The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Wii U / Switch

[Dcubed]

Pro tip: All of the Ganon forms cannot actually kill you in one hit; no matter how much damage their attacks would normally do.

 

You will always be left with 1/4 of a heart, no matter what.  Abuse this like mad when fighting him.

 

Hyrule Castle is actually pretty fun when done this way; it's basically like sneaking into Mordor and climbing up to Mount Doom in your underwear.  It's by far the most fun way to play it!

Edited October 4, 2019 by Dcubed

[Ronnie]

28 minutes ago, LazyBoy said:

Following my debate with @Dcubed about the merits of the 'challenge Ganon at any time' mechanic, and him having actually done it on his first attempt, I realized that I had never actually given it a go. So I jumped back in yesterday, rushed through the Plateau, and headed straight to Hyrule castle to test my skills.

I 100% did not expect to still discover new things in this game. What a fool I am.

So I glide off the plateau, heading in the direction of the Hyrule tower. I wasn't in a rush, and wanted to map my approach, so the tower offered a good vantage point for that. There was also a shrine nearby, and since I was short on resources I thought it a good opportunity to refill any hearts I had lost (which I short encounter with a Bokoblin tower did inflict on me).

The Shrine was fortunately one of the better ones, with multiple doors requiring the manipulation of massive boulders in order to open them. After completing I headed for the tower, dodging the Guardian lasers as I climbed. 

I was already quite close to the castle, but the Guardians are in thick supply between us, so I diverted round to the West, passing the burnt out tree trunk in the middle of the lake. Then I enter a wooded field plentiful with horses, and I can't know for sure, but I swear I had never been through it before. Regardless it was so peaceful and serene compared to the danger I knew would face me on the other side of the hill, that it at least felt like a new experience.

On mounting said hill I see Hyrule town walls ahead of me, with a fort hidden in a crop of trees a short run away. On climbing to the top of the walls the town square is visible, and my heart sinks in knowing that 4 hearts will not be enough to make it through that gauntlet. Instead I follow to wall to the North, skirting the town, and bringing me to the moat. 

I aim for a small entrance across the moat, but don't factor in the current and get pulled into another entrance. And here is my 'I love this game' moment. I go from minecart section, to puzzles, to combat, to traversal. Its my 4th time doing Hyrule castle and this is the 4th entirely unique way I have approached it. Say what you want about this as a Zelda dungeon - the small amount of puzzles, the lack of dungeon specific items etc - but the fact that I have gotten through it in 4 different ways has got to put it up there with the best in the series. 

I finish my hour long progression through the depth of the castle, to the dungeons, to the castle proper, then a significant amount of exterior scaling, until I find myself on the roof of the sanctum. As I lament that I will have to rappel down to the entrance, risking Guardian alerts, I notice a crack in the grand stained windows. Surely I can't just glide through the window into the room of the final boss? I walk up to an elevated part of the roof, getting a view of the gorgeous orange fury of death mountain in the distance (BotW at its most impressionistic-ly stunning), before gliding through the window. Outstanding work BotW.

I then got stuffed by Ganon. Git.

Great post. What a glorious game. Making me want to play it all over again.

Love that last part about just gliding through a crack in the window.

[ArtMediocre]

Someone remade the Breath of the Wild 2 trailer in true N64 quality 😁 Pretty good nostalgia vibes going on here. 

 

[bob]

Seriously tempted to buy this, but it's still like £38. Even on eBay.

[bob]

Got this for Christmas! Not particularly a fan of Zelda games, but I've heard this is a bit different from previous ones. Looking forward to trying it out.

[LazyBoy]

11 hours ago, bob said:

Got this for Christmas! Not particularly a fan of Zelda games, but I've heard this is a bit different from previous ones. Looking forward to trying it out.

Please update us as you go. I relish any opportunity to discuss this game

[bob]

Please update us as you go. I relish any opportunity to discuss this game

Oh have no fear, spamming old game threads is one of my favourite past-times

[bob]

I managed to get in a few hours of playing this over the weekend, in between chores that should have been done over Christmas, but didn't. 

So far, i'm enjoying it. I've done 7 or 8 shrines, which I quite like. They're like bite-size dungeons; short enough to do in one sitting and not get lost in between play-sessions.

I've made it as far as Kakirokoro Village (I know it starts with a K), and learned about the Divine Beasts, but otherwise I've mainly spent around 50% of my time cooking. The other 50% of the time was spent trying to find the Assassin's Creed tower for that portion of the map.

All the weapons being made out of cardboard is an interesting mechanic. Don't mind it at the moment, as I'm quite happy to just use whatever is laying around, but i can see it being a bit tiresome later on. It is fun attacking goblins with hoes and pitchforks.

[Ronnie]

2 hours ago, bob said:

I managed to get in a few hours of playing this over the weekend, in between chores that should have been done over Christmas, but didn't. 

So far, i'm enjoying it. I've done 7 or 8 shrines, which I quite like. They're like bite-size dungeons; short enough to do in one sitting and not get lost in between play-sessions.

I've made it as far as Kakirokoro Village (I know it starts with a K), and learned about the Divine Beasts, but otherwise I've mainly spent around 50% of my time cooking. The other 50% of the time was spent trying to find the Assassin's Creed tower for that portion of the map.

All the weapons being made out of cardboard is an interesting mechanic. Don't mind it at the moment, as I'm quite happy to just use whatever is laying around, but i can see it being a bit tiresome later on. It is fun attacking goblins with hoes and pitchforks.

Glad you're enjoying. A little tip, I would personally suggest not uncovering the full map early on. Spread out exploring the whole map to the length of your playtime, it'll keep the game so much more fresh and exciting. Treat it as one big adventure. 

As for the breakable weapons, I actually think it's a genius system and one of the best things about the game. Forces you to keep experimenting and ups the survival aspect, which is a big part (at least at the beginning).

[bob]

So I think i'm up to 12 or 13 shrines now; three towers and around four or five of those korok turds. 


The last shrine I did was pretty hard. Rather than being a puzzle, I had to fight a robot spider with a sword and shield. I do not like the combat in this game. It is complicated, and fiddly, and I am shit at it. Luckily, I had some haute cuisine packed away that gave me a shit-ton of yellow hearts, so I had enough life to fail my way into beating the spider-knight. It did end up destroying most of my shields, and all of my swords. By the end, I was wafting it with a leaf and chucking bombs. 


Not sure where the best place to get new swords is? They don't seem to appear with the same frequency that i break them. Most of the time I seem to be using skeleton arms since they are the only thing that ever drops from enemies.

[Jimbob]

1 hour ago, bob said:

So I think i'm up to 12 or 13 shrines now; three towers and around four or five of those korok turds. 


The last shrine I did was pretty hard. Rather than being a puzzle, I had to fight a robot spider with a sword and shield. I do not like the combat in this game. It is complicated, and fiddly, and I am shit at it. Luckily, I had some haute cuisine packed away that gave me a shit-ton of yellow hearts, so I had enough life to fail my way into beating the spider-knight. It did end up destroying most of my shields, and all of my swords. By the end, I was wafting it with a leaf and chucking bombs. 


Not sure where the best place to get new swords is? They don't seem to appear with the same frequency that i break them. Most of the time I seem to be using skeleton arms since they are the only thing that ever drops from enemies.


 

I've had some luck in the past finding swords around Moblin camps and various treasure chests dotted around the ruins of military camps, they refresh after a blood moon.  I've been fortunate to get a sword from one chest, the blood moon came and i got another soon afterwards.

[Sheikah]

If it helps, you can revisit those combat shrines periodically to get their weapons again, which are some of the best in the game. The enemies in them respawn after a while.

[bob]

I had the day off work on Wednesday to wait for the washing machine repair man, and so got a good few hours of play on this. 


I was wandering around the Lanayru section of the map when I ran into some Zora chap who told me to go up to the Zora domain to help him. From then on, the next section felt much more Zelda-y. A pretty linear charge up a mountain, followed by some terrible cut-scenes and further exposition of the plot. I was then told to go and kill some Lion-centaur to get enough shock arrows to help stop the giant mecha-elephant from making it rain. However, when i found the Lion-centaur, I found that I was woefully under prepared in fighting him (i've still only got 5 hearts, and a single mean look from Lion-o seemed to take off more than that). So I just snuck around the outside of his plateau and gathered up the required arrows without bothering him (he seemed like a busy Lion-centaur), and went to meet the fish prince. Together, fish prince and I defeated the mecha elephant, and I'm now wandering around inside it. 


Overall, I'm really enjoying the exploration and puzzle solving elements of the game, but not really enjoying the combat... Which is why i really liked that you could bypass fighting the lion man and still continue with the game. My least favourite parts of previous Zelda games is when they used to lock you in a room with an enemy and your weren't allowed out until you'd defeated them.

[Ronnie]

If you only have 5 hearts I'd recommend doing more shrines before continuing the main quest and getting a few heart containers. You might struggle with some of the divine beast bosses

But yeah, making your own own way and making up the rules as you go along is the beauty of the game. It's not trying to be linear. Have your own adventure in whatever way you want.

[bob]

If you only have 5 hearts I'd recommend doing more shrines before continuing the main quest and getting a few heart containers. You might struggle with some of the divine beast bosses
But yeah, making your own own way and making up the rules as you go along is the beauty of the game. It's not trying to be linear. Have your own adventure in whatever way you want.

Yeah it really wasn't my intention to get this far, but there isn't really any indication of what point you are supposed to start the divine beasts...

[Ronnie]

30 minutes ago, bob said:

Yeah it really wasn't my intention to get this far, but there isn't really any indication of what point you are supposed to start the divine beasts...

You don't even have to do them. Go straight to Hyrule Castle if you want. Just explore and eventually you'll stumble on a pathway to a divine beast but you can do it whenever you want.

[Sméagol]

7 hours ago, bob said:

Yeah it really wasn't my intention to get this far, but there isn't really any indication of what point you are supposed to start the divine beasts...

Whenever the fuck you want (well, apart from doing the plateau first).

Like Ronnie says, just explore and find some shrines first. If you're struggling with combat, shrines will help out. Make sure to do all the Bokoblin camps you come across, just to practice combat. Those combat shrines are actually good practice too, those guardians are a good way to practice shield parrying, very useful in combat, plus they reward you with some good weapons. You can practice shield parrying too with the derelict ones you find scattered in the field.

The best place to get weapons? Hyrule Castle. But that will be too daunting for you right now.

[bob]

Gah! I spent nearly two hours trying to work out how to do the puzzle with the large turny wheel thingy within the giant elephant, determined not to cheat and Google the answer. I was trying everything, thinking that I had to turn the giant wheel by re-directing water, or by thwacking the giant ball into the middle and holding it there with the time-stopper. 


In the end I had to Google the answer, and it turns out you have to pull up the map and you can just turn the wheel from there?! WTF? 

[Ronnie]

1 hour ago, bob said:

Gah! I spent nearly two hours trying to work out how to do the puzzle with the large turny wheel thingy within the giant elephant, determined not to cheat and Google the answer. I was trying everything, thinking that I had to turn the giant wheel by re-directing water, or by thwacking the giant ball into the middle and holding it there with the time-stopper. 

In the end I had to Google the answer, and it turns out you have to pull up the map and you can just turn the wheel from there?! WTF? 

They tell you as much at the start of the dungeon, to use your Sheikah slate

[Kav]

 

[bob]

They tell you as much at the start of the dungeon, to use your Sheikah slate

I assumed they must have done, but i guess I was watching TV at that moment, or skipped it or something.

Anyway, I chickened out of fighting the mechanical elephant boss, and followed Ronnie's advice of going and doing a few more shrines instead to strengthen myself up a bit first.


I didn't really make a point of avoiding spoilers for this game when it came out, so I didn't think there was much in the game that would surprise me, but I really wasn't expecting that giant green flying dragon that you can see from miles away. Really impressive. I love that you can see these huge creatures from halfway across the map (like the huge lizard thing climbing around the volcano), it really gives a sense of anticipation - like you can see snippets of later levels, even if you can't access them yet.


Anyway, i made my way towards the giant dragon, and it disappeared. I don't know if it was supposed to do that, or if it's appearance is timed or something, but i'm assuming i'll find out later.

[Dufniall]

13 minutes ago, bob said:

Anyway, i made my way towards the giant dragon, and it disappeared. I don't know if it was supposed to do that, or if it's appearance is timed or something, but i'm assuming i'll find out later.

I think you have to wait for a year and then collect the seven Dragon Balls again.

[Ronnie]

The game that keeps giving

 

[Mr-Paul]

So I originally bought this on Wii U. In these lockdown times, I've been tempted to pick it up again for Switch, but it's still soooo bloody expensive!

It's on sale on the eShop for £42, which is crazy. £33 on the South Africa eShop is a bit more tempting, but I'd prefer physical for my collection. Can't get a physicial copy for less than £45, it's mad, for something that's been out several years at this point! I wasn't even that big a fan of the game first time around, but I wanted to give it another shot on a console that I much prefer using...

Anyone got a copy they want rid of? Otherwise I might bite on the SA deal at some point and just have to look out for a physical copy in the future for collection purposes.

[darksnowman]

On 05/10/2019 at 1:15 PM, ArtMediocre said:

Someone remade the Breath of the Wild 2 trailer in true N64 quality 😁 Pretty good nostalgia vibes going on here. 

 

This is really cool.