The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

you know, where gerardo hangs out. link's brother

there are two specific sets of hot weather gear you need to access big parts of the story and divine beasts

― na (NA)

and one set costs more than your goddamn house. oh, sure, live it up now, gorons, but what happens after you eat all of your goddamn precious stones? try charging two thousand dollars for a fucking hat then

stone munching wee fucks

i was gonna make a rico suave joke but the moment has passed

I set it up and everything ...

Its funny I'd forgot how terrifying trying to get to Goron city was pre-heat gear. Lava and beasties everywhere argh! Now its all "eh, strollin along a volcano no fux given". I love the little hot springs you can sit in.

https://i.imgur.com/MfEujKN.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3GyVeQgLUw

One of the reasons I kept postponing the Divine Bird is that I would get distracted en route and use up all my bomb arrows (which I knew I needed), then need to save up for more, then end up using those bomb arrows, too, and so on. So it was a nice surprise to finally tackle the Bird and find at the start the Bird Bro gifts you with 20 bomb arrows. Thanks, Bird Bro. I was able to take down the Divine Bird without looking up help until the last of the engines, because I missed the part about tilting the map. Once I learned how to do that it was pretty OK, and the baddie on the roof I got in maybe two tries, once I figured out what it did. Hilariously I didn't realize I still had to turn of the widget in the middle at the end and kept trying to fly back to Rito Village, to no avail. But yeah, Divine Bird is done, got my flying shoes. Oh, and I've unlocked all my magic+ powers, so there's that, too.

Next stop: Divine Waterworld beast? I should get more Ancient Arrows, too.

Oh, and I came this close the killing a skeleton hilox or whatever, but then at the last minute it hit 5am or whatever the witching hour end time is and it dug itself back underground. Oh well.

I never used any ancient arrows but maybe I should have?

All of the Divine Beasts give useful abilities. The bird & waters ones are particularly good for exploring.

I used my first batch of Ancient Arrows and yeah, they blow up guardians good.

I don't think a day has gone by yet where something in this game did not surprise me, which is awesome. There is just so much there to be discovered, so that it feels kind of special when you come across it, even if, obv., it has been programmed and is designed to be discovered. Like, I looked at the map and thought, huh, I've never been to that area, so climbed a mountain and found a spring and dragon to free. It was cool. Another time I went back to the Forgotten Ruins, which I had passed through but not explored, and found my way into a room filled with a bunch of stationary guardians, which I successfully destroyed for lots of parts, losing almost all my weapons in the process but justifying going on a kill spree in the countryside to find more weapons. Then today I spent too much time trying to ride a buck to fulfill a quest before realizing, well, it's optional and kind of dumb, so I'll just go off and do something else then come back some other time if I even remember to do so. Later I found a big waterfall and suspected there was something behind it, so jumped in and swam up and ... drowned. And then came back and realized there was another way into a shrine, one which did not kill me. Just lots of fun.

Ok now you’re getting it, I was worried you had some kinda problem

Its funny I'd forgot how terrifying trying to get to Goron city was pre-heat gear. Lava and beasties everywhere argh! Now its all "eh, strollin along a volcano no fux given". I love the little hot springs you can sit in.

― Stoop Crone (Trayce)

my spouse has been playing botw again lately and was just hanging out on death mountain chilling and a bird literally caught on fire, it was weird

they also figured out why some weapons sparkle, which was a new realization to me too - it's to show that you haven't used them yet. (this is different from the metal weapon indicator when there's lightning around)

flying shoes are the best. also not really much of a spoiler but all the divine beast puzzles are based around moving them using the map so get used to it :)

have you got the stealth armor yet? i love the stealth armor.

I guess you don't max out clothing inventory, right? I should go shopping!

yeah you can carry all your clothes with you whenever, and even though you can't change your weapon while you're falling off a cliff you totally _can_ change your clothes. stealth gear definitely worth it!

played while in my stealth gear but don't know how stealthy it made me. Because I'm also getting better at defending myself. how sneaky is sneaky? anyway, eventually made my way to waterworld, which was kind of a long trek and preamble for the payoff, but I suppose I'm about to do another Divine beast.

Heh, my first attempt at the water elephant beast was a disaster, since I misheard/misunderstood the instructions and thought I had to take out all the glowing circles in the water wheel, but of course my shock arrows did nothing. Then I realized I had to use my magic to break the ice, and even if I just let them hit me the fish man wouldn't bring me to the waterfalls. I kept trying to steer him, too, or use my gale force glider power to fly up, but, nope, need to break the ice first. Hopefully the inside of the elephant will be more obvious (to me).

On the plus side, I already had a bunch of shock arrows, so I didn't need to mess with the lynel. But maybe I'll do that anyway.

Water elephant down! So far the Divine Beast bosses have been easier than some of the more common enemies. At the very least figuring out what to do has posed a bigger challenge than the actual battle. I totally forgot that my freeze ray worked horizontally.

After I beat it I did mess with the nearby Lynel a bit to get more shock arrows. But rather than just die at its hands I simply teleported somewhere else when I noticed it was getting perturbed.

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.