The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

ancient arrows & ancient shield help against the insane amt of guardians up thar. i’m still trying to find some of the internal rooms - i defeated gannon but can’t find some of the quest items

immediately upon coming into possession of a nintendo switch console, i knew what i had to do. i have been doing little else but playing botw since i got it. looking forward to reading through this thread as i occasionally come up for air! i'm not too far yet. i've collected one memory, i've unlocked all the iphone freatures, all the runes. haven't met one of the divine beasts yet but i'm working my way toward the NE. this game rules so much it almost makes me cry.

let those tears flow man, this game deserves it

:)

some of the memories could legit make u cry imo

also love the primary element it borrows from assassin's creed (which maybe borrowed it from somewhere else?), which is the tower puzzles that then unlock the map of the surrounding area. i love that you still have to manually go in and mark things using the scope/pins, though. so satisfying to survey the landscape and think about next steps.

also fuck, this map, FUCK, it's so good

about to enter the zora zone. i like these zoras. i like this zone.

I didn't find that Zone until way into the game!

Yeah its interesting that the game somehow guides you towards Zora domain first, but not everyone ended up there.

it seemed to be the closest of the four divine beast zones, so i figured i'd start there. i love that Sidon's catchphrase is "whoa"

that's probably not the best example of writing to highlight before saying this, but the writing for all the different characters is very good.

also, when will i learn that effects don't stack? i keep on wasting my best elixirs because i use a second one on top of it immediately after, canceling the first out (i think?)

Yep, you can only have one of the em at a time - and also dont mix up stamina boost with stamina extensions, theyre different!

So for eg, stamella mushrooms will create a stam-boosting dish but using ENDURA mushrooms, or carrots, will do that over and above. But mix the two and I think they cancel out.

BTW I stumbled on this neat item the other day:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Breath_of_the_Wild/comments/627w5e/thundra_plateau_biome_with_giant_mushrooms_based/

I'm fascinated by the depth of flora and fauna in this game.

some of the memories could legit make u cry imo

― valorous wokelord (silby)

the voice acting legit makes me cry

lol yes.

I watched all the memories in a row with the 10 year old kid a while back, cos it was like watching a little movie. And he was all "this Zelda is a really WHINY lady. Why would anyone wanna rescue her!?"

I love this game so much but I am thinking it is time to fight Ganon and move on. I have all 120 shrines now, most of the armor fully maxed, and enough side quests to satisfy me. My son continues to play just to fight lynels, which is fun! but he doesn't feel the dumb need to "finish games" that I have.

I've completed all the divine beasts, found all the fairies, got the sword, but still have 50 (!) shrines left to find. I'm guessing most of them are shrine quests - the old days of finding a conveniently-placed outdoor shrine are well behind me.

Is all the construction-work-y stuff on the desert mountain valley worth exploring? I've mostly been flying or jumping over it.

Right now I've been using my radar to find wildberries for the irresponsible litterer in Gerudo. It's suddenly hard to find them when you *actually* need them.

i've only completed about 15 shrines so far, but i'm enjoying them. i made it to the entrance of the zora domain last night without too much trouble. the balance was kind of weird, actually - everything was a breeze, and then suddenly a couple electricity-wielding sorcerers almost wiped me out instantaneously, even though i was using the electricity-defense buff elixir that joey lawrence handed me on the bridge beforehand. my plan today (because why go to work, or look for a job?) is to try to knock out a divine beast, then shrine it up and improve my heart/stamina count. so far i'm up to 6 hearts, haven't increased my stamina yet.

karl! you got a switch! good work dude

good strategy

sometimes it's fun to try something above your level (like another divine beast or a lynel) and get the stuffing kicked out of you

THEN, when you go back and try again in a couple of weeks/months/blood moons' time, kicking its ass feels even more satisfying

more random thoughts probably expressed upthread:

- i turned off the HUD a couple hours in, and i loooooooove it. do you all play with the HUD? gotta turn that shit off.
- with no HUD/minimap, it really forces you to pay attention to your position in the landscape, and that's where the game's use of landmarks really shines. the positions of the Castle and the giant Mountain (mount doom?) become key. the Castle is in the middle of the map, and then the relative position of the mountain lets you calibrate NWSE from there. it's sooooo pleasant to be making my way down a river, lose track of myself for a second, then glance to the right to see the tip of mount doom, thinking "ok, i'm heading west", or whatever
- i'm still on the fence with the constant weapon breaking. i've gotten used to it, and i'm glad it forces me to use new weapons pretty consistently. i just wish there was a quickbutton/shortcut for dropping/switching out melee weapons without going into the inventory.
- goddamn, let me cook in bulk. let me save recipes, once i discover them, and then cook that way (just gray out the options where i don't have the correct ingredients). cooking is cool when you have a specific meal in mind that will help with a situation, but most of the time it is tedious.
- can you give apples to horses? my horse and i don't get along that well, yet, and it would be nice to feed it

karl! you got a switch! good work dude

i had some help :) i've been so addicted

"- i'm still on the fence with the constant weapon breaking. i've gotten used to it, and i'm glad it forces me to use new weapons pretty consistently. i just wish there was a quickbutton/shortcut for dropping/switching out melee weapons without going into the inventory."

right on the d pad ?

I wish there was a way of removing the HUD but keeping the map

I found changing the camera speed from normal to fast during big fights was really helpful. But you don't need it when you're just wandering.

right on the d pad ?

right, so d-pad brings up onscreen quick-inventory. but what if you try to pick up a new weapon and you get the warning that your melee weapons inventory is full? is there anything you can do other than pausing and going into the the full inventory? i would prefer to be able to drop them from the quick-inventory, onscreen. just a nitpick, but i really dread inventory management in all games so the less time i'm dealing with it, the better

oh, yeah, can't do that.

in retrospect I wish I'd gotten more roster spots sooner, but I couldn't remember how to do it & at that point I wasn't looking things up

also, one more question: how does sorting work? i can kind of see how it's working, sometimes, and at others (like with food) it seems to just arbitrarily reorganize. it'd be cool to be able to sort by item value, rarity, monsters vs critters, the kind of buff an item gives (stamina, attack up, defense, etc).

i went from hating weapon (non-)durability to loving it. making you constantly care about getting new weapons all thru the game was v cool

it keeps groups together, i only use that for keeping armor sets together since I'm switching between them so frequently

ah, gotcha. it's still early going for me so i just have the champion's tunic + the stealth one

Sorting is good for items as it puts firewood at the back, which makes it easier to grab a quick nap at night and avoid the skeleton stuff, if you want to minimise fiddling around.

ah, i didn't realize that, thanks! i'm not sure i've even collected firewood yet. i haven't memorized good spots to find the basic toolsy weapons (stonecutter, axe, torches) yet, so ever since they broke i haven't really cut down any trees or collected too many gems or minerals because doing so breaks the other weapons so quickly.

you can quickly drop most weapons by equipping and throwing them

Oh fuck - of course you can. Thanks!

yeah, that's a good tip, thanks!

There's also a pretty easy way to get gems etc without breaking weapons but I dunno if that would be a spoiler to say it

I just fought Ganon. Naturally it was no big deal after all the gear I’d collected. I’ll play a different game now but I do wish BOTW could go on and on as well.

Did a lot of weapon throwing yesterday. So satisfying.

I spent an embarrassing amount of time in the Zora divine beast before finally realizing I needed to ice rune my way into the room with a map at the very beginning.

i still keep sadly firing this game up even tho i’m done (champions dlc aside) cos i just ... i just like being in this world. the trees and grasses and flowers, the sunrises and sunsets, the rock pools and frog ponds and hot springs. the amusing npc conversations. the soundtrack, oh the soundtrack.

i used to wonder at ppl who played wow for years but now i get it.

Yesterday I was in the mountains surrounding Zora domain for the first time, in twilight, overlooking Satan mountain. It was so lovely. I knew part of the reason was just that classic teal & orange combo, but it was still so relaxing to wander around in the night up there.

BOTW has the best rendered grass in all of gaming. the hillsides of grass blades in shades of green and teal (in the moonlight) are so beautiful blowing in the wind.

i got to the castle and ended up letting a friend beat the game for me lol. i figure i will come back and beat it later. so i've reloaded an earlier save and fled. there are sidequests to do, memories to discover, shrines to stumble upon in my travels. i am coming on close to a year of playing this game.

the castle indeed is really cool and fulfills any need i had to see a traditional dungeon in this game. it's a huge level with lots of approaches, lots of side areas, lots of explorable space in which to find loot/treasure. so rather than seeing Hyrule Castle as just the end of the game, it can be the stronghold that you crash from time to time, looting weapons, quest items, etc. gg this game never stops expanding.

s just the end of the game, it can be the stronghold that you crash from time to time, looting weapons, quest items, etc.

Glad you said this! I had been planning on just saving it all for the end, based on comments upthread, but now I might poke around there a bit beforehand, at least when I get strong enough. right now I’m still at 7 hearts, 20 shrines down.

yeah that is def do-able. just run past everyone and grab a bunch of OP weapons!

The variety of ways to play---I didn't go into the castle into the end, but I can see now why it wouldn't have been bad to venture there earlier---is one of the best things about this game. You can just watch the grass flow, or maybe spend time cutting grass, looking for crickets, lizards, and fairies, enjoying the breezes. What a remarkable game.

newly discovered joy last night - using the bow while paragliding.

i also ventured over to the SE, tropical jungle edge of the map. i think i will be avoiding that area for a while. it really captures the humid sweaty jungle feeling of being constantly attacked by mosquitos and other insects

but it has such yummy fruits...

i think i prefer to just make some extra money finding gems in the mountains, then using it to buy durian so i can make that kickass creamy milk soup that grants several extra hearts. but then i forget where to find the person/place that sells durian! i kind of prefer it that way, though, just bumbling around the world, making do with what i have.

if you need a hearty durian you pluck it from the trees

I spent days finding some wildberries for a sidequest and was so happy and then my reward for completing it was literally a melon

worth it though