The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

[Strider77]

No need to justify it. He's just salty that anything with "Zelda" on it receives praise. And I enjoy the salt.

Right

[STG]

Anyway, regarding the game. I feel like Pikango (traveller you meet at stables) should talk about something else apart from just the fairy at Kakariko village. I found her before even encountering him the first time, and now I've run into him at stables around the entire game world, and he still talks about the same Kakariko "rumor". Do I need to do something special to trigger new hints from him, or did my game glitch out so he will never realise that I already found the fairy he's talking about?

Spoiler

Is that the traveling painter? IIRC you're supposed to take a photo of the Great Fairy Fountain, then show it to him. Maybe that's what's hanging him up from talking about something different.

It's also very hard to talk about because of it's open-ended nature. My sister has been playing the game about the same time as I have but we've accomplished very different things and haven't really been able to talk about specifics lol

Actually me and my younger brother are in a similar boat. I've been taking pictures of the map of sections I found interesting, just so I don't accidentally spoil anything for him (even though he's further along in the game than I am). Although it is crazy that we both are taking pretty much the exact same path in terms of what we've been accomplishing, so we've been able to chat freely for the most part.

[Sumez]

Spoiler

Is that the traveling painter? IIRC you're supposed to take a photo of the Great Fairy Fountain, then show it to him. Maybe that's what's hanging him up from talking about something different.

Seriously. :O Sounds very likely. I don't recall him ever saying something that could be interpreted as a request for a picture of it >_> I guess maybe I'm just slow. Will try it out.

[Shelcoof]

I'd say it's the superior version of Twilight Princess just due to not having stupid waggle controls. Now that we have a wii-u HD remake maybe the GC version of TP will see a drop in price. I've been debating buying the wii-u version, but I own the wii version and I don't remember liking it all that much. Playing it with a traditional controller would definitely improve the experience, but is it worth a purchase?

I don't see the wii-u version of BotW demanding a high price in the future because it doesn't offer anything extra from the switch version. People wanted the GC version of twilight to play it with a regular controller.

So yesterday was the first day since the launch of BotW that I didn't play it. I felt like I needed a break, my right eye was starting to feel a bit irritated (I work a desk job staring at a computer all day so staring at the TV at home for hours on end doesn't help lol).

Oh yhaa I totally forgot waggle controls on the Wii version. I own it but never played the Wii version. The thought of using Z to control my camera turned me off playing the game already.

If you have a Wii U and you want to play Twilight Princess then I don't see a reason not to play it over the GC version. I actually just picked up the Wii U version of Twilight Princess. Been wanting to re-visit the game for the longest time now. The HD version gives me enough of an excuse to do so even if I do own both the GC and Wii version :p

[dannnnn]

I'm about 10-15 hours in (honestly not sure), done the first divine beast and am really not feeling this game like I expected to. In fact I was ready to pack it up after my first day's play. I feel like they went for quantity over quality in a big way. About 80% of the map could be randomly generated every time I boot it up and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. At their best, Zelda games are so tightly designed that exploring every nook and cranny is a real joy, but here that kind of focused and rewarding design is nowhere to be found. Searching anywhere is a real slog and will likely lead to something totally inconsequential like a weapon (which will break two fights later) or some food items/materials. It barely even feels like a Zelda game in many ways. It feels empty... soulless.

I understand that the series has been in decline for a long time now and I appreciate what they were going for - a modern take on the original - but those ideas which sound so good in theory (cooking, for example) simply don't make for an enjoyable game. Now, instead of carrying four bottles' worth of fairies and potions, you can carry up to 60(!) health-refillable items in the form of your cooked meals, not to mention fairies and other abilities on top. How is that balanced? How will the later game be of any challenge when you can just heal after every hit? I know Zelda games aren't renowned for their challenge but still, it seems like far too much of a crutch. And where are the dungeons to even lose your health in? Seems they've been replaced and now everything is just a puzzle. The elephant is interesting and well designed, but it's just a series of puzzles... there has been nothing in here so far remotely like a typical Zelda dungeon- and dungeons are one of the strongest aspects of Zelda games! Almost every shrine is simply a one or two room puzzle. Again, they're often clever and well designed, but man do they become dull and samey after a while. There's nothing to really get your teeth into in this game, it's all just fluffy sidequest stuff which can largely be ignored if you so desire. I get that they had to fill the world up with something (and creating a map this vast must have taken an immense amount of work) but I'd take eight proper dungeons over 120 shrines any day.

I must mention that the graphics are stunning, they really make for some breathtaking views and the colours can be quite mesmerising at times. The visuals are the game's strongest point for me. Standing at the peak of a huge cliff and seeing the whole world around you - and knowing you can glide your way towards any of those places - is really, really cool and is done better here than I've ever seen it. Shame about the frame rate but it's not too big of a deal most of the time.

I'm not trying to be too negative or to put a downer on this game for anyone but it's just not my cup of tea and I thought I'd voice my opinion to offer a different perspective since all I seem to read everywhere is unabashed praise. I think if you're in the mindset to just shut your brain off and chill, then roaming the lands will suck up hours of your time, but I just don't find it very engaging and frequently, outright boring. Maybe I'm just too set in my ways, I don't know, but as a long-time fan of the series (ALttP and OoT being two of my all-time favourite games) I've heard people call this "the best Zelda" and I just can't get my head around that.

[Skykid]

I'm about 10-15 hours in (honestly not sure), done the first divine beast and am really not feeling this game like I expected to. In fact I was ready to pack it up after my first day's play. I feel like they went for quantity over quality in a big way. About 80% of the map could be randomly generated every time I boot it up and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. At their best, Zelda games are so tightly designed that exploring every nook and cranny is a real joy, but here that kind of focused and rewarding design is nowhere to be found. Searching anywhere is a real slog and will likely lead to something totally inconsequential like a weapon (which will break two fights later) or some food items/materials. It barely even feels like a Zelda game in many ways. It feels empty... soulless.

I understand that the series has been in decline for a long time now and I appreciate what they were going for - a modern take on the original - but those ideas which sound so good in theory (cooking, for example) simply don't make for an enjoyable game. Now, instead of carrying four bottles' worth of fairies and potions, you can carry up to 60(!) health-refillable items in the form of your cooked meals, not to mention fairies and other abilities on top. How is that balanced? How will the later game be of any challenge when you can just heal after every hit? I know Zelda games aren't renowned for their challenge but still, it seems like far too much of a crutch. And where are the dungeons to even lose your health in? Seems they've been replaced and now everything is just a puzzle. The elephant is interesting and well designed, but it's just a series of puzzles... there has been nothing in here so far remotely like a typical Zelda dungeon- and dungeons are one of the strongest aspects of Zelda games! Almost every shrine is simply a one or two room puzzle. Again, they're often clever and well designed, but man do they become dull and samey after a while. There's nothing to really get your teeth into in this game, it's all just fluffy sidequest stuff which can largely be ignored if you so desire. I get that they had to fill the world up with something (and creating a map this vast must have taken an immense amount of work) but I'd take eight proper dungeons over 120 shrines any day.

I must mention that the graphics are stunning, they really make for some breathtaking views and the colours can be quite mesmerising at times. The visuals are the game's strongest point for me. Standing at the peak of a huge cliff and seeing the whole world around you - and knowing you can glide your way towards any of those places - is really, really cool and is done better here than I've ever seen it. Shame about the frame rate but it's not too big of a deal most of the time.

I'm not trying to be too negative or to put a downer on this game for anyone but it's just not my cup of tea and I thought I'd voice my opinion to offer a different perspective since all I seem to read everywhere is unabashed praise. I think if you're in the mindset to just shut your brain off and chill, then roaming the lands will suck up hours of your time, but I just don't find it very engaging and frequently, outright boring. Maybe I'm just too set in my ways, I don't know, but as a long-time fan of the series (ALttP and OoT being two of my all-time favourite games) I've heard people call this "the best Zelda" and I just can't get my head around that.

Really appreciate this insight, thanks for sharing. Indeed dungeons, or at the very least fleshed out side missions, are the strongest point of a Zelda title. The rest of the game's merit is the beauty of the composition around those elements, which is why the earlier Zeldas stand tall over the newer.

I'm definitely intrigued by your take on this.

[Necronopticous]

@dannnnn - I deeply agree with almost everything you are saying, and I have more to add. I've been a bit busy, and there are a million other things to play right now, but I want to circle back once I absorb enough of the experience to feel comfortable passing judgement.

[Rob]

120 shrines

Good goddamn. I thought I had finished a fair amount of them. I don't understand how the shrine meter isn't constantly blaring.

Also agree with the criticisms. I enjoy the game, but I'd rank it below nearly all Zeldas pre-Twilight Princess.

[BrianC]

Personally, I'll be very disappointed if there aren't any sled dogs in this game.

[gbaplayer]

I am around 20 hours into the game, uncovered most of the world (only 3 areas left) and defated one titan, currently i try to farm rubys for better equipment for taking on the flying titan.
I like the game very much, but what really sucks are thunderstorms and breaking equipment and maybe the lack of more complex and themed dungeons like in the old Zelda games.

[Sumez]

I'm about 10-15 hours in (honestly not sure), done the first divine beast and am really not feeling this game like I expected to. In fact I was ready to pack it up after my first day's play. I feel like they went for quantity over quality in a big way. About 80% of the map could be randomly generated every time I boot it up and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. At their best, Zelda games are so tightly designed that exploring every nook and cranny is a real joy, but here that kind of focused and rewarding design is nowhere to be found. Searching anywhere is a real slog and will likely lead to something totally inconsequential like a weapon (which will break two fights later) or some food items/materials. It barely even feels like a Zelda game in many ways. It feels empty... soulless.

Funny.
All of this matches my first impressions of the game, mostly based on the starting plateau and the first few places I went after that. But the more I venture into the game world, the more new incredible experiences start to manifest, and the game just keeps growing and growing. Not just in scale, but in the overall experience.

Your criticism is basically things that could be said about pretty much every single other "open world" game created within the last 15 years or more, and one thing I think makes Breath of the Wild stand out is how well it actually avoids these pitfalls. I am surprised at how rewarding exploring exery nook and cranny actually turned out to be in this game. Just don't waste time doing it before you get the paraglider, as there's absolutely nothing to find there. Let that be a pro-tip for any people just starting out on the game.

[guigui]

About those long-kind-of-hard dungeons, anyone far enough in the game to confirm whether they do exist ?

[Rob]

I am surprised at how rewarding exploring exery nook and cranny actually turned out to be in this game.

You like finding the rock and completing the circle?

[Sumez]

I actually find the Korok mini-puzzles fun. Mostly because none of them take more than a couple of seconds to solve at worst. Those are not rewards for exploring though, they are merely little things to do on the way.

What I do like is approaching an island that I see on the map, and finding it shrouded in darkness, resulting in a mission to find my way through with nothing but the light of my torch (or kickass flame throwing staff). I enjoy seeing a crater in the distance and being exposed to a random miniboss fight when I explore it. I also like it when I decide to climb a random mountain and find a dragon sleeping, perched around the top. I love dropping into a circle of land and finding a carpenter tasked with building an entirely new village, requesting me to help him out. And I find it really fun when I make a random aimless trip to an island that I see in the distance, not sure I can even go that far from the actual map, and suddenly get stripped from all my items and challenged to essentially play the game "from the beginning" with nothing but what I can find on the island.
I guess I could be lucky that all the places I decided to travel just randomly happened to be full of new original experiences. But a more sane conclusion would be that the game is packed with this stuff.

Oh, mild spoiler warnings on the above paragraph, I guess...

[cools]

Just saying that the same thing could easily happen to the Wii U version of BotW. It was sold out everywhere like the day after release, while the Switch version was widely available. They are still restocking it though, but god knows how long they will keep it up.


Anyway, regarding the game. I feel like Pikango (traveller you meet at stables) should talk about something else apart from just the fairy at Kakariko village. I found her before even encountering him the first time, and now I've run into him at stables around the entire game world, and he still talks about the same Kakariko "rumor". Do I need to do something special to trigger new hints from him, or did my game glitch out so he will never realise that I already found the fairy he's talking about?

He does. He's actually very, very useful for a large section of the core game.

Re dannnnn's post: yeah, it's not Zelda. I absolutely adore the large and small scale puzzle element, far more than the traditional Zelda dungeon where you've got a basic attribute that is used throughout. I recently played OoT through for the first time (having given up bored in the past) and found a lot of it a chore. Also played LBW and found that vastly improved - I absolutely loved the item rental feature, though the "upgrading" of the items seemed to be a content filler with no real use. BOTW doesn't seem to have filler.

[Sumez]

I figured out the Pikango thing, it seems you have to find him in Kakariko after talking to him at a stables, to activate his quest that allows him to help you further.

"Unfortunately" he only tells me where to find the memory locations - which I guess is pretty useful, but I actually enjoyed figuring them out on my own, I have gotten all of them except from the Hyrule Castle one and that nondescript forest image.
I was hoping he would tell me where to find more fairy fountians. Frustratingly, the only fountains I have gotten hints for so far are ones I had already found on my own. But like every other aspect of the game, I refuse to use a guide for this. It's so much fun to explore this kinda stuff on your own.

I actually made a trip to Hyrule Castle yesterday just to check it out and see what I would find.

Spoiler

There are some nice weapons and "decent" treasures I guess, but I was kind of surprised how low level the enemies were compared to what you'll run into at some parts of the overworld. I beamed out before I got too close to Ganon, as I really want to save that part of the game for the end.

[BulletMagnet]

In case it hasn't already been covered here, be careful when starting a new game...

[Sumez]

I thought it's pretty obvious that it works like that.
What is stupid is that the game doesn't have a set of in-game profiles like every other Zelda game ever literally.

I'm sure most people noticed that their manual saves don't stick around. The game only retains the last few saves which works surprisingly fine.

[Shoryukev]

Yeah it has a rolling list of 4-5 save files to choose from. I haven't run into any issues with the auto-saves knocking my manual save off yet fortunately. It is a little annoying having to close the game, switch users, and then re-launch the game to let my wife play....but it's a minor annoyance.

I've completed 3 out of 4 main objectives now, and the game is still a lot of fun. I think I've completed approx 50 shrines (giving me 14 hearts and 4 stamina upgrades), and gotten map information for almost the whole world. Kinda funny, but even with that many hearts I've still ran into an enemy or two that can kill me in one hit. I got really sidetracked yesterday when I unlocked map info for a region and noticed something I absolutely had to explore.....half an hour or so later I had the master sword.

I have a question I'll put in spoilers, but it shouldn't spoil anything for anyone who's at least cleared 1 of the 4 main objectives.

Spoiler

When it comes to the missions of unlocking Link's memory, is there something in particular you have to do in the areas shown in the pictures to complete the objective? I'm not sure if just visiting the area is enough or if I'm supposed to actually do something specific. I've tried replicating the picture in the menu system.....but maybe I'm just in the wrong spot and it only looks like where I'm supposed to be? I talked to the painter guy and he pointed me in the direction of this giant archway area that looks just like the photo......but going there doesn't do anything for me.

[Sumez]

Have you been upgrading your armor? If I'm able to wear the highest defense items I have (when I don't need other stuff like cold protection etc.) even the strongest enemies in the game only take a few hearts from me with their regular attack. And I still need the final upgrade on most of my armor.

As for your question:

Spoiler

There should be a glowing spot that you need to examine, but it doesn't show unless you are fairly close to it. It is always in the exact location the image is taken from, so it should be "easy" to find. I didn't have trouble finding any of the 16 memories. Try paying attention to recognizable landmarks in the background, etc.

[Shoryukev]

I've only upgraded my basic set of clothing/armor a little, I think my total rating is like 22 or something. Most enemies only take a few hearts, but I ran into one last night on top of a snowy mountain that absolutely tore me into shreds in seconds LOL.

Spoiler

Okay, I never saw anything glowing so I was probably just in the wrong area. A few of the pictures seem to be fairly recognisable landmarks, but I just haven't really tried to find them after I thought I was at a location and didn't figure out how to trigger it.

On the armor front I've upgraded my basic clothing by two great fairies, but that's about it. I need to collect random enemy drops to upgrade some of the other clothing sets I have, and search (or buy) some more armor. I'm pretty lacking in armor equipment, I don't have much.

[Sumez]

Apart from that enemy you mentioned there, you really don't need a lot of armor in the game anyway. It just feels good to upgrade.
Of course, I still haven't beaten the game yet, I can't tell if it still has any more surprises left in its sleeve. And I'm really happy with not knowing

[Austin]

You will want that upgraded armor if you want to stop being killed in one or two hits. Especially for the later level Lynels (white hair/black hair).

[gbaplayer]

I beat Ganon yesterday and i must say the fight wasn´t that hard, at first i thought it would be ultra hard.
The finale on the horseback was only a challenge because of the dumb horse controls.
The ending was so lala....i expected a bit more.

During my playtime i discovered around 40 shrines and 25 grog seeds. I played more than 45 hours, but surely i will come back for a few more hours to explore more of Hyrule.

Next: Persona 5

[Sumez]

Final battle and the ending was definitely a letdown compared to the scope of the rest of the game.
Did almost 100 hours and ~109 shrines before I took on Ganon. Very easy fight even though I played horribly for most of it.

[Skykid]

I'd hold out for the hardware upgrade. Get a Wii U instead, they can be acquired really cheap at this point, and it has a ton of great games.

I took your advice, and glad I did.

The Wii U's library isn't exactly expansive, but this machine is loaded with gold - moreso than the Wii I'd say. And part of that favourability is BotW already being better than Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, and I've barely scratched the surface. So far so good.

But yeah, it's all Nintendo IPs or bust, with the exception of Bayonetta 2 (Zombie U is pretty intriguing too). Thankfully those first party games are treasures; damn shame the console got such a premature burial.

[DoomsDave]

But yeah, it's all Nintendo IPs or bust

Pretty much. I love the console and there isn't much of a library but what's there is great. ZombiU is... ok. I think it does a great job of nailing the atmosphere and there are times that are genuinely tense but it gets a bit tedious and repetitive. Probably still worth checking out for the price it is now if you're curious. I enjoyed Wonderful 101 but it's not amazing or anything. If you can get Rodea with the Wii version then that's pretty good, Wii U version is garbage.

Don't care if I'm laughed at by I liked playing Devil's Third. It's bad and controls like crap but I loved the cheese and was laughing at the awfulness almost the whole way through.

[Sumez]

@Skykid: Glad you're not regretting it. Nintendo went all in on that machine. I still have a lot of releases left to dig into, and I probably could have easily spent many more hours in Mario Maker alone if I got the time.

[bigbadboaz]

Nintendo went all in on that machine.

Disagree. I know it isn't what you mean, but if they had truly gone "all in on the machine" it actually might not have tanked completely. I.e: developing games that made compelling use of the GamePad so it actually had a buying proposition before sending it out to die. Or maybe even thinking the GamePad concept all the way through and realizing it was NOT the thing to stake your entire platform on.

There were major aspects of this platform they clearly left wanting.

I know you're referring to the quality of their AAA output and this is 100% true.. but it's true of all their platforms, isn't it? They'd have been out of the business since the N64 if not for their own homegrown shit.

[Despatche]

But not only did it not really tank at all (please study numbers and eras/markets and everything besides memes), and they did in fact make numerous games that handled the gamepad as well as a game possibly could (DS catch-22 where people ignore the games that use the second screen but keep begging for such games, it's tripe), and there was a concerted effort to undermine the thing from the second it launched, but the Switch is directly based on the Wii U and would not have existed otherwise. The third-parties didn't want another Wii, so they all bailed on it, and convinced "gamers" that claimed to not care for Madden or whatever that those games actually do matter after all. The Wii U saga is such utter shit, and absolute proof that gamers are unfeeling bastards. I'm so glad that the Switch is taking such a huge dump on everyone and everything.