The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild

[mstrox 6,651]

On ‎3‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 1:08 AM, Jay said:

Also got a tower that was kinda nutso; It was guarded by some Guardians - not moving fully active ones (I saw one of those roaming around near it) but a buried one that came alive and started targeting me... I was somehow able to kill it?  I basically just ran up and repeatedly stabbed it; Went through one entire Guardian Sword and one entire Guardian Shield, then just wacked it with a reinforced club until it was dead.  I was surprised it was that easy!  Anyways once I killed that one, I just climbed up the side of the tower it was facing so the other one didn't see me.  That was that!

 

Sounds like you got lucky at the Central Tower and found a blindspot that the other one couldn't target you.  That was the last tower I was able to grab, and I only could do it by using abilities I didn't have earlier in the game.

 

There are faster ways to kill the Guardians - maybe not easier, but faster.

 

On ‎3‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 1:08 AM, Jay said:

Ended the night be entering 2 Shrines I had to exit without beating (Modest test of strength and major test of strength, and they had miniguardians inside with wayyyyy too much HP and attacking power for me to tackle!) and then finally got a leaf and sailed to Eventide Island... you guys been there yet @Disco Stu and @mstrox?  I was unable to save there and I died   Was a cool situation there, though!

 

I've still never been able to beat a Major Test of Strength shrine, but I can blast through a minor or modest shrine, no problem. 

 

I have been to Eventide, and have also been unable to beat it.  I got 2/3 of the way there, but

Spoiler

beating a Hinox with weak weapons and extremely limited arrows

has proven a challenge. 

Spoiler

He was chasing me around the island, and I had him down to maybe 1/3 health left, and apparently I ran too far.  He returned to his sleeping spot and HIS HEALTH ALL CAME BACK.  No arrows left, just basically sticks and stones to fight him with,

I just let myself get crushed and promised myself I would come back.

 

On ‎3‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 6:09 PM, king mark said:

Hmm, you should make a specific Zelda thread since your posting your progress in the game for the last few pages

 

I think that everything posted outside of spoiler quotes since release has been fairly spoiler free - stuff that has been posted in spoiler-free reviews, or something that's vague enough that it wouldn't make sense until after the fact anyway.   The base abilities, the shrines, etc, is all first-20-minutes-of-play stuff.

 

But I'd have no problem moving to a Zelda thread, if it makes it easier for someone.

[Jay 37,355]

Yea I wouldn't say we've posted spoilers at all; We're not discussing the storyline at all, and we're being vague about things we're encounters far away from the Great Plateau.

[Jay 37,355]

On 3/17/2017 at 10:43 AM, Jay said:

is there a way to tell if you got all the chests within each shrine or not?

 

On 3/17/2017 at 10:48 AM, mstrox said:

Not that I'm aware of.

 

 

@mstrox Apparently, if the name of the Shrine on your map DOESN'T have a chest icon next to it, then you missed a chest in that Shrine.  Who knew!

[mstrox 6,651]

THEY THOUGHT OF EVERYTHING

[Jay 37,355]

Do you think I'll be able to handle the divine beast in Zora's Domain if the only armor I have is a set of once-upgraded Hylian Gear (well, I replaced the shirt with the Champion's since it shows me enemy HP ans is the same level) and a bunch of weapons in the 30-50 damage range?  Or should I find better armor and/or a killer weapon first?  I know I need to get 20+ shock arrows first.

[mstrox 6,651]

I'd venture in once you get the shock arrows.  That was the first dungeon I went to and I got through it (and it sounds like you've been focusing a lot more on building up your character than I have, as I got to the dungeon after three days of playing).  If you find yourself outmatched, you can always upgrade and come back later.

 

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on the quest for the shock arrows.

[Jay 37,355]

[Jay 37,355]

@mrbellamy or @Disco Stu I have some questions about the camera for you

 

-When my camera fills up, I end up having to go through and delete pictures, hoping I'm deleting the ones that had a Compendium entry and not ones that didn't.  There's no way to tell directly, right?  I wish it just auto-deleted ones that had a compendium entry.

 

-Along those lines, how come some items the camera draws a box around and tells me what it is before I even snap the pic, and others it doens't know what it is at all?  Is there a future upgrade that will make it recognize everything?

 

Thanks!

[Quintus 5,399]

[mstrox 6,651]

Delete 'em all!  Your compendium entry will remain.  Only reason to keep something is if you need the picture for a mission, or just like it.  The camera only handles 40 pictures, but the catalogue has what seems like hundreds of items.

 

It will only put a box around things that are listed in the Compendium.  Yellow box means that you haven't added it to the compendium yet.  Blue box means you have.

 

Foods (meats, cooked foods, meals) are not in the compendium, but the items they come from (animals, apples, mushrooms, plants, etc) are.  Non-player characters are not catalogueable, but enemies are. \

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I almost never use my camera except for sidequests where a character wants a picture of something!

[Jay 37,355]

Well I guess that's what I'm saying:  Sometimes i find an item that I would assume WOULD be in the compendium like a weapon or something, and I figured there would be some later point that I'd be able to add them to the compendium, like the compendium would get a later upgrade with knowledge of more stuff.  But if there is no later upgrade, then yea, looks like the pictures I took of weapons not in it are useless and I'll just delete them!

[mstrox 6,651]

That's weird - I think every weapon I've come across has been snapshot-able.  You can't get it if it's still in an enemy's hand, but you can get it on the ground or while you're wearing it.  Maybe that's the issue?  Or you aren't close enough?

 

Do you remember what weapons you're taking pictures of that aren't boxed?

[Jay 37,355]

Maybe it wasn't weapons that the camera wasn't recognizing; Maybe it was more like rupees and other enemy drops, I can't remember now.  Regardless, I deleted all my pictures and won't worry about it much.

 

 

I finished the divine beast in Zora's domain last night.  Wow, what a challenge!

 

 

The trek up the mountain to get shock arrows was cool, since you can ride those waterfalls.  Once I got up there, I had a blast sneaking around, avoiding being seen by the Lynel (whatever he's called).  A couple times he saw me and basically one-shotted me with his arrows, but I realized if I saved my game after every group of arrows I collected, I wouldn't have to collect those ones again on a restart.  I think I got about 25 arrows before I paraglided off the mountain towards the beast (and I was glad I got that many!)

The first bit where you ride on Sidon's back and shoot the shock arrows at the elephant's shoulders was freaking awesome!  It wasn't necessarily hard (once I realized I could use Cryonis to break the ice blocks), but it was challenging, and rewarding!  Inside the beast I was really surprised;  This ain't no classic Zelda dungeon.  It was small!  In the end though, it probably took me longer to beat than a LTTP dungeon!  The first couple terminals were easy to figure out but boy did it take me a while to get all 5!  When I finally realized that I could make the big gear spin the other way by positioning the trunk in the right place it all came together.  I was dissapointed by the enemies you encounter; two mini guardians that were 0 challenge (a couple sword whacks and they were dead) and some weird floating heads that didn't drop anything.  And it wasn't always easy to see where the eyeball in the goo was to kill those things.  But the puzzle parts were challenging at least.

 

Then the boss fight.  Holy bloody hell, I probably died 20 times before beating him.  What a challenge!  The first phase was easy to know what to do - I would run up to him and whack him a few times with my dragonbone club, then run away when he was about to create that shockwave.  The part could be annoying though, as sometimes I just couldn't run away from the shockwave in time.  The second phase was super tough, since you start in the water and have to run to one of the 4 squares, and sometimes he'd chose that square to hover over and you'd be fucked!  Luckily the ice blocks weren't blast to kill with Cryonis again, but sometimes I'd still be in the water and have no way to get out and they'd just kill me.  The time I killed him was an oddity compared to all other tries;  I just stood on a square shooting a million shock arrows at him until he just fell down, and for some reason he stayed long long enough for me to hop over and whack him with the club until he died.  It was weird, but I'll take it!  I still needed 2 meals that filled my hearts + gave me 4 yellow to beat him.  Damn!

I stayed up long enough to talk to the Zorans and get all the rewards before going to bed.  So that gift thingy, I basically can't die now.  I'll always automatically revive?

 

[mstrox 6,651]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

Maybe it wasn't weapons that the camera wasn't recognizing; Maybe it was more like rupees and other enemy drops, I can't remember now.  Regardless, I deleted all my pictures and won't worry about it much.

 

It doesn't recognize monster parts (Keese wings/eyeballs, etc etc).  Doesn't recognize Rupees either.  Not sure if the DLC will have an upgrade to the catalog or not.

 

1 hour ago, Jay said:

 

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The trek up the mountain to get shock arrows was cool, since you can ride those waterfalls.  Once I got up there, I had a blast sneaking around, avoiding being seen by the Lynel (whatever he's called).  A couple times he saw me and basically one-shotted me with his arrows, but I realized if I saved my game after every group of arrows I collected, I wouldn't have to collect those ones again on a restart.  I think I got about 25 arrows before I paraglided off the mountain towards the beast (and I was glad I got that many!)

Spoiler

I ended up sneaking around for the arrows, too.  I spent way too many "lives" trying to go for the direct route.  I've come across a small handful of Lynels in the wild - I think they're the one creature I've STILL been unable to beat.

 

1 hour ago, Jay said:

 

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(once I realized I could use Cryonis to break the ice blocks)

 

 I kept wasting all my arrows!

 

1 hour ago, Jay said:

 

  Hide contents

So that gift thingy, I basically can't die now.  I'll always automatically revive?

 

Spoiler

Once you die a life, the power will be drained for about 15 minutes of play - so try not to die again!  There will be a small elephant in the top left corner of your screen that "refills," and a noise that lets you know when it's back.  It's one of the two best dungeon powers in the game, IMO.

 

[Jay 37,355]

 

Haha, that's funny about using arrows to break the ice blocks.  I realized I could use Cryonis only because the night before I tried out that dungeon inside Zora's domain where I was constantly making and breaking ice blocks, so it was on my mind.  So when the elephant throw blocks at me, I got out my bow at first before thinking "Hey, I wonder if Cryonis would break these blocks too"... and it did!

About the gift: Sounds cool, basically acts like a fairy in the older games, but one that you get back every 15 minutes.  Neat.

 

And yea, that's what it was, monster parts like eyeballs and stuff. I was taking pictures of those things assuming I'd be able to add them to the guide later, but thankfully after talking to you I deleted that stuff!

 

About the DLC: Did you buy it yet?  I will buy it after I beat the game.

[mstrox 6,651]

I haven't bought it yet - it was a stretch financially to afford the game itself at the moment, and I also splurged on the two JW releases from last week ill advisedly.  I'm absolutely going to do it though.

[Jay 37,355]

There's really no reason to buy it until the actual content is out

[mstrox 6,651]

Yeah, I'm in no hurry.  Apparently there's some stuff that pops up NOW if you buy the season pass (a few extra chests on the plateau) but nothing worthwhile for me at this point.

[Jay 37,355]

Right that's why I don't want to buy it until after I've beaten it, i don't want free items (I'm not scanning in any amiibos either, not that I have any other than the free ones I got with Captain Toad and Twilight Princess HD)

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I'm over 80 hours into Zelda and I only just last night decided to go fight a guardian.  It was easy enough to avoid them for that long!

 

I had been building it up in my mind that it was comical how easy it was to take them down.  I assumed the ancient arrows would be effective in the same way they were against the combat shrine guardians, I had no idea they were one-shot kills!  So I went on a spree of killing guardians to harvest their parts, trying to get the complete armor set from the robot dude.

[Jay 37,355]

I really want to upgrade my Stasis and Magnesis, but I can't find ancient shafts or cores anywhere; All I ever get are ancient screws and springs.  Is it just random what you get, or do only the big, mobile ones drop the good stuff?  Because I haven't killed any of those yet, only the smaller ones inside Shrines and Divine Beasts, and that one non-mobile one near the central Tower.

 

I heard them talking about Ancient Arrows on a podcast this morning, but haven't had anyone mention that in my game yet.  I feel like I'm way behind everyone, only having done 1 Divine Beast and still having 4 entire regions I haven't grabbed the tower for (mostly to the west and south).

 

BTW, how the bloody hell do you even tell how many hours you've put into the game?

[mstrox 6,651]

18 minutes ago, Jay said:

I really want to upgrade my Stasis and Magnesis, but I can't find ancient shafts or cores anywhere; All I ever get are ancient screws and springs.  Is it just random what you get, or do only the big, mobile ones drop the good stuff?  Because I haven't killed any of those yet, only the smaller ones inside Shrines and beasts, and that one non-mobile one near the central Tower.

 

I didn't even know you COULD upgrade magnesis.  Haven't explored to that particular part yet, I guess, although I have upgraded some of the other abilities.

 

I think the odds of getting shafts and cores is increased in bigger/tougher guardians - and sometimes I've found them in harder-to-get chests in shrines.

 

18 minutes ago, Jay said:

I heard them talking about Ancient Arrows on a podcast this morning, but haven't had anyone mention that in my game yet.  I feel like I'm way behind everyone, only having done 1 Divine Beast and still having 4 entire regions I haven't grabbed the tower for (mostly to the west and south).

 

Ancient arrows:  I had somebody give me ONE ancient arrow after a quest of some sort - can't remember it anymore.  Later on,

Spoiler

I came across somebody in the East who sells ancient arrows and other Guardians defense - after a quest or two.

 

 

Amazing how unguided/unmandatory everything is, that you could end up beating Ganon without ever coming across entire areas of the map, side-quests, areas to unlock certain abilities, etc.

 

I spent my last few play sessions just exploring and looking for shrines.  I think next time I play, I'm going to make a run at Ganon.  Might be a while, though - my spouse is quarantined with a stomach bug, so I'm 24/7 baby care between daycare shifts.  When downtime comes around, I've just wanted to sleep. Haven't played since maybe Saturday.

[Jay 37,355]

Yea I didn't play at all yesterday, first day I haven't played since I started I think.

 

Well, I might have said the wrong thing; I'm talking about the short lady that stands on a chair in the observatory with the helper dude who is always standing up reading a book by the entrance.  You can give him ancient screws/shafts/cores/springs (don't remember exactly which ones) and he'll upgrade 3 of your runes.  I had the stuff for the upgrade that added the Compendium, but I don't think I have the right stuff for the other two upgrades he offers - I thought it was Magnesis and Stasis, but I'm probably remembering wrong and it was Bombs and Stasis.  I dunno.

 

Seriously though, how do you make the game or system tell you how many hours you've played it?

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Jay, you need to kill some of the big, mobile guardians in the central region.  They drop a treasure trove of parts.

[Jay 37,355]

I dunno if I can kill them without those arrows, though.

 

I know you can chop off their legs, but their laser would still one-shot you right?

[Disco Stu 15,495]

38 minutes ago, Jay said:

BTW, how the bloody hell do you even tell how many hours you've put into the game?

 

At first I used the Parental Controls app on my iPhone.  The only downside is that it only tracks daily (not total) and only tracks while your Switch is connected to the internet.

 

Then at some point my Switch started tracking on my profile screen (the icon in the top left of the main interface).  It updates every 5 hours (Played over 60 hours, Played over 65 hours, etc.).

 

2 minutes ago, Jay said:

I dunno if I can kill them without those arrows, though.

 

I know you can chop off their legs, but their laser would still one-shot you right?

 

Yeah you definitely need the ancient arrows to make it a stress-free encounter.  The lab for getting those is mentioned by the weird woman who aged backwards, it's way in the top right corner of the continent.

[Jay 37,355]

Oh right!  I've had a side-quest to go visit a tech lab up in that area since like my second or third night of play, but I haven't ventured that far north yet; I haven't even grabbed that region's tower yet (or even stepped foot in it, I don't think).

[mstrox 6,651]

I found it just through random exploring, but I'm glad I did (it's what I mentioned above in my spoiler text)

33 minutes ago, Jay said:

Well, I might have said the wrong thing; I'm talking about the short lady that stands on a chair in the observatory with the helper dude who is always standing up reading a book by the entrance.  You can give him ancient screws/shafts/cores/springs (don't remember exactly which ones) and he'll upgrade 3 of your runes.  I had the stuff for the upgrade that added the Compendium, but I don't think I have the right stuff for the other two upgrades he offers - I thought it was Magnesis and Stasis, but I'm probably remembering wrong and it was Bombs and Stasis.  I dunno.

 

Ah, yes - Bombs and Stasis!  Honestly, I haven't found much use for the stasis - yet.  I figure the compendium update will be helpful when I need to go item hunting for some of these sidequests I skipped.

 

34 minutes ago, Jay said:

Seriously though, how do you make the game or system tell you how many hours you've played it?

 

IDK

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I'm really looking forward to watching some of the speed run videos where people are beating the game (without exploiting glitches) in less than an hour.  I think the world record currently stands somewhere around 48 minutes.

 

I'm getting close to where I feel like I'll just go fight Ganon (I'm sure I could now, just want to save it).

[Jay 37,355]

Stasis is great!  You can Stasis a metal box, whack it 3 times with a weapon, climb onto it and bam, go flying for a free ride!  Possibly have it go even further if balloons are tied to it just before Stasis-ing?

[mstrox 6,651]

Oh, I've used stasis plenty - just haven't used the "plus" feature of stasis very extensively.

[Jay 37,355]

Ah, I don't even know what the Plus feature is, though I'm guessing you can Stasis enemies?

[mstrox 6,651]

[Jay 37,355]

 

 

[mstrox 6,651]

Tried to thwomp Ganon last night, but forgot to check my coffers re: arrows, food/meals, weapons, etc.  lolol, better luck tonight

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

1 minute ago, mstrox said:

Tried to thwomp Ganon last night.

 

How was it? I had pasta last night.

[mstrox 6,651]

22 hours ago, Stefancos said:

 

How was it? I had pasta last night.

 

Scrumptious.

 

 

Last night I decided to start bulking up on weapons, meals, etc to THWOMP GANON, but that entailed going to all the towns and stables that I'm aware of, so I just ended up side-tracked on a bunch of side quests that I had skipped previously, which led to finding a bunch of new shrines along the way in places I hadn't visited.  So that's another 4-5 hours without THWOMPING GANON.

 

Quick travel in this game is a life saver, especially once you build up your map.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I defeated Ganon last week at some point.  It felt great at the time and was really cool, but I just went right back into it getting more shrines and side quests, haha.  It is kind of weird to just go right back to the last save point before you beat the game and... keep playing the game for dozens of more hours.

[Quintus 5,399]

To me it's an anti-climatic approach which I purposefully avoid in these sorts of games. When I know I'm about to go beyond the point of no return, I make sure I've done what I wanted to do up to that point and I 'make my peace' with the unfinished quest markers on my map or in my list. If I go on to the finale and beat the final boss, I have already made the decision to let those unfinished quests go, to ignore them for good. 

 

If I were a completionist, I wouldn't take on the final boss until I'd done everything else in the game first. 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I'm definitely curious how they work the DLC coming this Holiday into the narrative of the game now that I've played it through.

[mstrox 6,651]

I was under the impression that

 

Spoiler

after you beat Ganon, it marks that quest as "complete", but you can still go on playing - so you don't have to keep reverting to a save state.  Is that not true?

 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

2 minutes ago, mstrox said:

I was under the impression that

 

  Hide contents

after you beat Ganon, it marks that quest as "complete", but you can still go on playing - so you don't have to keep reverting to a save state.  Is that not true?

 

 

Spoiler

After you finish the game it takes you back to the title screen.  If you select 'Continue' then it takes you to a list of save states, the top one has a star next to it showing that you beat Ganon, but it's still literally the last autosave before the fight.  I had to actively leave Hyrule Castle to keep playing.

 

[mstrox 6,651]

Gotcha - works well enough for me!

[Koray Savas 2,251]

On 3/27/2017 at 0:44 PM, Quintus said:

To me it's an anti-climatic approach which I purposefully avoid in these sorts of games. When I know I'm about to go beyond the point of no return, I make sure I've done what I wanted to do up to that point and I 'make my peace' with the unfinished quest markers on my map or in my list. If I go on to the finale and beat the final boss, I have already made the decision to let those unfinished quests go, to ignore them for good. 

 

If I were a completionist, I wouldn't take on the final boss until I'd done everything else in the game first. 

I'm the same way. It's why I've spent so much time in Horizon but have barely done any story missions. 

[Jay 37,355]

Had a great time in Zelda Thursday night; Headed into the NorthEast corner of the world and grabbed the two towers there.  One of them was really cool because it was on top of a ruined citadel, covered in that icky goo stuff that Link takes damage if he touches. Was fun clearing out the enemies there so I could climb it.   It's so rewarding when you activate the towers, and the music plays, it glows, the parts move, etc. Love it!

 

I picked that corner of the world because I knew that other tech guy was up there, so Friday night I continued my journey north until I got there.  That dude (Robbie, I think?) IS AWESOME!  I loved his look, his personality, his music, especially the electric guitar to sting some of his poses!  He sent me off on a quest for blue flame, which is exactly what you had to do in Hatena Village, which is kinda funny.

So Saturday night I took care of that, it was quite a challenge.  Because if you sneak around the enemies on your way to the blue flame source, since you have to carry it from lamp to lamp on the way back you kinda of end up having to fight them all. I pulled it off.  The most annoying part was the constant rain, since you can't make a damn torch when its raining!

 

 

Somewhere in there, on one of those nights, I fast traveled around a bit because I was looking for that Korok guy who you can buy additional inventory slots from since I had enough seeds.  I had the funniest thing happen near one of the stables I went to!

So it was night time and I fought a bunch of skeleton bokoblins who were on skeletal horses.  Once the battle was over I was able to tame and ride a skeletal horse!  I brought him to the stable but the staff wouldn't board him   When the sun came up, he poofed away into dust anyway.

[mstrox 6,651]

Woah - somehow haven't seen skeleton horses.  Bummer you can't keep them!

 

I have two trained horses, "horsey" and "farty."  I haven't found a use for them yet, honestly.  I prefer traveling on foot.

 

I'm currently enjoying exploring a few of the areas that I barely looked in before.  I conquered the towers, but didn't go exploring.  Mainly Hylia, the bottom center section, and the entire north 1/3 of the map.  Not in any hurry to THWOMP GANON at this time.

[Jay 37,355]

Yea I think that was the only time I'd seen skeletal horses myself.  It was near one of the stables in the south/southeast area, maybe Outskirts Stable.

 

Another thing that happened to me one of those nights of play is I was stuck in my first thunderstorm.  Somehow in all my hours of play that was my first one!  Luckily I knew enough to disarm any metal weapons ( I think a traveler in the game told me that) and managed to fight off some bad guys with wooden clubs and a wooden shield.  I heard you can throw a metal weapon on the ground near bad guys and the lightning will zap them, but I didn't get an opportunity. I don't think it damages the weapon either!

 

I think my one complaint about the game is that it rains too much.  I love that the game features rain, and the lightning storms are beautiful, but overall the rain is really quite frequent, seemingly often when I was to climb things!

[Jay 37,355]

Monday evening I did some Shrine hunting, grabbed a bunch.  I'm getting better at fighting the little mini guardians inside the combat ones!  BTW, I heard after a blood moon those respawn and you can go back in and fight them again for more weapons!  I randomly stumbled upon a spring of power which was cool, grabbed another memory.

 

Last night was cool; I ended up going hunting for a memory that guy told me about, and it was in a region I hadn't grabbed the tower for yet.  I ended up actually really liking exploring a region I didn't have a map for; I spent more time just exploring, less time looking at the map to see what I was near.  Ended my night unlocking a shrine near a stable inside a canyon, haven't gone in it yet though.

 

Oh, and I played one shrine where there's basically a conveyor melt moving balls in front of you, and you have to get the ball inside a divot to activate a switch on the other side of the conveyor belt.  @Disco Stu @mstrox have you played that one?  If so:

 

I ended up using a korok leaf to blow the ball into the divot, is that how you guys did it too?  In the next room, where there are tiny guardians on the conveyor belt too, I was actually able to get some practice in on holding out your shield and pressing A right before the bolt hits to send it flying back at them; I killed them both that way!  In the third room, I used statis on the laser-blast-makers and timed my run for when a big lock would block the second laser, though I wonder if there are other ways to do that room too

[Disco Stu 15,495]

What area is that shrine in? It doesn't ring a bell and I've cleared 95 out of the 120!