Michael Corvin

With all my climbing, I must have come the back way. "My house" was the first building I came across in the town.

spainlinx0

I really have to start taking the roads or something instead of just taking a straight path by floating/climbing there. I can't wait to go home and see what's there.

Michael Corvin

Spoiler, it costs $3,000 + 30 bundles of wood.

spainlinx0

Sold!

Goldberg74

But then there's the door, the mounts, the furniture, the exterior... it's such a rupee pit!

maxfisher

I'm still having a blast with this. I'm up to 85 shrines and 2 divine beasts. I went ahead and bought the expansion and the ability to view everywhere you've gone is a great addition in helping find new spots to explore, though really it's something they should've thrown in from the get-go. I've mostly avoided looking up any advice online, though when I hit the 3,000-rupees-for-a-home side quest, I did look up a hint for rupee farming that's been very helpful as I've progressed. I'm currently just messing around with exploring for shrines, knocking out side quests and gathering ingredients to upgrade all the armor I've found/purchased. I will say, the Korok seeds seem to be a bit ridiculous. I'm just under 100 and am not sure how I've seen so much of the world and hit over 2/3 of the shrines, but am just around 10% for those. I've tried wearing the korok mask a couple times, but usually am doing something where it's not worth losing an armor set bonus.

Michael Corvin

Where can you see how many Shrines you've done? I'm sure it's somewhere obvious I'm missing.

lumberjack

The obvious place to check is on every loading screen. In the top-right corner are some stacked icons ("energy orbs" acquired, shrines visited, korok seeds found, rupees) and the the divine beasts are animating below them. By "shrines visited," it's probably how many shrines you activated, not necessarily how many shrines you've completed.

Michael Corvin

Yeah, I saw it on the loading screen after I posted. Weird that there isn't somewhere in the menus to see it.

emachine12

The map... shrines finished are all blue, shrines discovered are blue bordered with gold in the middle. A treasure chest on the icon tells you goodies are inside.

But if you are looking for a number... just the loading screen as far as I can remember.

maxfisher

I'm up to 105 shrines and am probably going to have to use a guide for the last 15. When I look at where I've been on the map, there aren't really any unvisited spots that look large enough to be hiding a shrine without having set off the detector. I'm sure some of them are part of quests I haven't stumbled across, but I feel like I've been fairly thorough in finding and tackling quests in all the major towns.

mewmartigan

So for the folks that finished, how many heart containers did you have? I have done 3 of the 4 divine beasts, I have 14 heart containers and two full stamina wheels. I have 52 shrines done.

I do like the game very much but that doesn't mean I want to hunt down every single shrine. I may get one more container, plus the one from the last divine beast and go find gannon.

I notice that I encounter many 1 hit kill (me) enemies that I have a tougher time with than the bosses inside the divine beasts.

RichC2

I got 13 so I could

Then I went and beat the game. If you're getting 1 hit killed by enemies, it probably has more to do with what armor you have on.

maxfisher

Yeah, leveling up your armor via the great fairies has way more of an effect than increasing hearts. I think I currently have 21 hearts and there are plenty of things that do a lot of damage to me with default-level armor. If I throw on some level 4 armor, I can take out a Lynel without having to heal during the encounter.

mewmartigan

Thanks. And I think you are right about the armor. The only armor I have leveled up is the first armor I got. I never leveled my heat armor or cold armor and those are the places i get 1 shot.

Michael Corvin

Done. A whopping 149 hours and I still had about 18-20 sidequests left. Finished all the shrines though. Ended with 3 full stamina wheels and all but 3 hearts.

Very good but flawed game. I couldn't make myself slog through Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword, so BotW definitely has a leg up on those two games in the series.

I've been dying for Nintendo to change up the Zelda formula* for years and this finally fit the bill. Final thoughts:

Pros

• Huge open world map
• Lots of different weapons, including elemental
• Lots of gear/armor that can be leveled
• starting with bombs/unlimited supply
• lots of different types of puzzles whether it be in shrines, in the overworld or some creative quests
• LOTS of shit to do
• Fast travel
• cooking
• climbing - my favorite aspect of the game
• the 4 Beasts's puzzles and boss battles
• Ganon was pretty badass looking. He turned out to be kind of a chump and didn't offer up much of a challenge though.

Cons

• Huge sparse open world map (seems like I could play for a half hour and not run into any enemies)
• Immersion - the bigger Zelda finally gets the more the lack of immersion or "going all the way" sticks out. NPCs are dumb as shit. No one bats an eye when you disappear right in front of their eyes. Dialog trees are pointless as whatever choice you make doesn't matter one bit as the dialog circles back around to what you should have picked in the first place.
• breakable weapons - so freaking annoying. If the purpose was to get you to try the different items in the game, make the items worth trying out and I WILL use them. See Borderlands This almost 'broke' the game for me.
• Overworld mini-bosses - stemming from breakable items, why spend a ton of food and weapons to defeat a Lynel when the the reward earned is just going to break anyway? I'll just keep the weapons/food I have and not waste my time & effort.
• Sidequests - similar complaint here. Why am I going to travel half the map to find a bug to get a 50 rupee reward? Or a breakable reward? Pass.
• Rupees - so the developers want us to use the "market" system and buy/sell like Borderlands. Fine, but why take away 99% of the rupee gathering from dead enemies that was in every other Zelda?
• Rain - why the fuck does it rain so much in Hyrule? Nothing like being halfway up a cliff wall and then it just starts raining. And why can't the max level climing gear let you climb in the rain? I thought for sure I that was going to be a bonus for the full set.
• Link - it's 2017, why do numerous characters speak in cutscenes but Link is apparently a mute? Never mind that Zelda is always talking to him and he just stands there staring at her like a dumbfuck with no reply. If Nintendo insists Link never having a voice and he's going to continue being mute, go the distance and be progressive, "teach" him sign language and have him sign during the game. That would be different and pretty cool.
• Text Bubbles - Again, it's 2017. WTF is this shit? Especially the kind you can't speed up or skip. I winced every time I accidentally hit 'A' at the end of some dialog only to restart a conversation.
• Enemies - way too repetitive. Each region should have had a different set of enemies with different challenges instead of just elemental versions of the same enemies you already fought elsewhere on the map.
• Vegas Showgirl fairies that demand money for services. Hideous design choice too.
• Overall look of the game was kinda of 'blah.' I like cel shaded but outside of maybe Link, Zelda & Ganon it doesn't look like much thought went into the design especially Hyrule. A friend said he thought it looked like someone had smeared vaseline all over his screen. I can't argue with that. It also ties in with the lack of immersion.
• Clmbing - Nintendo designs a Zelda around climbing and this is the game they decide to leave out the grappling hook? Give the the grappling hooks and then I could have climbed in the rain. So bizarre.
• Arrows - I can craft elixers & cook. I can chop wood. I can kill birds... but I cannot make my own arrows with wood and feathers? Seems shortsighted.

So yeah, lots of little things that kept nagging at me for the game it could be. Given how much there is to do, and how fun the play mechanics and puzzles are, it was enough to keep me hooked despite the flaws. I just think back to Tomb Raider 2013 (since it has similar play mechanics with the bows, climbing and puzzles )and how immersive it was(how Lara interacted with the environment, how gorgeous it was, etc) and how far behind a four year old game Nintendo is. Babysteps. Make this a WiiU launch title and I think the WiiU's life would have been much different and a lot of my complaints wouldn't be as glaring.

Overall it was still a great game: Solid A-

*Given how smart, strong and a much better developed character Zelda is in this game it just reinforces my belief that she needs to headline her own game given that her name is in the title. Make her a strong female lead like Lara. Link's a mute chump. Give Zelda her due. Let her save her own kingdom for once instead of relying on her male love interest to save the day yet again.

mattysemo247

I finished my first divine beast today, it was a little tough so I had to look at a couple videos for some tips. Pretty fun though. Still trying to stick with it, even with a lot of other games fighting for attention right now.

mattysemo247

Question, so the next divine beast location I went to is surrounded by hot lava. Is there something I can do now to try and go there or is that something you gain from one of the other divine beasts?

Michael Corvin

You need special armor or elixir to survive in that region. But to take on the Divine Beast? Nothing specific.

mattysemo247

Is there a local vendor I should look for that sells the armor?

Me007gold

Yes, and a bit down the road(before you get to the city) there is a quest you can complete to get the chest piece, so you don't have to buy it

mewmartigan

you should also meet a salesman on the road to the city that will give you 3 elixirs. They last about 6 minutes or so, which should be enough to get you in the city and to the store to buy the armor.

mattysemo247

Awesome, thanks guys. I'll check it out next time I log on.

Me007gold

lol at the picture bestbuy used for the Urbosa amiibo

The Questyen

That's the official picture Nintendo used pre-release. That same picture was used on every sites preorders.