Topic: Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch/Wii U)

[Shorty McNostril]

but I still think that the moment-to-moment gameplay of Breath of the Wild far outshines Twilight Princess.

The general gameplay is better in BotW, hands down. No arguments from me.  But I never had a problem with TP's gameplay.  But the terrible ending and fight just ruined it for me.

[Evan_B]

What was so terrible about it? I thought both phases were good, they just weren't hard, at all. Neither was Twilight Princess' final boss, although it was much more dramatic.

I am aware that, if you don't collect all of the memories, you get an alternate ending. Did you do that?

[Shorty McNostril]

What was so terrible about it?

[/size][size=78%]I am aware that, if you don't collect all of the memories, you get an alternate ending. Did you do that?[/size]

How does one do spoiler text here?  Is there an FAQ somewhere? I can't work it out and I haven't done it here for years.  I don't want to discuss it in open text.

[Stratos]

spoiler in [square bracket tags] before and /spoiler in another one after.


Check this thread in the general board for more posting tips.

[Khushrenada]

What was so terrible about it?

[/size][size=78%]I am aware that, if you don't collect all of the memories, you get an alternate ending. Did you do that?[/size]

How does one do spoiler text here?  Is there an FAQ somewhere? I can't work it out and I haven't done it here for years.  I don't want to discuss it in open text.

Or if you hit quote on someone else's post with spoiler text then you can see how they did it and what code you need to input with your post to cover the spoiler sections.

[Shorty McNostril]

spoiler in [square bracket tags] before and /spoiler in another one after.




Check this thread in the general board for more posting tips.

Ah, there's my issue.  I did [spoilers, /spoilers].  So close.


Now, where was I.

What was so terrible about it? I thought both phases were good, they just weren't hard, at all. Neither was Twilight Princess' final boss, although it was much more dramatic.


I am aware that, if you don't collect all of the memories, you get an alternate ending. Did you do that?

The final boss may as well have not been Ganon.  He was just a rabid beast with no personality or motives.  It may as well have been a giant bokoblin.  There was no dialogue or taunting or any reason to make this fight personal.  I felt absolutely nothing when I fought him, nor did I give the slightest damn when I defeated him.  It just felt like any other monster that I defeated.  I wanted Ganon to speak, I wanted him to taunt and at least give something more to demonstrate his rage and desires in person, rather than everyone else just telling me.  None of that happened.[/spolier]


 The first phase of the fight was interesting from a mechanical point of view.  Varied attack styles required different ways to evade and counter.  That was fine.  The second phase may as well have been a cutscene.  There was no danger at all.  I did the whole thing without even being touched as I suspect most people would have.  It was an interesting spectacle, but was as shallow as it comes.


Another gripe I had was that [spolier] Zelda was not in the final fight.  The game was telling us the whole time that Zelda had been fighting Ganon for the last 100 years.  OK.  I was expecting to see something epic that supported that implication.  A cutscene of the combat or even better fighting with her.  There was nothing.  We didn't even see her until he was defeated.  Why bother put her there? 


Now let's contrast the above with Twilight Princess.


We had reason to hate Ganon aside from being told to.  We actually met Zelda and she told us what was happening.  We saw Zant kill things on Ganondorf's behalf.  Then in the end battle he has mind controlled Zelda and we have to fight her for phase one.  That was perfectly done.  We are forced to fight her, and we hate Ganondorf for this.  Then phase three we actually have Zelda in the fight, with a real contribution to the fight, not just there for no reason.  And it's awesome.  After we freed her from Ganon's mind control she is now in the fight getting her own back.  All this is adding to the emotion in the fight.  We want Ganon dead. 


Then phase four is just Ganondorf and Link in a dual with swords.  It was a fun fight but also filled to the brim with emotion. 


So yeah, that is my beef with BotW. 

[Evan_B]

I do think that story is one of the things that suffered the most with the transition to the open-world, non-linear format. However, I think what you're looking for in Zelda is a narrative, and just because the "character" of Calamity Ganon is minimal doesn't mean it lacks impact or even importance. To clarify: you speak about "hating" Ganon in Twilight Princess because he's manipulated people that are close to you, and killed, or come close to killing, several people. Except the majority of the characters in Twilight Princess remain completely unscathed. Calamity Ganon has lost "his" humanity, if you can even assign gender to it, any longer. He is power incarnate, and he has done far worse than anything Twilight Princess Ganon has in his time. He kills four central figures in the narrative without mercy, whether or not you feel connected to them. He has unleashed the very Sheikah technology that was used to stop him on Hyrule and, in case you didn't hear any of the lore behind Hateno, wiped out most of civilization. The reason you have to regain control of the Divine Beasts and go to face him again is half because he wiped the floor with you 100 years ago, and half because Zelda was forced into a conflict that she was not prepared for.

Again, this is definitely a difference of opinion, but I never hated Twilight Princess Ganon, nor did I feel his reveal in the second half of the game was warranted at all. Zant was a more interesting villain in the first and second acts without Ganon being the puppet master, and then became a literal joke so that he could be swept away for the final confrontation, which was indeed dramatic, but really as a result of great aesthetics and music.

Now, that being said, I would agree that the fight against Calamity Ganon was disappointing, but for entirely different reasons. If I had known I would be taking off half of his health bar because of freeing the Divine Beasts, I never would have done so. I wanted to face this guy head-on and I expect that I will have a very different experience when Hard Mode rolls around, because, once again, I want a challenge. I also feel that, a 1v1 sword battle at the end of the game would have been a nice, intimate way of finishing things out, and that there should have been a third phase to the boss. As it stands, the climb to Hyrule Castle is harder than the final battle, which is pretty sad, and the final battle just doesn't ask as much preparation of the player as I had hoped. I still enjoyed the parallels that final sequence had with earlier fights in the story, where you had to disable the Divine Beasts before entering them.

[pokepal148]

Based on what I've played so far (i'm on my first boss fight and around 20 hours in) Link's Awakening is the only game in the series that BOTW hasn't surpassed. And those are such radically different games that it's hard for me to compare the two.

[Evan_B]

Hey, that's cool! Link's Awakening is my definite number two.

[Shorty McNostril]

Again, this is definitely a difference of opinion,

Certainly, and believe me I am in no way trying to diminish other's enjoyment of the game.  If the fight did it for you then this pleases me.  I would much rather it just be me that has the problem then the majority of the players. 

[stevey]

I am aware that, if you don't collect all of the memories, you get an alternate ending.

It's not an alternate ending, you get an extra cut-scene after "The End".

Now, that being said, I would agree that the fight against Calamity Ganon was disappointing, but for entirely different reasons. If I had known I would be taking off half of his health bar because of freeing the Divine Beasts, I never would have done so. I wanted to face this guy head-on and I expect that I will have a very different experience when Hard Mode rolls around, because, once again, I want a challenge.

It's actually worse than that. According to speed run videos, you have to fight all of the bosses from the divine beasts in rapid succession before phase 1 begins if you don't clear them beforehand. Also, the Master Sword becomes unbreakable in the fight which removes the worry of running out of weapons halfway into it and half the challenge.

Hopefully, the DLC's new story and dungeon content is Ganon's castle with a grander ending.

[Evan_B]

WHAT?! THAT'S EVEN COOLER!

[Luigi Dude]

Now, that being said, I would agree that the fight against Calamity Ganon was disappointing, but for entirely different reasons. If I had known I would be taking off half of his health bar because of freeing the Divine Beasts, I never would have done so. I wanted to face this guy head-on and I expect that I will have a very different experience when Hard Mode rolls around, because, once again, I want a challenge. I also feel that, a 1v1 sword battle at the end of the game would have been a nice, intimate way of finishing things out, and that there should have been a third phase to the boss. As it stands, the climb to Hyrule Castle is harder than the final battle, which is pretty sad, and the final battle just doesn't ask as much preparation of the player as I had hoped. I still enjoyed the parallels that final sequence had with earlier fights in the story, where you had to disable the Divine Beasts before entering them.

Wow it's a good thing I fought him before doing any of the dungeons then.  Since I didn't do any of the Divine Beast dungeons yet I had to fight all 4 of the bosses before fighting Ganon so it was my first time fighting all of them and it was a pretty crazy boss rush.  Especially since they make Thunderblight Ganon the last one before you can finally fight Calamity Ganon, and with only 5 hearts, Thunderblight in it's second phase kept killing me in one hit because of the added lighting in it's sword attacks.  Then Calamity Ganon took over 30 minutes to fight since all my weapons barely did any damage and all his attacks took me down to a quarter heart with each hit, with combined with the earlier boss rush, I actually got low on food by the end.  Oh and in the second half of the Calamity Ganon fight when he turns orange, he can only be hurt when you Flurry Rush or Parry his attacks.  I ended up down to the last sword I had to finish the fight which made it insanely epic and easily my favorite 3D Zelda final boss.

It seems people like myself who fought Ganon early on had a much better time then those who waited until the end.  I guess that kind of makes sense because the devs probably figured the most hardcore would try to fight Ganon right away but wanted to make it something the average gamer wouldn't be able to do, but still want a game most people will eventually be able to complete.  Beating him early on is something people aren't suppose to be able to do while beating him after completing the main quest is something Nintendo wants everyone to do hence why there's such a huge difference in difficulty.

[Evan_B]

That's super awesome, Luigi Dude, and it makes me want to do the same the next time I play through the game. However, I think Nintendo should have attempted to make the fight equally challenging and rewarding for both ends of the spectrum. If you completed all four Divine Beasts, he could still have been handicapped in the same way, but instead have had an additional, "desperate" third form. However, 3D Zelda final bosses have never been necessarily difficult for completionists, so I think the choice to make speed runs and intentional challenges more difficult is an awesome way to encourage replayability.

[Luigi Dude]

That's super awesome, Luigi Dude, and it makes me want to do the same the next time I play through the game. However, I think Nintendo should have attempted to make the fight equally challenging and rewarding for both ends of the spectrum. If you completed all four Divine Beasts, he could still have been handicapped in the same way, but instead have had an additional, "desperate" third form. However, 3D Zelda final bosses have never been necessarily difficult for completionists, so I think the choice to make speed runs and intentional challenges more difficult is an awesome way to encourage replayability.

They should make it the reverse in Hard Mode and make it completing all the Divine Beast make Ganon harder.  Nintendo has been pretty good at providing challenging DLC content and that would be an interesting way to give the players a new spin in that mode.

I mean if you take a picture of Calamity Ganon the description says that this form is an incomplete one that he was forced to take because Link got to him before he could fully regenerate.  It would be pretty cool if in the Hard mode he reaches his complete form because the player took to long by freeing all the Divine Beast, resulting in him gaining his full power so their attacks do nothing, which leads to an insane fight.

So I wouldn't put it past them to deliver in the Hard Mode.  Or make the boss of the DLC dungeon be super hard, almost requiring the players to have all the best equipment and maxed out hearts and stamina just to survive as a great way to cap of the Breath of the Wild experience.

[Evan_B]

I have my fingers crossed. If they did a Cave of Trials properly and factored in the kind of preparation and resources available in Breath of the Wild, it could be extremely difficult. Likewise, another dungeon could pull out all the stops and have a super-hard boss.

[Ian Sane]

I think the most satisfying thing to do in this game is when I scale a tower and unlock the map for the area.  I like filling in a map for a game like this anyway though usually the approach is that the areas appear as I explore them.  Here it's an odd mechanic in that I may end up exploring a lot without a map and will feel pretty lost at times.  And then when I unlock a map I immediately scan it and think "hey there is some lake over there.  Better check it out."  It's also fun to see this ever increasing area of discovered land and then looking at the still large area that's untouched.  I currently have half the map though there are two areas I have explored a fair bit but but have not scaled the tower due to being guarded by enemies I think are a little too tough for now.

The towers themselves usually have some complication that makes it difficult to just walk up to them and scale.  That's pretty fun.  I usually have to really rethink my approach and plan ahead.  I conquered one recently that was really difficult until I thought "what if I do this" and it worked!  I love how there are usually multiple ways to tackle something.

Though there is a rule in the programming for this game: if you want to climb anything it will start to rain.  Somehow the game knows my intentions where I can be riding my horse halfway across the country and it will know that I'm going to stop at that mountain to climb it, so it should start raining just as I arrive.

[KeyBilly]

Yes, the rain has hit me a couple times too.  The second time, I was in such a bad position that I just put the controller down and waited for it to stop.  It started again, and I waited it out again.  I could really use an ocarina with some weather songs.

The towers are usually fun to "solve," and my only suggestion for future games is that the area around Link automatically fills in as he moves through an area, similar to other games.  Having a record of where I've been would be great in general.

It finally happened. I got burnt out on exploration.  It tends to be the same thing over and over after a while, with the main entertainment being messing around with physics.  So, I decided to take a break and head to the top left Beast area for some narrative progression.  It was there that I found the cutest thing I've ever seen in a videogame -- Rito kids.

[ShyGuy]

I wish you could go inside the towers of the Great Bridge of Hylia. It has a real Dark Souls vibe.

[nickmitch]

The rain bugs me too.  I think there was a perpetual rain area near a cliff I was scaling, and I had to climb around the cliff to avoid triggering it.  Not sure I ever bothered to see what the rain was about because I got distracted with something else, which turned out to be a solution to a shrine quest I had been ignoring.

Usually what I'll do when I'm fed up with the weather is warp to a town, sit at a fire, and come back.  There's an indoor fire or two out in the world, which is nice.  But if I'm too far gone from the closest shrine, I have a climbing technique that helps me scale shorter lengths, but that only works so much and uses a lot of stamina.

[Evan_B]

I do think that the full climbing equipment set should negate slipping in rain, but I also think that a Hard Mode would benefit from having limited teleport points, or only being able to teleport to towers, because rain is such an easily avoidable nuisance.

[ClexYoshi]

PROTIP FOR PEOPLE BEMOANING THE RAIN

While none of these are perfect solutions, there are ways to circumvent the climbing restrictions.

First off, link only slips off the object he's climbing after 5 footholds, or rather... 5 movements of his limbs? so at that point, let go if you're at a slope where link can do the run-up trick by holding up, or if you aren't, use the wall-scaling leap, as it will leap you up and then slide down, netting you progress on the wall, abeit for much more stamina than normal.

you can attach octo balloons to things to briefly use as dirigibles to try and see about riding them for a little verticality, although be careful that you're not using anything metal since that's just as likely to bring down the thunder as your equipment.

and of course, Revali's Gale

[Caterkiller]

Hey are there any clothes for dealing with heat or do I have to visit Gorons constantly drinking Elixirs?

[nickmitch]

Hey are there any clothes for dealing with heat or do I have to visit Gorons constantly drinking Elixirs?

Yes, there's a guy at the southern mine who will trade you a fireproof top for some fire-proof lizards.  Or you can go to Goron City and buy the armor set from the shop.

[Soren]

So I found the Master Sword. Just happened to get to the point in the map where the great Hyrule Forest is located. Once you start seeing landmarks like Saria's Lake you pretty much get the correct hint of what's going on. I wanted to go to Saria's lake but sure enough the Lost Woods loop set in. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Only got lost a few times but it was totally worth it to get to meet the Great Deku Tree again. At 9 hearts I did not have the necessary strength to pull out the sword which I guess is good enough to work an effective gatekeeper for people for people who stumble into it earlier in the game. It also completely removes it from speedruns.

It does add an interesting wrinkle to people who are emphasizing stamina over hearts. Although with enough rupees you can probably exchange vessels for hearts at the Hateno Village prayer statue and cheese it that way.

43 shrines so far. 1/3 of the way through.