Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I've been wanting to pick it up again, just to rediscover places and replay shrines.

That said, with a game like Breath of the Wild, it's difficult to draw a line between playthroughs. It's not a game you play to finish. In fact, the game is designed to discourage that mindset: after leaving the tutorial stage, also known as the Great Plateau, you can technically head straight for the castle. So, with the finish line no longer the real objective, you're free to run around Hyrule. I spent around 250 hours there, more than I've ever spent on any single-player game. Several times, I walked up to the final boss room and turned right back. Only after finding and beating every shrine and upgrading all my favorite outfits did I finally feel it was the right moment to end my adventure. It was like an event. I think I booked a few hours for it and made a special dinner for myself. Turned off my phone, even. Anyway, there's no post-game content because you decide when the post-game begins, or if there's even a post-game. I could have started my post-game about 100 hours before I actually did, and by then I had already done all I would've wanted to do in a theoretical post-game. Not that I ran out of things to do, though. The game is so big, it's almost impossible to find everything. You'll always have something left to discover. That's the logic of the Korok seeds. That's why there's 999 of them and half of them are useless. (You only need about 500 of them to fully expand your inventory slots.) Some players have gone to the trouble of digging up all of them, but the vast majority won't and aren't meant to. The point is for Hyrule to never be entirely plumbed by the player, so that the mystery lives on.

Another thing to point out is that BotW2 is due out in the next few years. It should be the same or a similar map, so I want it to feel fresh when I return.

@T7Hokage017 I'm not sure why I tend to want to keep my games, considering it's usually a good seven years or more before I want to replay them. I should just be like some people and re-sell my games when I'm done with them before they drop in value.

@Beaucine Good points, I think you've summed up one of the reasons BotW is so magical. I've played it for about 120 hours in total but haven't finished every shrine or side-quest yet. I've been meaning to dedicate some time to doing that before the sequel launches, but even now I occasionally go back to it and get a few things done or just run around exploring, and it's still almost as exciting as it was when I first started the game.

@gcunit I don't have a definitive one, but games I know for certain that would be on it include: deep breath

Metroid Prime, Smash Melee, Mother 3, Paper Mario, The Orange Box, Halo 1, Halo 2, Star Fox 64, Sonic Mega Collection, Xenoblade Chronicles, Yoshi's Island, Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess, Beyond Good and Evil, World of Goo, Banjo Kazooie, DKC2, DKC Returns, Chrono Trigger, Kirby's Adventure, at least one Ace Attorney game, one 2d Metroid, one Rhythm Heaven, Mario Kart DS, one of the two GBA Warioware games, Rayman Legends, Shovel Knight, Undertale, Mass Effect 2, and Celeste.

But I will say, top 5 and top 20 specifically are the only ones I've ever been able to write down and feel at all confident about.

and yes i included two compilation titles, deal with it

I have "only" about 100 hours in, I've beaten all the DLC on regular mode. Keep making it to the very last room in Trial of the Sword but dying lol Other than that, I have pretty much everything except the Korok seeds. I have a Hard Mode run halfway through the Beasts.

Anyway, I figured I'd go back to the game since nothing else is really coming out on Switch that interests me. I had fun for a few hours, but I found myself putting it down and going back to Mario Maker 2. Usually I love picking up Zelda games and playing through them again, but BotW is... I don't know. It's an experience, for sure, but it may be an experience I only want to have once or twice lol

Now, Ocarina of Time, Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, I can just pick those up and play through them dozens and dozens of times because they're fun. I don't know if I'd always label BotW as "fun," and when it comes to games, that's a huge issue for me.

Which ones? They're not really interchangeable.

@rallydefault Well, yeah. Those three Zeldas are very, very tightly put together — especially Link's Awakening, which is a shining example of how to make technical limitations work in your favor. They have less content than Breath of the Wild, and obviously smaller overworlds, but in terms of flow and pace, and of how the main adventure is put together, they're clearly superior. And that makes them more replayable. Breath of the Wild is more of a vast playground, less of a journey towards a destination.

@Beaucine
Yep, I don't disagree with you in the least. I'm just saying the tighter experiences are more fun for me. Every now and then I enjoy open worlds, but that's mostly on my PC with MMOs. When I sit down to play on a console, I usually like a "crisper" experience. Crisp...awesome word.

You say that, but the 2nd and 3rd Ace Attorney have literally zero differences in gameplay mechanics or overall aesthetic. And half of why the 1st one does is because of the bonus case.

How did you guys beat thunderblade ganon? I'm so stuck on that but my swords keep breaking...

I assume you're talking about Thunderblight Ganon. Just make sure you have a stock of decent swords, once his shield breaks you can throws the metal spikes at him.

@baongng I struggled with Thunderblight Ganon and ended up youtub-ing the battle, which is what you're trying to avoid, because you want to minimize spoilers I can say, later in the battle, when the big pink steaks land in the ground, you can use magnesis to pick one up and hit ganon with it. I remember it was a frantic battle, with how Thunderblight Ganon can zip around. But, it's been too long for me to remember other more detail regarding how I got through it.

(edit: @iKhan funny below 🤪)

Sounds delicious

It's so hard to defeat him, should've collected more swords though now I'm stuck and I don't wanna go back and start this round all over:((@jump

ahahah thank you!@WoomyNNYes

@Slowdive

I never held this game in as high regard as some people did (it's probably my 3rd or 4th favourite Zelda) but I really can't imagine ever selling it. It's so infinitely replayable. It's the sort of game I'd come back to every year or so.

On one hand once you've done all of the shrines there's not much else to do as so much of the appeal of the game is discovering stuff which isn't as enjoyable on the second/third/whatever time but on the other I'd love to boast about having 100% of the The Korok Seeds which seems like an impossible and pointless goal.

@jump

Master mode makes for a very new experience as well, especially in the first half of the game where you have to get really creative in order to defeat enemies.

I still think it's my favourite Zelda game and one of my favourite games of all time. I'm replaying it again from scratch again and I'm having a blast rediscovering everything again.

I've been playing this some more this week. Beat it a long time ago now but still haven't found all the shrines/shrine quests, and only done about 40 of the 90 side quests. And still never started the DLC add-on stuff.

I was playing it with VR goggles the other day, for the first time in a while. I heard an eagle cry, and the ability to just be able to arch my neck to watch this eagle swooping round above my head was a true delight. Never mind that you can barely tell it's an eagle visually, or that its behaviours in flight are fairly limited, it was so immersive.

The apparent ease with which Nintendo was able to make most of this game VR compatible gets me so excited for a future version capable of 1080p in each eye.