The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild

[Faleel 5,340]

IIRC my Dad's strat was to use a LOT of 💣 and 🏹 sniping

[Jay 37,306]

Oh yea, it's essential to use a lot of bombs, especially early on, since they are infinite free ammo basically

 

I used arrows, but had no idea how many levels there would be so found myself conserving them more than - in retrospect - I needed to

 

Now that I know there's only 12 levels, I'll use them more freely for my next attempt

 

If I find the Medium Trial too hard after finishing the Beginner, though, I'm just gonna beat the game instead of completing this

[Jay 37,306]

I ended up deciding I wanted to complete the Master Sword Trials before beating the game after all.

 

I beat the Middle Trials this weekend.  I think it actually might be easier than the Beginner Trials?  Well, perhaps easier to enact a plan for each level, though maybe harder to figure out what the optimal plan is for each level.  

 

The first set of levels had bottomless pits and constant wind, and the biggest pain was a level riddled with bokoblins that fire all the different types of arrows at you, so you have to constantly be on the move and one bomb arrow can take off so much health you'll be screwed later.  The middle set was in the dark and actually kind of spooky and made me wish the game had more content like this!  The last set was a bunch of Guardian fights (the robots in battle shrines, not the overworld walkers), and strangely I found the second-to-last room harder than the last room.  The guy in the last room I could just hit in the eye, walk up to a thwack a while, run away if he started charging up his laser, then we the laser stopped, repeat everything.  Huh.

 

The Final Trials are not too bad, so far!  The first set of levels are all fighting undead, so you only need to hit them once to know their head off then hit their head once and they're dead, so that's nice.  The wrinkle is that all the rooms have rain and constant lightning so it's a huge risk to use metal weapons and shields.  The second set was all in flame levels, so you can't use wooden weapons or shields.  But I found I could just use my arrows for most of the dirty work.  I died on the Talus boss somehow but I figure it won't take me too many more runs till I clear this.  It's kind of a pain that each run takes a full hour or so, but it's rewarding when you beat one!

[Jay 37,306]

I BEAT THE MASTER SWORD TRIALS LAST NIGHT!!!!

 

I decided to try a 30 minute Attack meal instead of Defense just to see if that'd be better for me.... the answer was a quick "nope" as any hit I took was devastating, and all the attack was wasted anyway on the first batch of levels where you only hit to hit each undead enemy once to know their head off and a second time to kill the head.

 

A second attempt with my usual defense meal went so poorly 3 levels in I abandoned and restarted.

 

And then I had this epic run where I got through everything, it was glorious.  Previously I had only gotten as far as the Talus boss of the second batch of levels (fire levels), stage 11 out of 23.  So the entire second half here it was my first time seeing these levels at all, and I somehow got through it all!

The rest area after the talus has a bunch of spicy peppers, so I figured the next batch of levels would be snow-based and cooked a bunch of cold temperature food (which was good because by now my defense food had worn off anyway).  The snow levels weren't too bad, but strange the 4th level in had a Talus boss, instead of the 5th level like usual.  Turns out that's because the 5th level starts you off facing down a fucking LYNEL!!!!

 

Luckily, you can find Ancient Arrows throughout the levels.  I had 9 of them, so just hit him with one and he poofed away.  And like that I was done!....

 

With that batch of levels.  next came another rest area, and then a final batch of levels... all guardian based!!!  First 6 stationary turrets, then 1 walker, then 1 helicopter, then 1 walker/1helicopter/1 turret.... and then the final level.  I had used up 5 more of my ancient arrows going into the final level, so only had 3 left.  Well the final level starts you off with a FUCKING LYNEL and a HOARD of bokoblins immediately spotting you and charging at you!  And what's worse if if you run the wrong way, a turret will spot you and shoot at you too!!!!  I ended up poofing hte lynel away with an ancient arrow, then statis-ing a lot of the bokoblins off their horses and killing them, then just climbing up to the final turret to kill it.

Bloody hell!  I can't believe I did the entire second half of the final trials on my first attempt!

It was honestly pretty cooling getting my master sword fully powered up, some nice animation in the cutscenes about it.  I felt like a badass after pulling this off!

[JohnnyD 1,221]

@Jay Do you mind giving advice on how you pulled it off? I completed the beginning and intermediate trials on first attempts, but the final trials are definitely a struggle (prior to eventually navigating through Hyrule Castle and facing Calamity Ganon).

[Jay 37,306]

Sure!

 

First tip is to make a meal consisting of:

 

3xIronshrrom

1xArmoranth

1xdragon horn (doesn't matter which dragon)

 

This will give you a "high level" defense boost for 30 minutes.  So, make that meal but don't eat it yet; walk up to the master sword spot and manually save your game there.  Then, eat the food and immediately enter the Final trials.  If you die during the trial, choose "Quit" instead of Continue, and load that save file so you can eat the same meal again for your next attempt.

 

So once you're in the trials, you want to try to be a bit sneaky and not just run right into the enemies, but you also don't want to dilly-dally around, so your 30 minute defense meal will last you all the way to the second rest area.  Also, have your Shiekah Sensor beep for Treasure Chests, so after you kill all the enemies in each level, you will know if that level has a treasure chest for you to find or not.  You absolutely want to find every treasure chest and smash open every crate (wood and metal) in every level to get the goodies inside, they really make a difference.  Most of the chests can also be spotted by turning on magnesis and looking for the pink glow, though the sensor helps you know what area to look for it in.

The best advice overall is: USE YOUR BOW AND ARROW.  A LOT.  I frankly didn't use it THAT much in the main game, always worried about running out of arrows or something I guess, I dunno.  But that is NOT an issue here.  There are a TON of arrows, and you'll constantly find more bows.  SO USE THEM, A LOT!

 

So in the first level, since you start with no weapons, use bombs on the undead bokoblins until you can grab a spear they drop, then use that for the rest of the level.  Don't equip any metal weapons or shields because of the lightning, but pick everything up you come across.  Temporarily equip a sword for a second just to smash open the crates and collect everything inside them.  At the end of each of these opening 5 levels, drop any undead arms you've pick up before exiting, because they are shit weapons and you won't need them.  Throughout all the trials, always use your most powerful weapons and start dropping the weakest ones to make room (it's nice to have room so you can pick up powerful weapons as soon as they drop so the enemies can't pick them back up)

 

For the first batch of levels, you can only use wooden weapons/bows/shields because of the lightning.  The second batch of levels you can only use metal based weapons because of the fire, so that's why you want to hold onto the ones you pick up in the early levels.  The rest of the levels you can use whatever you want.

 

In each rest area there are fairies flying around - 1, then 2, then 3 in the last rest area.  So as soon as you enter, crouch down and slowly approach the fairies until you collect them, then stand up and quickly finish the rest area and move on.  In each rest area you want to open all the chests, equip any armor in them, collect all plant life, and collect all 3 fish swimming in each one.  Then, you have to cook before moving on.

 

Each rest area has some "hearty" food items (Hearty Radish, Hearty bass, etc).  COOK THESE ONE AT A TIME ALL BY THEMSELVES!  Any "hearty" food in this game creates a meal that FULLY restores your health (and gives you 1-3 bonus hearts) when cooked by itself.  After that, cook a meal with all "Attack boosting" food you've found together, filled out with any non-special meat/fruit/ec) to fill up the 5 slots, then do the same for "defense boosting" food.  then just cook the rest together for a meal that doesn't cause any effects.  This is important because if you eat a meal that has an effect, it overrides a running effect.  So for example, if you still have your 30 minute High Defense meal in effect, you don't want to eat something that will give you a speed boost, as that will override the defense effect.  You basically want to save your attack/defense meals for after your initial 30 minute defense meal wears off, and after the upcoming snow stages where you'll need cold food.

 

The first group of levels culminates in a Stalnox battle; Make sure you collect the 3 elemental weapons he drops when you kill him, and try to save the Frostblade and Flamespear for the future.

 

The second group of levels culminates in a battle with a Fire Talus.  You'll need to either hit him with an ice arrow (my preference) or whack him with your frostblade to cool him off.  Then you can either climb up him to whack his hitbox, or you can smash open any of the 3 stone pillars in the room with a bomb before starting the fight to fly in the air and land on him (you can hit him with the ice arrow while in the air first).  Oh, and one of levels before this fight has some big moblins, the frostblade works wonders on them.

 

At the second rest area, cook a bunch of cold-resistance meals.  2 spicy peppers plus 3 meat/fruit/etc each.  Walk up to the exit point and eat it just before activating it, because the next 5 levels are all in the cold.

 

The third set of levels really aren't bad.  One quirk is that the treasure chests are stuck inside ice mounds that you have to melt to get to.  What I did was collect a bunch of wood from each rest area (you can bomb trees for free wood, but I frankly just used the double-axe they give you in the first rest area and it never wore out), and then dropped 1 piece of wood by a frozen mound, and stabbed it with my fire spear to light it up, which melts the ice mound.  Sometimes it takes too long or the fire is too far away, then I just equipped some wooden weapon and swung that at the fire to light it, then used my flaming weapon on the mound. 

 

Any ice wizzrobes in here, take out with a fire arrow, they die with one hit!  These levels culminate with a a frosty talus fight, which is just like the previous fight: Blow up the pillars so you can fly up, whack him with fire arrows or your fire spear so you can land on him and thwack him. 

But then you have to fight a Lynel before the third rest area.  This is why you collect every chest, so you have ANCIENT ARROWS!  You should have 9 if you found them all.  Just hit him with one right away and the level is instantly over.  Sure, you miss out on the weapons he is carrying, but you really don't need them - there's SO many other weapons in these levels!

 

At the third rest area there are three fairies, oh and I forgot to  mention: DON'T COOK THE FAIRIES INTO AN MEALS!  If you have them loose in your inventory, you will get revived if you die.  You don't get a lot of health from their revival, but you can then eat a meal before battling on.

 

The final set of levels are all guardian based.  If you are good with the Shield block/retort thing you can probably breeze through some of this; I suck at that, so fought them all naturally.  For the first level with 6 stationary turrets, I just ran up to each and hit it in the eye with an arrow, then thwacked away with powerful weapons, hitting in the eye again if they start charging their laser.  Remember what I said above, use your bow and arrow a lot!

The level with the guardian walker, I just shot it with an ancient arrow.  The level with the helicopter guardian, you can climb up to the top of hte tower and be avove him, and just launch bomb arrows into his propellers until he falls to hte ground.  Or you can just use an ancient arrow.  For the level with the walker, a helicopter, and a turret, try to take out the walker first, then you can hide from the helicopter in the middle structure.  I found a spot where I could stand behind a wall and him hitting him in the eye with (regular) arrows until it was dead.  Everytime you hit it in the eye it resets the charge so he never got a shot off.  Don't forget, you can eat your attack-up meals on these levels!

 

The final level with the lynel, definitely take him out with an ancient arrow then deal with the bokoblins then the turret.

 

I hope that helps!

 

Good luck!

[Jay 37,306]

So uh....well.... the other night after I beat the Master Sword Trials?  Well, I was all hyped from pulling it off, right?  So even though it was late at night and I should have just gone to bed, well, I didn't.  After all the cutscenes and stuff and I had control again, I teleported to the shrine nearest Hyrule Castle, since the only things left in my entire Quest Log are a DLC side quest about finding armor that's hidden there, and of course DESTROY GANON

 

I figured I'd just poke around the castle, see if I could find the armor and call it a night.

Well uh, so I was wandering all around, not really knowing what I was doing (I'd already explored the entire castle 3 years ago, but didn't remember any specifics), and next thing I know it said something about SANCTUM on the screen, I walked another step and it was cutscene time!  Turns out I triggered the CALAMITY GANON fight.  The Divine Beast Hyrule Champions launched an attack that took him down to half health, then I was on my own!

 

I had no clue what I was doing.  He had all these huge weapons he'd whack me with, hop all over the place, block some attacks.  Turns out, I never learned anything the whole fight;  Between my Attack Up food, being able to eat more food whenever I was low on health, my armor being at 84 Defense, having all the upgraded divine powers, etc, I just fumbled my way through the whole fight.  Launching 5x Bomb Arrows at him from the sky, whacking him with the Master Sword, I dunno.  Eventually he was just dead, lol. 

 

Then more cutscenes, then the outside fight, which was kinda nifty, but kinda not.  Just doing 1 thing (hitting a spot with an arrow) a bunch of times in a row.  Final cutscenes, credits, more cutscenes.  Back at the home screen.

 

Damn.  I can't believe it.

 

I kind of want to re-experience the ending again on the TV, since I did all this handheld, but I dunno.  It turns out what everyone says is true, the ending in very underwhelming compared to the rest of the experience.  LOL.

 

So, yea.  I beat BOTW almost 6 year to day after I started, lol.  The system says I've played for "245 hours or more"

 

After going back into my save file, I see a couple new things.  It gives me a completion percentage: Mine's at 36%.  But the game itself doesn't break down specifically what I'm missing right?  I assume it's all korok seeds, but I there could be something else >shrug<

 

It also tells me how many quests there are.  I've completed all the Main Quests and Shrine Quests, but guess what?  I've only completed 84 out of 90 side quests!

 

One of those is the DLC quest about finding armor in the castle I haven't done yet, but that means that THERE ARE 5 QUESTS IN THIS GAME I NEVER DISCOVERED IN 245 HOURS!!!!!

 

Holy hell

 

I had to find an online list of Side Quests, and scroll through my list and compare, to see what I missed.  I missed these 5:

 

https://www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/A_Parent's_Love

 

https://www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/Little_Sister's_Big_Request

 

https://www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/The_Hero's_Cache

 

https://www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/Hunt_for_the_Giant_Horse

 

https://www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/The_Royal_Guard's_Gear

[Jay 37,306]

Man I've had fun continuing to play BOTW after rolling credits.

 

First I went back in and did all my missing sidequests.  Finding the 3 armor pieces in Hyrule Castle was really fun because I had explored this place so long ago, I forgot just about everything about it, so it was nice to revisit various areas.  I found a bunch of korok seeds while trying to find the armor!

 

Most of the other quests were very simple, and I already had whatever I needed in my inventory to complete them once I triggered them.

But the one involving the giant horse actually took a bit, but it was fun!  I actually grabbed a horse from the nearby stable I had registered and used him to take me through this grove and down this canyon that leads to the other grove where the giant horse can be found.  I found koroks and treasure chests along the way, and then taming the giant horse was really hard!  I had to chase him all around before I even got a chance to mount him, and then I needed a bunch of stamina to stop his bucking.  Once I got him, I had to make my way back out of the canyon and back to the guy to complete the quest.  Then I lodged him at the nearby stable

 

 

But then boy, with nothing that the game tracks explicitly left to do, I started doing real late game stuff.  You can talk to Kilton and he tells you he's keeping track of the different Moldugas, Taluses, and Hinoxes you've encountered, and he'll give you a reward if you find all of them.  He even tells you there's 40 Hinox, 40 Talus, and 4 Molduga, but the kicker is the game itself doesn't track for you how many you've found.  So you can go back to ones you remember fighting, and it'll say " DEFEATED" when their health bar shows up, but other than that you're on your own to keep track with stamps how many you've killed.

 

I ended up picking a random spot on the map that my Hero Guide showed I'd never explored at all, went to the nearest shrine and just started going through it.  Found a bunch of korok seeds, a Hinox, and a Lynel I had never fought.  Went back through and found more korok, and kept going into another swath of land I hadn't been to.  It's just so much damn fun! 

I do it wearing my korok mask, so that starts making noise if there's a unfound korok nearby, and my Shiekah sensor set to Treasure Chest, so that starts going off if there's one of those nearby.  It's amazing how often that goes off, there's SO MANY treasure chests in this game!

 

 

Anyway I can't believe how much fun I'm still having with this game 250 hours in

[Jay 37,306]

Anyone else have any thoughts on the ending of the game and how satisfying or unsatisfying it was?

[Bellosh 3,397]

11 hours ago, Jay said:

Anyone else have any thoughts on the ending of the game and how satisfying or unsatisfying it was?

 

I enjoyed the ending.  I did like that final final battle on the Hyrule Field.  Felt very epic.

 

But I didn't go and fight Calamity until like 300ish hours in.  I just loved to visit the game to do side quests, finish all the shrines, search for koroks, upgrade outfits, farm Lynels (literally my favorite thing in the game to do) 

 

I had actually already stormed the castle well prior to finishing the game.  I honestly had to force myself to just finally 'beat' the game.

[Jay 37,306]

Same! I did practically everything but fight Ganon 200 hours in (maybe less, can't remember now), then didn't bother to actually do that until almost 250 hours in. 

 

But I'm planning on going back in a few minutes to find Taluses and Hinoxes and fight Lynels... 

[mstrox 6,647]

I basically agree with you - the boss fight was fine but anticlimactic, and I honestly lost a lot of the urge to continue exploring/completing mini quests after I did it.

[Jay 37,306]

Yea I had it in my head that I should do everything I wanted to do with the game, before beating Ganon, rolling credits, and then moving on to another game

 

But in retrospect I should have just killed Ganon hours of gameplay ago, since there's some nice benefits that enhances the roaming around once you've done so

 

 

Man I played for like 2 hours last night and didn't scratch the surface of what I thought I'd do.  I wanted to explore the northwest corner, basically everything north of the long canyon that has the forgotten temple at the end.  I figured in one session I'd find all the Talus and Hinox and Lynels there.  Well, I started at the end of the canyon and found a ton of korok seeds, 2 Taluses I had never found before, a bunch of treasure chests, enemy camps, etc.  Had a blast the entire time, but only got as far north as Rito village, never even got to the snowy mountains!

 

It's astonishing how little korok seeds I've found compared to how many are in the game, since I feel like I've found so damn many.  At one point I warped out of the area because I saw a shooting star fall elsewhere, and on the load screen I noticed I've found 206 korok seeds.  206!  Out of 900!  Good lord.

[mstrox 6,647]

You shooting for 900, or just enjoying the exploration?

[Jay 37,306]

I'd like to get 441 seeds, which I think is the amount you need to upgrade every item slot possible.  I highly doubt I'll continue from there to 900.  Maybe I'd do that some day in the future if the game is re-released on a successor console with upgraded graphics or something and I want to play again.  I think honestly I'd find more enjoyment from starting over from the beginning of the game and doing all the early game stuff that I've completely forgotten about, than roaming around in late game for hours just to find seeds

 

I do want to find all 40 Hinox, all 40 Talus, and upgrade all armor to 4* though.  I'm only missing some lynel guts and star fragments to do that, and I plan on killing any lynels I come across at this point.  I wish you could get a reward for killing them too, though I understand why (they are considered normal enemies and not mini bosses)

[Jay 37,306]

I finished exploring the northwest corner and found all the Talus, Hinox, and Lynel there.  Found SO many koroks along the way!  And I'm thinking about turning off my treasure chest sensor, since its practically always going off, but its usually hard to find the chest it's for (because it starts sensing it when you're quite far away from it still), and I don't need most of the stuff I'm finding in them (any kind of arrows? Great!  Anything else?  Probably money I don't need or weapons worse than what I'm carrying)

 

Will probably continue on with the central North and then NorthEast areas.  Still having fun but I can see myself running out of steam soon, especially when I look at my backlog and realize I could be playing a brand new game instead

[Jay 37,306]

Wow!  Nintendo has made the 44page booklet available with later pressings of Breath of the Wild available as a free PDF download!
 

https://www.zelda.com/breath-of-the-wild/assets/pdfs/ExplorersGuide.pdf

[Jay 37,306]

I was sick last week so didn't play Zelda at all; When I finally felt well enough to play video games again I decided to start Metroid Prime remastered.  Now that that cartridge is in and BOTW's is out, it feels less likely that I'll actually earn those monster badges for TOTK comes out.  We'll see...

[Jay 37,306]

In 6+ years of BOTW existing I certainly never knew you could do this:

 

 

[Jay 37,306]

@mstrox, how did you goal of finishing BOTW before TOTK go?  Did you end up 100%ing the picture compendium?

[mstrox 6,647]

I’m still a long ways off!  I’m playing in 1-hour spurts, between waking up and having to get my kid up.  I finished the four divine beasts and got the Master Sword, but my current mission is to find and do all the shrines.  Just did my first labyrinth this morning.  Then I’m going to move to the non-shrine side quests and any memories I haven’t found organically.
 

I figure I’ll be pretty close to filling up my compendium once I do all of that, but at that point I’ll go hunting for pictures.  I think I’ll be able to 100% the compendium no matter what, because apparently you can buy missing pictures from the assistant in the lab - although it’s not quite the same!

 

And then once that’s done, TOTK!  Until then, I’m living vicariously through you all.

[Jay 37,306]

Yea I personally don't think it's very fun to just buy missing pics from that guy.  Maybe like 1 or 2 at the very end if there's no way to buy them any more.  But otherwise the whole point of the quest should be the accomplishment you feel from physically getting all the pictures yourself, I'd say

[mstrox 6,647]

Yeah, the only reason I’d use him is if the remaining pics are unobtainable through other means.