The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild

[Jay 37,370]

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (~3 hours in)

 

WOW.  I am blown away by this game.  

 

Of course, my background with video gaming is that I played extensively from my childhood (80s) through college (graduated 2001), so on the NES, SNES, and N64 primarily.  Since then I kept up on Nintendo systems (own a GC, Wii, Wii U, and now Switch) but played way less games for them than I ever did for the older systems.

So I primarily love 8-bit and 16-bit era games, or rather I've primarily enjoyed side scrollers, platformers, RPGs, metroidvania, etc - pixel art based games, really - more so that 3D games (or course Nintendo knocked it out of the park with so many great 3D games like Mario 64, Zelda OOT, Mario Galaxy, Mario 3D Land, and who doesn't love Goldeneye and Perfect Dark).  

 

But now I see what advancements I've been missing in these recent generations!  What I mean is, there's probably a lot about this game that people will recognize from I dunno, Xenoblade, GTA, Horizon, Skyrim, etc - all kinds of games I've never played at all.  So maybe for me, this game is mind blowing than it would be to the people playing every AAA title on current gen consoles.

But on the other hand, the entire world seems to be impressed with this game, so maybe Nintendo really did one-up the competition and put out something really special here.

 

 

I love how the game opens with practically no cutscene, no prologue, no explantion, just a voice telling you to wake up, you wake up, and you're in control.  I love how you go outside the cave and there's an old man, just like in the original Zelda game (the guy who get your first sword from).  In fact, in many ways, I feel like this game is Miyamoto trying to kind of remake the original game, or rather the spirit of it - basically just waking up in Hyrule with no one to guide you, and you being able to just go out and explore..... and its great!

 

I appreciate that while you can absolutely go anywhere and try anything at any time, the Old Man is there to send you on your first little quest, and after that, the next 3 Shrines that I think will unlock a lot more of the world (I've done the magnesis, bomb, and stasis shrines so far).   But I get the feeling I could have done plenty of stuff already without even talking to him at all.

 

One thing I love is that for example, after completing one shrine, I wanted to head out to another one I had seen on the top of the tower.  On my way, I saw some smoke in the distance and figured I'd check it out.  Turns out it was a camp set up by the Old Man, and he was a little ways off up a hill trying to hunt.  That was when I learned you even could hunt in this game, which was great!

I love how you have to cook food to survive, so far I've made too meals that were so bad, the art was pixellated out ( )  but also some mushroom and meat skewers.   There must be a bajillion recipes you can make in this game. 

Another cool moment was when I was wandering and saw a tree and wondered if I could climb it; Turns out I could and there was a bird's nest on top with some eggs in it.  Score!  A little while later I was wandering and found some spicy peppers on the ground, and when I grabbed them the game told me they might warm me up.  A little later I came across an area where it was snowing.  When I wandered in, Link started shivering, you could see his breather, and I lost half a heart after a little bit from the cold.  So I had an a-ha moment; I went back to the camp, threw one of the eggs in with some spicy pepper and voila, made me an omelette that would allow me to fight the cold for four minutes!  So I want back, ate my omelette and set out to explore the snow (it was near that shrine I was trying to get to).  Along the way I ran into an encampment of bokoblins I had to fight, and before long I realized I had less than I minute of cold fighting power to go!  I headed towards the shrine but more bokoblins found me!  They were firing arrows as I was trying to climb up a mountain and get over a ridge where it wasn't cold any more.  I made it just in time and started scaling down a large rock wall and ended up on a little ledge where I get this giant steel hammer!  Of course, when I went inside the shrine there there was another hammer inside anyway (it was the statis shrine), which kinda made me little find a little less special, but what can you do?

 

 

This game is amazing, I thought about it all day while I was busy, and now I can finally get back to it.  Time to get that last shrine and then hopefully the paraglider!

Oh, one more thing: I just LOVE the LOOK of this game.  I feel like I'm in a miyazaki movie sometimes!  Not just because of the visuals, but the music too.  And this game more than any Zelda I can remember (Keep in mind I haven't played any of the post-OOT ones except Link Between Worlds) has a pretty interesting SCI FI tint going on to it.  I'm not sure what to feel about it yet; So far it seems well integrated, and also reminds me a bit of Miyazaki for some reason.... I'm sure as the game goes on, there will be more detail about the sci fi aspects (I guess I really mean the technology aspects).

 

 

I guess its hard to rank a game 3 hours in when it'll probably take over 100 to beat, but damn, its goddamn amazing so far.

[Wojo 2,453]

You need to eat to survive? Lame. That's like playing Grand Theft Auto and needing to refill your gas tank. 

 

I'm watching my wife play Mario 3 on the NES. Well, I got her through world 3, she can take world 4. Quicksave on the Retropie is our friend. 

[Jay 37,370]

No you don't NEED to eat to survive, its just one way the game has to replenish your hearts; I'm sure there are others.  (Plus depending on how you play the game, you might not really be losing hearts all that often at all).

I thought the food mechanic would be dumb also, but it turns out its actually pretty neat; Unexpected!

 

I love Mario 3, one of my favorite games of all time.  I impressed people in college by beating it without saving at all, that was fun

[Wojo 2,453]

4 minutes ago, Jay said:

No you don't NEED to eat to survive, 

 

42 minutes ago, Jay said:

I love how you have to cook food to survive

 

So you don't need to eat, but raw food is fatal? 

[Jay 37,370]

You're being quite pedantic tonight 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Coming from someone who bitches and moans about apostrophe's....

[Quintus 5,399]

When you're bored, do you read every thread here looking for something, anything to talk about? 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Indeed!

[Jay 37,370]

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (~5 hours in)

 

Wow!  It took me a long while to find, and then get to, that last Shrine in the Great Plateau.  I had to go back up to the top of the tower to figured out for sure where it was, then once I knew where to go, it was quite hard to get there!  I knew it was on the other side of a big river, but couldn't figure out how to cross it.  I ended up following the outside edge of the Plateau heading towards it until I ended up going under a bokoblin encampment, stealing their peppers and meat, and arriving at a bridge.  The bridge was in a cold area, and I had no more spicy omelettes or clothes - speaking of clothes, I found a little bit earlier the Old Man's house where he was sleeping and had a diary open that mentioned how he'd give away his warm clothes if someone could figure out the recipe he used for spicy seafood or something.  I wasn't sure how to do that so I figured I'd worry about it later.  Obviously, figuring that out would have helped a lot based on what I ended up having to do!

I realized the bridge was out because one of the metal slabs way lying on the shore.  I tried using Magnesis to get it in place on the bridge posts but kept messing up and dying from the cold, or from falling into the river (I love the auto save feature this game has; I kept re-spawning near the bokoblin encampment and being able to quickly try again).  I finally got the metal plate in place and crossed the bridge only to find EVERYTHING on the other side was a cold zone!  I quickly climbed the mountain wall, up and up, circled around, found a bokoblin encampment, booked my ass away from it, and got to the shrine and went in - phew!  Thank got its not cold inside!  While doing all that, I ate up a ton of the food I had prepared because I lost so much health in the cold!

 

The shrine was actually the easiest one and then when the Old Man came out and told me he still wouldn't give me the paraglider until I met him at the Temple of Time, I quickly used the Travel feature to get the hell out of the cold!  

 

I made my way to the Temple of time and....oh my god!

The cutscene you get when you talk to him up there was amazing!  Finally you learn the whole backstory of the world you are in and what's going on, and it was brilliant, and just gorgeous to look at.  Strong Miyazai vibes throughout.  Great stuff!  I wish there was an option to watch it again somehow.

 

Now, I have the para-glider, and can go explore outside the Great Plateau!  Can't wait!!

[Wojo 2,453]

Jason, after reading your overlong fanboi gushing posts about this new game, please do your position as moderator a respectful favor and NEVER correct the grammar of another JWFan member again. The amount of typos, incorrect verb tenses, and misused apostrophes, by you, is staggering. 

 

NOW I'm pedantic. 

[Jay 37,370]

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (~7 hours in)

 

Holy crap!  While I loved the desolate, almost post-apocalyptic feel of "act one" of the game as you wander around The Great Plateau and get your initial powers and stuff, once you para-glide off and explore elsewhere, the game REALLY opens up!

I have talked to a whole bunch of characters now, found a horse stable (haven't seen any horses though), and met some weird creates who gave me little side quests.  Completing one of them allowed me to carry more weapons, which was huge because that was my biggest problem with the beginning of the game.

 

I just love the Shrines in this game, there was one where I can to turn bits of water into ice platforms to get a rolling ball into a certain spot to open up a gate, and the last one I did I had to fight this little mini guardian, which was huge.  It teachs you how to parry, jump back, and do other attack stuff that I just had no idea about, and would have helped me out a lot earlier!

 

I found Kakariko village and got another cool cutscene from Impa.  The village was so full of life, I explored it for a while but feel like I probably missed a bunch of s

This game is crazy addicting; I only stopped playing to eat lunch, and now I'm ready to dive back in!

 

 

 

 

 

And Wojo, in case you were seriously asking about the food:

 

Like all Zelda games you start off with 3 heart pieces as your health meter, and can get heart containers to increase the amount of hearts you have.  Taking damage from enemies or falling depletes your hearts (sometimes in quarter hearts at a time), and there are different ways you can fill your hearts back up.  One is by completing a Shrine for the first time, which always fills you up completely.  Another is with Fairies, though I haven't found any of those yet.  And yet another is food.

 

Some food you can just find, and eat.  Like you can be walking by some trees, see some apples growing on one, and just jump up and grab them.  And sometimes you find a bunch of bokoblins an an encampment, and they might have some meet rotating on a skewer over a fire, and you can take that.

You also do in fact get uncooked, raw food.  For example if you kill a wild boar it turns into "raw meat", that you can then cook over a fire with salt or mushrooms or herbs or whatever before eating.  Or if you shoot a bird you get drumsticks.  Even the apples, you can put near a fire until they become baked apples which restore more health than raw apples.

 

It sounds like it might be cumbersome or complicated, but its actually not at all.

[King Mark 3,631]

Sounds like a bunch of RPG's I've played in the past few years. Some of them you had to cook food

 

I' finished Tales of Berseria.

Now I'm trying Digimon Cybersleuth.

[Quintus 5,399]

I hate crafting in games, it's mundane as fuck. 

[Wojo 2,453]

I love getting raw uncooked food in face. In fact, in face is my first step in eating it. 

[Jay 37,370]

Yea when I first saw the cooking thing, I was seriously like WTF, this seems needlessly complicated, but it really isn't.  You don't really end up losing health all that often, and when you do  you can just eat apples; There's a million of them around Hyrule you can just grab right off trees and you can store a million of them in your inventory, and there's plenty of fires everywhere to bake them too.  The recipes where you mix different stuff could certainly get more important later on I suppose, but it seems to me to just be one way to face challenges (IE, they may temporarily boost cold tolerance, stamina, stealth, or speed, but you can also just find other items to permanently increase those things instead.

 

In fact that's what's blowing me away about the game right now, how seemingly every challenge has multiple different ways to approach and complete it.  It's really cool.

 

I just put in a few more hours and had a genuine, laugh out loud moment at a Great Fairy location (sometimes this game is SO Japanese), finally figured out how to kill one of those giant rock creatures I've run into a few times (and always run away from before), and found absolutely crazy, 4 legged... centaur type guy, with a giant sword and a bow who just completely whooped my ass!  I had to find a way to sneak way around him because he was between me and the village I wanted to get to.

 

Had my first blood moon too, the cutscene that showed all the bokoblins I killed resurrected as tougher ones was intense!

 

The one thing about the game I really haven't figured out yet is rupees;  I've found some shops now with some clothes I want to buy, but the only way I've gotten any rupees at all is selling off the first set of pants you started out with.  Killing bokoblins doesn't net you any rupees so I have no idea how I'm supposed to get them!  I've been finding a lot of amber and ore and stuff; Maybe I am supposed to sell that somewhere.

[King Mark 3,631]

I still want to play it someday.

[Jay 37,370]

Now is the absolute best time to buy a Wii U because they've stopped making it, so the price on the secondary market is only going to go up.

 

If you invest in the system, you'll have such a great library of games - not just Zelda, but Xenoblade X, two great Mario games, two great Zelda HD remakes, a great DKC game, both Bayonettas, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, so many others - and of course it plays all Wii discs, and has a ton of games available in its virtual console and eshop 

[Quintus 5,399]

I hated crafting in The Last of Us. Now it's even in Tomb Raider. It's just busy work designed to slow the player down. 

[King Mark 3,631]

I think it's essential to a good RPG.

 

I don't want  my games dumbed down with no menus to fiddle with

[Quintus 5,399]

I've always despised inventory micromanagement, it can turn a well paced and engaging piece of gaming escapism into a plodding bore. Little wonder then that everything you play is a 100 hours long, or at least you think it is. 

[King Mark 3,631]

Yes, Tales of Berseria just took me 114 hours

[mstrox 6,651]

11 hours ago, Jay said:

In fact that's what's blowing me away about the game right now, how seemingly every challenge has multiple different ways to approach and complete it.  It's really cool.

 

That's a big part of the fun.  In one of the shrines that involves tilting the Wii-U pad (or the Switch), I had a heck of a time with solving the puzzle "correctly" until I figured out you could literally flip the whole thing over and "break" the puzzle.  Every puzzle is like that - pretty nuts.  And as you get further along and gain new abilities, you have new ways to game the system.

 

11 hours ago, Jay said:

The one thing about the game I really haven't figured out yet is rupees;  I've found some shops now with some clothes I want to buy, but the only way I've gotten any rupees at all is selling off the first set of pants you started out with.  Killing bokoblins doesn't net you any rupees so I have no idea how I'm supposed to get them!  I've been finding a lot of amber and ore and stuff; Maybe I am supposed to sell that somewhere.

 

I'll put this in spoiler text just in case you want to figure it all out on your own, but

Spoiler

You can pretty much finance your whole mission by selling ore.  Keep opening chests and smashing sparkly black rocks with a hammer or with bombs, and you'll start getting a big collection.  Amber, rubies, diamonds, etc.  Monster parts sell for a lot less, but if you fight instead of fleeing (you'll fight more as you gain more heart containers, probably), you'll have a ton of them and they add up too.

 

Also keep an eye out in the shrines - every shrine has at least one "extra credit" chest to open somewhere.  Sometimes it's a weapon, but most of the time it's rupees or ore.

 

With the ability to cook things that control your health, stamina, and environmental response, I haven't had a lot of use for rupees at this point (maybe 3/4 through the main quest).  I usually stock up on arrows.  With weapons being easy to obtain and disposable, I've only made two big purchases: 

Spoiler

an outfit that protects completely from the cold, and an outfit that protects completely from the heat.

 

[Jay 37,370]

Yea, I ran out of arrows recently and haven't found any more and its kind of bumming me out!  I keep coming across goats I can't shoot cause I have no arrows

Had another hilarious moment last night when I saw a goat on a mountain ridge, targeted him but couldn't kill cause I had no arrows, so just kinda started walking towards him.  Well, he charged me, knocked me on my ass, and I fell off the cliff to my death!

 

Yea, I'll definitely figure out the rupee situation myself instead of reading your spoiler block;  I'm going about the entire game with no guides or googling for sure.  One of the things I'm loving about the game is, every time something about it is disappointing or kind of "oh, I wish they had done that differently", later on in the game its always rectified! 

 

And yea, I recently came across that same Shrine - the tilting one next to that second village.  It's actually the ONLY shrine I've entered and didn't complete, because I got a bit fed up with trying to tilt the ball over.  I came up with the same solution you did - tilted the entire thing upside down so you don't have to worry about the "channels", but I still couldn't get it in the right spot.  I'll come back to it.  It would have been my fourth one and allowed me to add another heart container too, oh well.

 

And yea, its kinda funny how many weapons the game as.  I don't really get why you can carry around unlimited meat, mushrooms, ore, etc but only a few weapons but I suppose it makes it more challenging that way.  My only problem now is that I don't always remember where I dropped certain weapons when I get new ones.  For example I dropped one of the steel sledgehammers cause I didn't see why I'd want to carry around too.  Well, at one point I dropped the one I had because I wanted to pick up something else, and it actually fell down into the bottomless pit of a shrine   I think I remember where the other one is but I haven't needed it for anything yet.

[mstrox 6,651]

The only constant in my arsenal is a sledgehammer.  Never know when you'll need one of those suckers.  Everything else is replaceable (one sword breaks, you'll always find another sword or sword equivalent very soon).  My bigger problem is finding cool things and deciding what other cool thing to get rid of to make room for it.

[Jay 37,370]

Yea, I really should go back and get that sledgehammer I dropped in case I end up needing it somewhere.  It's probably near the shrine where you learned Stasis.

 

 

BTW, I came across this video from 2014 showing how BOTW was at the time:

 

 

Amazing how similar it is to the final product, with the huge exception being the permanent map on the Wii U tablet

 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

54 minutes ago, mstrox said:

The only constant in my arsenal is a sledgehammer.  Never know when you'll need one of those suckers.  Everything else is replaceable (one sword breaks, you'll always find another sword or sword equivalent very soon).  My bigger problem is finding cool things and deciding what other cool thing to get rid of to make room for it.

 

I've expanded my inventory to the point where I can always have an axe, a hammer, a torch, and a leaf.  Those are the 4 constants.  The other (currently) 7 slots have high turnover.

[Jay 37,370]

Do you use the Axe for fighting enemies, or more for cutting down trees and stuff?

 

 

And do you guys leave your weapons you're not using in a certain spot, or just drop them wherever and never really go back to them again?

[Disco Stu 15,495]

1 minute ago, Jay said:

Do you use the Axe for fighting enemies, or more for cutting down trees and stuff?

 

 

And do you guys leave your weapons you're not using in a certain spot, or just drop them wherever and never really go back to them again?

 

Yeah the axe is for cutting down trees when I need to gather woodpiles to combine with flint or red jelly.

 

I generally use weapons until they break so far.  It's actually not a bad idea to have a place to set down more powerful weapons I want to save for later in the game, I might start doing that!

[Jay 37,370]

Yea I was wondering if I should just teleport to like, the cave you wake up in and just keep dropping weapons there so I always have empty slots to pick up new weapons as I'm out exploring.  That way if I ever get into a bunch of battles in a row when exploring and all my weapons break, I can return there and pick a bunch up or something

[Disco Stu 15,495]

1 minute ago, Jay said:

Yea I was wondering if I should just teleport to like, the cave you wake up in and just keep dropping weapons there so I always have empty slots to pick up new weapons as I'm out exploring.  That way if I ever get into a bunch of battles in a row when exploring and all my weapons break, I can return there and pick a bunch up or something

 

Yeah, really good idea!  Love how many completely different ways there are to approach this game.

[Jay 37,370]

It's more or less what you had to do in Resident Evil 0

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Except you don't have to do anything in this game, that's what's so cool!  Your idea isn't a required workaround, just a different approach to weapons management.

[Jay 37,370]

Well yea, obviously.

[mstrox 6,651]

21 minutes ago, Jay said:

Do you use the Axe for fighting enemies, or more for cutting down trees and stuff?

 

 

And do you guys leave your weapons you're not using in a certain spot, or just drop them wherever and never really go back to them again?

 

I do very little cutting down trees (and actually, I do very little cooking, too).  I only count the axe as a two-handed melee weapon.

 

I don't have a special stockpile of weapons or anything.  I usually try to have a good balance of swords, spears, and heavy weapons on my person.  When something breaks, or I come across something better, I pick something else up (even if it's just a skeleton creature's arm temporarily).  I've never dropped anything with the express purpose of picking it back up (except if I'm coming back for it in a few seconds after I break something else).

 

 

27 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

 

I've expanded my inventory to the point where I can always have an axe, a hammer, a torch, and a leaf.  Those are the 4 constants.  The other (currently) 7 slots have high turnover.

 

I usually have a leaf, although I won't go chopping for one if it gets busted, or if I have to drop it.  I never hold onto a torch - usually one of my other weapons is wooden (clubs, etc) and can ignite.  Worst case scenario, I can always set an arrow on fire and use that.  The hammer is the only thing I like to have hanging around.

 

 

 

[Jay 37,370]

I haven't even come across this leaf thing yet, whatever it is I hope its cool

 

I got a Guardian Sword from a shrine, its neat cause it glows!

 

I also kinda dig the pitchforks and other farmer's tools as bokoblin weapons, I'm sure they'd suck against tougher enemies though

[mstrox 6,651]

Only problem with those - you have to fight a guardian to get them

[Jay 37,370]

I encountered one of those things early on, when I was heading towards one of the first Shrines on the Great Plateau.  Of course I got one-shotted to death!  Wasn't terrible to avoid the laser blast with all the walls around, but I can imagine they're a bitch if you have to fight one in different circumstances

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I've played over 50 hours of this game and feel like I've still barely scratched the surface.  It's consuming me, haha.

[Jay 37,370]

Yea, I dunno how many hours I'm in (neither the game nor system keep track for you?), but its probably 7-9 and I've barely explored any of the world, based on looking at the overall map.

 

Actually, I don't have any areas "filled in" except the Great Plateau.  I need to climb more towers!

[Koray Savas 2,251]

10 hours ago, Quintus said:

I hated crafting in The Last of Us. Now it's even in Tomb Raider. It's just busy work designed to slow the player down. 

It depends on the game. I think it adds a layer of depth to the gameplay that wouldn't exist without the resource management. With The Last Of Us I mean, there's no shortage of supplies  in Tomb Raider. For instance, getting through the clicker attack on Ellie and David during Winter is an entirely different ballpark on Brutal, where every item in your arsenal counts. 

 

I find it strange you feel this way yet your favorite game of all time is about grinding for resources to level up gear. 

[Jay 37,370]

What is Quint's favorite game of all time?

For that matter, what is yours Koray?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Pac Man!

[Quintus 5,399]

The Secret of Monkey Island, Portal 2 and The Last of Us are my all time faves. 

 

I'd forgotten about the crafting aspect being an integral part of the 'survival' aspect in the harder difficulties in that game Koray, fair enough. 

 

The worst most tedious form of crafting I've known in games is the Elder Scrolls stuff. And by extension probably Fallout's. It's just lists of shit which you have to scroll through, it feels like more of a chore than a game. It's like keeping tabs on a shopping list. 

[Jay 37,370]

21 minutes ago, Quintus said:

The Secret of Monkey Island

 

[Jay 37,370]

Speedrunners can already finish Zelda: Breath Of The Wild in less than an hour

 

Impressive!

[Quintus 5,399]

Obviously a tiny assed game. That's pretty disappointing. 

[Jay 37,370]

Incorrect; People are just brilliant and finding and exploiting shortcuts and timing attack dodges.  Most people are finishing after 80-100 hours

[Quintus 5,399]

Hehe I was just winding you up

[Jay 37,370]

Man I had a great time with Zelda last night.  I knew what my next main quest goal was but eh, I wasn't interesting in pursuing that.  I warped back to the starting cave and dropped off a bunch of weapons and explored the Great Plateau because I figured there was likely some stuff I missed.  I really wanted to go to the Old Man's house and see if I could get that warming doublet, which luckily was just there in a chest, I assume for story reasons.  Once I had that on not only did Link look WAY cooler than he did with just the starting shirt, but I finally was able to warp over that last Shrine that was in the cold and explore that entire area.  That was awesome, found a bunch of cool stuff there and some gorgeous landscapes in the distance.

 

I also figured out the rupee situation; I've been selling ore I find (can't remember which one... amber I think, whatever is 30 rupees each) and surprisingly some random meals I cooked - I think 4 apples + herbs made a steamed fruit dish that sold for I think like 40 or 50 rupees?  Also I've encountered some tougher goblins around now, and they have been dropping rupees sometimes.

 

Now that I had rupees I was able to pay the great fairy near Kakariko village, which was awesome!  She upgraded my clothes and was just cool art and animation.

 

Been finding those Koko Seeds or whatever they're called around too (there's one in the starting cave!), which is fun - I dunno how many there are in the game, but it must be a lot.  I paid that maracas guy to upgrade my weapons inventory again but then he said he was moving on so I'll have to find him in his forest which I haven't been to yet.

I found an awesome shrine where there was a submerged scoop you can to use Magnesis to put balls in certain spots, it was awesome!  I love the shrines in this game so much b because you walk in with no idea what to do, get some idea, pass the first part, they they twist it and make the second part harder and you have to think of another solution.  It's the best kind of puzzles, I love what it does to your brain and how rewarding it feels when you figure it out!

 

I found a giant field at one point full of dead guardians, I'm searching them all for ancient screws and gears and stuff and when one came alive it was such a HOLY SHIT moment as I ran for cover over a wall!  It was some old fort with some guy conducting research there, kind of interesting.  I also ran into an assassin on a road near a bridge that tried to kill me, it was a fucking intense battle but I beat her!  Got her weapon afterward which only seems OK.

 

Goddamn I love this game.  With the blizard we're getting here work is canceled so I can play more than usual today.

[King Mark 3,631]

Sounds to me like you really like RPG's and should have been playing more of them on the Ps4 (like me)