The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

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

Mozzie-laden jungle area is where the durian live, ja. Also lightningbolt dragon comes on down there by the bridge in the mornings.

first dragon sighting is so magical

i just got the first dozen memories photographs. after defeating the 4 guardians i decided to try to get all of these and it has been a lot of fun. many of them have some very nice cutscenes that are strong in lore, i highly recommend finding all of these to really "complete" the game. it is interesting that they are just scattered around the world. the ideal way to find them is just to explore.

SPOILERS the last one i found (photo 8) involved Princess Zelda and the King and was a revealing look at life at Hyrule Castle before Calamity. when the King appeared they played a musical cue from ALTTP and it was very nice to hear.

as for the weapons degradation mechanic, i love it, it is one of the brilliant choices they made, one of the design decisions that gives this game life. most RPGs i am on a mission to only use the best of the best and ignore everything else. in BOTW, the game facilitates constantly switching it up, and as a result, the weapon/equip options end up being as exploration-based as the game world.

I've never run out of weapons - they're everywhere! If anything, I don't have enough inventory space for them. I really don't understand why people would have a problem with that setup.

A con of having rapid weapon breaking is that I struggled to develop a single style of fighting, because I had to change between so many different types of fighting. But that’s a pretty minor con, especially since it’s not until you’re fighting lynels that the fighting requires you to know how to backflip, dodge and block, and by then you’ve learned how the weapons work so you can git good on more complex techniques.

I wish I’d started fighting lynels earlier, they drop such amazing gear.

I got all the memories and enjoyed the “extra” ending after beating Ganon that my boy didn’t get since he didn’t bother much with the memories.

Oh! That's a good tip. I got two left to collect and I'll do that before Ganon now.

Although one of the memory photographs - that the painter doesn't give you a clue about - is basically "some trees somewhere". I've just been hoping I'll stumble on it.

I never really got the hang of dodge/flurry rush so my lynel battles all involved savage lynel bows + bomb arrows. Fire off a barrage of those babies over and over and he's going DOWN.

The point where you're riding a Lynel and stabbing him in the head with a sword is the only jarringly violent part of the game, like Link is straight-up murdering them.

My Lynel strategy: use stasis, whack him with a spear as many times as poss, run away, repeat

my general lynel strategy: aim to shoot them in the face so that you can get on their back and pound them. your weapons don't degrade when you do that so you can use your best (probably lynel) weapons for your four bashes, then re-equip something less precious once you're off. the easiest way to shoot them in the face is to catch updraft from the fire they breathe. this doesn't work in places without grass like the snow, but it works for the places most lynels are ime.

Huh, I didnt know about the non-degradation tip. Wish I'd known earlier!

This weekend Im gonna try and finish the Champion Ballad trials. Want dat bike!

The bike owns

there was a point about halfway through the Lomei Labyrinth Island where i was about to declare it the greatest level/puzzle/whatever that I have ever played, of anything. that first descent into the area from the nearby akkala ancient tech lab was incredible. i hadn't done much advance scouting of the area so i just kind of impulsively jumped toward it, even though it was during the middle of a really long and loud lightning storm. i loved the way the sheer magnitude of the labyrinth reveals itself as link floats toward it. and it's psychedelic as hell once you land, consulting the map to determine correct paths, switching between the deep canyons and the peaks, finally finding the ladder. then a barbarian helm at the end? fuck yeah! 10.0 album of the year

Oh that barbarian gear set is ultra useful, I wish I'd found it a lot sooner, but somehow all the labyrinths didnt show up that obviously for me til ages into the game!

Known in our household as “male empowerment armor”

with the exception of one set that's pretty much all the armor in the game

Eh I dunno about the Tingle armour...

yesterday was zelda of july. i played maybe 12 hours?? that's off the chart for me.

so many sex and drugs references in this game! “when we get into hyrule castle we’re gonna light that thing up!” hell yeah, you know the drill, daruk. we're gonna have sex with four 100-foot tall fairies too, it'll be amazing.

i've finally unlocked all the towers, found the master sword, getting ready to take down the final divine beast (the one in the Hebra region, for me). i still haven't ventured anywhere near hyrule castle yet. i have used my charge-up special attack (augmented by the gerudo thunderblast special ability thing) twice, maybe three times, total?

This game is absurdly horny, Link is a tiny long-haired androgyne constantly being objectified by women ranging in size from large to enormous, not to mention Bolson.

last night they mentioned his "perfectly symmetrical face"

I know ive said this before:
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/zelda/images/2/2d/Bolson_comment_%28Breath_of_the_Wild%29.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/596?cb=20170411172618

And yeah all the great fairies are awesome, like these 10 foot tall drag queens or something.

i'm not even sure that i've met Bolson!

i love how the game manages to feel huge and still accessible and explorable at the same time.

bolson is camp af

Bolson and co are working on the house behind Hateno village you can opt to buy.

oh thanks! that explains why i haven't seen them in a while - gathering 30 wood has taken way longer than i expected, although i guess i'm not going out of my way to find any. i guess the benefit of buying a house is that you get to own a house in zelda, and plus store extra weapons there?

Yeah thats about it really, haha. Only 3 of each item as well (3 weapons, 3 sheields, 3 bows). Ive kept the really rare/unfarmable stuff like the royal guard gear and forest dweller gear (I thought I read somewhere the sword doesnt respawn Not sure tho. )

update: yep it doesnt, teres only 4 korok swords in the game. Its p useless as a weapon anyway.

Arrrgh this last champions ballad shrine is fucking doing my head in. Needlessly, pointlessly hard. Being thrown right back to the start every time... I tried about 10 times then just gave up, grr.

i have finally defeated The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

i only regret that i didn't pick up the final memory before beating it, which i'm 99% sure was hidden somewhere hyrule castle. but damn, that was so much fun! i'm at 100 hours or so right now, but i'll probably add on more as i revisit. plus i might end up getting the master sword DLC

jesus you finished that fast!

Get the DLC - it has a map addition that shows you where on the map you've been. I guarantee you'll find you missed a ton of areas/things.

yeah, getting to Ganon didn't take nearly as much work as i thought it would! i ended up approaching Hyrule from the east, just kind of gliding over the moat and climbing up a ledge. after accidentally finding the library and fucking around in there for about an hour, somehow i just popped up near the end. i think i was probably a little overleveled, too - i accidentally had zora outfit equipped the whole time and still managed to get through without getting damaged too badly.

the DLC will be a great way to revisit this in a month or two!