Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Main thread

[te72]

Figure we could use a thread just for this game, no?

 

If not for adult responsibilities like the mortgage, paying off my credit card, and needing to buy a transmission jack so I can make my Supra better... I would be buying a Switch, literally to play just this game. Not very often that a game makes me want to buy the console to play it. Last time was probably Valkyria Chronicles, on the PS3.

 

What makes it so special, you might ask? My thoughts, based on what I've seen and the impressions I've gotten so far, relate to some of my favorite games from the PS1 era:

 

Tail of the Sun: Large, open world to just... explore. Oh, but don't starve, so better make sure you hunt and forage. Be careful how far out you try to swim, you might not make it... Tail of the Sun made me appreciate how a simple game could mesmerize, and BotW shows it carries the influence of a persistent tribe of cavement from 20 years ago. This is perhaps my favorite aspect of the new game.

 

Metal Gear Solid: The combat of both games, is entirely up to you to engage or find other ways of dealing with enemies and the threats they pose. You can sneak, you can fight, you can sabotage, you can run. Weapons, procure on site, which I just now realized that "procure on site" would have an acronym of POS, which it seems a lot of the weapons in BotW are, haha. Aside from the combat, I think players of both games are going to have unique, if generally good, experiences with their playthrough. For a game to be both widely played, yet uniquely special to the player... I like that. Certain kind of magic in the design when a game can pull this off.

 

Final Fantasy 7: Honestly, the two games couldn't be much more different. One is an action rpg, the other is a turn based rpg. One has fantastic music, the other has... not much music. One has a deep story with defined personas, the other is a Zelda game, which is to say that the series has always been more focused on the gameplay rather than the story. All that said, both games are RICH with atmosphere. Every locale that I've seen so far in BotW just seems... fresh. FF7 had the same thing going on, every town was its own little (or big) place. For a big world to feel big, places have to be full of personality. Atmosphere checks off one of the big three boxes for me.

 

Portal: Ok, so Portal isn't a PS1 game. Heck, it isn't even a PS2 game. I can see a lot of the brain teasers from Portal carrying the influence into BotW though, and I really appreciate that.

 

It's like Nintendo took the best parts of some of the best games, sprinkled some of that Zelda charm on them, stirred it all up, and out popped a new Zelda game.

 

Now... put the extra $400 towards paying off the credit card, or pick up a Switch and BotW? This could be a hard one...

[twiztor]

bought this day one. played it quite a bit.

a bunch of stuff happened. vacation, weddings, friends, etc., and i took about a month off from it.

played it again this last weekend. Hit 50 shrines completed, finished my first Divine Beast (have two others that i 'opened' but never completed) and unlocked the entire map.

 

i freaking love this game.

[Phillyman]

over 100 hours on my game, 100 shrines, all 4 divine beasts and ganon cleared. Now upgrading armor sets and looking for the last 20 shrines and clearing out quests. No way I am going for 900 Korok seeds, I found 100 so far, if I can upgrade my weapon and bow slots, I care less about the shield inventory.

[te72]

I haven't bought my Switch yet. Considering the Wii U simply for the library on there is still really appealing to me, particularly Yoshi's Wooly World. Either way, I'll play this eventually, once real world priorities calm down a bit.

Philly, perhaps the amount of Korok seeds out there is just so you don't HAVE to find them all? Or is there some special reward for doing so? Seems like it would be as time consuming, if not more so, than finding all the special collectables in the GTA series, without any sort of guides.

[kitsunebi]

3 hours ago, te72 said:

Philly, perhaps the amount of Korok seeds out there is just so you don't HAVE to find them all? Or is there some special reward for doing so? Seems like it would be as time consuming, if not more so, than finding all the special collectables in the GTA series, without any sort of guides.

Wait, are you saying there are people out there who get 100% completion in GTA games without using guides?  That's madness.

[te72]

19 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

Wait, are you saying there are people out there who get 100% completion in GTA games without using guides?  That's madness.

I somewhat doubt that I still have the save file, but between my brother and I, I would not be at all surprised if we found all the hidden packages and stunt jumps in GTA3. That game was revolutionary for its time. Between having less disposable income, games being relatively more expensive, and the internet being used very sparingly back then (for us at least), we never had a guide, and played that game all the TIME.

 

Fun times.

[Data]

I have been chipping away at the main quest slowly.  Last weekend I made it to Gerudo desert and had to buy these lady's clothes in a bazare from a stranger so I could disguise as a female.  This is the only way for me to sneak into the sex segregated town and talk to chief Riju. 

I am now in the process of retrieving the lightning resistant crown from the thieves at the Yiga Clan so I may approach the divine beast Vah Naboris which has been terrorizing the area lately.

[twiztor]

On 5/10/2017 at 2:14 AM, twiztor said:

bought this day one. played it quite a bit.

a bunch of stuff happened. vacation, weddings, friends, etc., and i took about a month off from it.

played it again this last weekend. Hit 50 shrines completed, finished my first Divine Beast (have two others that i 'opened' but never completed) and unlocked the entire map.

 

i freaking love this game.

after yet another month-long break from playing, picked this up again the other day. i'm up to 88 shrines completed, all 4 divine beasts, and found the master sword. my plan is to hit 100 before tackling Ganon, so that is upcoming on my radar.

this game is still amazing. 

[twiztor]

finished this game up last weekend. hit 100 shrines and then took Ganon down with little effort. Amazing game. definitely plan to keep playing (at an even more casual level than i already am) to knock out as many side quests as possible. Also looking forward to the upcoming DLC pack coming soon.

[te72]

Congrats twiztor. I saw a sale on the Switch with BotW for $360. Have some priorities to take care of financially that I can't really just jump on that, but... it is tempting at that price. Winter is on its way though, and that is usually when I get my gaming on for the year...

[rockyboy]

I got the game on release and just can't get into it and haven't played it for at least a year now, got to make some time and have a real good go at it but i'm just not looking forward to it for some reason.

[Rando1975]

I just bought Breath of the Wild for Wii U from a pawn shop but it wouldn't work. It needed an auto update but would get an error every time. Checked on Google and apparently I wasn't the only one with the problem.