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

Amazingly, despite all its flaws, it looks like I'm going to agree with Drunka. But then, my favourite game before this, LoZTP, had Colin in, so there's precedent.

Zero, I'd say that, despite the epic open-world nature of the game, the relatively speedy loading times, the very quick and efficient sleep mode, and fact that you can save almost bleddy anywhere makes it a lot more bearable. I'll often play just a few minutes on the commute. (Harder if you have the Wii U version, natch.)

Jimbob wrote:

The trouble is, I've got a spectator watch me...

...say what?

This is the game that finally got open worlds right, while still being very much a Zelda.

Not popped in for a while as been done for awhile now and even though I didn't really enjoy the game as much as you or get it, glad you all did like it.

The only people I know who genuinely hold those kind of opinions are yourself and Andy, and you're also the only people who beat it really quickly, so I guess you just don't play the games the same way. A shame.

I've put my review up in the LAST game thread where Jay and me have a quick chat about it all in spoilers, I don't know if Andy has the same reasons as me but from Jay & myself we get where each other are coming from.

So, I was considering forgoing the final two divine beasts today and just blasting through Hyrule Castle and kicking Ganon's booty, which I've no doubt I could do at this point.  



Then I got caught up in trying to find the blue fire to start up the second lab.  Then after that little journey (not helped by rain starting as I found the flame) I finally got access to Ancient gear.  So of course I end up hunting down some Guardians for some cores and to test out my new-fangled Ancient Shield on (tanked five lasers from the aircraft ones, very impressive), accidentally finding a memory in the process.  But of course halfway to the plateau where there are guardians aplenty I spot an island off the coast I was trekking on called Tingle Island which took another half hour out of my time.  Then I go sidetracked by shrine hunting, and at the end of all that I returned to Kakariko village only to get sidetracked again stumbling upon another shrine on the way to Mount Lanyru that I missed the first time through because I had the shrine sensor off.  


Oh, and I nabbed myself another set of Lynel weapons from the nearby Lynel.  Just call me the resident Lynel Slayer! (Not pictured: The five-shot Lynel bow)

That's Zelda in a nutshell! Quite a big nutshell, a coconutshell perhaps, but nonetheless.

As far as Andy and Mas are concerned, and Jim Steling, and anyone else: I can only feel sorry. Everyone else going around saying how this is the best game ever, while you just don't get it... It's happened to me with DS1, and BB, or perhaps more appropriately (considering I have the appropriate machine(s)) MonHun. So I do know how it feels.

BRB off to play an hour before bed.

For those of you who have discovered Kilton:

Kilton quest-related spoilers:

Balladeer wrote:

Jimbob wrote:

The trouble is, I've got a spectator watch me...

...say what?

My mum's a big Zelda fan, so I've been waiting until she's around before doing important things. She would rather I had 74 horses on me at all times.
(Comment was nothing spooky / howsyourfathery)

Ah, I thought there might have been signs of a Ladybob...

Incidentally, Athers seems to have tackled the main game in the same order as me.

Did someone say Ancient gear?

Spoiler:

Replying to Jas:

Also: Check out this thread of tweets showcasing some great little details. I'd recommend waiting until you've played through the game, as discovering any of it for yourself would be much cooler. The only thing I picked up on was the statue.

I love the leadup to Gerudo Town!  Brilliant stuff.

Also, kudos to Nintendo for doing the whole 'different body shapes' thing very, very well.

Rum Rapture wrote:

For those of you who have discovered Kilton:

Kilton quest-related spoilers:

I was very disappointed after spending ages gathering monster parts to buy this set

Spoiler:

^ Worth it for how badass it looks if you ask me!


Also please tell me I'm not the only one who upon seeing Drunka's Ancient Armour set thought of it looking like a cosplay of Zant



On another note I'm now hunting down the memories, got all the super obvious ones now and have a good idea where the remaining seven are. Really liking the direction they took with Zelda this time round, and the more I see of her character the more appropriate I feel her voice choice was too.

After that I suspect I'll be close to tying up the final two DB's and wraping the game up for now. Still definitely toying with the idea of a challenge run that is absolutely not at all inspired by Eventide and 3 heart runs.

Just finished the main quest. 22.82% completion, apparently. I mean, I already knew I'd barely made a dent in the game, but to have sunk my life into it for the past couple of weeks and to not even have managed a quarter of the content is a bit overwhelming!

It's an awful good game, though. #incaseyoudidntknow

Congrats Rum!

In fact, I reckon the enormous size and quality is why the discussion about it's so sparse. (We've had a tripe talky month considering the new machine, incidentally.) We're all at different points, all wanting to remain unspoiled and discovering things for ourselves, and our progressions therefore have so little in common! (Telling, too, that the two forumites who sneered at the game were two of the first to finish it.)

I just beat down a banana-munching ninja twit, myself. He had more than a bit of the Zants about him. (If the ancient gear looks like him, though, I'm out.) And I'm now rushing off over the snowy wastes to go active a tower.

I've activated all of the towers, picked up the master sword, had my first little expedition around Hyrule Castle (WoW) and finished off my second Divine Beast.

I'm currently polishing off side quests and finding some of the more hidden shrines by purposefully heading to areas of the map that don't seem to be coloured in with any icons. I even found another stable doing that, which surprised me, but goes to show just how much there is here.

When I'm not playing, I've still been humming the odd tune from the soundtrack, and sometimes pop it on as background noise while I'm working... the actual soundtrack that is, not a rendition of it performed by me over the medium of humming.

Hmm, the music is actually one of the few areas I'm not too keen on.  It's not bad, almost nothing in this game is bad, but there's basically nothing I've hummed.  The doing away with a solid overworld theme or five is a prime culprit behind this.  What we have instead is very atmospheric, but not very hummable.  I've been playing about a twentieth of the amount of Undertale and humming a great deal more of the music.

EDIT: Gerudo cut-scene has warmed me to Zelda's voice actress... and turned me against the scriptwriters instead.  Drunka got it right when he said they gave her some horrid lines to say.  Exposition without subtlety.

EDITEDIT: Never mind a horse, I want my own sand seal!

I'm not even sure if I've found all of the stables, to be honest. I managed to completely forget Lurelin Village existed until I stumbled across it some time after conquering the 4th Divine Beast, and found a stable on the way. You've got to hand it to Ninty - while they've faced years of criticism for not changing the Zelda formula enough, they've really nailed the "do it in whatever order you like" approach.

Balladeer wrote:

I just beat down a banana-munching ninja twit, myself.  He had more than a bit of the Zants about him.

That encounter was so good, it was pure delightful saturday morning cartoon cheese.

Agreed, I really liked the Gerudo chat that came afterwards too.

Rum Rapture wrote:

You've got to hand it to Ninty - while they've faced years of criticism for not changing the Zelda formula enough, they've really nailed the "do it in whatever order you like" approach.

Which I thought I was going to hate coming into the game.  But there's still a reasonably strong story focus in there, and I think that in giving you all the tools at the start, they allowed the puzzles they created to be as complex as possible.  It's not quite Zelda to me, but it's still good!

Does make you wonder where they'll take the Zelda series from here though, how they can possibly follow it up.  I wouldn't mind a more traditional experience next time, let BotW stand on its own for a bit, but I expect there'd be uproar if they did that.

EDIT: Gerudo Divine Beast battle spoiler:

Spent the weekend Shrine meandering and Memory Hunting, the latter confirming this Zelda as one of the best characters in the franchise in my honest, humble, and factually correct opinion.

Tomorrow it'll be the final memory and then time to wrap up the last two divine beasts before a frontal assault on Ganon itself! Its taken a good sixty hours but the end is in sight!

Zelda and Link are fantastic characters here. After the whole timeline thing about the "world where the hero failed" after OoT, I'm loving seeing that explored.

Balla, I'm assuming that nonsense you typed earlier means you're happy for me to take the music week on this one? I haven't gone a day without one tune or another in my head.