Board 8 > Help me get into The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

(+) Yeah! (+)

This game should have been, for me, the best game of all time. I love Zelda, and I love open world games. Yet, I can't get into it.

I'm not sure what it is. Though I don't really want to bash the game, I have a lot of problems with it. The world has to be the blandest world I've ever played. Compared to other games including Oblivion and GTA (even the desert and forest of GTA: San Andreas), I just don't get excited or interested in the world. When I get past that and start exploring, I find my weapons and armor, even good ones, break too easily and the enemies too easily kill me. Among my friends, the game over screen even became a meme.

This is a shame to me, because I was so hyped that I preordered the season pass too and so, at $80, this is the most expensive game I ever bought (excluding MMOs with subscriptions, anyway). I really want to like it, and I really feel like I'm missing something special here considering how much praise it is getting.

So, any tips for how I can enjoy the game more and get back into it?
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Zachnorn posted...

I just don't get excited or interested in the world.

This is vital in enjoying the game, so it's probably not worth it to continue.
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tazzyboyishere posted...

Zachnorn posted...

I just don't get excited or interested in the world.

This is vital in enjoying the game, so it's probably not worth it to continue.

True, but this also makes me wonder why I'm not interested, when games like GTA and Oblivion (I haven't started other Elder Scrolls games) actually grab me.
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its pretty normal for game overs too happen quite frequently until you have suitable armor and health.
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and yes weapon breaking is frustrating. I basically played through the game by throwing bombs at everything I could and saving weapons for combat trials and bosses.
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Zachnorn posted...

but this also makes me wonder why I'm not interested

Zachnorn posted...

When I get past that and start exploring, I find my weapons and armor, even good ones, break too easily

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On that note, if you alternate the two bomb types, there is no cooldown on bombs. So you can actually kill things really quickly with just bombs.
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It's a tough game at the onset, but it isn't SO brutal that Game Overs should become a meme (at least it wasn't for me, and I'm not skilled or anything). Maybe you've not gotten some early-game stuff that can really help...

Have you gone to Hateno Village? IIRC, the main quests direct you there after first visiting Kakariko. There, you can upgrade some of your Sheikah slate abilities (bombs and stasis) which makes things a lot easier.
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I'll have to try the bomb trick, thanks for the idea.

I think it is the combination of a world I can't get much into, items breaking too much, and the amount of game overs that just hurts my enjoyment so much. Because when I manage to get past one of those things, another thing will stop me. According to my Switch, I've played about 15 hours of this game over the past 15 months...

I'll try the bomb trick though, and see if that helps.
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CaptainOfCrush posted...

Have you gone to Hateno Village? IIRC, the main quests direct you there after first visiting Kakariko. There, you can upgrade some of your Sheikah slate abilities (bombs and stasis) which makes things a lot easier.

I've been there, but I didn't realize you could upgrade those abilities. Honestly, I haven't gotten much into using the abilities, but I should. I'll probably head over there and see what I can do.
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Yeah, I think that might help. Upgraded bombs and stasis can be really viable in combat. As red said, upgraded bombs have almost no cooldown, so you can spam between the two. They don't do much damage, but they knock most enemies down and have a chance at disarming them (which would really help with your other challenge of breaking weapons too quickly). Upgraded stasis is almost overpowered.
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Also, defense is king imo. A high defense trivializes almost every enemy. You've probably already found one fairy fountain, so maybe you can purchase the Soldier's armor (I think this is also found in Hateno) and upgrade it once. It's inexpensive, has a high defense, and is among the easiest armors to upgrade early on.
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I'll go upgrade my stasis then.

CaptainOfCrush posted...

You've probably already found one fairy fountain, so maybe you can purchase the Soldier's armor (I think this is also found in Hateno) and upgrade it once.

Actually, I haven't, or I don't recall finding one. It's possible I did, but it could have been such a long time ago.
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Hint for easiest fountain in the game: it's right by the Kakariko Village Shrine
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I find looking for koroks helped me really get into exploring.

As far as weapons go, don't explore out too far too fast.

Are you focusing on hunting shrines? That might make exploring more fun.
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BotW is overrated.
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Zach check your AOL e-mail address.


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CaptainOfCrush posted...

Hint for easiest fountain in the game: it's right by the Kakariko Village Shrine

Thanks!

HanOfTheNekos posted...

I find looking for koroks helped me really get into exploring.

I can't seem to find any, despite how many there are :/

HanOfTheNekos posted...

Are you focusing on hunting shrines? That might make exploring more fun.

I have been, yeah. I got frustrated with a combat shrine last night and switched to another game after that, actually >_>

redrocket posted...

BotW is overrated.

Currently, I think it is the most overrated Switch game. Super Mario Odyssey is currently my favorite and my 2017 GotY.

Ngamer64 posted...

Zach check your AOL e-mail address.

Thanks!
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Weapon breakage is such a pain I just stock up on arrows from stores and use that as my main offense on bokoblins, lizardos and whatnot. It sucks that bows break as well but it's not as frequent and replacing them isn't as big of a deal as say a rare sword or something.
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I felt like it was awesome to run out naked into the world and have to survive off of the land. And then I just had more weapons than I could carry. I think in the 10 to 20 hour range I wished I had more room because I would run out of weapons quicker than I could replace them. So ultimately I loved it to start but it became a kind of pointless mechanic, with a frustrating stretch after the beginning.

But I did love exploring Hyrule in the game so thats sort of the real issue maybe
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What kinds of things do you WANT to find when you explore an open world game?

Hypothetically, if weapons werent an issue, would you enjoy the combat? Im concerned that if you got frustrated by a combat Shrine that you just might not be into the combat
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You could watch me struggle through the opening hours of the game? Can't promise it'll make you like the game anymore than you already do though.

https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=Tdua8gOEYUg
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Jakyl25 posted...

What kinds of things do you WANT to find when you explore an open world game?

I've always liked finding new things, such as new quests, activities, and places. I love it when games encourage you to explore and find new things. GTA is my favorite open world series, and I liked that you just had all these activities you can do. I felt that the cities and countryside were interesting enough to just drive around in, and in GTA V and Red Dead Redemption, you could find some small tasks to do. That's fun.

BotW is more similar to me to Oblivion (Shrines are basically [Oblivion spoilers?] Oblivion Gates to me, even) to me, though. In that game, I liked that I could explore and find something interesting, like a cool cave, ruins, or something else. That's present in BotW too, but it's harder to find. I'd also love to find more quests and such to do, but I seem to have trouble with doing that - maybe it's because I haven't been in any town for a while. I also would like to see and talk to more characters as well.

Jakyl25 posted...

Hypothetically, if weapons werent an issue, would you enjoy the combat? Im concerned that if you got frustrated by a combat Shrine that you just might not be into the combat

My problem with the combat is that the enemies take too many hearts. I only have 4 hearts, and sometimes I get killed in 1-2 hits by enemies the game has already directed me to face when following the quests it gives me.
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I feel like I'm the only one who loves the weapon breaking system. The thing is, you just have to embrace chaos. Don't worry about saving your weapons.They aren't meant to be saved. Use them, and enjoy them while they last, and there will be other good weapons coming your way shortly. When one thing breaks, just pick up the next thing and keep going. I feel like breaking through the usual mentality of materialism in video games is very important to BotW not driving you nuts. Once you really embrace just living off of whatever weapons you happen to have any given time, it feels great. You just really have to accept it.

Other than that, for me, I love BotW's world because it actually feels large and open. I feel like I can run and climb wherever I want and I can kind of make my own paths and create my own challenges by whatever route I decided I wanted to take to get to a place. Challenges always have a way of feeling emergent, which is cool. I dunno, I just love chilling out and kind of getting lost in the world.

No I'm with you I love that it encouraged me to use different weapons all the time
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And like, if stuff didn't break, you would just get in the pattern of using the same one or two weapons all the time and it'd get boring. There'd be no reason to out looking for new stuff too. It would be totally stagnant. Weapon breaking is one of the best things in the game because it keeps your weapon loadout fresh.

I still think it annoys me more than anything but obviously that's personally speaking
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It's a bad game and all the game design systems in the game actively make you enjoy the game less.

You have to explicitly force yourself to enjoy the game through your own Zelda hype and charm, turning off your brain as much as possible. This was really easy to do when the game came out and the entire world was super hype about it being the best game ever made 10/10. But a year later? You're gonna have to work quite a lot to generate that internal hype.

Another thing that helps is ignoring all the boring BS in the game and just rushing the good stuff, which definitely does exist. Kakariko village and that other village to the east, the main towns in each quadrant, Ganon's castle. Skip the dozens of hours of pointless crap in between.
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My favorite thing about BOTW are the characters weirdly enough
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I couldn't have been more unhyped with BotW and I was blown away by how perfect it is

Paratroopa1 posted...

And like, if stuff didn't break, you would just get in the pattern of using the same one or two weapons all the time and it'd get boring. There'd be no reason to out looking for new stuff too. It would be totally stagnant.

Because this happens in every other game right?

Lots of games that are well designed give you reason to use different weapons. You can't just copy/paste the same damn moblin 1000 times across the map and then make weapons break to pretend you have combat variety in the game. It's still mundane.

And fundamentally weapon breaking doesn't keep your loadout fresh - it keeps your loadout tuned to whatever area you're in. So if you're in the high level castle, you'll have level 80 weapons. And then even though you spent hours of effort in that castle finding stuff, when you leave and go back to the plains, you'll be forced to break all your weapons and go back down to level 15 weapons eventually. Zero progression at all. That's not fresh, that's static and demoralizing.
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The weapon breaking is a problem because it happens far too quickly. I wouldn't mind the system at all if I could crack more than one Moblin's skull with a weapon. Sometimes they'd break BEFORE I even killed the first one. Constantly needing to change weapons mid-fight was a terrible game decision and ruins combat in the most significant way possible. I like the idea of the game encouraging you to try new toys out, but you can't find one you like and keep it. The fact that you have to constantly seek out weapons seems like it does nothing but artificially extend the game's length while sinking its enjoyment value. I am 100% with foolmo on this one.

The world is too huge for how little is going on in it. There aren't enough NPCs and going throughout the world is boring because all you have to look at is virtual environments that, while gorgeous, don't compare to the real deal. In better open world games, like pretty much anything made by Rockstar or Bethesda, you can go exploring for five minutes and find something to do or something going on. In BotW, you can explore for 20 minutes and find... nothing at all. Maybe a tribe of Bokoblins or a Yiga or some other monster, but nothing significant going on and nothing to do.

BotW is a massively overrated game that will NOT be remembered as the "Game of the Ever" the talking heads seem to think it is. It's a great base for future Zeldas but it ultimately has no satisfaction due to the lack of goings-on and the inability to go an entire fight without pausing to break out a new weapon.
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Actually, you know what you should absolutely do? Go northwest. Do the dungeon there. It'll trim a ton of needless busywork out and you can actually enjoy exploration without having to worry about Link's pathetic stamina wheel.
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I probably got thirty game overs in the first 10 hours of the game and then about ten more in the next 140
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Physically its about the size of Nintendogs. Perhaps you could get into it by getting it into you...
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BOTW is my 2nd favorite game ever, but it is definitely not for everyone. If you're not enjoying it after a few hours, you're not going to suddenly start. It's trying to be a very specific thing. It has a lot of weird design choices. A lot of those design choices are pretty much bad. But I think they were necessary design choices, to be able to create what they were trying to create: a game of truly self-directed adventure and discovery.

It's trying to be a very specific thing, and if you're not a person who's been looking for that very specific type of game, then you're not going to enjoy it.

When people point out parts of the game that just plain don't feel great, it's true, they don't feel great. There really isn't much character progression. So if you're looking for that, you'll be disappointed. There aren't dungeons or any typical Zelda stuff really. If you're looking for that, you'll be disappointed.

For me, all my life I've looked for a game that captures the feeling of being very alone and traversing a huge atmospheric moody landscape, seeing things I want to investigate, and then investigating them without any dumb dialog box or menu telling me to do so, and knowing when I get there I won't be blocked because I'm "not supposed to be here yet", no, I want to investigate it fully. For me, I've never found that game until now.

(Minecraft was close, but the world generation was just too predictable.) (Skyrim was also close but there's too many times where a landmark is useless unless you already have the quest that directs you there.)
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tazzyboyishere posted...

Actually, you know what you should absolutely do? Go northwest. Do the dungeon there. It'll trim a ton of needless busywork out and you can actually enjoy exploration without having to worry about Link's pathetic stamina wheel.

I think I will! Thanks!

pjbasis posted...

I probably got thirty game overs in the first 10 hours of the game and then about ten more in the next 140

That gives me hope...

ViviffTheMobile posted...

Physically its about the size of Nintendogs. Perhaps you could get into it by getting it into you...

I knew getting this physically instead of digitally would be a good idea. If only it tasted better.
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First thing i did when i got my switch was lick the botw cart.

Leafeon13N posted...

First thing i did when i got my switch was lick the botw cart.

I can see there's something about Board 8ers in our city eating or licking video games.
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Epyo posted...

For me, all my life I've looked for a game that captures the feeling of being very alone and traversing a huge atmospheric moody landscape, seeing things I want to investigate, and then investigating them without any dumb dialog box or menu telling me to do so, and knowing when I get there I won't be blocked because I'm "not supposed to be here yet", no, I want to investigate it fully. For me, I've never found that game until now.

stalker stalker stalker stalker
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You really should get that armor and find that fairy fountain if you want to cut down on your deaths, though
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Weapons breaking wasn't a problem for me ever, except for the first time I fought a Guardian. The game is really forgiving in that almost every single enemy you kill drops a weapon. And HP totals aren't enough where that should be a problem.
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The thing that will help the most with not dying often is exploring the SE corner of the map and collecting hearty durians. Cooking lots of those, and other hearty ingredients, is the best way to get lots of hearts and not die.
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^that is super helpful, but probably moreso later when he has more than 4 hearts!
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Don't worry about fighting as much, just explore. I run around most enemies to save the good weapons and mostly use the bad weapons when I need too.
But really, don't fight everything.
Use bombs from a distance as your main weapon and your bow also from a distance.
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If you haven't found any koroks yet, then just... explore a certain part of the world a little bit more indepth. If there is a row of 3 trees, go there. Or the tops of hills, or singular trees.

Pick up rocks.
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foolm0r0n posted...

Epyo posted...

For me, all my life I've looked for a game that captures the feeling of being very alone and traversing a huge atmospheric moody landscape, seeing things I want to investigate, and then investigating them without any dumb dialog box or menu telling me to do so, and knowing when I get there I won't be blocked because I'm "not supposed to be here yet", no, I want to investigate it fully. For me, I've never found that game until now.

stalker stalker stalker stalker

:O :O I haven't tried that series!! But the aesthetic did always look cool...
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I'm in the same boat. Love Skyrim. Love GTA. Love Fallout. Love most of the earlier Zelda's.

I don't like breath of the wild.

-Weapons break way too easily. In Fallout, this wasn't a problem. You almost always had more weapons than you needed. Along with your trusty shotgun, you also had about 5 more shotguns where that came from. By the time your weapon broke, you were already ready to use the next more powerful weapon. In Breath of the Wild, you might get a good weapon--then it'll break, and you'll be relegated to a weaker weapon. Which is NOT fun. It's not good game design either. "Oh, but you'll have to use more weapons!" you say. Yeah, cause your other weapons will be broken about once every three enemies. Besides, this argument is dumb because it encourages you to just go get the master sword instead of actually relying on other weapons. Your mechanic should NOT actively make me want to find ways around said mechanic. That's not fun. That's stupid.

-Exploring the world isn't fun. Sure, parachuting is cool. And shield boarding is awesome. Good job on those. The ubi-soft towers suck, though. (Only Horizon Zero Dawn really does those well, I think. Maybe one of the assassin creed games, I'm not sure. I haven't played them all. Speaking of horizon zero dawn, much better open world game than BOTW) Then you have to find the dumb shrines (good luck actually seeing them from atop those stupid towers, I might have seen one or two on each, but never more than that). Then you have to figure out how to get to those shrines. And then you have to SURVIVE getting there. Oops, your weapons broke, and now you have to rely on whatever crappy weapon you find. Also, I really hate mountain climbing. It was really awesome the first time I did it. "Wow," i thought to myself. "I can climb anywhere!" Then it got old pretty fast. Even with more stamina.

Maybe I was just overhyped for it. I read some reviews, watched some trailers and thought "oh cool, Zelda + Skyrim? What could go wrong." But I don't think it's anything like Zelda + Skyrim. In Skyrim if you wander around for a while, you'll probably stumble across a sidequest by pure luck or accident. You don't really have to actively look for things. Exploring is fun because you're rewarded for it rather than punished. Go wherever you like. (It took me a long time to get into Fallout New Vegas because I couldn't find New Vegas without being mauled by a deathclaw. Once I was able to do that, I really enjoyed the game). I never found Skyrim's combat system overwhelming. BOTW on the other hand it can be a bit overwhelming. You probably won't find many shrines by pure accident. You have to really actively be looking for them. Sometimes even then you can't find them (I used the IGN map to find a few, some of which were still pretty difficult to get to) I can't imagine I'd have ever found them just exploring--which wasn't really fun because you're punished for fighting enemies through breaking weapons.
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foolm0r0n posted...

Because this happens in every other game right?

BotW is better than those games
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Ashethan posted...

BOTW on the other hand it can be a bit overwhelming. You probably won't find many shrines by pure accident. You have to really actively be looking for them. Sometimes even then you can't find them (I used the IGN map to find a few, some of which were still pretty difficult to get to) I can't imagine I'd have ever found them just exploring

This is a super interesting take, because its so opposite from my experience. I found roughly 100 of the 120 Shrines just by exploring the whole map.

One caveat: I played this after the DLC, so Heros Path allowed me to chart every general area Id missed. If I had played at launch I cant say for sure it would have been as easy.
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