The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild Catch All

Jonman wrote:

So my daughter asked me if we have a bunch of old Zelda games, and when i said yes, she asked if I would take a day off work to show them all to her.

I'm gonna be honest, this sounds like an exhausting way to spend the day. It won't be too bad with the early entries, but Ocarina, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess have longer and longer and longer openings. And Skyward Sword, too.

I wish you luck on this endeavor.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Stele wrote:

Zelda II is consensus bad.

Second Best Zelda™

Yes, yes, we know, you love bad things and hate good things, that's what you have instead of a personality.

hbi2k wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
Stele wrote:

Zelda II is consensus bad.

Second Best Zelda™

Yes, yes, we know, you love bad things and hate good things, that's what you have instead of a personality.

D'aww. You're so cute when you're trying to insult me. I just wanna pinch your bare little cheeks.

I always feel like I must play a completely different game when people talk about Zelda II being terrible. In my view it's not even close to being the worst Zelda, let alone an objectively bad game.

Zelda II is a pretty good game but I don't think it holds up as well as the original. It's also not particularly representative of the rest of the series, which causes people to be less kind to it.

Most of the Zelda series consists of iterations on Link to the Past. When they made BotW they went back to the original and asked themselves "what made this specific game good?" and built it from there. That leaves Zelda II as kind of an orphaned outlier.

Zelda II is a gem. It's a big genre shift though, so I get why some people don't like it. It's an action platformer like Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden with a world map. If you go into it with that expectation you'll end up enjoying it a lot more.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Start with BotW, end with LttP. Best to worst.

IMAGE(https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/000/681/what-you-did-there-i-see-it.thumbnail.jpg)

I'm actually in the camp that loves Zelda II. I have to say, though, that my two favorite Zelda games are Wind Waker and Majora's Mask. To clarify, still enjoyed BotW, just don't think it's the end all be all that many seem to consider it as.

My problem with the durability is that it makes it so that every little while you have to go hunting to replenish your stock, which honestly became busy work. I'd much rather they allowed me to reconstruct/restore my broken weapons in some way. Hell, even the Master Sword became a shadow of its former self; it didn't feel all that masterful if it loses power so often. All that work and the biggest perk one gets with the Master Sword is that it doesn't "break".

What I loved about WW that other people seem to hate was the sailing, and spending all that time in open waters. With MM, it was the repetition inherent to trying to figure out the schedules and where to go - kind of like being an investigator on a stakeout. With Zelda II I liked how obscure everything was, and how refreshing the change in view (2D sidescrolling) felt to me as a kid; I revisited the game a little over a decade ago and still enjoyed it.

The good thing with Zelda games is that each game tends to have new mechanics, so whatever one finds unenjoyable in one game, will likely not be present in a follow up. That's my hope for BotW 2 or whatever title they give it; no more silly weapon degradation, and give the Master Sword the treatment befitting of a mythical weapon.

I really liked the weapon degradation and that it was one-way: things broke, but they didn't get fixed. I see it as a very organic way of level scaling. Enemies wield weapons at their level of power, so if you're in any area long enough, you'll end up at the same level as your opponents, up or down. I find that really interesting, and I like the way it leads to moments of improvisation and adaptation.

The only place where I think the weapon durability system feels unfair is fighting Lynels. Things break absurdly quickly on them, and you'll burn through a whole inventory of weapons before you take one down. The weapons you get are pretty great, but it can be frustrating to go into the fight with thirty weapons and walk away with three.

I was fine with weapon degradation as far as it went; it was a little rough in the early going when weapon slots were scarce, but by the early midgame once I'd unlocked a few additional slots I never found myself running out of weapons. It encouraged me to spend time with different fighting styles instead of finding the one weapon type I liked best, finding the weapon of that type with the highest stats, and never changing from it again.

The Master Sword functioned as a de facto durability boost for every other weapon once I got into the habit of switching to it whenever it was available and using it until it went back on cooldown in order to save wear and tear on the breakable weapons.

I’ve never had an issue with weapons breaking because like Clock said it leads to some interesting situations. I never felt like it bogged me down at all (never did attempt to slay a Lynel).

It bugs me more on a philosophical level. A lot of the guts of BOTW is logically sound. The physics feel “real” for the world, while not real for ours, as do the runes, the climbing and geography.

The idea that a well constructed steel soldier’s sword would break in 15 or so whacks doesn’t feel right for the game world. Or that you seem to lose the same amount of durability whacking a boulder for ore as you do a squishy chuchu.

I’ve finished 2 divine beasts and finished 44 shrines on my new play through. Still having a blast. I definitely hate the tilt-the-Switch puzzles, though.

Those tilt games were THE WORST. I couldn't twist myself enough to get those right. Doing them in handheld mode was a nightmare.

Weapon breaking left a bad first impression on me and was frustrating at the beginning. Then things got rolling and the weapons came in a little faster than I could use them. I just think increasing the durability would have cut down on the complaining. That comes with an assumption that it would also mean people would've been happier with the game, but that may be too optimistic of me.

The only thing I really disliked was the named weapons didn't last long enough to be satisfying. I'd have liked to use them more.

I have only one thing to add to this discussion:

The game's main theme SLAPS and should become a jazz standard.

(sadly you only hear that theme like twice in the entire game, so it may or may not sound familiar even to those who've finished the game)

Love it. My stepfather (just turned 71) brought his Switch over to ask for some help on BotW and I mentioned to him that I always turn music off in any game I'm playing but never even looked in BotW to see if you could - I really like it and the way they use it.

The sax player gets a +1 for the LBI shirt. I spent a lot of my youth there (with family) and at other Jersey Shore locations (with friends).

-BEP

Still picking away at master mode. It's amazing how fresh a replay is just a few years later. This is definitely the game I'd pick to take when stuck on a desert island.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Still picking away at master mode. It's amazing how fresh a replay is just a few years later. This is definitely the game I'd pick to take when stuck on a desert island.

Absolutely. I love how much freedom the game gives you to approach problems in new ways. Master Mode is also really interesting for how vulnerable you are in the beginning. I found I needed to develop better hit and run tactics, make more use of stealth, and find more ways to use the environment to my advantage.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Master Mode is also really interesting for how vulnerable you are in the beginning. I found I needed to develop better hit and run tactics, make more use of stealth, and find more ways to use the environment to my advantage.

Yep! I immediately got the stealth suit and wear that as my main.

It’s interesting. I didn’t employ stealth at all in my Master Mode run. Unless you count running away from fights that just weren’t worth it (damn near all of them on the plateau).

Agathos wrote:

It’s interesting. I didn’t employ stealth at all in my Master Mode run. Unless you count running away from fights that just weren’t worth it (damn near all of them on the plateau).

I mostly use it for obsessively collecting insect, and lizard ingredients. That may change when I get further in. I just unlocked the whole map.

Agathos wrote:

It’s interesting. I didn’t employ stealth at all in my Master Mode run. Unless you count running away from fights that just weren’t worth it (damn near all of them on the plateau).

I used it to steal weapons from enemies while they slept.

Well, this is pretty cool. BotW uses a version of Mii's for npc's

I look forward to being able to mod my beloved Mii, Penisface Jenkins, into BotW.

"it's still somewhat surprising that a system created 15 years ago is still being used in Nintendo's AAA software."

Is it?

I revive this ol' thread to say what everyone knew 6 years ago that I'm only finally figuring out for myself:

Hot dang, this game slaps.

I started it for the first time back in December, then got distracted by other temptations before coming back to this earlier this month and starting over with the bits and pieces I had picked up the first time 'round. This fine piece of work has finally gotten its hooks in me. Just today, I've:

- Navigated the Lost Woods
- Activated 3 towers I hadn't gotten to yet (Rito, Death Mountain, & Gerudo Highlands)
- Found the Rito Village and tamed Vah Medoh (Yeah, of course I cried when I heard the theme from Dragon Roost Island kick in)
- Found my 2nd Zelda memory
- Began shrine hunting to build up my strength of heart (only need 5 Spirit Orbs left)

First attempt I could barely grok the game's systems. I never caught a horse until this 2nd try, now I've got 4, including Goliath the Jumbo Horse.

I'm probably the millionth person to call this a "love letter to the Zelda franchise", so instead I'll say this: This game is reminding me of why I loved this series as a kid. Puzzles & adventure, wide fields (or at least ample screens) to roam, & cyclical legends playing out once more. I used to love all this more, and this is reigniting all of that.

So, I'll see this through to the end. No hard rush, though, 'cause at my pace, it'll probably be another 6 years before I take a crack at Tears of the Kingdom.

Nice!

I've said this here before, but my only advice is: don't feel like like Castle Gannon needs to be the last thing you do - visit it whenever you feel like a challenge, and if it's too hard you can always go look for more gear/hearts/etc. Progression-wise you can actually fight Gannon almost any time, it's just harder earlier in the game. But personally I left it until last and found it too easy.

Also note that fighting Gannon doesn't close any doors in the game - win or lose, you resume playing from a save point right before you fought him. So there's no better or worse time to fight him, just whenever you feel ready.

Thanks for sharing - always love reading stories of people discovering the magic of Breath of the Wild.

halfwaywrong wrote:

Thanks for sharing - always love reading stories of people discovering the magic of Breath of the Wild.

Agreed. It's my favorite game of all time and I'm pretty old.

My favorite part of the game is that I would head off to do something and 2 hours later I would be miles away from my goal because I got distracted by other crap I ran across. I didn't care too much about pursuing the main quest because running around in the world was so much joy.

My second favorite part of the game is that it is so accessible. My wife adores the game. She's not a big gamer when it comes to action-based games but she loves BotW. She has beaten it, maybe multiple times, but loves just starting over. I just love watching her play it because of our different play styles. She'll find a Bokoblin came and just go in it Leroy Jenkins style, whereas I will be sneaksy and use as much of the environment to clear it. The result ends up the same, except she does it 10x faster than I and breaks a bunch of weapons.

I really hope they don't change the formula too much with TotK. I would like something where things you do permanently change the world in meaningful ways, much more so than what happens in BotW.

We'll be buying 2 copies on Day 1 because there's no way we can share the cartridge this time.

-BEP

bepnewt wrote:

We'll be buying 2 copies on Day 1 because there's no way we can share the cartridge this time.

-BEP

Buy one copy physical and one digital. After you’ve both finished , you probably won’t play it again at the same time. So you could sell the physical version and have the digital that either one of you can play when you get the hankering

That's a possibility. I'd have to figure out how to share that digital copy. We have our own Nintendo accounts but neither of us have Nintendo Online. I've seen it asked in here how to share stuff before between Switches so I can go back and read if we go this way.

Appreciate the suggestion.

-BEP