The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Glad to hear its all finally falling into place for you man! :)

https://i.imgur.com/663B3wD.jpg

― ciderpress, Saturday, May 19, 2018 1:55 PM (nine months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is still my favorite thing in the game

I love reading various discussions about the game and people going "wait, theres other ways to do this!?" about a thing, a great example being the mining carts. I'd been kicking them into gear with stasis and a bash with a weapon. Turns out that little cage at the rear was designed to stick a bomb into and detonate it to make the cart move >_<

In the elephant beast there was this gate I had to get under. For some reason it didn't occur to me to use my magic ice power, so I just used stasis and hit it a bunch and then ran under it (and, later, ran out). Ice would have been better, but stasis worked. (And cost me a weapon, but whatever.)

the ice power is definitely the one i always forget about, i never internalized to look for ways to use it anytime there's water on the ground

U can knock over some dead guardians with it, if theyre near a puddle.

I killed my first rock monster. Found a good perch on a pillar and jus started tossing bombs.

Gale force wind thrust is a pretty good power, like getting a double jump. Upstream waterfall swimmer is useful, too, for shortcuts. I just found a pair of rubber pants, will they stop me from getting hit by lightning? Can't tell yet. I think I have 11 hearts, which is good, since now most things/falls/attacks don't immediately kill me, not even guardians, I don't think. Speaking of which, I've yet to use my shield once on this game, in part because whenever it comes up I happen to have something two-handed equipped and can't use it. But I haven't really had to use it yet, either.

you can parry guardian lasers with a shield, that's the big use case

And easily collect arrows, like trayce mentioned a few times upthread (which I didn’t know about! So many little things like that in this game.)

I just buy any and all arrows I come across. Or pick them up after the dummy monsters miss me, because I'm running around, flaunting my stamina.

josh

are you enjoying the greatest game of all time, zelda: breath of the wild ?

it's no links awakening dx

congrats to Josh. i'm glad this worked out for everyone. i haven't been able to play for a week or so and have been surviving the withdrawal with small doses of this thread.

like trayce mentioned a few times upthread

LOL I am terrible at repeating myself ;_;

I'd argue that I just hit peak Breath, which is wandering around until I found the way into the forest, was made to search for and discover a shrine by torchlight, then fight a Hinox in the dark. Very satisfying and not, surprisingly, as difficult as I expected. Also hung with the ridiculous body builder bros who are now, it seems, my blood bros.

Back to a long stretch of mostly goofing around and exploring. I've killed a few Hinoxes, and one rock monster, the former of which is not as scary as first seems and the latter definitely not worth the trouble. But today while I was harvesting durian I saw a Lynel and thought, you know, let's see what this guy is like. I killed it, but it took some time and a whole bunch of hearty meals. I got the sense my ranged weapons just did little to nothing, so had to get in there and hack away. I got a couple of cool looking weapons, but honestly, if they're just going to break like everything else I don't see the point. I have the same problem with an ancient bow I bought. Is it just a five shots and done sort of deal, too?

The biggest waste of my time was trying that lighting challenge, where you have to get all the spheres in the right place while you're constantly getting struck by lightning. After decimating more of my hearty meals I though, nah, why bother? At least for now.

In the videos I’ve seen (I know...), the great lynel bow is good for taking out lynels. Maybe save it for that and then harvest away...

Speaking of which, I was watching the Matthewmatosis review video that made the rounds, and he made some really good points about the game's flaws (which are often linked to its best attributes). One of the biggest ones I just sort of touched on, the feeling of low-stakes or "why bother?" If you can stockpile stamina stuff, then climbing mountains will never be a challenge. If you can stockpile hearty meals that you can eat during battles at no cost, then fighting powerful enemies will never be a real challenge. If enemies respawn and taking on enemy camps offers only modest rewards of treasure or equipment, then why not just avoid them, anyway? If swimming up a waterfall is as easy as putting on the right armor, then why not just make it a power rather than make you put on the armor for those few seconds? And so on.

The guy in the video pretty astutely I thought highlighted some of these aspects as the downside of total freedom. You can theoretically make the game as hard as you want - as he points out, your first instruction is "destroy Ganon" or whatever and in theory you can head right out to do that - but you have to choose to do so and stick to the rules you set out for yourself. Doesn't detract that much from the game, really, since it's still a great game that I'm really enjoying and will enjoy for many hours more, just ways he demonstrated that for all the strides this game made and for all it did right there are still ways it could have been even better. That's what I really liked about Dark Souls, the cost/benefit balance seemed dead-on, and even "avoiding" certain enemies took some skill and strategy. Anyway, if you haven't seen this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRA1QTTAxys

All those "flaws" are things I enjoy! If it were as easy as "grab stamina stuff, climb mountain", yes, the game might be a bit boring.

But (a) it's never that easy, and (b) - this is the part where the massive playing area makes a difference - no single mountain is the same. Every part of the map has a unique geography and set of puzzles to solve. Even two sides of the same canyon might have different problems and approaches and bonuses and NPCs and weather patterns...

Also, I've always rolled my eyes when gamers say things like "I didn't want to play the game, I just wanted to hang out in the world" - but I finally felt like that with this game.

The DLC, on the other hand...

All true! But the biggest challenge to travel and traversal has been time, not difficulty. Climbing and wandering and whatnot are not just a big part of the game, they are a huge part of the game, and without it there wouldn't be much. Now, I like wandering, it might be my favorite part of the game, but it could still have been a bit more compelling if they added some more rigorous survival aspects to it. For example, for dozens of hours I have been accumulating flint and wood, but never felt the need to start a fire until yesterday, and only because I was impatient to melt a shrine out of a glacier.

Anyway, those flaws aren't really flaws, just ways the game could have been maybe a bit better or more challenging. For example, in the video the guy suggests consuming food could freeze you for a second or two, making you vulnerable while you eat. Right now with essentially unlimited food and the ability to consume at will while impervious makes it pretty easy to power through anything. I do like the time/use limitations of the two shrine powers I have earned, there's a slight incentive not to abuse them.

It was always the same with the GTA games though. It's about creating your own criteria for how challenging you want the game to be and then rising to that challenge. My personal approach to BotW ("don't cook") meant that I was usually going from uncompleted shrine to uncompleted shrine to attend to it and restore my health in the process. It was challenging and fun and never felt grind-y

Yeah, and even when you have guardian armor and food and whatnot up the wazoo, there's still plenty of difficult stuff to complete - or stuff like Tarrytown that's easy but SUPER delightful.

Back to putzing around in this game, which is fun. I've been spending time in Lava Land, now that I have my iron armor. I also beat the fire rock monster. Def. at the point in this game where there is little point fighting anything.

Putzing around in lava land is great. I recommend trying to do a lap round the top of the volcano region and along the back of the very north of the map, west of akkala. Nothing much of consequence storywise but it’s a beautiful area to wander in.

In news that no one else in the world will care about but thrills me to bits, I finally finished the impossible rota chiga shrine on the DLC after like SIX MONTHS of awful failure. Link is finally back to fulll strength and I’m equal parts FUCK YOU NINTENDO for putting me through that and excited to start playing again

That shrine is the worst. Woooorrrsssst.

Ewok Land challenges I just did were among my least favorite, not because they were difficult but because they were super easy but just took time. "For this next challenge, you will don full armor and cautiously ... follow an ewok through the woods. If you dare!!!"

I thought that one was kinda cute! But I recall Adam raging about it upthread, I guess some ppl dont like sneaking. Ijust love the music and fog atmos in the woods.

otm, i don’t like sneaking, i want to get shit done

Lol u sound like my other 'alf.

Three Divine Beasts down and I sort of feel pretty overpowered at this point in the game, which is largely the game's doing. It's just so gentle about its challenges that they're not very ... challenging. But it is a ton of fun and charming and cute and weird and silly, which is pretty great. Do I need to beat all four Beasts to kill the big bad? Once I kill the big bad is the game over or can I still goof around?

you don't need to beat any of the big beasts to kill ganon, but killing each gives you a special power and killing all of them provides assistance that makes killing ganon much easier

fwiw i had all 4 special powers when i took on ganon, and didn't use any of them (unless the one that saves your ass when you run out of health was triggered - i don't remembered)

Once I kill the big bad is the game over or can I still goof around? you can goof around as long as you want

Awesome! When I was playing Dark Souls I saw that beating the big bag automatically sends you to Uber+Dangermode or whatever, so I made sure to do extra stuff (like the memorable DLC) first.

well you get end credits after you beat the game and then your save file is back in front of the boss door. Sadly you don't get to noodle around Hyrule with all the danger defeated.

if you're looking for challenges, a few things in the Champion's Ballad DLC are a *lot* harder than anything in the game that isn't eventide

although collecting all the memories without cheating was a challenge, especially when one of them is basically "find this tree"

i think the dlc kicks in once you've axed all four divine beasts

Yeah all I'm left to do now is trial of the sword (aka Dork Souls).

I just fear I'll get all ragequitty at it.

my boy spent his easter holiday finishing everything in the game, including the dlc, save korok seeds : everything in the compendium, maxing all the armors, all the side quests. the trial of the sword wasn't *that* bad. unfortunately the buffed master sword doesn't go to 120 in the castle.

I still don't really know what the weapon/armor numbers mean. I do know that I've made it through most of the game now without using or feeling the need to use a shield.

While the way it's designed is certainly fun, something that might have made this game a little more challenging would be to somehow limit teleportation and/or swapping of armor, or even swapping of weapons, or consumption of food. The fact that even mid-battle - or mid-fall! - you can teleport somewhere safe, or eat a meal, really gooses things in your favor. Not a flaw in the game at all, just a tad hand-holdy by default.

I found the Master Sword Quests extremely difficult! Bf is finally going to get into this game and watching over his shoulder has been amazing, what an amazing game this is

My friend told me yesterday when he saw what BotW looked like that it matched up with his childhood fantasies of “video games of the future”... not inaccurate!

I saw a video the other day of someone using angry chickens to attack those giant sandworms. As a comment pointed out, it's a testament to the inspired nature of this game that players are still figuring stuff like that out years later.

yeah, the way the various underlying, interlocking systems interact with each other is as close as games have ever come to building a tangible, believable world - it's a remarkable achievement

Watching him play, I realized that my memory of this game had forgotten that NPCs exist, that my memory of the game was just this enormous empty landscape filled with rotting machinery and beautiful views

I will never forget the first time I got on a horse and just rode and rode, and the music developed and continued, and we were on a beach in the south and riding under an overhang as the sun was coming up and it was really truly beautiful

Considering that most of the music I'm hearing in my house these days is Game Of Thrones (and the composer for that series is probably the most visible composer making the clunkiest compositional decisions), the music for BotW is endlessly surprising and appealing, hearing snippets of themes from 25-year old games thrown in as tossed-of counter-melodies, how it centres the piano as the lead instrument and veers into genre after genre seamlessly, I'm really thrilled by it which is a rare thing for me to say

Yeah, doofing around Death Mountain I could have sworn I heard the super Mario Bros pipe dungeon theme.

The woman who wrote the BOTW music also did Animal Crossing and it shows in its sparse, miminalist prettiness sometimes.

On the learn new things all the time front I read someone the other day solving an electric shrine puzzle by eschewing dragging over the metal cubes, and just...chaining chu jelly together.

Its conductive. Who knew?

if you beat all of the divine beasts and then face ganon, isn't his energy halved?

Yeah I always assumed thats what each of their laser doohickeys were doing aiming at the castle.

Just popped into Hyrule Castle for the first time. It's definitely harder than the rest of the game so far, and really forced me to stock up on the right equipment! On the plus side, the rate of return for taking out guardians with arrows is pretty strong. One arrow=lots of parts=more arrows.

On the learn new things all the time front I read someone the other day solving an electric shrine puzzle by eschewing dragging over the metal cubes, and just...chaining chu jelly together.

Oh I remember solving that shrine by placing swords between the metal contacts on the floor, which conducted the electricity. The interactivity of everything in the world is the games greatest triumph imo, way beyond other open world games.