The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I did get a bit bored after completing 100+ shrines and all the beasts, just farting around till I saw Ganon. But I think that boredom was more like anxiety and melancholy that I’d seen more of the game than it had left to show me.

yeah the world is like a warm bath for me

at first I thought it was too empty but the expanses really underscore the majesty of the various towns, encounters and set pieces dotted round the world

Oh, there's tons of stuff to see and do. But I'm kind of bored at the way you have to do it. Climbing, walking, jogging for like 3 seconds at a time, even gliding and horse riding. I know I'll build up my stamina and inventory and whatnot, but right now it all takes forever. And then talking with everyone and interacting with everything, that's kind of exhausting as well, since I don't want to miss something or someone important. OK, need to talk to this guy! Oh, he's just selling meat. Alright, gonna talk to this person! Oh, just complaining about the weather. Etc. Again, perfectly designed world, but a bit of cognitive dissonance balancing the broader apocalyptic OMG you have to save me quest and everyone and everything just chilling. I kind of wish there was a bit more pressure to hurry up! Even the monsters are often singing and dancing or sleeping. Their AI is pretty generous with letting you get away, too. I suppose this makes it fun to play in short bursts, but at that rate it would take months to finish.

So is the Witcher 3 kind of like this?

I was a bit slow to realise you could make your own fires to sleep through the night, and didn't have to find a pre-existing fireplace. If you're not doing that, it might help?

I also, er, didn't realise for ages that climbing up the towers unlocked the map. So I found my way to the Rito divine beast just by winging it, and the journey felt really epic.

But there's a midpoint (somewhere between the first and third shrines) when you still die a lot but you don't feel overpowered. After my 4th beast I was basically invincible.

xp Witcher 3 is a completely different type of game, it's no more similar to this game than spider-man is

Oh, I thought it was another open world wander/ride around on a big quest while mixing potions and helping people on side quests sort of thing. Maybe that's all games of this ilk.

I think I knew you could make your own fire in Breath, but I think I only have one flint, and so far it hasn't been hard to find fires (or survive the night), and besides, everything fucking breaks after three uses! Like, I got a sledgehammer so thought, cool, I can use it to smash clearly meant to be smashed rocks, and yeah, there was a gem or something inside, but then my hammer broke and now I don't have a hammer.

What do you mean, climbing the towers unlocks the map? You mean if you spy something from a high vantage it automatically gets added to the map? I haven't gotten to a beast yet because I think I've still been goofing around with the basics. I just got to that first village.

you can bomb those rocks, btw

when you climb a tower and put your slate on the dais thing, it fills in that area of the map for you all at once (there is no other way to open the map)

oh, I am thinking of different towers, just the ones with a treasure chest on top.

have been reading this thread, nodding my head excitedly, saying "HE'S DOING IT. HE's ACTUALLY DOING IT." like Joe Lo Truglio in Wet Hot American Summer

Map towers = sheikah towers ie:
https://d1u5p3l4wpay3k.cloudfront.net/zelda_gamepedia_en/thumb/2/27/BotW_Great_Plateau_Tower.png/1200px-BotW_Great_Plateau_Tower.png

There are dozens of them and some are quite hard to get up! And if you think the games a bit dull/easy I'm thinking you havent yet encountered any Guardians or Lynels, heh you're in for a treat there.

It’s the right level of boring for me, i.e. it’s challenging but doesn’t make me feel twitchy and exhausted.

I realised the same when I went back and got a long way into WW the last few weeks. It was making me really stressed out!

yeah - lynels are genuinely tough, even into the late game due to the scaling of the various different lynel types (red/ blue/ white/ silver)

still can't reliably beat them

guardians are a nice fair challenge. so satisfying parrying their eye beam back at them

I wouldn't lose to lynels if I ate some 3x defense food, but boy would those fights be sloppy. If I ever play this again I plan to master using stasis on those assholes

I agree w arlo (!) re weapon durability
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCMDG51cf5w

I never said it was too easy, just a bit dull how much time is spent traveling and climbing and doing mundane stuff, like cooking and foraging. Because the handful of bigger enemies I've encountered early on have already been a massive pain in the ass. Rock monster: had to run away after doing minimal damage that destroyed all my weapons. Training robot spider in the shrine near the first town: destroyed all my weapons after doing minimum damage. Bigger monsters, the first biped foes I've encountered after the Bogpins or whatever: super fast and take a lot of damage. And Now I have little but a bunch of clubs and rakes and shit to fight with (plus bombs and bows) so just have to avoid everything. I hope coming across weapons starts becoming more common, because so far they are few and far between, and nothing has been tough enough to survive more than a couple of modest fights. I figure eventually the battle system will become second nature, but I'm hoping that comes sooner rather than later. I also hope I stop encountering people who trigger epic monologues about who I am and where I cam from and what I'm supposed to be doing. I get it, dude. I'm here to rescue the princess and save the kingdom.

the monologues with their voice acting are the worst part of the game. you are actually there to wander around before dying in new, embarrassing ways.

Josh in Faron Tower will be a fun post

All the frustrations Josh describes are things I found super fun.

My favourite (sort of) humiliating death was at the hands of angry lady with the garden maze

I am super early in the game, but unlike Dark Souls I do not really feel like I am making *progress.* But I'll stick with it.

most of the 'progress' is exploring all of the map and completing shrines

how do you get off the plateau without taking fall damage? that seems like the only place where you Need the glider

― ciderpress, Tuesday, January 29, 2019 10:30 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There's a #swag move that looks like this you can do:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=QQbKpdOGWQk

zelda is a vision of a world beyond progress. it is a story of how one athletic boy's search for his missing shirt quickly led to a revelation of secret universal cycles of love and evil he never could have conceived.

I think i saw a pornhub video with that same description

It is about harvesting and eating premium cuts of meat while you cut back irl.

It’s about wandering through green alpine fields while it’s -1000° outside

It’s a game about climbing

the same tree, over and over again

It's about finding the perfect outfit

now that I am finally playing the game y'all are making me want to play it less.

Seems inevitable really

yes, play less. but then also more by doing so. zelda is like jazz.

Zelda is about snapping your fingers and drinking cocktails

It’s about wandering through green alpine fields while it’s -1000° outside

Ha yes, or trudging across a snowblind field when its 120 out (was doing this the other day)

My favourite (sort of) humiliating death was at the hands of angry lady with the garden maze

The 10 year old loves this bit - when she shudders, turns to the camera and just BARGES at you in fury. He dies laughing and makes me taunt her again!

josh do not make me add you to badILXusers dot xls alongside treeship and turrican

mods killfile josh

Are real weapons seriously rare or something? I find one sword for every 25 or so club or rusty rake or whatever. It's almost perverse. I enter that one shrine near the first town, the first thing you get is a fancy sword in a chest, then you face a training robot, equip the sword, and ... it breaks.

Anyway, I know it's open world, I just want a little more sense of purpose than wandering the earth on far-flung side quests. Or at least some clarity on how worthwhile these quests are. Does this game count as a "walking simulator?"

Like - since you folks get super defensive about this game - it's all really well designed and I see why the gameplay is what it is and it's this big zen adventure. But from a practical position it's just kind of slow, and I'm worried I won't have the time needed to make a dent in it. I guess I could always dip in and out of it, but then I'm worried I won't gather any momentum. For point of comparison, I really liked Dark Souls, but I really didn't like the five minutes I spent on, say, Stardew Valley. I'm probably just too impatient, and/or the rewards did not seem incentive enough for what was being asked of me.

I think it's fair to say that it is kind of slow, or relaxed/relaxing imo, and, yes, it could take up a fair amount of time. If you're not into it at this point, maybe just give up? I thought it was totally absorbing from very early on, but if you're playing out of cultural obligation, that seems unfun

Well, tbh, the world is cool and absorbing, but the story isn't terribly compelling to me, because it is boilerplate (which is not necessarily a bad thing, just video game par for the course) and everything is just so chill and weirdly jovial. The bigger issue I have (which is probably surmountable) is that the quests I keep going on take 10 times as long to get to as they do to complete, which is kind of a drag. Even with the glider or a horse, it's just slow going. It makes me think I must be doing something wrong.

(Though I appreciate a response that is more than just "ban him for being bored!" It's a well made game and I want to get the most out of it! But it's also the first Zelda I've played since the first one 30 some years ago and also the first open world game I've played, so maybe I'm not automatically invested in the mythology and concept?)

I found the story so compelling in the way it was told with the world-build itself. I got emotional arriving at Akkala and seeing the remnants of a terrible battle, etc.

While for me the narrative was kind of a background hum most of the time--one that I enjoyed engaging with periodically when I'd want to do something more dramatic. The best thing about this game from a retrospective/bird's-eye view is how many different ways there are to play it. I'm not sure what to suggest you do differently Josh, but maybe try to consciously alter your approach? Ignore all the side & shrine quests maybe? Try to open the whole map by finding all the sheikah towers first? Do you like doing the shrine puzzles once you find one?

Josh - you know you can warp to any shrine or tower you've visited, right? That will (of course) take away some of the walking/riding tedium.

Oh, shit, that's right! That'll help.

Moving on:

Can I ignore the side quests? Or will they earn me important/powerful things that will improve the gameplay?

Can I really ignore the shrines? They get me the power balls, and those seem essential to getting more hearts and stamina, which would definitely improve the gameplay. I don't know if they're fun, per se, more like little in-game puzzles, but at least the rewards seem worth the time.

Opening the map sounds like it could be a productive endeavor; I've only activated two of the towers so far. Is there a secret to finding weapons that I'm missing?

Oh, and the horse: Is my horse my horse, or will any horse do? I keep losing the horse when I glide off, do I have to find my way back to that horse or can I just jump on a different one?

Blowing up rocks for amber and stuff: useful endeavor or boondoggle? I don't know what the minerals and whatnot are good for just yet.

If you take your horse to a stable you can leave it there and then any stable you visit will have the horse for you.

Collecting gems pays off to some extent later, and they are also worth more if you sell them in the villages.

I mean worth money.

The shrines were pretty important in my enjoyment of the game.

And the shrines are where you find the fancier weapons.

Is my horse my horse

of course!