[quote="Ultramario"]Anybody else found Sidon's (the [ispoiler]Zora Prince[/ispoiler]) "heroic" pose hilarious?[/quote] The noise his shining teeth makes reminds me of the intro noise to LttP

About a late-game weapon: [ispoiler]The Master Sword! I discovered where it's hiding. First of all, there's that big Korok guy that gives you inventory upgrades for Korok seeds. He told me that the forest was way up north. Then, outside a stable (Outskirts Stable I think?) there was a girl by a tree who recognized me as Link, but then decided that I couldn't be link because I didn't have the "legendary sword from the forest". !!! I immediately ran north and trekked across basically the entire top of the map lmao. The Lost Woods are in the northeast. You can't glide to the island; it's foggy and you'll be carried off back to where you were last standing. Your best bet is to get the nearest tower and then go to the entrance, which is by that tower. How Lost Woods works is, if you go in a wrong direction, the fog will surround you and try to take you to the beginning, or halfway point. If you turn around and run away quick enough, it won't take you. Then you'll enter Korok Forest. There's the Master Sword, and the Great Deku Tree. You have to have a certain number of hearts in order to get the sword; I have 6 and it's not enough. Idk how many it takes, but I want to find out for myself. There's at least 2 shrines there.[/ispoiler]

[quote="HylianDev"]About a late-game weapon: [ispoiler]There's the Master Sword, and the Great Deku Tree. You have to have a certain number of hearts in order to get the sword; I have 6 and it's not enough. Idk how many it takes, but I want to find out for myself. There's at least 2 shrines there.[/ispoiler][/quote] [ispoiler]If you wanna find out, I'm not aware of anywhere where the game tells you how many you do need. It's kinda like the original Zelda with the White/Magical Swords that way.[/ispoiler] Also, finally, after busting my ass and combing through the overworld, I conquered every single Shrine (and of course my last one had to be a motion-controlled Apparatus trial). My reward still felt kinda iffy, but I gotta say that it just feels so incredibly right [ispoiler]to go about Hyrule business in a proper green Link getup... though it can be dyed should the desire arise.[/ispoiler]

[quote="BullockDS"][ispoiler]If you wanna find out, I'm not aware of anywhere where the game tells you how many you do need. It's kinda like the original Zelda with the White/Magical Swords that way.[/ispoiler][/quote] Yeah I thought about that! I have a huge soft spot for the original LoZ so to see the references to it in this game is amazing. [ispoiler]Digdogger Bridge, Gleeok Bridge, Manhala (Manhaldla) Bridge, Aquame (Aquamentus) Bridge, etc[/ispoiler]

I just got done with the [ispoiler]Vah Ruta[/ispoiler] dungeon, and it was a blast. I really dig the concept of [ispoiler]manipulating the dungeon itself[/ispoiler] and am curious to see how it plays out in the remaining [ispoiler]3[/ispoiler] dungeons. I think [ispoiler]Vah Ruta[/ispoiler] is also the first dungeon the game expects you to go to so I hope the rest will be even more challenging. I heard that the [ispoiler]Vah Medoh[/ispoiler] dungeon in particular is going to be especially complex. I also really liked the whole little Zora story, and how that one guy was so skeptical of Link. [ispoiler]Mipha makes for a much better waifu [size=90]than Ruto ever was [/size][size=85]and [/size][size=80]if [/size][size=70]you [/size][size=60]disagree[/size][size=50] your [/size][size=40]opinion[/size][size=30] is [/size][size=20]just [/size][size=10]wrong.[/size][/ispoiler].

This is a very good game and I like it very much.

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILER [spoiler]I'm about 20 hours into the game, and I've only beat Vah Ruta and Vah Medoh thus far. Boy, is there a lot to see. I managed to find the Master Sword, but I'm too weak to pull it out yet so I guess more shrine hunting it is. I kinda like the mechanic of needing hearts to pull it out, but I also wish I knew how many you need. I wonder if the game has the mirror shield or the hylian shield as well. The dungeons are really creative, I like the physics engine approach. I beat Vah Ruta first, which was pretty tough with just the starting 4 hearts I had. Vah Medoh was pisseasy. Some of the shrines are kinda annoying, I haven't yet solved the pachinko machine ones. Some of them are really creative and fun, and overall, I've had more fun than, uh, not fun. Guardians are the most terrifying thing. I can't really get a good look at them before I'm turned into a mangled flaming mess. It's awesome and awful at the same time. I've gotten one ancient tech arrw thing thus far, and I have no idea where I could get more. I'm pretty sure I need those (and the master sword) to defeat the guardians. I'm not really sure where I was going with this post. Fuck that one tower in the middle of a lake surrounded by electric Poes.[/spoiler]

[quote="Ultramario"]Anybody else found Sidon's (the [ispoiler]Zora Prince[/ispoiler]) "heroic" pose hilarious?[/quote] Ehh. I thought it was a watered-down version of Prince Peasly's heroic pose.

[quote="[url=http://phpbb.mfgg.net/viewtopic.php?p=504443#p504443]CatoNator[/url]"][spoiler]Fuck that one tower in the middle of a lake surrounded by electric Poes.[/spoiler][/quote] On the subject of [ispoiler]poes[/ispoiler]: [spoiler]I've noticed that all Poes have a theme. Fire, Ice, Electric, etc. If you shoot them with an arrow that hurts their theme, it'll be a one-hit kill. E.g. a fire poe dies from one ice arrow. Idk what the antithesis of electric poes are, I just fought those guys off lol[/spoiler] On the subject of [ispoiler]guardians[/ispoiler]: [spoiler]DJ Coco had to tell me this because I'm a idiot. There are tiny guardians in some of the shrines, which will be named something like Major Test of Strength, Minor Test of Strength, etc. If you get one of their shields, then you can deflect a guardian blast with the shield and it will destroy the guardian in one hit. Alternatively, use any shield to block a guardian shot; I'm pretty sure that any shield can take a blast, though it'll be destroyed in one hit.[/spoiler]

Minor little thing, but I thought it was an interesting addition. Many of you may know that if you use a fairy while cooking, it will sprinkle dust on the food, increasing it's healing properties. Well, don't try that if you are making a monster cake as it actually reduces the amount that it will heal.

I've barely cared about special recipes at all. [ispoiler]Just throw some of my piles and piles of way too much meat on the fire and I've got half a page of 3-to-15-heart replenishers. I haven't found a great deal of need for stamina-replenishing food; I've only used it a few times in all my 50+ hours. If you get radishes, just toss it on the fire with nothing and you'll be golden. Full recovery + 1 temp heart![/ispoiler]

GOD I SURE HOPE THE PARCEL COCO SENT COMES SOON BECAUSE I WANT TO PLAY BotW FFFFFFFFFFF

[quote="CatoNator"]THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILER [spoiler]I'm about 20 hours into the game, and I've only beat Vah Ruta and Vah Medoh thus far. Boy, is there a lot to see. I managed to find the Master Sword, but I'm too weak to pull it out yet so I guess more shrine hunting it is. I kinda like the mechanic of needing hearts to pull it out, but I also wish I knew how many you need. I wonder if the game has the mirror shield or the hylian shield as well. The dungeons are really creative, I like the physics engine approach. I beat Vah Ruta first, which was pretty tough with just the starting 4 hearts I had. Vah Medoh was pisseasy. Some of the shrines are kinda annoying, I haven't yet solved the pachinko machine ones. Some of them are really creative and fun, and overall, I've had more fun than, uh, not fun. Guardians are the most terrifying thing. I can't really get a good look at them before I'm turned into a mangled flaming mess. It's awesome and awful at the same time. I've gotten one ancient tech arrw thing thus far, and I have no idea where I could get more. I'm pretty sure I need those (and the master sword) to defeat the guardians. I'm not really sure where I was going with this post. f*** that one tower in the middle of a lake surrounded by electric Poes.[/spoiler][/quote] You need [ispoiler]13 hearts[/ispoiler] to [ispoiler]pull out the Master Sword[/ispoiler]. Also when you find [ispoiler]Major test of strength shrines[/ispoiler]: [spoiler][img]https://i.redd.it/zlx08agcy8ky.gif[/img][/spoiler]

[quote="Hypernova"]Also when you find [ispoiler]Major test of strength shrines[/ispoiler]: [spoiler][img]https://i.redd.it/zlx08agcy8ky.gif[/img][/spoiler][/quote] hahahaha [ispoiler]I actually beat one without being hurt![/ispoiler]

[quote="HylianDev"][ispoiler]If you get radishes, just toss it on the fire with nothing and you'll be golden. Full recovery + 1 temp heart![/ispoiler][/quote] Everything with [ispoiler]"Hearty"[/ispoiler] in the name has the same effect ([ispoiler]with varying numbers of temp hearts[/ispoiler]). The best one is [ispoiler]Hearty Durian, with a whopping +20 hearts![/ispoiler]

[quote="Hypernova"]Also when you find [ispoiler]Major test of strength shrines[/ispoiler]: [spoiler][img]https://i.redd.it/zlx08agcy8ky.gif[/img][/spoiler][/quote] Aw, those ain't so bad. You just gotta learn the timing [ispoiler]for flurry rushes (which are pretty easy for Mini Guardians' weapon attacks). Plus, stocking up on shock/ice/bomb arrows will help greatly as well. When they go into bullet mode near the end of their lifebars, you actually have a good window to smack them around before they start firing; they'll have an energy circle around them that shrinks as they get closer to firing, so back off when the circle gets about twice as big as their bodies.[/ispoiler]

[quote="Hypernova"]Also when you find [ispoiler]Major test of strength shrines[/ispoiler]: [spoiler][img]https://i.redd.it/zlx08agcy8ky.gif[/img][/spoiler][/quote]Haha, yeah, after first discovering the [ispoiler]Modest test of strength shrine[/ispoiler] and getting killed that was literally my reaction when I discovered one of the [ispoiler]Major test of strength shrines[/ispoiler]. But after getting some practice, they aren't too bad. Just make sure you come prepared with some good weapon (like [ispoiler]not the Master Sword[/ispoiler]). I find it easiest to dodge the [ispoiler]big blades[/ispoiler] so I usually wait for those to go in for a flurry rush. Also, [ispoiler]if you cook five durians you get a meal with full health recovery + 20 golden hearts (though hearts are capped at 30)[/ispoiler]. Also, once you get to the final phase you just need to [ispoiler]counter the beam with your shield for an instant kill[/ispoiler]. Unfortunately, [ispoiler]Mipha's Grace[/ispoiler] doesn't work in shrines, which makes sense, though I find it weird the [ispoiler]dungeon upgrades[/ispoiler] work inside of the main dungeons. Also, [ispoiler]the Ganon boss fights are a total push over with the master sword. Or Fireblight Ganon just sucks.[/ispoiler] Outside of those fights, however, I find it mostly useless as I got much stronger weapons but given how [ispoiler]it doesn't break[/ispoiler] I usually use it for the mundane tasks like chopping wood, haha.

While it isn't the strongest weapon normally, [ispoiler]the Master Sword actually [i]doubles[/i] in power when fighting Guardians and the like. It takes the legs off of the larger ones in one or two hits. You can also shoot Skyward Strikes with it by attempting to throw it. But yeah its unbreakability meant I was using it for a lot of mundane tasks as well.[/ispoiler]

[quote="Zero Kirby"]While it isn't the strongest weapon normally, [ispoiler]the Master Sword actually [i]doubles[/i] in power when fighting Guardians and the like. It takes the legs off of the larger ones in one or two hits. You can also shoot Skyward Strikes with it by attempting to throw it. But yeah its unbreakability meant I was using it for a lot of mundane tasks as well.[/ispoiler][/quote] I haven't gotten that weapon yet (don't have enough hearts), but I am very pleased to see that it does have [ispoiler]skyward strikes[/ispoiler], since I had been wondering if they'd be put in. I just hope it doesn't have [ispoiler]Fi[/ispoiler], haha.

I guess I'll make a great big followup post on what I think about the game now that I've finished the main story. First of all it's still really damn good. No other open-world game really comes close to capturing the feeling of adventure and discovery in a huge, wide-open world quite like this. What helps is that the game is very minimalistic. You never really get waypoints, or marks on the map for finding the game's towers. You have to forge your own paths and use directions from characters in order to find your way in the world, but what works is that you can forge [i]any path you want[/i]. So many games use mountains as walls, passes as hallways, funneling players through chokepoints and directing where they go. In this game? If a mountain's in your way, you can just climb over it. And when you get to the top, you can survey the landscape, place your own markers, and then go to town exploring all that you just saw. And on the way to whatever marker you may have placed, you could run into something else, be it a band of monsters attacking innocent people, or another Korok puzzle, maybe even some wildlife you can hunt for food or an enemy with a cool weapon to steal. It really does feel like a grand big ol' adventure. I [i]like[/i] that at the beginning of the game, you get your goal - defeat the Calamity Ganon and save Hyrule. And if you so choose, you can attempt it. I also like that you get the "items" of the game right off the bat, so that you know how to use them and the rest of the game is all about the adventure, not "well, to get here, I gotta get the bombs". The main dungeons are [i]cool[/i]. The mini-dungeon Shrines all provide fun little puzzles, usually with a little side-path for some treasures, or straight-up combat challenges. They all wind up feeling like rooms from one of the Temples in Ocarina of Time and the like, but all separate from each other. They're neat, but the real treat are the [ispoiler]Divine Beasts. Each one has a unique mechanic to [i]modify[/i] the dungeon itself. You get it pretty straight away, too. They end up making the dungeons feel like a large and complete whole, as opposed to a disparate group of rooms like some of the poorer dungeons in series past. They may be short, and the bosses at the end of every one pathetically easy, but they're really quite fun and the boons you get for completing them... kinda break the game. They make the game a lot easier.[/ispoiler] The game's challenging. I've actually died quite a few times on my quest because enemies get pretty powerful pretty fast, and it takes a while to build up hearts. I'd imagine that's why the game has the temporary hearts mechanic for eating food, but you can't really sleep through the combat like you could in Ocarina. One part of the game in particular made me extremely happy: [ispoiler]in the southeast there's an island that strips away all of your equipment and forces you to solve a puzzle. I loved this because it was a fantastic extended reference to Link's Awakening, and there's quite a few more references throughout the game.[/ispoiler] Separate spoiler 'cause it's a big deal: [ispoiler]Hyrule Castle's music even features the [i]Ballad of the Wind Fish[/i]. Words cannot describe. The music for Hyrule Castle's incredible, by the way.[/ispoiler] There's a lot of downsides, though. I've already mentioned the framerate issues, which [i]are[/i] a problem. Especially when the game soft-freezes for a second or two, or even gets some nasty screen-tearing. I love the visuals, I just wish the game could handle them. Second, perfect dodges and parries are a little too difficult to get consistently. Sometimes it feels like the game activates them at random. I'll be completely out of range of an attack, jump to the side, and discover I've suddenly entered Witch Time, whereas other times I'll dodge right in the middle of a strike, and get nothing, when earlier I did. I mentioned Witch Time - Bayonetta 2's dodge mechanic felt much more solid and responsive than this game's. In that, I could usually tell when Witch Time would activate. (Not in the first game, which for some reason had some attacks negate Witch Time which was weird.) In this game? Seems to be a bit of a coin toss. Every once in a while I'll get a chain of them, and then the next fight I get nothing. Parries also feel a little off, which is disappointing, because they were pretty much perfect in Skyward Sword. [ispoiler]This makes it super-frustrating when the second phase of Calamity Ganon [i]requires[/i] you to make these perfect dodges and parries![/ispoiler] Combat feels great... when it works. Thirdly, weapons are just a little [i]too[/i] fragile. I understand this is to keep the player cycling through weapons and using new things, but I understand when a Rusty Longsword breaks after five hits. I don't understand why a Knight's Broadsword breaks after fifteen. It'd be nice if you could modify the weapons, or even pick up the shattered pieces after they are broken and reforge them using your resources - combine weapon crafting with food crafting (which the food crafting in this game is genuinely fun and well done), let the player make a Thunder Rod that also acts as a Boomerang or something, I dunno. [ispoiler]The Master Sword is also a bit odd - it breaks quickly but the way the game talks about it, it made it seem like it regenerated its health over time. Nope! It only regenerates after it "breaks" and then it takes ten minutes.[/ispoiler] I do like that when you hit with a shattering weapon, it counts as a critical, increasing the odds of the enemy dropping their weapon so you can pick it up right after. But combat rarely felt rewarding in terms of resources. [ispoiler]The few weapons you [i]can[/i] reforge? Because everything in the game is so fragile, it's just not worth using them.[/ispoiler] Fourth... the game ain't streamlined too well. I've been playing Horizon Zero Dawn lately, which is pretty similar to Breath of the Wild in gameplay and setting. Heck, you even get the slow-mo bow aiming when jumping off a ledge as an upgrade. But it feels like it does a lot of things better, with the caveat being some mechanics are gone... but it's not like I miss them? The only missing thing that Breath of the Wild [i]definitely[/i] did better is the "climb anything" mechanic. In general though, the experience feels much smoother. (Which is probably helped by the more stable framerate and lack of screen-tearing [i]have I mentioned those yet[/i]) I like Breath of the Wild. I like what it did with Zelda's character, [ispoiler]and we even get a little introspection into why Link's so quiet all the time as well which is neato![/ispoiler] Exploring the world is super-cool and finding things is way neato and the few set-pieces the game has, it does them really really well. The soundtrack's amazing, the graphics are lovely, and the gameplay's pretty solid. But it's far from flawless, and ten-outta-tens across the board is really really pushing it.