Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

@Octane, Yeah, the ending is one of the least groundbreaking things about this game, except for the fact that you can experience it at any time.

@Nicolaison
In my opinion, the ending is downright terrible.

It's like they crafted this awesome game and then somebody was like, "Crud... we forgot to do an end fight. And I guess we need to tack on an ending cinematic or something. Get Bill down in Accounts Payable to think of something ASAP."

Lol I kid...but it was a huge let-down in relation to the rest of the game.

@Octane The sanctum, roving clouds of twilight, and teleport out to a golden-lit Hyrule Field for a horseback battle did give me a huge Twilight Princess vibe, except there was no dead man's volley or sword fight even, and the mounted light arrow part didn't feature the boss actually attacking me much.

I don't think going to the end straight from the end of the tutorial is groundbreaking at all; it's just pandering to speed-runners that cripples plot writing and — in actuality — makes speed-running the game that much easier. They don't have to find a bunch of complex paths across the land and memorize the four dungeons and questlines now, they just have to figure out the best way to grind through Calamity Ganon's health pool without good weapons or the aid of the divine beasts, and then breeze through the patently easy second phase.

@Haru17 Yeah, Twilight Princess, but worse. I fully expected to fight Ganon in his human form, since I had been fighting all those Yiga members. And I expected that his beast form would resemble the dark cloud surrounding Hyrule Castle. Alas, we got a weird monstrosity that — although it looked cool and looked like it came straight out of Nioh — wasn't explained at all, and a weird, laughably easy, giant pig Ganon. The biggest anti-climax in all Zelda games perhaps.

@Octane I don't hate the final battle that much because I loved the music SO much. Now there's a broken convention in Zelda: That get up and go final boss piano tune! But yeah, overall it's not even as much of an ending as Skyward Sword had.

Anyway, I just looked at my Amazon orders to see that my rider Link amiibo had arrived, then opened my door and found it lying there because this is 2017. Anyway, I didn't get a saddle or bridle on either of my accounts' draws, just some arrows.

I'm not too fond of TP's final boss battles.

The puppet Zelda and Dorfo fishing parts are good, but the horrible horse controls absolutely kill the horseback segment for me.

@KirbyTheVampire I've essentially done everything possible in the game bar the seeds which I genuinely can't be bothered with. I've been procrastinating over completing this as it's my only single player experience in the switch (I've got bomberman but the single player element has failed to grab me and snipperclips is nowhere near as fun going solo) so I'm going to hit him up tomorrow when I've booked time on the main tv. After that I suppose it's snake pass till the end of April. I'll miss it when it's done. Hope the DLC is worth the wait.

Breath of the Wild's horse controls are just worse. Like, it's nice to auto ride on the big, flat plains, but the horses hit literally every tree and jumping is willfully unreliable in comparison to past games. Not to mention that the hilly terrain prohibits and makes horse riding a stop-go experience even now.

And I can never get into paraglider (or more importantly back onto the horse) from the vault. It's utterly frustrating.

@Haru17 I've heard a lot of people complain about this, but I haven't had any trouble from fully bonded horses. Is it not common knowledge that horses avoid obstacles and follow paths only at a galop, and not at a full sprint?

I've never had problems with the horses here either.

I mean, as long a I stick to the road, I don't need to do anything other than press a button to go faster.

Well, maybe I do jump off the horse trying to make it go slower. Sometimes.

In TP, Epona was just a big nuisance. And one they force into unskippable gameplay segments.

Okay, whatever guys. They haven't gotten horses perfect yet.

In any case, you all need to hear this:

@Haru17: It doesn't have to be perfect, you just have to learn how to do them. It's not like the controls are complicated; they just chose not to tell the player everything and let them figure it out for themselves. This is easily the most realistic, yet easy way I've ever ridden a horse in game, thanks to the auto-dodging. I mean, the horse literally does all of the work for you. It's a shame, though, that not all areas accommodate a horse very well, but that's the price you pay for the somewhat vertical world they've built.

I dunno, I guess I'm in a big minority here, but I really like learning controls, and I don't feel like they have to read player's minds, or copy exactly what's been done before.

And I don't care for the live version of that music quite as much. It doesn't quite have the same energy; I think they're trying to do rubato, but they end up just getting slower and slower. And there's no Erhu either, that's the best instrument! And what's up with that choir part?

Boy, am I complainy today.

Talking about missing instruments, I'm disappointed by the lack of cuica in the Goron theme in this game.

Edit: wait I think it might actually be there, it's just a lot less noticeable/monkey like.

I said it before, and I'll say it again: horses are best used as a middleground between walking and fast-travel. When you want to travel somewhere and don't feel like hoofing it, but also don't want to miss finding stuff on a road less traveled by teleporting to already-discovered shrines.

Well, its definitely not as good as Agro...

But its not that bad once you understand how it works.

Trying to steer the horse completely like past zeldas or other games not sotc is going to end up with problems unless you hold the target button... Which makes for slow going.

It just ends up with you fighting the horse ai and end up running into the obstacle you and the horse are trying to avoid in different ways. Even if you arent on a main road, you should let the horse do the pathing, and only do large scale changes in direction.

I dont know what to tell you with your dismounting troubles though. I have no problem dismounting, nailing a band of baddies, and plopping back down in the saddle.

I'm talking about the horse gate mini game, which is impossible. The turning is too jerky from afar, making you miss gates or run into the poles, and if you try to steer the horses into a gate, they will run around it just to spite you. I hate it. I hate that a human being programmed that garbage into a game they knew other human beings were going to play. I dare you to explain how that is good.

I honestly have no idea of what you're talking about hah. Not in a "your opinion is wrong" kinda way mind you. I literally had no idea that a "horse gate minigame" was a thing.

To be fair though, I actively avoid and reject any and all optional minigames that require horse riding and/or archery (bonus repellent points if it's both).

Heh. I remember when i figured out how to do that one.

You are right in a way... The gates are not placed in a way that the horse controls can reasonably get the horse through each gate in the ordervthey are sequentially laid out. In fact im reasonably certain they purposefully made one completely impossible from the direction you start in.

But.... Discovering that the layout of the gates didnt mix with the capability of the controls... Why did you keep trying to do them sequentially over and over until you gave up and blamed the game?

@Haru17 I ran into that same problem (get it?). I found out that the hint he tells you is actually the key. In other words don't actually use the dash when approaching the obstacles, especially the one by the mountain and the one right before it. The horses for whatever reason just avoid jumping those in a full sprint, but they tend to go right over otherwise. That was one of the most frustrating moments for me though, for sure. There's not a lot of consistency with how the horses approach the jumps.

Is that the one in which you go around a lake doing jumps and finish up at the stable? That wasn't fun, and the reward isn't usable on Epona.