Oh yeah, i just went nuts with a 3x lynel bow and bomb arrows
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I WAS SO READY FOR IT especially after replaying Twilight Princess last year. I mean, this game did break shit tons of traditions, but I was still so hopeful 
especially since the first form felt very… weak.
Not enough Paya love in this thread.
On the whole, while no NPC plays a large role who grows alongside Link (which is, imo, part of the drawback that an open world exploration game has; narrative is really damn hard to do), I found the sheer amount of unique NPCs pretty damn impressive, especially how each town felt unique
I think my favorite non main-story NPC in this is Kass, the accordion-playing Rito. Just generally a cool dude and the resolution to his quest chain is pretty good, too. Maybe my favorite thing about him is just wandering around and hearing his accordion tune out of nowhere, and you know there’s a cool guy around the corner.
I finished the game late last night at 27.46% and ooooooh, I love so much about this game, and the overall experience. All I can reasonably form a thought around at the moment is that I think this is a one-of-a-kind Zelda, possibly a one-of-a-kind game in general. I definitely don’t think they can or should make this exact style of game again.
Also, did some rough maths based on my playtime according to the Switch:
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Yeah, with regard to the Devine Beasts I want to apologize for jumping the gun about the effort/design put into them since I finally beat Van Naboris.
[spoiler]I’d say the Zora and Gerudo ones are the best since you actually do learn and start to have a relationship with both Sidon and Riji, with the Zora having scouts out looking for you (and at least another NPC talking about getting tricked by Sidon, making you think he’s going to end up being a jackass), and the Gerudo having not only the small quest to get the Vai outfit*, but the Yiga clan quest (which after about two failed attempts at sneaking in the last room, I just went wild with bomb arrows).
I’d say the “worst” of the four to me is the Rito one, since you just find their descendent just up the road, with the Goron one being ok until the mountain climb to calm their Beast just kinda gave me a bad taste in my mouth. But I liked the other calming sections, mostly because you were fighting alongside an ally, where the Goron one ended up feeling like I was fighting with his ai more than the flying Guardians.
Currently saved before doing the one Gerudo Town mission to find the soldier near the Leviathan bones to hopefully get the Thunder Helm. Then going to do a mix of shrine quests + Great Faries + remaining memories (plus the town in Akkala) before I finally do the Castle.
*: Ok, so Discourse isn’t letting me put this up there, but here’s a good article talking about the Vai outfit quest and how it’s a disappointing/sketchy part that is kinda-sorta transphobic, which even a white bread dude like me is uneasy with.
[/spoiler]
I’m probably one or two play sessions away from completing the main story. I’ll probably take a break to play some other games afterwards, and return eventually to do some of the side quests I didn’t get around to.
This game has been a really good ride. The last Zelda I played was Twilight Princess back in Gamecube times, and while I was in love with the aesthetic style of the game, and thoroughly smitten by my abusive demon waifu, Midna, the game itself often felt like a brutal deathmarch through a lot of empty space.
In comparison, Breath of the Wild is a joy to traverse. I’ve had entire play sessions that consist of me setting a waypoint in some remote corner of the map and just going there, and every time the game has rewarded me for this course of action by letting me find some shrines and Korok seeds, and the occasional quirky NPC.
It’s been really good. I’m really glad this was a game that got made.
I think I found the Goron one to be good because it’s not really a stealth section. If you do it that way it sucks, but if you just leave Yunobo behind until you kill the sentries with bombs or dropping metal stuff on them, it’s pretty fun.
Unrelated thing: my favorite part of the ending was seeing DESTROY GANON: COMPLETE after Zelda sent him into a black hole or something rad like that. I love when games use common things like quest completion notifications in unexpected ways. It was super satisfying.
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Yeah soon as I realized you could do that I was like yeah there’s no problem with this sequence at all.
Many of life’s problems can be solved by dropping a heavy metal crate on them
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Did a loop of sorts around [spoiler]the north-most edge of Eldin. Conquered:
• Memory wherein Link kicked the asses of a bunch of enemies
• Goron Climbing test Shrine Challenge
• Lethiathan Bones
• Zebra Lyonel
• Shrouded Shrine Challenge/Labyrinth
• Bridge memory about Zelda not feeling like she wants to/can be who she’s destined to be
• Serpent’s Jaws, at least up to where I have to get Farosh’s scales
Plus, found the Hinox Bros shrine quest on accident, though I resorted to a guide for where to put the orbs they fell, because I completely missed the huge flags by the platforms.
So, in all, a good night… and I mostly started just wanting to finish the Tarrin Town quest and check out the shrouded area above Lost Woods 
[/spoiler]
I’m hoping that Hard Mode being DLC is going to mean that it’ll have more substantial changes than just tweaking damage/HP numbers. Here’s my little Hard Mode wish list:
- Stasis+ still lets you stun enemies, but you can’t damage them and the cooldown is longer.
- You can only have one Champion power active at a time and they share a cooldown, so if you switch when one’s on cooldown, you don’t immediately have a new one available.
- Rebalance all the Champion powers so needing to choose between them makes sense. Maybe: less healing/no temporary hearts from Mipha’s Grace, fewer uses on Daruk’s Protection, smaller radius and no damage on Urbosa’s Fury (basically just adds a stun to your normal charged attack), Revali’s Gale can’t be used in dungeons.
- Some limit on eating. The more I think about it, I think a “fullness meter” might make the most sense. Eating makes Link full, and the better the food he eats, the longer he’s full. Link refuses to eat when he’s full, so using good food means you can’t eat again for a while.
- Eating makes you do the little eating animation in-world, rather than in the menu. We can make an exception for eating while climbing, unless they want to make a new one-handed eating animation for when Link is clinging to the side of a cliff.
- Temporary hearts and stamina (from Hearty and Enduring food) should expire after a short time. Rather than being able to just get 12 temporary hearts easily from a few durians, you should be able to get those, but they go away after 30 seconds or so, meaning that they’re only useful as a temporary over-shield for one fight rather than a serious way to extend your maximum hearts all the time. Hearty and Enduring food should also trigger the longest possible “fullness” cooldown so there’s an opportunity cost to using those.
- Fairies no longer revive you on death. They’re still useful for helping you cook and make elixirs, but now Mipha’s Grace is the only way to survive a death.
Walking home from getting groceries and I see lightning off in the distance, and I thought “Huh, time to take off my metal stuff — oh wait, I have the Thunder Helm — wait, what?”
This game has rot my brain. Next week I’ll be trying to climb my apartment, looking for Korok Seeds. The next week, in my underwear, swinging tree branches at cops.
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I’ve been replaying Wind Waker and caught myself thinking “oh shit, it’s raining, I’m not going to be able to–wait a minute…” more than once. Not quite the same as thinking that in real life, but, y’know, the game’s definitely in my head and I haven’t even played it in a week and a half.
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Breath of the Wild has consumed me.
I spent 12 hrs playing it yesterday.
help
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I think my next game after BotW is Night in the Woods, but I definitely am looking forward to restarting MM3D (I stopped in 2015 due to a back sprain + college starting), and then finally play WWHD sometime this year, 2017, the Year of Sidon.
Finally beat the game.
[spoiler]Got all memories and all Shrines, but wound up only wearing the cap at the end since I think the Champion Tunic looks the best of either of the non-amiibo tunics.
Even with the Beasts’ help, Ganon kicked my ass since I rarely parried (if I ever did outside of the final fight). Somewhat of a dissappointing final boss, but the Castle. Oh wow the castle.
Brought the white horse along with me, and after ditching her to climb the eastern side of the castle (and work my way through most? of the castle), I finally got to the first gate — from the opposite side you’re “meant” to approach it from. I knew and was on the look out for Lynels the entire time I was sneaking around, but the Blue Maned Lynel jumping down was a total surprise, mostly due to seeing my horse and being like “hey, there she is!”
What made this even better was I was going to jump on and save since I was playing before classes today and my alarm to get ready went off so that fight had some urgency to it, lol.
Overall, I really loved Breath of the Wild, and minus a few small gripes (I’d give it a ~Pitchfork 9.3~), it’s probably my favorite game now? I hope the DLC or any MM/gaiden-esque sequels take place after the ending, with Zelda in tow since I think they made her a really sympathetic and multi-faceted character — and not just a “damsel in distress” (more like someone who’s been putting in work while you’ve been napping?). That, and more labyrinths.
Thanks for putting up with my long winded posts.
I don’t know what I’ll do with my life now that the thing that’ve played for a month is over…[/spoiler]
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Details of what’s in the first DLC have been released.
https://zeldauniverse.net/2017/05/01/details-for-breath-of-the-wilds-first-dlc-pack-are-here/
From the description hard mode sounds… pretty disappointing. I was hoping for at least remixed dungeons for something I have to pay for. Maybe more details will be revealed later.
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