eRonin

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: open your eyes and die a lot

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yeah i get it i ain't a dumb...

 

i hate it

 

if that wasn't obvious!!!

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I uhh found some weird giant sandworm in the desert. Kills me all the time, though with all those times I faced death, I noticed some ways how to actually fight against that beast.

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I talked a bit about the sense of wonder and discovery I felt with A Link to the Past, in one of the podcast threads:

Turns out this game is indeed evoking very similar feelings! Although I know how Zelda and open world games work, and have seen a bunch of gameplay videos of Breath of the Wild, there is still so much about this game that surprises me. 

 

I love that Nintendo took 10,000 steps back from their typical overtutorializing and just threw you into this harsh, weird world. Trusting the players to figure out how to combat the cold in the tutorial area, felt so fresh not only by Nintendo's but any AAA studios standards, that it was actually a bit sad. I also love that they didn't go for the Ubi-style "climb the tower to reveal every point of interest in the region" and the detective vision (?). Surprisingly, the exploration feels that much more special, when you actually have to do some exploring.

 

So far this game feels like a giant mic drop, but one where much of the impact is aimed back at Nintendo itself. I love it!

 

As I said in the Slack yesterday, how can a thing that tastes so bad, feel so good?

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I'm not super duper far into BotW (2 beasts, ~25 shrines), because the last several weeks haven't been an opportune time in my life to put a ton of hours into a video game. But I've been playing it since it came out and I'm still borderline-embarrassingly enamored with it.

 

I'm afraid of the inevitable point where I get bored and burnt out, but: with every other open world game I've ever played, I got burnt out way earlier than where I am now in BotW. I'm trying to reconcile that with the fact that all THOSE games had a much more regimented progression of abilities, and one of the biggest complaints I see made about BotW is that a lack of that kind of progression leads to fatigue in the second half of the game. We'll see, I guess, but I never even made it to the second half of all those games so I honestly think this 'progression' thing is overrated.

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That lack of explicit progression is what makes it feel so much more fun to me. That I know I could do anything anywhere whenever I want.

 

i guess this is a "spoiler", in a sort of "talks aobut gameplay that happens throughout the whole game" kind of way

 

i never know anymore with these spoilers

 

 


There are some things you get that make navigation easier for specific things. But none of them are required (besides the initial runes, of course), and that's important and also, in my opinion, what makes those things so much more special.

 

I still want a hookshot, though. I think it'd be awesome for climbing to have a hookshot that lets you grab the other side of a valley's cliffs, or just to hook onto an overhang, and then descend a bit to get into a cave beneath, or whatever.

 

But hey, that's not a complaint. Just a thing I think would be cool, heh.

 

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Similar to you, most of my 'complaints' about this game aren't really complaints, just things that I'd wish for because I think they would be cool.

 

Like, I do wish there were more enemy types – one of the joys of past Zeldas was, when you came to a new area or dungeon the environment would of course be different, but the set of enemies you could encounter would be different too. You don't really get that in BotW, and I miss it. But also, despite relatively fewer enemy types, enemy encounters in BotW play out in way more diverse ways than any other Zelda. That's due to stuff like the physics system, obviously, but also how most enemies can wield several different weapon types with different damage values and elemental effects, etc etc. So I don't think the game NEEDS more enemy types, I just want them anyway.

 

Same with shrines all looking the same: before BotW, one of the most obvious advantages 3D zeldas had over 2D is how aesthetically unique they could make each dungeon (I'm basically describing the only great thing about Twilight Princess, which I liked), and BotW has almost none of that. But if that had to happen to get me a fantastic open overworld, I will gladly take that trade.

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Yeah, the shrine variety is a little disappointing. I do appreciate that it makes the puzzle elements really readable in a Portal-like way, but a couple other "themes" would have been nice.

 

It's also weird that they all have the same music when the game has specific tracks for everything. (This game's soundtrack is good as hell.)

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On 3/22/2017 at 11:54 PM, Kolzig said:

I uhh found some weird giant sandworm in the desert. Kills me all the time, though with all those times I faced death, I noticed some ways how to actually fight against that beast.

 

There's a Gerudo who gives you a quest to kill one of those guys. Pro tip: Dodongo tactics work.

 

I'm 88 shrines (about 44 women) in with 3 beasts down at 50+ hours. My 88th shrine tonight was Eventide, but I feel like hearing all the hype about it spoiled it for me and I just kind of went "oh, this is what that is" so I won't say any more. I also had the misfortune of arriving at this part of the game while waiting for the Splatoon Test Fire to start, so had to panic to complete it so that I didn't miss the Splatoon window. Oh well.

 

There is still so much that's incredible about this game. Even though the shrines don't have a tonne of variety, I do love that each region of the map has a theme. Realizing that all the electric puzzles were confined to one section of the map, all the wind ones another, etc, etc, was cool. Makes it feel kind of like there's a themed dungeon buried under each region of Hyrule and you're peeking in at certain entry points.

 

I still haven't set foot in Eldin. I don't understand how I could have played this game for so many hours and done so much and still have an entire province untouched. I almost don't want to go in, even though I know I'll have to soon to do the last beast. Something about climbing that last tower and finishing the map feels almost sad to me. Like I want there to still be dark spots on my map. That said, I have barely touched parts of the map that are open, so I'm trying to do as much as I can in them first. I spent about three nights this week wandering around the Hebra region and found a tonne of things. Now I'm moving on to Lake Hylia, which I pretty much just ran through to get to the desert and is still pretty untouched. There is so much game in this game.

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1 hour ago, miffy495 said:

 

There's a Gerudo who gives you a quest to kill one of those guys. Pro tip: Dodongo tactics work.

 

I'm 88 shrines (about 44 women) in with 3 beasts down at 50+ hours. My 88th shrine tonight was Eventide, but I feel like hearing all the hype about it spoiled it for me and I just kind of went "oh, this is what that is" so I won't say any more. I also had the misfortune of arriving at this part of the game while waiting for the Splatoon Test Fire to start, so had to panic to complete it so that I didn't miss the Splatoon window. Oh well.

 

There is still so much that's incredible about this game. Even though the shrines don't have a tonne of variety, I do love that each region of the map has a theme. Realizing that all the electric puzzles were confined to one section of the map, all the wind ones another, etc, etc, was cool. Makes it feel kind of like there's a themed dungeon buried under each region of Hyrule and you're peeking in at certain entry points.

 

I still haven't set foot in Eldin. I don't understand how I could have played this game for so many hours and done so much and still have an entire province untouched. I almost don't want to go in, even though I know I'll have to soon to do the last beast. Something about climbing that last tower and finishing the map feels almost sad to me. Like I want there to still be dark spots on my map. That said, I have barely touched parts of the map that are open, so I'm trying to do as much as I can in them first. I spent about three nights this week wandering around the Hebra region and found a tonne of things. Now I'm moving on to Lake Hylia, which I pretty much just ran through to get to the desert and is still pretty untouched. There is so much game in this game.

 

I was worried that claiming towers would make the game feel smaller but it's made things feel bigger! I'm noticing so many more weird pockets and folds in the world than I noticed in my hours of trekking around claiming towers. My adventures are getting smaller in scale and it's great. This game!

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14 hours ago, Jake said:

 

I was worried that claiming towers would make the game feel smaller but it's made things feel bigger! I'm noticing so many more weird pockets and folds in the world than I noticed in my hours of trekking around claiming towers. My adventures are getting smaller in scale and it's great. This game!

So I haven't had this feeling since Assassin's Creed 2 (I only played the first one maybe a year or two after playing 2, and I still think 2 was the best in the series).  When you opened up the viewpoints of the cities in AC2 everything felt a lot more explorable.  I suppose there's the argument to be made that getting lost is its own virtue, but I never felt this way.  Having access to a map allowed me to orient myself and say, "Oh, huh, so that's how it's places in relation to XYZ other place I've been."

 

The feeling is the same in BotW.  I too left vast areas of the map unexplored for a long time, and I too left Eldin alone for a long time (I knew that the threat of being on fire was pretty heavy).  But once I got the entire map open, I could look and survey it.  Say, "Oh, hey, this piece of topography looks interesting, I'll go check that out."

 

Spoiler

The best example of the map making the vastness set in so far has been looking for the Leviathan skeletons.  I alluded in an earlier post that I think I found a skeleton of the wind fish from Link's awakening.  At one horse stable/inn there were a group of NPC's talking about Leviathans, and how they wanted "drawings."  

As an aside, apparently even though everyone in this game can recognize a sheika slate, they still think that you draw everything instead of taking a photo.  What would the real world be like if we went through a nuclear war, and then the one guy with an ipad was king...but just spent his time taking photos and then claiming to be a master artist?  

To get back on track, you have to go around taking photos of these big skeletons.  Among those are the wind-fish looking skeleton in the Gerudo region, a Dodongo skeleton, and then one I don't recognize....  The first two can be found by looking at the map.  A little difficult to find, but it so cool to actually get there and see them.  The last skeleton, as one of the NPC's speculates, is in a cave.  Because of that, I spent two hours exploring the mountains to find potential openings for caves - at least an opening large enough for a huge beast.  Won't spoil it past there, but studying the landscape and the map made that a great quest, and made the game feel even more vast.

 

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Eventide was a breeze to me once I had beaten all four beasts, but when I first got there I died so quickly...

 

I beat the game and...

Spoiler

the game kinda missed the landing? The final area doesn't seem to have any shrines and it was a bit confusing to reach the final boss, which... was just another blight thingie and then another beast Gannon which was too easy?

 

I don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. After such perfectly condensed dungeons with the beasts, this long and finding trot in the castle was a bit annoying.

 

I was just going to turn it on today to scan some amiibo and got a few memories and beat two Lynel to upgrade my armor, I still need some guts to upgrade them and they are still the hardest thing in the game. 

 

Can you do the flurry thing to for any attack or only specific ones?

 

I'll probably pick at it each day until proper guides come out to help with what I missed.

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*facepalm* I'll get it eventually.

 

It just hit me, Gerudo don't allow men in their village, but it has children, so...

Do the children have to leave their families or do the Gerudo abandon men once they get pregnant?

 

Spoiler

Those dummies in the town ... are those for Gerudo to practice smooching? XD

 

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I'm 9 heart and stamina upgrades, and zero dungeons in so far. This game is so good!

 

The fragility of equipment bothered me a bit at first, but then I realized that it actually ties quite nicely with other design decisions – no leveling system, being able to access areas with enemies that are too strong for your, etc. – in trying to make you avoid combat when possible. Link doesn't feel like a character who should go slaying every enemy he lays his eyes on, but if I received XP and better equipment (as opposed to probably losing weapons) with every encounter, I probably couldn't help fighting everyone.

 

The sense of exploration in this game is amazing. Getting to a high vantage point can be tough, but once you have put on some warm clothes and your climbing cap, prepared and eaten some spicy food, and arduously scaled the mountain, you are rewarded not only with the view of the surrounding area, but ability to directly access the areas of interest with your paraglider. The map seems to have a good variety of vast open spaces and more intricate areas, which means that I'm often finding new and interesting stuff, but there are also calm and empty moments which make me appreciate the more eventful things that much more. I can't remember when was the last time I felt this much "present" in a game world. Possibly during the first few hours of Fallout 4 before I started drifting towards demi-godhood. In Horizon Zero Dawn (which was a great game in many ways), for example, I never really learned to appreciate the game world. The different biomes (snow, desert, forest) did not really impact the the gameplay or my experience at all. The environment never felt like a challenge either, and pretty much the only consideration when I was planning my route to the next objective (apart from the occasional narrow mountain pass) was the enemy sites that were marked on the map.

 

Also, I killed my first Guardian using shield bash. Felt pretty damn good!

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I absolutely adore the weapon fragility, and also went out of my way to combat pretty much everybody. I enjoyed approaching every encounter from different angles (honestly most of them from above, after paragliding, dropping a bomb, gliding back around in a circle, blowing it up, then weapon slamming).

 

It really encourages just letting loose and not giving a fuck, and weapons are so plentiful as to not be a big deal when one breaks. Bar a few times very early on, I never ran out of weapons. Just had to use different types of weapons. Also came to rely more on my bows as my arrows grew more and more robust in option and quantity. 

 

Fuck I love this game.

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Yeah the weapon fragility kind of becomes  less of a problem when you unlock ok a few weapon slots as well. Thank god for that, I found a mop that I refuse to put down so it was nice getting an extra slot for that.

 

There is something really doofy about the Hero of Time running around with a mop on his back. 

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I'd pay to see Calamity Ganon bonked in the nose with a soup ladle.

 

Edit. Bonked ON the nose. Bonked in the nose...well, that's just unsavoury.

Edited by dartmonkey

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My armor is maxed and not Lynels aren't as scary?

 

I reached a mission I just can't beat...

Spoiler

I have to take an ice block to the other side of the dessert, but... it obviously melts.

You're supposed to use stasis, I assume, but it doesn't seem to be enough.

Maybe if I have an ice rod on my back the ice won't melt? I tried waiting for the night, but either I didn't wait enough or it doesn't work.

 

I did so much today I don't know what else I can do tomorrow, specially if I can't get all the shrines. :wacko:

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6 hours ago, Tanukitsune said:

My armor is maxed and not Lynels aren't as scary?

 

I reached a mission I just can't beat...

  Hide contents

I have to take an ice block to the other side of the dessert, but... it obviously melts.

You're supposed to use stasis, I assume, but it doesn't seem to be enough.

Maybe if I have an ice rod on my back the ice won't melt? I tried waiting for the night, but either I didn't wait enough or it doesn't work.

 

I did so much today I don't know what else I can do tomorrow, specially if I can't get all the shrines. :wacko:

 

The entire surrounding area is designed to be a weird puzzle for this one mission.

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12 hours ago, Tanukitsune said:

My armor is maxed and not Lynels aren't as scary?

 

I reached a mission I just can't beat...

  Reveal hidden contents

I have to take an ice block to the other side of the dessert, but... it obviously melts.

You're supposed to use stasis, I assume, but it doesn't seem to be enough.

Maybe if I have an ice rod on my back the ice won't melt? I tried waiting for the night, but either I didn't wait enough or it doesn't work.

 

I did so much today I don't know what else I can do tomorrow, specially if I can't get all the shrines. :wacko:

Spoiler

I just rushed to the end trying to avoid the "hot" spots of enemies.  Also, I think it melts slower in the shade?  I got it on the first try, so I don't know if I'm lucky, or I just 100% internalized the game by the time I encountered that mission.  As a heads up, I started the mission as early I was able to.  I got to the place WAY too early, so I just waited around until she hopped out of bed to give me the ice.

 

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Spoiler

I just waited until she stopped working, maybe I'll just wait more until she sleep. It seems logical? Thanks!

 

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