The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

[Award]

I did the ball rolling motion puzzle. I didn't have much issue with the camera but the motion smoothing made it difficult. I really wish there was an option for that

I know the one you're talking about, I did the same thing! :P I almost think the camera was intentionally badly placed to force you to realize you can/should do that!

 

[Torloth]

It doesn't matter on how strong your shield is. Any one can work, including the Pot Lid. You just need the correct timing.

Wait you Parry it?
Yeah I can bearly pull off a party against swords.
I'll just use arrows instead X_X

 

[Flareth]

Hooo boy. I find it says a lot about how much stuff there is to do in this game that I've only just beaten it last night and there's still a ton of crap left to do/find. (And unlike most other games I've played, I also feel compelled to actually go after that rather than put the game back on the shelf and forget it exists. Whether that's a testament to Nintendo's design or the Switch's game drought, I dunno.)

But yeah, finally beat the game. Everyone says that last battle with Ganon's a bit of a let-down, which is kinda true... doesn't really bother me much, but mostly because I felt that way about the original Zelda and Ocarina of Time also. Plus all of the bosses in the game are kinda weak of you know what you're doing and keep your shield out. Kinda weird how the stronger enemies in the game put up more of a fight (lookin' at you, Lynel with the broken-as-hell Iron Crusher), but it is what it is.

(Also, pro tip: save your Zweihänders for Flurry Rushes. They're a bit too slow to be much use in regular battle unless you're feeling strong.)

It's not a perfect game, mind you: Mipha and Zelda sound far too similar (#ignorantamericanbias), Gerudo Desert gives off a sort of last-minute vibe, the framerate visibly chugs a fair amount for some reason (I think it's all the grass?), the enemy variety is lacking, and Moblins have a rare tendency to make the game hang a little after you beat them. But as I said before, these are all just minor nitpicks than real flaws.
...well, actually, the Moblin thing is kinda bad, but it's infrequent enough to be merely an annoyance.

Now, what to do... probably oughta search for the last of those shrines and buy/max out all the available clothing. After that? Who knows. Maybe go hunt down some more Lynels and beat them to a bloody pulp. They have good stuff.

 

[Amarae]

I have to disagree about the things to do bit. After doing the small handfuls of quests found in each town, half the time being some 3 minute thing or a shrine quest, I ended up feeling like "Wow I have noting to do but climb around on rocks looking for the other 20 shrines and Koroks.

BotW starts off really strong because it's this big world and all these fun mechanics and so much to see/d but it chugs to a near halt pretty quickly as well.

 

[Flareth]

Well, my run of the game turned out to be a giant mess as far as sidequests are concerned, with there being... 25, I think, shrines left, plus all the menial labour? Plus I tend to take a break every now and then to go track down better weapons once I start running low, which keeps me busy in between quests.

I'll concede that the novelty does start to wear thin after about an hour of wandering around in the woods with nothing to show for it, but I'm the kind of guy doesn't really mind. (Then again, I'm also the kind of guy who insisted on scaling the Dueling Peaks in the rain without an upgraded stamina bar, so I'm not exactly a paragon of advice...)

 

[Chaos_Knight]

But yeah, finally beat the game. Everyone says that last battle with Ganon's a bit of a let-down, which is kinda true... doesn't really bother me much, but mostly because I felt that way about the original Zelda and Ocarina of Time also. Plus all of the bosses in the game are kinda weak of you know what you're doing and keep your shield out. Kinda weird how the stronger enemies in the game put up more of a fight (lookin' at you, Lynel with the broken-as-hell Iron Crusher), but it is what it is.

You could to try to challenge yourself by starting a new game and going straight to Ganon without having to defeat the Divine Beasts.

 

[Achamo]

An easy way to pull it off is to watch for their eye to flash blue which is right before they fire their laser. Keep it in mind it'll work or not depending on near or far you are away from them.

Yeah, I tend to be up in their face when keeping this in mind. I'm more of a fast/instant reactor when I get my focus set on a signal.
It throws me off when I'm far away. Ha ha.
Parrying seems really broken it's silly considering you can parry legit anything, including Lynel's explosion, and fire blasts.

As for my status in game.. I finished the story, which by the way was great, but as a Hardcore Zelda fan, I now have more questions than there are Korok Seeds.. And demand answers! ....but that's for another time.

Anyways, I have completed all of Link's training (The Shrines), Currently working on the side quests, and searching for the remaining Korok Seeds.
I already maxed out the weapon, and bow inventory. All that is left is shield, so I've collected around 280? Or so. Not much yet, but we're getting there! I actually thought there would only be 99 seeds. My eyes expanded when I found out how much there really was.
I think I have all the gear (Minus the Amiibo ones), I guess I'll upgrade those when given the chance.. We'll see what else there is to do before the DLCs, which I am looking forward to!

..Small additional thing.. I had realized late (Since I almost never use my other arrows), I have 999 shock arrows.. which was interesting.
I have about 500+ fire arrows, 340+ Ice arrows, and 250 Bomb arrows.
Not really bragging or anything, but definetly something I had not realized, since I use regular arrows more..if anything I might continue this off and get max of the rest of the arrows.. IF it's not too much of a hassle..

 

[Flareth]

Yeah, parrying... I can never get the timing right with that. It's either too late and doesn't register, or too early and leaves me dead where I stand. I suppose it doesn't help that I've kinda relied on Daruk's Protection to soften any killer blows most of the time.

In other news: the Talus is a chump if you have a spear in hand. A bit of a pain to deal with otherwise, but it's a bit easier to handle than the Hinox, anyway. Makes me wonder why I kept avoiding them for so long.

Is there a trick to easily get the other Link tunics, or do I have to just get lucky with scanning the amiibo I have?

 

[Maave]

Yeah I just found the spear trick for the Talus recently. Easy money!

Parrying is whack on a lot of enemies because they have irregular windups. I finally got around to fighting some Lynel and it turns out they're easy to parry because they have smooth attack animations.

 

[Achamo]

Lynel's are probably the most satisfying to parry too!
At least in my opinion. Second would be Guardian beams.

 

[Chaos_Knight]

Is there a trick to easily get the other Link tunics, or do I have to just get lucky with scanning the amiibo I have?

Just reload your save and scan again until you get what you want. Then change the time on your system to scan again if you don't wanna wait days just for one set. Rinse and repeat until you got everything you want.

 

[SonnyBlueBalls]

Lynel's are probably the most satisfying to parry too!
At least in my opinion. Second would be Guardian beams.

I dont bother with that parrying / dodging nonsense. Hard to get the timing right with the different monsters / weapons. I just use sneaky / running away tactics.

 

[Flareth]

Just reload your save and scan again until you get what you want. Then change the time on your system to scan again if you don't wanna wait days just for one set. Rinse and repeat until you got everything you want.

Ah, so it doesn't give you the whole tunic set at once. Good to know...

Anyway, lesson for the week: it is well worth it to upgrade your gear, even if you only wear it sparingly. Otherwise you end up like me and almost die from an Icy Talus's punch-and-head smash combo, triggering Mipha's Grace and then immediately bringing you back down to 5 hearts. This is what happens when you don't follow your own advice...

Also, I still find myself questioning how the eighth heroine's sword managed to end up all the way on top of the Gerudo Highlands, while the statue itself lies stuck between two unassuming cliffs with no indication that it's there. I spent an entire night looking for that damn thing to no avail, only to find it the first thing the next day. At least I got lucky and found the sword way earlier, when I first arrived in the desert.

 

[Slushious]

My roomie got the game and the walkthrough for it at launch, so I got to watch her go through the game (the guide was basically so we could both enjoy it, I've been her Navi/Fi all along anyway). It took her about a month to beat it - all 120 shrines, all memories, all the sidequests, almost all the armor and a fraction of the 900 korok seeds. I was getting more of those seeds for her when I accidentally started my own game XD

Honestly? I haven't gotten this immersed since FFIX (and Minecraft to a certain degree). There's very little to not like...except Stals. Those guys can go jump off a cliff.

I've gotten super good at ninja'ing around Guardians. The baby ones in the shrines aren't so bad, and I'm gonna have to keep revisiting the 'training' one until I can shield-block and flurry rush every time like a competent person, but those Stalkers, man...instant NOPE. I also don't see the hype about Lynels. Their aggro radius is about the same as the Guardians' is, but they're easier to get around considering they move (and pretty slowly at that unless they come after you).

I have a particular Lizalfos camp I like to revisit in Lanayru, around the bottom of the road up to the Zora zone. They carry shock arrows and have decent bows and weaponry, and if you're patient you can snipe the whole camp pretty easily.

I feel really bad about bombing baby Taluses

Shockingly, despite my terrible aim in Splatoon...I'm MLG when it comes to Link Simulator, apparently. IDK how this happened.

 

[Flareth]

On a whim, I decided to check out the Hero's Path function shortly after the first expansion pak downloaded. The instant I learned that it made a note of every time I died, I decided I'd watch the whole thing from the beginning and tally up how many deaths I've had.

...it comes out to 126. And of course the greater bulk of them are before I took on Ganon; hell, a little over half of them came before I even made it to the second Beast in Eldin! Oddly enough, though, I think it counts Mipha's Grace/a fairy kicking in as a death, so the number may be inflated a bit. But still, it goes to show how rubbish at this game I was.

Other than that, I wasn't quite expecting the Hero's Path to bring back so many memories. Jumping off the Plateau Tower just to see what the Game Over screen looks like, the first encounter I had with a Lynel and a Hinox, my amazing(ly awful) journey along Eastern Hyrule without a map, getting stranded in the Wasteland mountains and then heading back, my initial attempts to take the Yiga hideout by force, wandering for hours looking for the 8þ Heroine statue, wandering for more hours looking for the Hebran Leviathan... the list goes on and on. I may or may not have gotten a little teary-eyed as I watched the entire recap.

So now I figure I'll get the Sword Trial out of the way before taking on Master mode. If what little I've read about it is true, then I'll have to save my planned challenge run for a later playthrough. I don't need to make it any harder than it's likely to be.

 

[Torloth]

On a whim, I decided to check out the Hero's Path function shortly after the first expansion pak downloaded. The instant I learned that it made a note of every time I died, I decided I'd watch the whole thing from the beginning and tally up how many deaths I've had.

...it comes out to 126. And of course the greater bulk of them are before I took on Ganon; hell, a little over half of them came before I even made it to the second Beast in Eldin! Oddly enough, though, I think it counts Mipha's Grace/a fairy kicking in as a death, so the number may be inflated a bit. But still, it goes to show how rubbish at this game I was.

Other than that, I wasn't quite expecting the Hero's Path to bring back so many memories. Jumping off the Plateau Tower just to see what the Game Over screen looks like, the first encounter I had with a Lynel and a Hinox, my amazing(ly awful) journey along Eastern Hyrule without a map, getting stranded in the Wasteland mountains and then heading back, my initial attempts to take the Yiga hideout by force, wandering for hours looking for the 8þ Heroine statue, wandering for more hours looking for the Hebran Leviathan... the list goes on and on. I may or may not have gotten a little teary-eyed as I watched the entire recap.

So now I figure I'll get the Sword Trial out of the way before taking on Master mode. If what little I've read about it is true, then I'll have to save my planned challenge run for a later playthrough. I don't need to make it any harder than it's likely to be.

Heros path is super cool.
I just started Master mode. Get good at being sneaky. Regenerating health on enemies makes it tough to kill them. With out elaborate traps.

 

[ZEROrevive]

I've seen the trailer for the new DLC. Looks like a ton of hard, kick my own butt fun. I'll definitely be getting it later once I pace through most of the game, for certain.

I just have to say though...this game makes me think alot of my childhood days with Wind Waker, and I love it for that. The explorations been a ton of fun, and I'm always finding myself wandering off the beaten path. It's like I'm creating my own story within a story.

Oh, and I love the horses...I still have my first horse. Reliable, never misses a beat. Good ol 'Smokey'...

I'm having too much fun with this game. It's holding me over until the Splatoon 2 launch pretty well!

 

[Chaos_Knight]

Meh, I'm getting the DLC when Pack 2 arrives. I'm in no rush.

Also, as a proud owner of the Wii U version, the file size hurts my soul.

 

[Flareth]

Spoiler

Cold****ed by a White Lynel's arrow while trying to climb a tower propping up a Guardian Turret. Twice. Wasting my last fairy. Hell of a way to end an otherwise-solid Final Sword Trial run. Thanks a lot, *******.

Have they given any reason as to why DLC 1 for the U is as big as it is? What, doth Hard Mode require a second copy of Hyrule to work or somethin'?

 

[ForteReborn]

I'm busily finishing most of it before I get DLC. Hero mode reminds me of the stranded island challenge, and I was craving more from it. Was a good break from the general gameplay where you have all your armor on, and weapons. Though I find it crazy how much the game breaks with using the metal boxes to stun lock enemies.