Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

@Haru17 lol now I really hope they do something with it

I bought the amiibo later after buying the digital version of twilight princess hd. It was 9 euros new. It has 10 hearts on it or so.

As @Grumblevolcano said, games work differently in the future where we live The completion stat is useless, it is designed not to be complete in absolute form, just to give a great experience - in this game's case, preferably a unique one when compared to others...

@erv I don't know how anyone could defend the idea that Breath of the Wild is unique. I've played open world games in better settings, better stories, better RPGs, better combat systems, and certainly better Zelda games with dungeons and puzzles and intentional level design.

The thing is with collectables, if it isn't worth doing all of it, it isn't worth doing any of it. The devs are broadcasting that these are copy-paste collectables without fresh thought put into most of them. It's honestly just really pathetic when you think of what you got for collecting all the masks, and thereby solving all of the problems of the citizens of Termina. Breath of the Wild could have had that on a much larger scale, but instead it had nothing.

@Haru17 all games have overlapping similarities with others. That's not the point.

In breath of the wild your experience is more unique than others based simply on the fact that you can play entire sections of the game equipped so differently it might not even play the same as with others.

I like the trolling rewards you get for 100%ing it. The golden turd is hilarious

@erv I truly, deeply don't give a damn if I take the exact same steps as anyone else. That doesn't make my experience any better or worse. I don't know why people always bring that point to bear when it's so flatly illogical. This is mass market media; you're not unique, I'm not special.

Thing is, there is no 30-60 minute part of the game you can point to and say 'this is what Breath of the Wild is.' Playing this game I'm never doing anything that means anything, and when I am it's relatively low quality like the beasts. It's just going to the diner and ordering the Bokoblin toast over and over and over again. The designers are so completely terrified of changing the gameplay experience even for a moment, which is part of / the whole reason we're getting repetitive abilities in the amiibo and DLC armor.

So what is the likelihood that the main reason areas in BotW are so barren is to preserve frame rates? I don't know much about videogame, but it seems like the likeliest answer, since I doubt Nintendo was lacking the necessary amount of time to put more in it. Don't get me wrong though, I'm sure there are other possible reasons, but that's the main one that my uninformed brain can think of.

You're only meant to look for enough seeds to upgrade your gear... There's so many to give some slack to the player. This way any player will find a healthy amount of koroks during their normal gameplay.

The final ""reward"" for finding them all is ultimately just an acknowledgement, a "wow you actually did it".

@Haru: Look at the items and their effect and then compare them to other games in the Zelda series and tell me they did it worse this time. What did you need to upgrade your inventory slots in Zelda games before BotW?

A couple of minigames so you could carry around more Bombs and Arrows? Even more minigames to win 4 or 5 Bottles so that you could carry up to 4 or 5 Fairies, Beetles, Frogs? It was always a minigame I think. Here it's not different. It's just a bigger scale, minigames turned into microgames. You now need to finish multiple simpler microgames instead of a couple of hard ones.

The item in question is the Korok Seed. 900 of them. 441 of them are used to maximize your inventory slots for weapons, bows, and shields. 459 (more than half of them) were put into Hyrule deliberately for players to make it more easy maxing out their weapon inventory slots without having to find every last one of them in this huge vast world.

It's simple. You only need half of them to complete this "quest" of minor importance. Minor because you can take 4 weapons, 4 bows and 4 shields with you right from the start and don't need to find a single Korok Seed to beat the game.

But hey, least you get something new for finding all 900!
Compared to finding 100 Skulltullas in OoT, in BotW you get actually something you can't get any other way. I know it's not much, but it's a better reward for what it is.

But only if you like to put the effort into it! I did and had fun, even though I used a map when I had found 441 to find the other 459. It's near impossible to find 900 without a source, that's for sure, but it is very possible to find enough to max out everything, as I've did so myself.

Storywise the item is explained beforehand. The game basically said: "You can try to get them all, but you must NOT, and there's nothing to gain from it, and if you do you're kinda crazy." And this crazyness is rewarded with a special item.

@SKTTR Congrats, you found the one completion reward in 3D Zelda that rewards rupees at the end. Like 8 out of 10 of Breath's mini games only ever reward rupees as opposed to having any sort of unique incentive to play them, so goose egg. And a bunch of Breath's completion rewards are items in name only: 2D drawings with half-brained description sentences that you can never interact with or even view in 3D. None of them play a role in any quests, and one is a picture that you literally cannot look at. That's pathetic.

Moreover, Golden Skulltullas were infinitely more rewarding to find. Their placement and the levels they exist within are far more unique than anything found in Breath of the Wild. The scritchy sound effect is distinctive, and communicates their proximity far better than the quiet Korok wood chime thing. Moreover, some Koroks are rocks sitting against cave walls that have the same texture, in the shade, with no indication whatsoever that they are there. So you would literally never find them in this entirely oversized world without a guide.

@-Green- No, I don't think it's performance at all. I think with Skyward Sword and now an open world team the current Zelda team just isn't as able to produce unique content in the amounts that the one(s?) from the 90s and 2000s did. The director even admitted it at GDC when he explained that copy-pasting 900 Korok seed puzzles took less effort than creating less, more unique ones. That's why Breath of the Wild's dungeon areas have an 'open' structure as opposed to intelligent level design.

If you look at Faron and the swathe of land leading the player to Kakariko Village, obviously that's higher quality than Hyrule Field (which is full of combat shrines) and the north west. It takes work to create all those unique elements though, which is why the Gerudo Highlands is the joke that it is. You can even see the area of Faron just south of Lake Hylia in the 2014 Game Awards video, so they obviously started on that area near the start of development and ran out of time to develop the rest of the world on that level.

I'm sorry but I completely disagree.

I can understand why you might not like them (personally I think they're fantastic - I just wish there were a few more) but BoTW's 'open' dungeons that can be completed in a non-linear way are not less intelligently designed. If anything creating dungeons where the objectives can be tackled in any way must have taken a lot more thought than the very linear dungeons of past Zelda games. Certainly it must have taken a big leap of imagination.

From a set-dressing point of view they might not be the most interesting but from a mechanical design point of view they're some of the most interesting in the series.

As to Breath of the Wild's mini-games - some reward you with a shrine. Which is functionally a piece of heart (the prize for many of the mini-games in previous Zelda games). Others don't necessarily exist to provide loot - they exist to be fun in and of themselves and/or to encourage you to approach the game and explore in a different way.

@Haru17
I'm speaking more in terms of the general appearance of the game (flora/structures) not the actual unique content (side quest, etc). Like as to why we have areas like the rain forest area, the villages, kokiri forest, etc yet at other times have needlessly barren areas that could have easily had more structures and things instead of just plains of grass and ugly ground. My basic idea is that since all of the previous areas suffered from significant frame drops, Nintendo tried to keep those condensed and packed areas to a minimum to avoid that.

Of course, your suggestion of them running out of time is a possible solution, but I find that hard to believe considering they had so many years to develop the game.

Btw, what do you define as 'intelligent' level design?

@-Green- Any temple from any Zelda game or puzzle in the world like the piece of heart inside the Lon Lon Ranch tower. As opposed to Breath of the Wild, puzzles in past 3D Zelda games were measured and controlled like the rules to a puzzle game. After arriving at Forest Haven the Wind Waker had to all be designed around the deku leaf, moving ledges farther away so you couldn't just float over puzzles. The rooms where the deku leaf was meant to be used would be laid out so Link would just be able to make it if he hit the right updrafts. If you missed you would have to try again to execute how the designers meant you to.

By the way, the Lost Woods also take up a giant area on the map with that fog, and all of the areas around them are barren for a good ways, so that's another way to fill space.

@StuTwo My issue with the shrines, and being able to tackle them in any way, is that there's no room for progression. Every puzzle needs to stand on their own, and the designer cannot assume the player has already encountered a similar puzzle before. The dungeons in previous Zelda games are able to build on certain mechanics, allowing for far more complex puzzles. In BOTW however, there are roughly 70-80 puzzle dungeons, so each needs their own little introduction. The problem is that most don't go much further than that. They all end before they even got started. Besides, at least half of them are a joke, and I wouldn't even classify them as a ''puzzle'', there are a few good ones, but I feel they are way too sparse.

I'd like to see them go back to the OOT/WW/TP model, that clearly worked, and this doesn't really work for me. It's not a bad game, but it doesn't live up to the other games. It feels as if they focused too much on making a large world, instead of an interesting world. Quality > quantity. I prefer something smaller instead if this is what an open-world Zelda game looks like.

That a pity! Speaking of Lynels though, I've actually found I'm getting quite good at defeating them now. (absolutely hated them before, and avoided them like the plague). Most of it is in having a strong enough weapon that is capable of knocking down enough damage when you actually hit them. (so without the Barbarian Armour (which you can't always use anyway due to having to wear other sets like the ones for cold resistance etc in certain areas), a great way to boost up your strength is to cook one piece of meat with 4 mighty bananas, and you get a fairly long lasting triple strength increase. (this meal is actually stronger than the barbarian set anyway). Also it helps to master the timing of the flurry attack, as that will make a lynel's health bar go down alot quicker aswell. But to be honest, it took me a long time to master that move, and even now it doesn't always trigger as often as I'd want it to. But jump slashes are very effective too if all else fails. (having lots of meals to hand that replenishes all hearts is a good idea to keep stocked up on though if you're going to rely on that method , as the only time you can get close enough to a Lynel to inflict a jump slash, he'll usually unleash a devastating attack just afterwards before you have enough time to run away, so it helps to keep topping your hearts back up. (one apple with one hearty radish will cook a good recipe for full heart replenishment, if that helps. actually any food with the word hearty in its name will do in place of the radish if you don't have one, so hearty trouts, etc do the exact same job in its place). I'd also recommend keeping and saving the lynel sword weapons after defeating them and reserving them exclusively for your next Lynel fight, as those are an effective weapon to knock chunks out of them. (but obviously on your first one and for when that breaks halfway through the battle, it is usually good to keep a few spare royal claymores as a backup, because those are really effective strong weapons aswell for defeating lynels, and they work well with the Flurry attacks and/or jump slashes when you can pull them off). Will share anything else I discover if I find any more out, but for anyone struggling with Lynels, these techniques have been really effective for me so far. (and the more practice you get, the less of those extra items you even need, but they definitely help at first until you've sussed how to anticipate their 3 main moves, and when to either strike or avoid in conjunction with each one). - For example:
1) When he charges up breathing fireballs, getready to RUN to the side (he will breathe thjose fireballs three times, and you will need to be pressing the run button while you do it, or you won't be able to escape them quickly enough). But as you don't want to deplete too much of your stamina, and also your camera will be slightly off, it helps to on;y hiold tehe run button during eavh fireball and quickly adjust the camera with a tap to the thuimbstick in between each one whilst your running at normal speed, and you'll be able to avoid him better.

2) Don't even try to hit him hit until he either stops to charge up a roar in the air (then jump slash the bejesus out of him) or if he tries to charge at you.

3) when he does the move where he tries to charge at you, practice timing your parry attack, by holding down ZL and the button for guard and shield. The trick to the timing on that is you need to time pressing those two buttons almost a split second BEFORE he tries to make the run at you. (any later than that is too late, and the fllury attack option won't trigger). Also, some weapons don't allow you to do them (which is why I recommended the claymores, as those are amongst the strongest weapons that definitely do), but a quite few others let you also, just they're not quite a strong, so they still work just they will take more hits to knock his energy bar down. But if you happen not to be able to trigger the parry attack, at least the ZR will have helped you dodge him, but quickly run up behind him starlight after you land so that you can get a few extra jump slashes in.

(actually, jump slashes are also good for avoiding the ground pound he does when you see him jump into the air, and are also a good thing to do if you see him try to pull out his bow. Never let him fully pull his bow out, as those blows are devastating, so stopping him getting that far is always wise).

@Octane I think the shrines were fine, as they weren't intended to be ultra long in the first place. I agree that the shrines generally had one real puzzle to them before they were over, but I don't think that's necessarily a problem with each puzzle shrine actually being unique.

The actual dungeons were pretty bare and limited to me, though, and that was my biggest issue. I'm not necessarily sure if going more traditional and having an item linked to dungeon progression is the fix, but it's definitely an easy answer. Since the open world route is apparently here to stay, which I'm 100% for, I think a fusion of A Link Between Worlds and BotW would make a lot sense. ALBW was great in it's open choice of exploration, but you still had required items and an acquisition process that limited complete freedom (at least until you could buy everything). I think BotW needs to get more credit in that you can do EVERYTHING once you get the sail cloth, but in some ways I think that hurt the variety in that you never had anything else to look forward to being able to do.

In a way, Majora's Mask kind of laid the ground work here with it being mostly open ended. It wasn't as free as ALBW, but it's the closest Zelda to being open-world while still having steady progression in equipment/skills that allowed for some amount of choice.

I'd like a combination of the two styles. As in taking aspects from BotW, condensing it down and adding in the better aspects aspects from previous Zelda games. I appreciate the design BotW was taking and its approach toward more open design, but I felt it was a bit too empty and repetitive. That's not to say other Zelda games don't as well suffer from repetitiveness, along with a bit too much linearity. This is really evident when you look at the lay outs for some of the 'newer' Zelda games before BotW which were on rails for the most part, such as in WW and SS.

I like the idea of the mini dungeons that they were going for with the shrines, but I would have much rather preferred them to be better integrated into the world instead of separate little areas and to have been more packed together instead of the weird bite sized system they were using.

Basically, take the meat and cut out the fat.

Edit: Btw, if they're gonna use Weapon Durability (WD) and Stamina, they better improve on it. The WD in this game is poorly managed and the Stamina is annoying when you're trying to traverse the world, considering Link moves fairly slowly for such an in shape guy. I know, video game logic, but it becomes annoying and dull. There's a couple of other things, but I'll leave it at that.

@Haru17: Skulltullas was the best example of a large fetch quest in, where again, you only needed half of them to get everything of practical use. Getting all 100 did gain you nothing but 200 rupees.
And I pointed out that a useless special item that you can't get elsewhere for such a task is a better reward than 200 rupees (that you could get elsewhere with not much work).

The item has some kind of silly use though in the forest area, nevertheless,
and it's to show and brag how crazy you are finding all Korok Seeds. ^^

Other than that I agree totally with all your points.
And Skulltullas for the win. Much more interesting to find than the Koroks.

However, the picture you can't view is a joke and nothing for the whole family and kids.
This isn't the first Zelda game with troll items.

@DarthNocturnal And, by the time you're actually able to collect all tokens, you've probably bought anything you really wanted to buy.

At the same time, I appreciate that there isn't something from the game I really want to experience that isn't only obtainable after the beyond-tedious task of getting every last Korok Seed.

Yes, this is one of my pet peeves about certain items in many of the games. There are often really useful items that by the time you get them you've completed so much of the game by that point that they're not as useful as they would have been if you were able to obtain them earlier when it mattered, so can render some really cool stuff kinda useless by the time you actually get them.

In BotW, I'm glad you can get all the runes from fairy early on, but as people quite rightly pointed out, things like the barbarian armor can only be obtained after defeating the one thing that the armor set would have been most useful for, so kind of defeats the object of having it. That's why I do like the way that certain weapon items were available in dungeons, and that each weapon upgrade literally allowed you to reach more things, so made those items very useful and enhanced the game each time you collected one.

I believe that this still would be possible within the context of an open world game that you could tackle dungeons in any order. Windwaker did this fairly well for example, whereby you could access alot of the dungeons in a completely different order each time if you wanted to, but having the dungeon items allowed you to go back and access more of that dungeon. (granted, it wasn't literally any dungeon in any order right from the beginning). But it would be totally doable to make a game do that. Just simply allow any dungeon to be access from any point in the game, but have extra parts of each dungeon put on levels that only certain items could unlock (which you could collect in any order you want).

This would be a great way of having the best of both, without having to sacrifice anything. Would totally love to see them do this in a future Zelda game, as I think that's kinda what was intended but never quite happened quite to the extent that they had in mind. But thinking about it, this is how it could be totally achievable. (so just putting that idea out there)

You can just buy the barbarian armor.

About wind waker, the dungeons in that game were done in a completely linear order, they have a set order you must do them in and the game won't allow you to go out of line.

Even from the inside, each dungeon (except for the wind temple, which is more vertical) is mostly just a circle where you go one direction and never face back- when you get the item you usually have a shortcut back to where you needed it to progress.