Board 8 > Epyo's Top 62 Things to Stumble Across in Breath of the Wild (+writeups)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Epyo posted...

And here's the twist, which I did not figure out, but I saw someone else do it, and it blew my mind...you can stasis a barrier, to make the whole thing easier.

What... I...

This game is a miracle

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Daaaang you beat master mode trial of the sword! I died on stage 10 three times and I was like screw this.

(I hadn't played the trials on normal mode yet, so I assumed it would just get more absurd from there. Now in my current normal playthrough I've finally gotten past that, and everything was much more reasonable...)

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StartTheMachine posted...

You don't need to be a theorist for that one, it's completely obvious! The giant goddess statue model is 100% the exact goddess statue from Skyward Sword. It's about as apparent as the Temple of Time being modeled after OoT's.

Also Skyward Sword is my favorite Zelda and the Forgotten Temple housed the second last shrine I had to find on my first playthrough, so it was a very cool surprise. I thought I had seen it all by that point.

The springs Zelda visits to try to awaken her power are also the exact springs from Skyward Sword
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So here's how you do it.

As soon as you get to the trial, stasis the lizalfo in front of you asap before he alerts the silver Lizalfos. Arrow him in the face to kill him in one fell swoop. Now you can sneak attack the two silver lizalfos and deal with them each independently. Can't remember what weapon it is (maybe a Moblin Club), but you can get one with something like 42 damage a couple trials before here which, multiply the damage by 7 from a sneak attack, and it takes close to three quarters of their damage off. I was able to finish off the first silver lizalfo without waking up the second on my first attempt at this.

You could call this cheese but pretty sure it's literally the only way to beat this trial, unless you get reaaally lucky and never knock the silver lizalfos off the platform. Otherwise you just end up going through all your weapons and getting screwed.

I did look up strategies for this floor though after losing to it like four times so sadly I didn't figure it out on my own. The other trials have some pretty brutal stuff, but leaving all the ancient arrows in the final trials made those too easy still. I ended the final trials with 5 fairies, a couple full heart recovery meals, and 7 ancient arrows (think I only used one on the Lynel and one on the Guardian Skywatcher). So yeah, even though the enemies get tougher they actually get way easier.

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Jakyl25 posted...

The springs Zelda visits to try to awaken her power are also the exact springs from Skyward Sword

Whoa that I did not even think about! Very cool and makes sense. Though doesn't she visit six in Skyward Sword? I'll have to look up which three the BotW ones are.

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I was sooo nervous before reaching that floor because I knew its reputation well. Luckily (perhaps shamefully) I looked up videos, knew the strategy, and got it right the first time.

Master Mode Trials were definitely a challenge, though. The Middle Trials gave me the hardest time because I kept dying during those "wind" rooms. The Final trials are the longest, but they also give you far and away the most resources.

Middle > Beginner > Final for me

Now that I think about it, those trials in Master Mode were among my favorite experiences with the game.


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StartTheMachine posted...

Whoa that I did not even think about! Very cool and makes sense. Though doesn't she visit six in Skyward Sword? I'll have to look up which three the BotW ones are.

https://youtu.be/cJWpTTDmgVU

https://i.imgur.com/c8ZL6Hb.jpg

Same unique torches and all
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Oh I never used that strategy in the base game! Only in Master Mode. I do remember that floor being ridiculous on the regular difficulty too, but nowhere even near as frustrating without the enemy regeneration.

Yeah, I loved the trials too on Master Mode because they really make you use the combat mechanics of the game to the fullest, without the help of Champion powers. I do wish they added some rooms for the final trials though. Agreed that the Middle Trials were pretty tough, but they weren't quite as bad as the Beginning Trials for me.

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Ahhh I remember thinking sneak attacks would be the key, but I didn't think of the Stasis trick on the first guy, I think that's probably what made me give up.

Yeah I woulda liked the Trials but they're just sooooo long. I don't wanna be doing one thing for two hours, especially where a couple mistakes can mean losing all of the work... On the other hand, the Middle Trials did have some very cool stuff going on, for sure.

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37. Shrine: Takama Shiri Shrine: Dual Purpose (Champions Ballad, DLC Pack 2)



You know this is a good shrine, because it has electricity, and because it is in the Champion's Ballad DLC. I'm thinking any shrine with electricity should get a couple Beauty points right away.

This is a 3-puzzle shrine with a clever theme: you need to walk on some metal blocks, but the metal blocks also need to transmit electricity somewhere, hence the name "dual purpose". Very cool.

The puzzles are Legitimate Puzzles. They're not hard, but they're clever. The second one has some Confusion factor because it's a very odd layout of blocks, and it's hard to see which directions they slide. The third one (the picture above) raises the complexity a bit, and the electricity needs to go somewhere else than where Link is going.

Each puzzle definitely has several solutions--it's not about the solutions, it's about discovering the theme, and learning the new ways to think about it. It reminds me of Portal 1, where the solutions are really the mechanics you're learning, not the specific places to put portals. So, giving it Multi-Solution points.

Just generally well-designed!

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Not too many more shrines on the list, but there's a bit of a cluster of them here.

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36. Shrine: Keive Tala Shrine: Big or Small (Champions Ballad, DLC Pack 2)



Never mix electricity and water. Except in this game, where it is awesome. Here's another Champion's Ballad DLC electricity shrine.

Not much to over-analyze here, it's just a very hard Legitimate Puzzle. Honestly, maybe it is THE hardest puzzle in the game. My current playthrough, I definitely got stuck for about 5 minutes before figuring it out. It's been a long time since my first playthrough, but I feel like I might have had to look up a solution, at the time. As soon as I walked in this time I was like "oh no, not this one."

I do enjoy the fact that you can cheat a lot of these electricity shrines with metal weapons, so I'll give a couple Multi-Solution points.

Then, after the puzzle is done, there's a motion controls challenge that is atrocious to control. The absolute worst. It's this part: https://youtu.be/f35swG6Bkws?t=78

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Those are both excellent. I kind of think A Major Test of Strength+ was my favorite DLC Shrine for the surprise factor. (It's very easy to miss the + in the title too, or it was for me.) Wonder if it will show up!

One thing that never bothered me my first playthrough but really got to me on my most recent was how so many shrines give away the puzzle just by their title. "Two Bombs" for example is brilliant but that title is way too damn on the nose. They really needed more subtlety.

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Love those electricity shrines!

I think the game's toughest puzzle for me was actually the Lost Woods solution... I looked up the answer and regretted doing so immediately. =(

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Yeaaaaah I agree the shrine titles are a problem. "Dual Purpose" for example, would have been a better shrine if it did not have that name.

Yeah I can understand not getting the Lost Woods, feels like a thing where you can just get unlucky and don't think of the idea. I have a friend at work who solved it simply by turning around whenever the screen went white. Pretty impressive actually.

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OK here's one nobody remembers

35. Minigame: Hebra Mountain Shield Surfing Through Hoops (Champions Ballad, DLC Pack 2)



I love shield surfing in this game. The physics and controls are great, the feel of the speed is awesome (Beauty points)...but it's hard to have reasons to do it, because usually, you can just glide to wherever you're going.

The shield surfing minigame from Selmie was okay, but flawed: it takes a lot of dialogue to retry, it's kinda just a basic straight path, and also, it's better to exploit it by gliding straight to the end.

However, Champion's Ballad forces you to do this new surfing challenge, down a narrow cliff on the southeast side of the mountain.

This time, there are tiny glowing "hoops" you must surf through. The hoops are on short timers, so if you lose control and miss one, or if you go too slow, you'll fail and have to start over. I thought it was really well timed, so that you'll barely reach each hoop on time, and it excitingly feels like you're on the verge of failing. I loved the Legit Gameplay here, and wish it let you do the challenge again after beating it.

They also work in some rad Surprises you have to think fast for, such as putting a gap in the path that you have to jump across, enemies on the path, boulders falling, etc.

My #1 biggest dream for BOTW2 is for them to just cover the game in movement-based and vehicle-based challenges like this. It would be so easy to add more content like this, and so fun to master. (One of my other favorite video games "Steep" is basically an entire game of this... it doesn't have a motorcycle though!)

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Those ring challenges were legit some of my favorite parts of the DLC. So much fun.

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only 6ish more shrines on the list after this one!

34. Shrine: Yowaka Ita Shrine: Collected Soul (Champions Ballad, DLC Pack 2)



Everything about this shrine is really funny to me.

First, you run down this ramp, dodging streams of little spike balls, flying out of tubes. Which is harder than it sounds, because this is one of those "one-hit-kill" shrines.

Then at the bottom, there's this "infinite waterfall of junk", being launched out of tubes, into an abyss below. Hidden within the junk, are various good stuff like chests, and an Orb that you need.

So what you have to do is Magnesis this little "bowl", and catch stuff you want out of the waterfall of junk. This is pretty hard, but also extremely silly, as you keep dropping stuff or catching too much stuff and spilling it all out.

Then, this is my favorite joke, you now realize you have to carry the Orb back up the slope, past the flying spike balls...except now it's even harder because you can't run while holding the Orb! And also, you've definitely forgotten this is a "one-hit-kill" shrine by now, so you're going to let a spike barely scratch your leg, killing you instantly by surprise.

So all in all, big Joke points, and silly Legitimate Gameplay are gettin' it up on this list (although, the replay factor is good too, just a fun creative shrine).

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33. Shrine Quest: The Seven Heroines (Gerudo Desert)



This is a playful light little puzzle, that keeps making you ask questions (Confusion), that you have to study the environment for the answers (World Riddle):

• You see this strange structure, from a distance, and decide to check it out.
• "But what am I supposed to do here?" You look a little closer...and find the sockets for orbs.
• "But where are the orbs?" You run around, and eventually start to find them.
• "But which orbs go where?" You study the statues closely, and eventually notice the hidden icons.

And it does all this without dialogue, words, tutorials, not much hinting of any kind. Video games are so great when they can speak for themselves!

I'ma also give this Beauty points because it looks cool.

Also Legitimate Gameplay points because the last few orbs and icons are very hidden, making you climb and glide all over the statues to find them which is fun, and, because you'll take a while, you're going to have to do BotW stuff like fight off skeletons and spawns, take off your metal gear during storms, and change clothes once or twice to keep the correct temperature (or try to stay in the shade of the statues during the day).

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32. Shrine Quest: Watch Out For the Flowers



This is that ridiculously silly Joke shrine quest, where a shrine is surrounded by a tiny maze of flowers, and if you touch any flower, this lady teleports you out, and tells you "omg don't you dare touch my flowers."

It's easy enough, but just as you're getting comfortable, they start to Surprise you with spawns of chu chus! So you gotta fight 'em while being really careful not to do anything to disrupt the flowers. Kinda an interesting Legit Gameplay idea! A little too easy here, would have liked to see more of it!

But something a lot of people probably missed, is that if you touch the flowers enough, she gets real mad, and beats you up. Seriously! Extra joke points for this. You can watch it here if you haven't seen it: https://youtu.be/rhSQvnpaYy8?t=67

This is the sort of random creative stuff, where you know the developers had a great time making the game. It reminds of stories about Symphony of the Night, where the artists and developers were free to just come up with random one-off ideas, and just go ahead and implement them, like the telescope in the outer wall, or the background eyeball watching you from the background windows.

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31. Main Quest Segment: Carrying the blue flame, to Hateno Ancient Tech Lab



I can't make a strong argument about this part, but I know I like it. I think it has something to do with some symbolic Beauty going on here, but it's really subtle, or maybe I just made it up.

Purah used to do this torch run, and lately she hasn't been doing it. But Link has come to town, to bring back normalcy to the world, and bring back the routines to this town, the traditions. I'm a routine-oriented person, so maybe I get a special kick out of re-establishing one.

Or maybe the idea the developers were going for here, is the idea of Link "carrying the torch" of Links of past ages. Or maybe they were going for the idea of relighting the torches from darkness, being like bringing life back to Hyrule, or bringing hope back, or something. Or maybe these are all coincidences and they just got lucky.

Or maybe they just knew there'd be something satisfying about carrying a beautiful super bright blue flame a long distance. A clue to this, is that they put these lanterns all over, and there's no reason to light them all, but they put them everywhere because they knew you'd love lighting them.

My favorite aspect of this quest, is that nearly every person in town has unique dialogue if you're holding the blue flame, talking about how they've missed it, or how they're worried about Purah, or how pretty it is, or asking what you're doing with it. The kids in town all follow you around saying "wow!!"



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Point against: doing this in the rain is awful
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Jakyl25 posted...

Point against: doing this in the rain is awful

Doing just about anything in the rain is awful

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You can just go to the inn!

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30. Shrine: Shorah Hah Shrine: Blue Flame



I would be shocked if anyone didn't love this masterpiece of a shrine. This is a long obstacle course gauntlet, indiana jones-style, which is always a fun type of shrine...

...But this time, it has an extra theme to it: you have to keep transferring this magical blue flame, from torch to torch, past each obstacle. It's like "Trial of Power" but way better and really pretty (Beauty Factor).

I love how you enter the shrine and you can immediately tell it's long and complicated, the paths are everywhere, intertwining with themselves, and you're excited to explore everything here. The variety of obstacles is great. There's some platforming, some combat, some Surprises like a button that makes a giant spike ball roll toward you. Should give Saturation and Legit Gameplay points for all of this.

There's even a silly obstacle where there's water spraying onto the path, and you have to hold your torch in ways that avoid it getting doused. Or maybe you can just shoot an arrow instead of using a torch, or any other solution--the obstacles are open-ended and enjoyably Multi-Solution.

And, a satisfying ending, figuring out one last Legitimate Puzzle to light up several torches in one swoop.

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5th best shrine on the list!

29. Shrine: A Major Test of Strength+ (Champions Ballad, DLC Pack 2)



Test of strength...plus?? This shrine has 3 separate combat sequences, each one better than the last.

The first room looks like a typical test of strength, but then you realize, this is a one-hit-kill shrine, so it's a little more interesting! Sure enough, on my current playthrough, I had my first death of the run, like 80 hours in, forgetting to block the projectile spam.

And then, Surprise! There's no monk! You must go down the elevator and explore a pac-man-like combat maze, carefully approaching each enemy, since one-hit-kill still applies. It's simple, but fun. How great would the "Test of Strengths" shrines have been, if they just put this little bit of effort to make them not the one same fight every time.

Finally, the best part of all, the final room (in the picture above). It's a fascinating tiny combat puzzle, where you're free to look around first, and plan out your attack. There are platforms, and bridges, and shooty guardians scattered on them, and getting shot once means you're dead.

Huge Legit Gameplay points, and also some Multi-Solution points for that last room.

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Definitely one of my favorite shrines in the game. Good choice!

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Yeah! I was happy you mentioned it earlier 'cause I thought hell yea that one rules.

28. Combat Sequence: The Winding Path to Zoras Domain



I dunno man it's just a really cool path. It goes along rivers, up hills, through short tunnels, across a ton of bridges, down hills, between trees, along cliffs, around mountains. It's complicated! And very cool, needs Beauty points, and Saturation points too.

I think areas in open world games tend to be mostly, well, open, obviously. Lots of open plains, open forests. They generally save the intricacy for buildings and villages. But, through this cool path, this huge area manages to achieve intricacy for an entire mountainous region!

And it's a really fun combat gauntlet, it feels like a mini-adventure. It gives you a chance to really get some fighting experience in, the entire path is pretty much nonstop enemies, and many kinds of enemy encampments. Good Legitimate Gameplay.

I thought the way they funnel you in here with the various Zoras directing you to it, and Prince Sidon checking in along the way, was pretty clever. Good way to help you find this mini-adventure they've set up, and just some good LoreFactor by helping you understand the Zora personalities.

They do funnel you, but you're still free to ignore the path, and get to Zora's Domain however you want to. Actually in my first playthrough, I climbed to Zora's Domain from east of the Reservoir, through the rain. I didn't even find this gauntlet until much later.

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Man, Vah Ruta was my first Divine Beast and that is arguably the best Divine Beast quest in the game. But oh shit we still have the Yiga Clan Hideout too, so maybe not! But yeah, definitely wins the beauty factor, and the way it's linear but also not really is brilliant. So much good combat and the shock arrows really shine here in the constant rain. I'd probably have this in my top 10, so the rest better be amazing!

hmmm now I'm thinking about what could be number one! it's gotta just be the entirety of Hyrule Castle right? Eventide Island probably up there too.

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Yeah every single entry now, I finish writing and am like FRICK this isn't high enough. But then I look at everything from like 25-1 and it's all crazy good stuff...

Although there is one thing coming up soon that I'm thinking I did probably put too high, in hindsight. Too late to fix it tho.

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27. Shrine: Rota Ooh Shrine: Passing of the Gates



This one is the shrine with the weird little room in it, and you hit a switch, and the room rotates onto its side.

It's the ultimate Confusion shrine. All three times I've played this shrine I've had the same experience of stumbling through it. Several times during the shrine I say "...wait, what?" followed by "OH, now I see what I was missing, I can do this" and then "wait...how the hell does that even help me?"

Then finally, when I reach the end of the shrine, and turn around and look back down upon it...I still don't understand what I just orchestrated, but it was rad.

Totally a Breath of the Wild specialty.

I assume this deserves some Legitimate Puzzle points or Multi-Solution points but hell if I know.

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This one's so simple in hindsight, that I might regret putting it up this high. But whatever, I'll trust my gut that this is the correct order!

26. Side Quest: Miskos Treasure



This has a similar formula for quality as "48. Side Quest: Death Mountain's Secret", but just a little bit juicier.

The quest givers are these funny treasure hunter dudes who wanna trick you into paying them for their riddle. Then, they don't even believe you when you solve it! Good Jokes from these guys. So many of Breath of the Wild's throwaway characters have really cute or charming writing, it's yet another great thing about the game that's easy to underappreciate!

And it's another great World Riddle to get out and have an adventure, searching for some hidden treasure, except actually a riddle, this time. I'm a sucker for this sort of thing where you have to look at the world, or at a gorgeous map, and figure out what to do, no cheaty UI giving you instructions. The ol' vanilla world of warcraft charm.

And one more little sprinkled in twist: once you find the treasure, there's a little "secret within a secret" there, in the cave. Love that.

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I've beat that sidequest twice and I have no idea what I did to beat it :D Actually, I think this last playthrough maybe I did figure out which cave it was, but now I already forgot.

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The DLC shrines were great. Big or Small took me ages, I think it's the only thing in the game I actually looked up, but that one hit kill orb carrying shrine annoyed me so much (In a good way)! Agreed on wishing all the combat shrines were as interesting as #29, and I never really thought about the Hateno blue flames thing other than 'blue flames are cool' but you make a really good case for it being more meaningful and symbolic.

Zora's Domain is the 'default' first Divine Beast area you'll go to and they made the most of it, that and the Gerudo one were the best pre-beast area discoveries for me. Though Death Mountain was cool too... Really it's just the Rito one that I didn't feel that magic for.

I love this game but slowing down and paying attention to this stuff now from a distance really gives me a new appreciation for just how intricate everything is.

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Yea the Rito main quest chain isn't terrible, but it's disappointing, feels like they didn't finish 'em. Ah well, maybe shorter is better, the main quest chain is plenty long already.

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Anyway here's an interesting one I think...:

25. Explorable Area: Forest of Spirits (on the Great Plateau)



I found most of the forests in the game pretty disappointing, and I'm now thinking it's because this huge forest on the Great Plateau spoiled me.

It's really well-Saturated with little things to do and see. Several enemy camps with chests, some pretty good koroks, a pond, a Talus that's easy to be surprised by, there's the little campfire camp with the old man, on the west side there's that field with the dry grass that all gets set on fire, on the east side there's that swamp with the chests on a platform... Lots of good stuff!

I also really liked hanging out with that old man here, and learning how to survive. If you talk to him here, he tries to teach you to hunt in the forest, and it's really fun for several reasons:

• The hunting is pretty challenging, those boars are tough to hit once they're running around.
• You don't have many arrows, so each arrow counts.
• It's a big forest, so it's fun to sneak around and feel like you're hunting in a forest.
• The hunting is actually worth doing early in the game, since you probably need some food.
• You need the meat if you want to cook that meal for the old man (which is very worth doing to get that Warm Doublet so early in the game!).

Very Legitimate Gameplay.

In fact, I might say that this forest also spoiled me on the "survival gameplay" of Breath of the Wild. The survival feels pretty decent here, but once you get off the Great Plateau, it breaks down quickly (for example, there's no reason to hunt, when you just naturally get more resources than you could ever need).

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24. Shrine Quest: Test of Wood



This is the challenge in the korok forest, where you have to fight your way through an outdoor combat gauntlet, using a wooden sword shield and bow, and you're not allowed to break any of them, which actually adds surprisingly interesting pressure.

You're tempted to skip past enemies to save durability, especially because it starts off so easy, just bats and chu chus on an open path... But all of a sudden it gets much harder, there are skeleton archers perched on rocks, some with ice arrows, and then a series of big swamps that you must improvise a way across--really hard if you didn't take out any archers--also while you're figuring this all out there are constantly annoying little enemies spawning to distract you as well.

So, it's not terribly hard, but it takes some quick thinking and tactics! Good Legit Gameplay here, I'd put it in the top 5 combat sequences in the game, maybe even 2nd or 3rd.

And the environment adds a lot as well, with all the mist and spookiness and swamps and trees obscuring your vision--you feel like you're stumbling through, having trouble making decisions, not knowing how long is left. And also it just looks cool as hell (Beauty points).

Also this part totally held up on my subsequent playthroughs, and deserves bonus points for how they let you re-do the challenge with a timer for extra pressure, and earn some rupees for doing so. Rad!

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23. Explorable Area: Abandoned North Mine



This is the lava lake, north of Goron city, which you have to explore to look for Yunobo.

What really gets it this high on the list? The fudging cool as hell roller coaster you can find here, that is powered by your bombs. IT RULES. Roller Coaster Factor.

Besides that, it's a really intense-feeling combat area, it's pretty sick. You glide from island to island, conquering them one-by-one, looking for Yunobo, with tons of Lizalfos shooting elemental arrows at you from all directions. I always find myself hiding behind rocks or at the bottom of hills to catch my breath, and figure out which direction is best to go next.

The extra unique thing about this combat sequence is that the islands have several of the awesome "Cannons" like in the "Cannon" shrine. You can just casually walk up to any of them, and freaking blow entire towers of lizalfos to smithereens, even the towers themselves crumple down!

Yes please, more casually destructible buildings in video games!! This whole part should be way longer!

Also it just all looks sick, because it's "extra extra hot" here--and you can feel it, everything is super blurry from the heat. The extra heat affects the combat too, because you probably have to drink extra potions, adding some time pressure, or wear extra fire armor, likely meaning fewer armor points (unless you somehow upgraded it a lot already).

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22. Korok: At the tippy tip top of Hyrule Castle, waaaay up there



If you want to, you can climb up Hyrule Castle, and get on the roof, and then keep climbing up, and up, and just keep going, and going.

It's actually a lot of work. Why are you doing this? It's been like several minutes of climbing now. Well crap, can't turn back now, you're more than halfway. Ugh, you're gonna have to use a stamina potion. Wait no, this ledge is big enough to rest on. OK, keep going.

Oh god. I just looked down. It's too high. This is scary. Don't look. Just keep climbing.

...Finally, one final, extremely long needle to climb, at the top... And OH! It's a korok! They knew!!! They knew we couldn't resist climbing this!

OK, well, now what should we do... ...wait... ...Oh my god, this view! This is insane! The wind! The music! Everything is so small! This has to be the highest point in all of Hyrule!

Soon we will take the longest glide of all time...but, wait, let's just stay here, and enjoy this, for a few minutes. It's...nice.

(Crappy picture for this one, because I'm too afraid of heights to go climb all the way back up there again. You do it.)

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Some people are really good at this game

https://twitter.com/axk_000/status/1317043594608353281?s=21
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That is sick as hell. Also, breath of the wild twitter posts are 100% awesome rate.

It is just now occurring to me that I can click the #BreathoftheWild hashtag to see more breath of the wild twitter posts. I have thought of hashtags as being a joke for ten years, not as something someone would actually use.

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3rd best shrine on the list is...

21. Shrine: Rohta Chigah Shrine: Stop to Start (Champions Ballad, DLC Pack 2)



I LOVE THIS SHRINE! This is the epitome of the actiony-gauntlet-style of shrines. It's a long linear string of obstacles, and the theme is SPIKES. Somebody spilled an absolutely silly amount of SPIKES all over this shrine. And then a manager looked over their shoulder and said "what are you doing? This needs more spikes. Move over, I'm you from now on."

Adding to the hilarity, is that this is a One-Hit-Kill shrine. So there are some spikes on walls, minding their own business, and if you so much as graze them with your elbow, you're DEAD INSATANTLY.

Honestly, a lot of the obstacles are a good challenge, unlike the other good gauntlet shrines like Blue Flame where they're kinda just for fun. You have to have some pretty skillful movement, like in this conveyor belt section:



I could go on but I'll just say one more thing: cleverly, just about every obstacle in the shrine, can be made slightly easier, with some good use of Stasis, if you remember it exists.

So, big Multi-Solution points, Legitimate Gameplay points, and Joke points too. I wish it were longer!

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I feel like the DLC had a lukewarm reception, but as we've already mentioned time and time again, its Shrines are so damn good. I also loved the Master Sword trials, the cutscenes which make all the Champions look great, and the extra divine beast.

Really, I'd guess it's criticized mainly for the $20 cost and not the actual content.

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Yeah, the DLCs as a whole ended up being a great set of content.

...But now that I think about it, I bet a lot of people got disappointed by DLC1, and then never even bothered to play DLC2. Like, I really wasn't that into DLC1, because I didn't enjoy the Sword trials much at all (just not my kind of thing, too long).

Plus I remember it being unclear on what was even in DLC2--I remember they said 16 new shrines and other stuff, but that doesn't sound that impressive since the main game's shrines aren't really that great for the most part.

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20. Shrine Quest: The Perfect Drink



This is perhaps the silliest quest chain of the game, in both story and gameplay.

You find Pokki of Gerudo Town, passed out on top of a shrine's entrance button, from dehydration! The only thing that will restore her is...the Perfect Drink. So you go back to the Gerudo Town bar...but they're out of ice!

So you need to carry an oversized block of ice through some ruins covered in enemies....But the gameplay twist is, it melts really quickly, unless you keep it in the shadows. Luckily, the ruins have all sorts of shadows! But since the game has a fast day/night cycle, the shadows are constantly changing, so you better not put down the ice for too long while you fight.

This is a unique thing this game is really good at, where it comes up with some Joke of a ridiculous plot, to make you do a Legitimate Gameplay sequence, but with some sort of "floor is lava" style twist. I love this recipe!

Also, the ruins and shadows are just really cool looking! Great for a sneaking mission like this one. Beauty points for good use of ruins.

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God all of these posts are reminding me how amazing Breath of the Wild was. Good stuff.

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yay then I'm doing my job!

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Gerudo Town has some legitimately funny quests and NPCs. The sand/snow boots quest guy had me laughing out loud pretty much every time I talked with him.

Also Stop to Start mayyy be my favorite shrine in the game. That or Trial of Power, which sadly you already had a while ago. I just wish at least like 1 out of 4 shrines had the length of that one.

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I rofl at every time Link says "Gimme those boots"

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19. Shrine Quest: Recital at Warblers Nest



The first half is a pretty fun scavenger hunt. You have to hunt down all the bird kids in Rito Village, and interrogate each one (sneak up from behind and hold RT), to get hints about how to make Genli's favorite dish, so you can bribe her into going to singing practice

Cooking quests like this are really fun, because they're a good thematic reason to hunt/gather specific things, as opposed to normal cooking, where you just grab any of the thousands of resources in your backpack.

Then the final step: they're finally all practicing their song at Warbler's Nest...but wait. Where's my shrine?? I did all that work! And why are they singing this specific melody repeatedly?

So you look around and quickly figure it out, and the solution is thematically awesome. It's a musical solution, so it fits the theme of birds, who sing. And it's a wind solution, which fits the wind theme of the Rito region. And of course wind solutions are also great in a game called Breath of the Wild.

Huge World Riddle points for letting the player figure out that final step, I love that they don't even say "hey there's a puzzle here", it's just obvious there's something left to do.

And, have to award Beauty Factor points for how wholesome this family is...ughh I love them.




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18. Korok: Kakariko Village: The arrows on the entrance archway



When you're walking into Kakariko Village from the south, one of the archways randomly has some arrows sticking out of the upper golden medallion. If you notice this, and if for some reason it inspires you to also shoot an arrow at the medallion...a korok pops out!

It turns out, if you're gonna put 900 secrets in a game, you can make some of them really hard to find... But that fraction of players who do find it, are gonna have their jaws drop, and Surprise points are going to vomit out of their mouths.

Beyond the surprise, the implication here is really powerful: that these koroks really could be anything, any slightly weird thing you "notice" could be a korok. This is part of the power of koroks: with each new type of korok you find, your paranoia massively grows; you look at every object differently from then on.

And that's true immersion, when you're inspired to really pay attention to every little thing you see. Koroks like this make the whole game a World Riddle.

(Unfortunately, it turns out, there are barely any unique koroks like this, which is a bit of a disappointment. But better to inspire and disappoint, than to never inspire at all!)

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I'll always believe that the reward for finding all 900 Koroks is absolutely perfect. Nintendo couldn't have done that better.

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There are multiple "arrow" koroks like that, but yeah, I guess that would probably be the first one everyone stumbles upon. The other one that comes to mind is at the entrance to Hyrule Castle but there are definitely others.

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oh crap!! I did not know there was another one of these.

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