Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

So far all of my economic constraints have felt like part of the fun instead of feeling like they're in the way of it. The launch towers and sky island shrines already break the map in half, and the developers took all their favorite playtesting cheats and gave them to us in the tutorial.

I guess if there's any game where cheating is still in the spirit of the game, it's this one, but I haven't felt any need to indulge.

No cheating for me. I never felt like I was lacking any materials or money. If I really want a piece of armor I can always sell off a bunch of stuff otherwise Ill get by without it. The game never makes it feel like something you can purchase is vital to progression.

Yeah, just like in the previous game, the big grinds come from trying to fully upgrade a variety of armor and engaging with optional side content, mostly in

Spoiler:

Tarrey Town

The first gives a bit of extra comfort in combat, and the second is a cosmetic type of player investment situation. Neither is necessary to enjoy the game, and your mileage will vary as to how short cutting the associated grinds would affect your enjoyment of the game.

Heck, if you’re struggling with combat, duping your way to a few armor upgrades might even make it more fun? But, definitely worth exercising restraint so you don’t remove too much motivation to explore. Honestly, I suspect the avalanche of free resources that you can get legitimately via amiibos could be just as detrimental to your enjoyment.

Balthezor wrote:

Are you guys actually doing the item dupe? I feel like cheats always ruins the game for me. Takes the challenge away... I'm not sure here.

You bet I am! I have at most 2 hours to play a day but really it is more like 10 hours a week not 14 so not every day.

FF16 is coming out in a month, I still have a huge backlog and it often seems like something new pops up on my radar (I didn't expect to get Dredge for example)

I want to enjoy my gaming time. It is my hobby so if it makes the game more fun I will be using it anytime.

And speaking of I had a great time last night. I completed the wind temple once I figure out to equip cold resistant clothes not just better ones. I also did some more underground exploration. Very fun.

I must admit after finishing I was a little disappointed it was so short. It felt like just a slightly bigger shrine with a boss as well as puzzles. Nothing like I remember the temples in Ocarina of Time.

I definitely felt like it was long lol. It might be because the temple itself felt like the final chapter of a longer quest, but I was definitely ready for it to completed when it was. For me it would have worn out its welcome had there been more involved in the temple itself. The real dungeon was getting up there, and it was fantastic. Definitely a fun section of the game I wasn't really expecting at all.

This video popped up in my YouTube feed last night. I assumed it was clickbait because of how simple it looked, but I decided to give it a try, and man... they weren't kidding. In terms of pure usefulness, this vehicle is the best I've tried by far.

I threw a large brightseed on the front of it last night and used it to map out a bunch of the depths that would have taken me so much longer otherwise. I will probably limit myself on how much I use it because it kind of feels like cheating.

The only catches are that you really want to have at least a few extra battery segments to power it for a reasonable amount of time, and it's surprisingly finicky to assemble, so I really wouldn't recommend it until you have the power in the bottom right section of your power wheel.

I'll put the video in spoiler tags in case anybody doesn't want to be tipped off by the thumbnail.

Spoiler:

That's a really nice vehicle. I only have 1 extra full battery so Im not sure I can get as much out of it as 'paraglide into drop-on-midair-wing, which is my favorite thing I figured out how to do, but I will try it out next chance I get.

Oh I am building that when I play again!

farley3k wrote:

I must admit after finishing I was a little disappointed it was so short. It felt like just a slightly bigger shrine with a boss as well as puzzles. Nothing like I remember the temples in Ocarina of Time.

I consider the lead in to each temple where the companion accompanies you to be part of the temple and the lead in (so far anyway) has been a much bigger and more interesting task than in BotW. I am still a little surprised at how short the 'inside' temple sections are, but the additional mileage on the way in does a lot to make it more satisfying.

I guess but I tend to think it begins when you get the splash screen that says the temple name.

Air bike looks awesome. Can even do stupid korok reunite quests with it.

I did hit the dispenser that gives out controls a couple days ago so I have several of those now. Should be doable.

I didn't really plan to go after towers next, but it's so easy to go from unlocking one tower -> exploring the sky islands right around it -> using a combination of wings and gliders to get almost all the way to the next tower that I wound up doing a circuit around most of the map last night unlocking towers. I think I'm only missing two now. I haven't gotten the hang of the trick of deploying a wing in midair and landing on it, but taking a wing + fan/rocket to gain some distance from a sky island, then gliding until I run out of stamina has usually been enough, especially if I keep an eye out for falling rocks that I can Reverse to gain height for another glide.

I completed my second Stamina wheel and have started on max HP, and I found the jerk that expands your inventory slots again and burned the rest of my Korok seeds so I've got a little more room to breath on my weapon, shield, and bow collections. (I never really wind up running out of bows so I mostly only bought those slots because they were cheap and I didn't have enough seeds for any more weapons or shields.)

I can feel myself moving past the tense early game where I have to meticulously hoard resources and avoid all but the easiest combats unless I have a very specific plan for how I'm going to handle it, and into the midgame where I have enough resources that I can relax a little and kind of wing it most of the time.

Found something cool in the underdark, mild spoilers:

Spoiler:

Looks like those lovable goofs the Yiga are back, and apparently I'm not the only one who's learned the trick of futzing around with Zonai tech. They had a little fort there with a dude patrolling with a wing + fan setup. A homing arrow knocked him off his ride into a patch of gloom where he presumably died, and I took out the only other dude there with a sneak strike. Found a couple chests with some crystal dealies all nice and pre-refined for me.

I suppose I should really get serious about finding forge constructs so I can start upgrading my battery capacity. Folks have told me the best / easiest places to go in this thread, or I could look it up easily enough, but I think I know the general direction I need to be searching, so I think I'll just keep blundering in that general direction until I discover it more-or-less myself.

My favorite thing in the game so far is when I find the makings of a fanboat (a fan or two, a steering column, maybe a couple batteries) by a riverside someplace. It's super relaxing to guide my raft down the river, taking in the sights, maybe pulling off onto a sandbar to harvest some ingredients or knock out a nearby shrine before continuing on.

My least favorite thing is when I'm right in the middle of building a vehicle or fighting multiple enemies when a bloodmoon procs and resets everything I'm doing. I sort of think the game should give you some kind of grace radius around you where things don't reset. I get that making absolutely everything you do absolutely anywhere in the world perfectly persistent would be a programming nightmare, but I worked hard on that vehicle, don't take my toys away right as I'm playing with them.

I have defeated the

Spoiler:

Gleeok King

and I am tired (but looking fly with my neat outfit!)

IMAGE(https://i.redd.it/jc4m938fsq1b1.jpg)

Wells?!

OK now they're just trolling...

Air bike

OMG air bike for life bro!

Built one in depths and just zipping everywhere, even with only my 2 full batteries. Think I have enough for 1 or 2 more bars so I'll go try that.

It really does suck juice but it really does move quick too.

If you see a cherry blossom tree with a bowl in front of it, maybe offer it some fruit...

Stele wrote:

If you see a cherry blossom tree with a bowl in front of it, maybe offer it some fruit...

Spoiler:

bloopies too (the blue bunnies) if you spook them instead of killing them

I wrapped up my fourth temple tonight, near Gerudo. The temple felt a lot smaller in scope than the other three, and much more straightforward.

Finished a labyrinth tonight. All 3 map parts. That was crazy and fun. Still only one temple done but I'll get there eventually.

I’ve got 20-25 hours in and have never seen a temple or heard of a labyrinth such a massive game.

So after my antics in Gerudo last night, I went back down into the depths and finally progressed the quest line that goes down there;

Spoiler:

I got the last ability, and also enough resources for 4 additional battery segments.

Lined up for tonight is to teleport over to the lab to see what upgrades he has for me there.

Yeah I finally followed up the landing quest so goggles went back to Haterno. Now I need to unlock that east area of the map. I got to Kariko but not to Haterno, Tarrey, or Lurelin yet. NPCs keep talking about all these villages, I really should find them.

I've unlocked all but I think 2 map towers. I've visited Kakariko and Haterno (and done some of their quests), but have not visited Tarrey or Lurelin yet. I went on a massive map tower unlock fest after Rito, as a diversion before heading up to Goron City.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Oh. That's a very unsatisfying puzzle given what the dude tells you at the door. Also just weird to me given the space. That more feels like a way to break it.

Bleh.

Agree. I waited until Kit got there to see if she could figure it out.

It would have been better to have the guy say nothing than to say what he does. Then the focus of the puzzle solving wouldn't have been on the red herring.

This is the only thing I've looked to the internet to solve so far.

-BEP

Got the sky bike working only to realize I only had one battery so I can get about as far as I can sprint but it was fun to build.

farley3k wrote:

Got the sky bike working only to realize I only had one battery so I can get about as far as I can sprint but it was fun to build.

Yeah. It's quite energy efficient, but you use a big chunk of battery just to start it, so you really need at least a few battery upgrades to make it work. I'd guess one full extra battery would be enough. I have 3 extra batteries, and I can fly for a long time.

I got the fourth L1 power yesterday, got one full extra battery, and built a sky bike. With two full batteries it's powerful, but not quite gamebreaking. I can definitely see where much more than that and it would start to get insane. It's FUN though.

Yeah full batteries, 6 bars, feels like a spot for the air bike to be effective but not broken.

I got 3 more bars this morning and need to try it out again.

Goron temple down. Fun enough but not a dungeon. I liked the boss.