Topic: Zelda - Difficult for an old timer!

Hey folks,

I got Zelda on Friday night. I've played for a few hours. In all honesty, it's a lot harder than I expected it to be! Food seems kind of scarce, and I get beat up in fights. I think it's my lack of coordination and questionable reaction times. It's fun, but at the same time, it's actually kind of stressful!

Any survival tips, other than "get good?"

Thanks!

It's not a difficult game IMO. Just keep your shield up (you have to put away your bow / spear / axe for Link to raise it while Z-targeting). Enemies have artificially inflated health pools and there are a lot of different tactics that work on them with the physics system, but few (stealth) do decent damage. The game will become a lot easier if you can get the flurry rush / witch time timing down, as well as the much less essential shield parry, but there are alternatives for both.

The early game was the most fun part for me just like it was in Skyrim because the not yet scaled weapons make things more difficult and survival-y. I think you just haven't found where to scavenge food yet. It's not going to be the same in every area, so be sure to look for food and materials in unexpected locations. Unless you're in a pinch, find a cooking pot to prepare meals. Cooking two health increasing items together in that way is crucial for surviving the early game.

Lastly, you're still in the early hours so it's normal not to be completely down with the control scheme yet. That should come. Feel free to ask questions in the main Breath of the Wild thread.

this video helped me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwRjGhwG8AA

Great, thank you guys! Ooops, I didn't know there were specific game threads.

you gotta play for anywhere from 2-10 hours to feel somewhat comfy with the controls. you'll get the hang of everything and "become" link

"Food seems kind of scarce, and I get beat up in fights."

Just like in real life.

Advice: do a barrel roll! Wait, you can do that in this game...

I think that observation and careful approach is the best thing to do in these kind of games.

The funny thing is that I didn't bother with any of these things. I never got the dodge timing down, I never got the guardian shield parry down, I never bothered using stealth. I played through the game with pretty much two main strategies for combat. Either power through the battle after maybe firing an bomb/fire arrow to start or avoid the fight entirely. That was it. By the time I got enough courage to beat the game I had the hearts, abilities, armour and weapons to power through just about anything.

I think that's probably one of the major strengths of the game. You can play it however you want and it doesn't punish you for it. Most other games will force a particular kind of gameplay on you. You will have to use stealth or you will have to use well timed dodges if you want to get anywhere. Breath of the Wild lets you approach it in any way you want.

Bombs are your friends!

Food is found pretty much everywhere, especially in the lakes and under rocks. Lift EVERY rock (you might find a surprise there).

As for the shield, I always forget to use it in battles, except when fighting guardians. Keeping your distance is a rule that I find fairly effective; ruch in for the attack then back off. And bombs!

@MightyUnclean Don't worry, I feel the same way. I am probably 15 hours into the game now, give or take (though a lot has been about exploring and wandering about, I think I am quite early storywise).

I think the general mechanics and exploration isn't too bad - you'll get to grips with cooking. Basically, collect everything you can, grab any critters or things you find or get given and try mixing them together when cooking.

However, I find combat in it challenging and it takes a few grueling fights to get to grips with the controls. I don't find them to be particularly fluid and the enemies (so far) can do you a lot of damage. I get that combat isn't really the games focus and according to friends and colleagues, combat gets easier as you get better and more powered up. If you find the combat tough though, I would recommend avoiding it until you do more shrines, collect more weapons, get armour etc.

I've found Zelda both amazing and frustrating in the lack of help it gives you. I've found that it is easier to just go with the flow and you'll get lots out of it. But don't worry, yes the game is difficult to get to grips with but if you persevere you will really get a lot out of it!

BTW, none of that is a critique against the game, just that the game is very different from a lot of standard open world games where you aren't challenged but just filing in checklists.

Just started playing this myself, came across some camp with a lot of enemies so I ended up climbing their Skull hideout and bomb spamming them until it was cleared.

Food is not rare at all. Just look for fish in water and throw bombs in there to properly fish them Also you can find apples on almost every tree.

Generally, early on, my feeling is you should be sneaking around and avoiding combat wherever possible. You CAN fight and in some places probably should, but in general, avoiding combat is your character's natural skill level. Find some shrines, upgrade your heart containers, and in treasures in shrines find some better weapons for when you find yourself in confrontation. Find at least one fairy fountain, upgrade/buy some basic armor. Then you'll be more combat ready (much more so with two fountains but that's expensive at first). Food is everywhere however. In the foresty areas there's apples, mushrooms, meat to hunt, just running around picking food ingredients should be relatively plentiful out in Hyrule.

If you're still on the Plateau, my advice is kind of useless. Shrines aren't available yet (that's what you should do when you get out into Hyrule proper), same with armor, fairies, etc. Food is available, but less so. And honestly on the plateau, you can engage in some combat, against red bokoblins, but against blue you'll find it quite difficult, all weapons are too weak at that point, and most enemies one-hit kill. Avoidance where possible is best there. You can take blue ones down if you're diligent, but it's still a gamble.

@skywake @Haru17 Flurry rush is kind of frustrating. Interesting you compared it to Witch Time. I never had trouble reliably and predictably triggering Witch Time in Bayo 1 & 2. Sure I'd miss sometimes, often even, but generally I could reliably trigger it. Flurry in BotW feels almost random as to if you get the timing exact or not. I probably trigger it one out of every 50 times I try.

@NEStalgia Flurry Rush works reliably well if you have a good sense of enemy timing. I've learned to trigger it pretty much every time a lynel takes a swing at me (I actually managed to kill that first, story-related one early on with only four hearts and weak weapons by abusing this mechanic over and over).

I'd say, in terms of how hard they are to trigger:
Witch Time (Bayo 1) > Flurry Rush > Witch Time (Bayo 2)

The first Bayonetta gave you a much smaller window of time to activate it.

At least, this was the case in the original Xbox 360 version.

@Ralizah Interesting. I didn't have much witch time problem on either Bayo, but played both on WiiU.

Flurry rush, I've probably activated 20 times TOTAL in my 7 weeks or so of gameplay. I'd say 1 out of every 50 tries is fair if not generous a description. The mechanic basically doesn't exist to me and half the time when it does trigger I didn't even expect it and it didn't seem like it was the right timing to trigger, and is just pure dumb luck.

FWIW shield deflection against guardian lasers I can do probably 3 out of every 5 tries. So I'm a lot better at that (a LOT better) but I'm still not great with it. Again, never played fighters much probably because I've never been great with perfect timing reactions I guess, though platforms are also timing based and I'm great at those.

Flurry rush and Street Fighter I be like:

Cook. As everyone else says there is any number of ways to play the game. I learned the combat timing early, but if you are slower than you'd like on that make sure you have healing items on hand. Use your runes, bombs and stasis can level the playing field for you. Don't forget you have a shield, most things can be blocked...almost everything can be parried. Throw weapons that are about to break as they have a greater impact. Arrows are your friend.Pick up every little rock or mushroom or bug. You never know when you will need them or if they can be used for enhancing armor.

I cant make any of those potions or whatever they call them, whenever I mixed different critters it makes one of those gross meals.

any tips ?

@ValhallaOutcast Food is made with food-only items. Elixers are made with monster parts + a critter. There's probably exceptions to those rules, I haven't explored all the possible crafting outputs, but generally, a collection of monster parts plus one insect/lizard/frog/whatever creates an elixer, while mixes of meats, fruits vegetables, flowers produces a meal. And you can not combine status effects (eg stamina+ and cold resist+, one will cancel the other out.)

@NEStalgia thanks I'll try some more I'm pretty sure even bat wing combined with other critter parts was giving me the gross stuff, I don't think I was combining normal food in it but I'll try again

If you still has little health, you can cook a single meat to make a 4 hearts healing skewer. Also cook hearty radish to full recovery + extra hearts. remember that if you put lots of the same ingredient, they will heal more. If you cook 5 meats, you will heal more than you need (so it's a waste) in the early game.

@ValhallaOutcast Yeah to make an elixir you can't use just monster parts. You need a mix of monster parts plus critters. Monster parts = keese wings, moblin horns, bokoblin horns, lizalfos tails, etc. Critters = frogs, insects, butterflies, etc. You need a mix of living critters and collected parts of slain monsters to make an elixir.