| SPOILER THREAD | The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

[JezMM]

The thing I love best about the poo thing is that it suddenly makes you realise that all the Korok Seeds have been poops this entire time.  They look like little dollops and are described as having a distinct smell, just like Hetsu's.  It's fantastic.

 

I do definitely wish though there were unlockable "complete my collection"-esque hints for when you're down to the last few things of any given collection.  Things like:

- Kilton tells you the location of a boss monster you haven't yet found by name when you chat to him about them, at least once you've found 75% of them (though honestly I'd need it sooner than that... Talus are so hard to find due to lack of STRONG visual recognisability nor a sound cue like Hinoxes have).

- A heftily priced Shiekah Slate upgrade at the Hateno Tech Lab, only available after beating Ganon perhaps, that allows you to search for hidden items, making Shrines that need to be uncovered and Koroks available on the Sheikah Sensor.

- A map upgrade that tells you how many of each collectible remain in the selected region (Shrines, Seeds, Bosses, Shrine Quests and Side Quests).

 

I feel these would make every task in the game significantly more doable.  It seems odd that the Hyrule Compendium is the only 100% completion objective that has a get-out-of-jail-free card for finishing it off, when it's not even the most difficult task really, just the most tedious.

 

 

 

Story time just for fun, I managed to find 118 shrines of my own accord.  When I reached the final four, I particularly saved the Desert Labyrinth for the first of my final four - having done the other Labyrinths, it was obvious that that's what said structure was on the map when I surveyed the region.  Other than that I had two leads - the one Kass song I was missing which his diary above the Blood Moon shrine pointed me towards, and the Coliseum in Hyrule Field.  I decided I wanted to save that last Kass song as the penultimate one, since the Coliseum would obviously be a combat based thing where the Shrine would reveal itself after, a fitting final one.

But yeah, I just couldn't find that last lousy one I was missing, so I looked up Shrine Quests first.  The two I was missing were both ones I'd done... needed to speak to a Gerudo guard at one the more obscure entrance/exits to the town, and examine a stone tablet before the spiral-shaped beach in Akalla to activate and immediately clear those (both I did without being aware of the NPC/tablet, and gladly so considering they were pretty intuitive puzzles as they were, no handholding needed).

What I DID need handholding for though were the two I was missing (wait... wasn't I looking for just one?) when I finally caved and looked up a guide.  One was lighting the torches around the Molguda arena to the west of Gerudo Town.  I'd written off that area as "explored" from back when I went there for the Sick Husband sidequest, never noticing the torches.  I'd have never thought to return there when scouting Gerudo Desert properly for Shrines.  The other was the one tucked away on the cliffs not above but HALFWAY above the canyon leading to the Yiga Clan hideout, where you have to drop a luminous stone on the podium (which are provided for you... right by the podium, how is this even a puzzle?).  That definitely frustated me, the puzzle to reveal the Shrine was so worthless they might as well have made it a scannable one that's already there, considering how tucked away it is and how I never heard an NPC talk of it.

So obviously the ending to the story is my realisation that the Coliseum was not the big deal it looked like it was and is not an overworld Shrine challenge but simply there as a resource to get elemental weapons if you ever need one.  So my final Shrine was the Kass one where you have to shoot an arrow through two rocks with holes in.  Not the bookending "final feeling" send-off shrine I hoped it to be but y'know I loved completing relaxing puzzles in peaceful little corners of Hyrule with the wind and Kass' accordian to keep me company so that's fine, it was how it was meant to be.

[Blue Blood]

Funny that the Molduga torches was one of the shrines that we both needed to look up. I think that's a bit of duff design. You get sent to that area on a side quest, beat the monster, get the goods and compete the mission. The other Moldugas aren't hiding anything, so why would this one which is already connected to another, unrelated mission?

I'm not even sure what my final shrine was now. But one that got me really stumped was Kass' song about a beast with a crown of bone. Despite the area being teeming with bucks, I figured that it meant a Stalhorse, because they literally have a crown of bone. But nope.

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

9 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Funny that the Molduga torches was one of the shrines that we both needed to look up. I think that's a bit of duff design. You get sent to that area on a side quest, beat the monster, get the goods and compete the mission. The other Moldugas aren't hiding anything, so why would this one which is already connected to another, unrelated mission?

I'm not even sure what my final shrine was now. But I'm one that got me really stumped was Kass' song about a beast with a crown of bone. Despite the area being teeming with bucks, I figured that it meant a Stalhorse, because they literally have a crown of bone. But nope.

That was the first and only Kass puzzle I figured out. Seemed pretty straightforward to me since Antlers are a form of bone. but hey

[JezMM]

I did figure that one out right away but ONLY because of the foreknowledge that you can mount bucks.  Since I barely even engaged with the horses, I only knew of mounting other things after seeing ridiculous screenshots of Link riding bears and such online.  My first thought was Stalhorse, but "crown" seemed oddly specific when they're entirely bone.

It'd be kind of neat if Stalhorse did work though, and talking to Kass after made him mention that surely a buck would've worked just as well as a joke or something.

 

By the way, I wasn't aware of this until listening to the soundtrack on youtube and seeing a song I didn't think I had heard, so for anyone who hasn't seen it: If you've solved all of Kass' songs, he can be found at Rito Village.  Worth paying him a visit.

[Blue Blood]

31 minutes ago, Mando-Whirl-Wind said:

That was the first and only Kass puzzle I figured out. Seemed pretty straightforward to me since Antlers are a form of bone. but hey

Heh, really? I found all of his other ones to be very straightforward. Kass is an awesome character though. He's just so likeable somehow, even if he doesn't actually do an awful lot. 

After I finished the last of his songs, I went and checked out his diary in Washers Bluff. He writes down in there that he's going back home. 

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

34 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Heh, really? I found all of his other ones to be very straightforward. Kass is an awesome character though. He's just so likeable somehow, even if he doesn't actually do an awful lot. 

After I finished the last of his songs, I went and checked out his diary in Washers Bluff. He writes down in there that he's going back home. 

Well, I've only found one of his other ones, the blood moon one which is a pain to do since you can't really force a blood moon

[JezMM]

I just continued on with my exploration and other stuff, and just made a mental note to go visit the Duelling Peaks stable at about 18:00 each day to ask the NPC there if it was gonna be a Blood Moon tonight.  If it was, I'd travel to the Shrine on Satori Mountain and sail down at about 10pm, two in-game hours is plenty of time to do so.

 

Speaking of I love that in-game hours in this are exactly a minute this time round, makes it fairly intuitive to time things that, well, rely on time of day.

[Blue Blood]

Who's bought the DLC Pass yet? I just decided to look it up to see if the bonus chests were anything interesting.

You get a ruby, five bomb arrows and the Switch shirt. Didn't expect it to be that shitty. 

[Mystwalker]

About Blood Moons, I keep hearing that they are somewhat of a memory reset, occurring when the game's keeping track of too many things (enemy deaths, for instance).

For that shrine quest in particular I saw myself skipping over almost 2 in-game time weeks to try and get a Blood Moon to no avail, but once I gave up and went off to explore some more on my own it took a few nights to have one occur. Some could argue Blood Moons are random, but I feel that the more you mess around with the game the sooner it tends to appear.

Also fun detail about Blood Moons: they do not occur if you're in a shrine instance. As long as you enter a shrine before midnight and leave after it you can delay the Blood Moon for the next night. Handy if you need to head to that particular shrine but forgot about it until the last few minutes, or could use some postponing to cook some food (funnily enough I learned about that upon leaving that Blood Moon-required shrine itself, haha).

[Blue Blood]

The memory reset would make sense, especially when you consider the glitch that causes random, frequent blood moons at any time of the day. The glitch is more likely to occur the longer the game has been running without being turned off, and appears to be Switch exclusive. Although you have less than five seconds to prepare for the glitched blood moons, you can able to delay them briefly by climbing or performing other actions. It's really weird. 

[JezMM]

1 minute ago, Mystwalker said:

About Blood Moons, I keep hearing that they are somewhat of a memory reset, occurring when the game's keeping track of too many things (enemy deaths, for instance).

For that shrine quest in particular I saw myself skipping over almost 2 in-game time weeks to try and get a Blood Moon to no avail, but once I gave up and went off to explore some more on my own it took a few nights to have one occur. Some could argue Blood Moons are random, but I feel that the more you mess around with the game the sooner it tends to appear.

Also fun detail about Blood Moons: they do not occur if you're in a shrine instance. As long as you enter a shrine before midnight and leave after it you can delay the Blood Moon for the next night. Handy if you need to head to particular shrine but forgot about it until the last few minutes, or could use some postponing to cook some food (funnily enough I learned about that upon leaving that Blood Moon-required shrine itself, haha).

Yeah I've been reading similar things myself.  I've only ever had one "unexpected" Blood Moon, which suddenly arrived at 4am after about 5 seconds of forewarning (completely normal night, then suddenly Ganon particles, red sky and Blood Moon happens - wouldn't have even had time to spin the camera up to look at the moon to see if it was white beforehand, before I realised what was happening.

I assume those who have had "glitched" Blood Moons have actually just done something the game isn't happy with so it's resetting the world.  I read about someone recieving a Blood Moon when they tried to take entities (like Cuccos) extremely far away from their start point, implying the Blood Moon confiscated said Cucco and returned it to it's spawn point.  I believe chests and materials also reset themselves during Blood Moons (though plantlife grows back naturally too).

It would be interesting to see someone try to "push" Blood Moons by constantly getting into Shrines whenever one tries to happen, but I imagine those sudden 5 second ones don't give enough time to run over to a Shine entry from the warp arrival point even if you're 100% on the ball with noticing the visual effects before an unexpected one.

14 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

Who's bought the DLC Pass yet? I just decided to look it up to see if the bonus chests were anything interesting.

You get a ruby, five bomb arrows and the Switch shirt. Didn't expect it to be that shitty. 

Yeah I finally bought it the other day since I think for now I'm "done" with the game, but too wanted to check out the chests.  They are pretty damn lame, especially considering I'd have thought the idea was to give you a headstart in the Great Plateau.  The chests are kinda hard to find too, I had to look up a guide.  Considering you're supposed to be finding your feet by yourself in the Great Plateau to train you for the wider world, I feel the ideal situation would've been to provide the bonus chests at the Temple of Time, either around the Goddess Statue or up in the tower for opening once you speak to King Rhoam.  Then they give you a care package for your trip to Duelling Peaks, some bomb arrows, hearty food and 100 rupees or something.

I still find the Switch t-shirt a little too goofy for my liking.  I'd have rather they kept it just a little more in-universe with like a Legend of Zelda logo t-shirt or 30th anniversary logo t-shirt or a Triforce or something, idk.  I'm aware it's just a goofy bonus thing though, but still, considering the lameness of the other gifts, there's nothing really to make up for the fact that it's a joke item.  Also it should've been a Wii U t-shirt on the Wii U version instead of a Switch t-shirt, coz c'mon, the disrespect there... lol.

[Blue Blood]

Haha! The Switch shirt on the Wii U version does sound funny when you put it like that. 

Maybe upsetting the game by taking items far from their spawn points can cause a blood moon, but I'm still pretty sure it's ultimately down to memory or cache issues that are largely out of the players hand. And if course, spawn points could play a role in that. That would really make sense because they seem to be most common when the game hasn't been shut down for a long time. 

I've had several of them happen within minutes of each other when I've been doing absolutely nothing of interest in the game at all. But the most annoying, perhaps, was when I was doing the rock roast quest on Death Mountain. I was carrying the rock roast and periodically taking out the Moblins and Chu Chus in the area. Right as I got to the top of the hill, a glitch Moon happened. All the enemies respawned and the rock roast disappeared from Link's hands. Bloody nuisance that was. 

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

Say, how do you equip gear on horses? I got the monster saddle and head piece from what's his name, but I can't put them on any horse. Thought it might work on the Stalhorse, but still no luck

[Blue Blood]

4 hours ago, Mando-Whirl-Wind said:

Say, how do you equip gear on horses? I got the monster saddle and head piece from what's his name, but I can't put them on any horse. Thought it might work on the Stalhorse, but still no luck

 

You have to go to a stable and chat to one of the workers who's outside with the horses. I don't think they're at all the stables, but there's definitely a woman who does it for you at the stable by the Colosseum Ruins. You need to have a maximum bond with the horse.

[Lady Soniko]

So I don't know if you guys seen but the Amiibo awards for daily drops when you use the Legend of Zelda series amiibo net you some good items like Hero of Time full outfit (including classic OoT Link's golden fringe) and the Big Goron's Sword. Apparently some of the weapons/shields are really rare drops, by using the Zelda smash bros amiibo you can get the Twilight Bow and it even shoots Light Arrows as it's only ammunition.

However people data mined the game and found costumes for Skyward Sword Link (and Goddess Sword) and.... Fierce Deity Link with the Double Helix sword, apparently we'll be getting SS and MM/Fierce Deity Link amiibo sometime in the future since the information was apparently from the same data the amiibo drops use. 

[Zaysho]

1 minute ago, Lady Soniko said:

However people data mined the game and found costumes for Skyward Sword Link (and Goddess Sword) and.... Fierce Deity Link with the Double Helix sword, apparently we'll be getting SS and MM/Fierce Deity Link amiibo sometime in the future since the information was apparently from the same data the amiibo drops use. 

I've heard the official collector's guide actually lists those outfits as well, but there isn't anything to directly access them short of a hacked NFC chip. I saw a rumor on GameXplain the other day that mentioned upcoming Amiibo listings that may actually get these armor and weapon sets, though. Not definitive, of course, but if it comes to pass, I know I'd love to get Fierce Deity Link.

[Lady Soniko]

Just now, Zaysho said:

I've heard the official collector's guide actually lists those outfits as well, but there isn't anything to directly access them short of a hacked NFC chip. I saw a rumor on GameXplain the other day that mentioned upcoming Amiibo listings that may actually get these armor and weapon sets, though. Not definitive, of course, but if it comes to pass, I know I'd love to get Fierce Deity Link.

Can confirm they're in the guide since I own it, it simply says "Designated Amiibo" so I'm guessing we'll be seeing either a MM Skull Kid, Link with the Mask of Truth or Fierce Deity Link, and for SS either Link, Fi or Ghirahim.

 

[Zaysho]

On 4/6/2017 at 11:31 PM, Lady Soniko said:

Can confirm they're in the guide since I own it, it simply says "Designated Amiibo" so I'm guessing we'll be seeing either a MM Skull Kid, Link with the Mask of Truth or Fierce Deity Link, and for SS either Link, Fi or Ghirahim.

 

Well, after yesterday's announcement, guess we got our answer. We have Young Link with Goron Mask representing Majora's Mask, so that's likely how we're getting Fierce Deity Link's outfit. I'm looking forward to getting that one.

I do kinda wish we did get other Zelda characters to represent different games for the Amiibo line (a Fi one sounds amazing), but I'll take what I can get.

 

 

Anyway, I finished this game a few days ago. Fucking. Loved it. I completed the game with all 120 shrines, all of Link's memories (had to leave the castle and return), all four Divine Beasts (had their powers disabled though), and the Master Sword. I had somewhere around 200 Korok seeds and while I'm finding some still... I can't say I'm particularly motivated to actively hunt them down. If I see a suspicious spot, sure, but I have enough weapon, bow, and shield slots that I'm not hurting for more. And given what I know about the reward... No.

The final boss fight was a lot easier than I expected, in part because of the Divine Beasts' help, but maybe because I spent nearly two hundred hours learning the game and was much better prepared for what Ganon would throw at me. But the two phases were a lot of fun. I actually really liked the second phase, both for the music, and because I had my favorite horse carrying me into battle and helping me out.

To be honest, I wouldn't care if they went back to the sort of Ocarina-esque structure of previous games, but I think there's A LOT that can be taken away from Breath of the Wild in terms of how Link controls and moves around, the way he interacts with the environment, using the basic tools the game supplies you with (I thought the runes were a fantastic addition, but I admit I didn't always remember to use them except for bombs) to solve puzzles and fight bosses (rather than getting a specific item in each dungeon and heavily rely on it through out, only for it to have minimal application outside once you complete it unless it's, like, the bow or something).

[G-Force]

Welp, today I learned something new.  When the in game description of a Lynel Shield mentions that it's bladed for slashing attacks, that's not just flavor text, and it's not referring to how the Lynels use them either.  If you have a Lynel Shield equipped, your Parry move will damage enemies if you hit them with it directly, a fact I proved very thoroughly when I beat a Blue Lizalfos to death with one.  The downside is that it eats the shield's durability, but that's not really different from any other weapon, so whatever.

Also, for the record, I realized this and tested it with a Savage Lynel Shield.  I'm assuming the normal and Mighty versions have the same property

[Zaysho]

3 hours ago, G-Force said:

Welp, today I learned something new.  When the in game description of a Lynel Shield mentions that it's bladed for slashing attacks, that's not just flavor text, and it's not referring to how the Lynels use them either.  If you have a Lynel Shield equipped, your Parry move will damage enemies if you hit them with it directly, a fact I proved very thoroughly when I beat a Blue Lizalfos to death with one.  The downside is that it eats the shield's durability, but that's not really different from any other weapon, so whatever.

Also, for the record, I realized this and tested it with a Savage Lynel Shield.  I'm assuming the normal and Mighty versions have the same property

I actually discovered this by accident myself the other night after reading the same Compendium description. It's a neat little detail. Actually can't confirm with the other Lynel shields, either, but I've been running into nothing but silvers lately (except, perhaps, at Hyrule Castle).

Another thing I learned, I heard that the Blast Octoroks (I think that's what they're called--the ones on Death Mountain) could be used to "refresh" rusted weapons if you toss one at them when their sucking in air and getting ready to shoot you. Got a couple Royal Broadswords out of that, which was really awesome.

Always feels like I'm learning something new about this game even after spending 200 hours with it. Reminds me of how much I loved Xenoblade X and the constant sense of discovery that would happen the more and more I played.

[Blue Blood]

I wish that Nintendo hadn't so thoroughly boxed the Great Plateau in for the tutorial. It's easy enough to get down into Hyrule Field and Lake Hylia, but you can't go very far before the gave warps you back to a spot just outside the Shrine of Resurrection. It's just a bit of game breaking that I'm trying to do, and I'm not actually complaining that Nintendo put in some robust fail safes. Feels fun to run around the Plateau tutorial with a Fire Rod though. 

[JezMM]

I am kind of surprised at how far away from the plateau the failsafe warp trigger is. You'd think they'd make it be a horizontal floor shaped trigger halfway down the entire circumference of the area rather than a wall about a quarter mile away from it, so it's impossible to land in Hyrule using stasis object surfing at all.

[Diogenes]

Well there are two warps, a horizontal one about halfway down the plateau walls and the "box" further out. The problem is that they don't intersect the whole way around, so there's places where you can drop down between them.

Considering how tenacious the Zelda speedrunning community is, I wouldn't be surprised if they find out a way to escape the box eventually. People thought Wind Waker's barrier was unskippable, but they found a way.

[Blue Blood]

My understanding is that there's only one normal kill zone, and it's the horizontal plane surrounding the Plateau. The other zone is a box surrounding the Plateau that will kill Link if he exits it, not enters it. Glitching the game to warp Link to any other location in the overworld will kill him, whether he's just outside the Plateau or if he's right at the corner of the map. The speed running community will only be able to circumvent the second kill zone (or life zone, as it technically is I guess) by warping directly inside dungeons, unless they can sequence break the game to disable the kill zones entirely. They shouldn't even be able to warp to the final boss against Beast Ganon, as it takes place out in the open in Hyrule Field. 

[JezMM]

Yeah, seems at this point people are just doing it for the sake of the challenge rather than speed running potential. I've read that not having the paraglider would severely affect getting to and beating ganon anyway.

And honestly in a game like this, being creative with the wide breadth of mechanics is way more interesting than watching someone glitch the end movie to play by sidestepping into a tree or whatever.