no longer place a bomb and detonate it after running.
petethepanda
Member
Ran into the Forgotten Temple for the first time and just barely kept myself from saying "fuck that" out loud on the train :lol
StAidan
Member
Yeah, that's kind of my thinking behind it, I use the Pro HUD already (so no minimap) but I really feel like once I've found all the shrines, I should know Hyrule well enough to get along without a map at all.
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