The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Like Wario First Thing in the Morning)

My copy arrived today! Yes, it's for Wii U, and yes, it's a few days after everyone else, but shut up you guys.

Yay! The game is just a masterpiece, so I'm sure playing on Wii U will feel fantabulous.

I've just stepped into my thirtieth shrine

You've streaked ahead of me Drunka, I'm only on number 16. And I've not exactly been ploughing on with the main story either. I've got myself a whole bunch of side-quests (just completed the traditional Cucco-finding one. Ah, nostalgia), and now I'm going to climb a mountain because it's there.

I love having a Zelda game in which I can climb a mountain because it's there.

What special horses has everyone found? I've only found these 2 so far and I was wondering if there was any more, I have one with max stamina and one with max strength so I assume there's one with max speed somewhere

Spoiler:

Drunkalilly wrote:

I did a different Divine Beast first, and while I do agree with what Athers says about the magic of the experience I don't think it's fair to say the sections with dialogue and cutscenes are the only sections with story. Andi Hamilton puts it well on the twitters.

Oh I didn't mean it that way if it came out like that, what I meant was the juxtaposition between gameplay and normal storytelling elements of cutscenes and dialogue weaved a more compelling story than something that focused exclusively on one or the other. The gameplay sections were great, the cutscene sections were great, but without their other halves alongside them neither would've been as good as they were. The game showed fantastic ability to know when to apply each.


On to my second Divine Beast now, or closing in anyway. Loving the humorous bend to the Gerudo section!

The_Jaster wrote:

Athrun wrote:

Best weapon is the spear in my humble opinion, absolutely love the way it jabs at enemies fast, although being unable to use a shield means it's less practical than swords or rods.

Now this can be a bit tricky to pull off in the heat of battle but it isn't impossible to time putting your weapon away & then pressing ZL to block.

Yeah, I think I might have to practice doing that, haven't got enough one-handed weapons right now.




As an aside, anyone here been to Eventide Island yet?

Everyone sounds so far into the game, I literally started 3 hours ago, whizzed through the plateau with ease because I've seen it a thousand times n gameplay footage, I still really enjoyed it though. I'm getting stuck into Hyrule Kingdom now, there's so much to see and do- I've literally spent the last 5 minutes of my life chasing a fox. Sheer bliss.

Athrun888 wrote:

The juxtaposition between gameplay and normal storytelling elements of cutscenes and dialogue weaved a more compelling story than something that focused exclusively on one or the other.  The gameplay sections were great, the cutscene sections were great, but without their other halves alongside them neither would've been as good as they were.  The game showed fantastic ability to know when to apply each.

Hear, hear! That's the mark of a game that really gets what games are and can be.

Quote :

As an aside, anyone here been to Eventide Island yet?  

Not personally, but your man Jay was bigging it up the other night while we were playing Monster Hunter.

NintenDUCK wrote:

Everyone sounds so far into the game, I literally started 3 hours ago, whizzed through the plateau with ease because I've seen it a thousand times n gameplay footage, I still really enjoyed it though. I'm getting stuck into Hyrule Kingdom now, there's so much to see and do- I've literally spent the last 5 minutes of my life chasing a fox. Sheer bliss.

I'm probably at around 50 hours and still finding it exactly the same. Pure joy.

Athrun wrote:

As an aside, anyone here been to Eventide Island yet?

Aye and it is still one of my favourite moments in the game so far.

Eventide Island spoilers:

It put the willies up me, I don't mind saying. Especially given that it storms when you arrive, and everything near you is crackling.

Actually turned out to be quite helpful:

Also the little blue surprisingly accurate Octoroks can get beyond stuffed.

So...I didn't have the storm when I arrived on the Island.

Eventide is my favourite sidequest so far, although it was rather annoying when I got a bloodmoon while I was there

Eventide is cracking - I don't want to spoil it for those that haven't been there, but it's easily my favourite side-quest in the game thus far.

I've been steadily plowing on with the game, myself. I can see me beating all of the Shrines in due course as I'm up to 70 odd shrines beaten now and I'm still up for more. My main quest is actually winding down as I've cleared three Divine Beasts and recovered all of the memories as well. I've had a jaunt up Death Mountain too, so I've not got too much to go in regards to the main story.

As an aside, I actually gasped when this track started playing:

Mild Rito Village Spoilers:

Between work, boozing, watching Kong films and otherwise being knackered, I've fallen behind in my Hylian hijinx. I should get some good opportunities to play more over the next couple of days.

My ears wept blood red tears of joy* when they noticed that music Jay. The sparse soundtrack overall makes me really appreciate it when I do pick up on it.

*I consulted my doctor. He started screaming and hasn't stopped. There's a glazed look in his eye, and though his lamentations have lasted hours they only grow more frantic, more blood curdling. I dare not risk a glimpse of the microscope that was the instrument of his despair, nor the sample of blood which it perused.

Wow! I feel like I've played this a lot, but I'm so far behind all y'alls, so I can't join in the conderversation

Whyever not sir? Wherever you are, there's something in this wonderful game to be talked about.

I, for example, am actually doing some story stuff for the first time in ages. Damn clever of the game to have perma-rain, so that you can't just clamber over everything to the goal. Damn clever. And it looks beautiful glinting off the rocks. Wii U game what?

Red Zora is a muppet though.

Aww, I like Sidon. He's a top guy fish.

In other news, I decided "bugger it" today and decided to wrap up the story stuff I had left. I'll not say too much, of course, beyond that it'll take a miracle for something to usurp this as my game of the year. I had genuine chills during the finale.

...and then everything came crashing down to earth when I got to see my completion percentage when I loaded up my post-game file.

Somehow, 90 shrines amounts to 22% complete... I'm guessing those Koroks are a bigger chunk of completion than I'd though.

Compendium too, presumably.

JayMoyles wrote:

Aww, I like Sidon. He's a top guy fish.

Presumably you have no such defence for his sister? What a characterless wet blanket.

Sidon is a beautiful and perfect fish man and I'll not hear otherwise.

Balladeer wrote:

You've streaked ahead of me Drunka . . . I'm going to climb a mountain because it's there.

Ironically, based on what else you said, I think I only just climbed that mountain today! I've been pursuing memories and the mountain was right there and, well, like you say . . .

Nope - I had enough rupees to buy the remaining pictures I needed for the compendium and it didn't affect my completion percentage at all.

Oh yeah, I was utterly bored by her and her lifeless voice acting didn't help matters at all. The only good thing to come from her really is...

Post Zora Main Quest Spoilers:

I feel like my progress is all over the show, I was dealing with the fishy fellas before I'd even got the camera! Over the past couple of plays I've helped a chilly Dragon out before clearing the ol foggy forest and a some dark place.

I've been trying to colour in the map by climbing all the towers, only a couple of those left, although I'm going to have to have a session dealing with shrines left undone and quests unattended. The exploring is just too good.

Any complaints I've got about this game are very minor, I can see why this got so many 10/10s. I'm sure I've plenty left yet before I finish but this is probably my new top open world game ahead of the witcher 3.

It's awfy good, isn't it? I'm with Drunka - Sidon is a perfect fishy hunk. Haven't continued the story past Zora's Domain yet because I've been fannying about climbing towers - and I'm currently trying to track down the Koroks' base so I can see that chirpy maraca dance whenever I like.

I haven't read many reviews, so this may have been brought up already - but does anyone else feel like the shrines are like the test rooms from Portal? Felt very much in the same vein to me.

I have not named any horses Epona. Two of them are named "Poot" and "Parp" because that's hilarious.

Jay wrote:

Somehow, 90 shrines amounts to 22% complete...

The shrines have secret chests to collect as well so I wonder if that adds to it?

(A chest icon appears next to the name on the map when you have them all)

I've been deliberately avoiding any reviews or content of any kind, but a portal comparison seems fair. They've both taken the same approach of boiling gaming down to pure puzzle gameplay.

Aye agreed on that, they also remind of Metroid Prime as well in the way you have to navigate some of them.

I've done all the Divine Beasts and got myself the Master Sword but I'm planning on doing all of the Shrines before I go to Hyrule Castle. I'm glad pretty much all of the Shrine puzzles I've done so far feel different, I went into the game expecting them to just be the same few puzzles with minor changes