Zelda : Breath of the Wild

[Fardringle]

What is the alternate ending? I had all memories unlocked and heard that added something, but I don't know what it added since that's all I had.

I don't know about an alternate ending, but if you go back to Impa after collecting all 12 photo memories, it unlocks a final memory that tells more of the back story.

 

[Sonikku]

I'm a little disappointed at the sweet ending. It would be better served bitter sweet.

Spoiler

I really thought Zelda was dead and it was just her spirit that remained, like with the king and the divine beast buddies. It would have been more poetic if Link was laboring all this time with the hope to save the princess, only to find that she was already gone, killed by ganon before he ever woke up. But as her spirit trailed off with the others she could ease the hurt by telling Link that they will reincarnate, and when they do they will be together again.

 

[Sonikku]

I don't know about an alternate ending, but if you go back to Impa after collecting all 12 photo memories, it unlocks a final memory that tells more of the back story.

It was more an additional scene than an "alternate" ending. If you unlock the final memory through Impa, then beat the game, you get an additional scene of

Spoiler

the king and the divine beast pilots watching from afar as they fade away.

 

[Nashemon]

First DLC info got unveiled yesterday. Officially called The Master Trials. It includes more than I thought it would, which is awesome. Let's start with the good stuff. Spoilers, maybe.

Spoiler

Hard Mode: Several things for this one. Red enemies become blue enemies, so on and so forth. Maybe no big deal for most of the game, but on the Great Plateau, that's a game changer and later in the game Lynels are leveled up to their next level. Speculation is that that the rare Silvers will become Gold. Enemies also slowly regain health while in combat, and are more perceptive to you sneaking up on them. Likely have further aggro, too.

Another feature of Hard Mode is floating platforms in the sky you have to find a way to glide to. They contain a chest with enemies guarding it. Could become perilous if they manage to knock you off, but I assume it would be pretty easy if you can just bomb them off the platform from above. No word if the chest only appears once the enemies are dead, which would be problematic if the enemies aren't killed from the fall.

Hero’s Path Mode: The new feature for the map the original description for the DLC mentioned. This shows you the path Link has traveled in the past 200 hours of play. Uses could be to find out where you may not have explored yet. I've flown to a lot of shrines in my travels, so on the map it looks like I've explored there, but really I haven't at all, so could be useful.

Trial of the Sword: You start naked and have to progress through "about 45" rooms fighting enemies. Ultimately you unlock the Master Sword's full potential... whatever that means. Speculation is that it still breaks and has to recharge, but it'll always be glowing, thus it always has 60 atk power.

The rest of the DLC are items and clothing that are hidden inside treasure chests throughout the world that must be found to unlock. Nothing to really write home about, but it's a cool bonus.

Travel Medallion: Similar to Farore’s Wind in OoT, but works anywhere, and is permanent (until you change where you want it). You can make your own waypoint, one at any given time, where you are standing to fast travel to later. I suppose there's a few locations that take more than a few seconds to get to from the nearest shrine, so might be useful, especially if the closest shrine is at the bottom of the mountain instead of the top.

Korok Mask: Wearing this your controller will shake when a hidden Korok is nearby. Not much else to say other than it will definitely help locate the 900 of them.

Armors (no word on how strong or what special bonus any of them may have)

Tingle Armor: Difficult to call this armor. It's just spandex.

Phantom Armor: Looks like the Phantoms from Phantom Hourglass. Also strangely reminiscent of Shovel Knight, imo.

Midna Mask: Neat. Hopefully it does something. Maybe this will summon Wolf Link without the Amiibo?

Majora's Mask: Probably does nothing but freak people out when you talk to them since its power was lost at the end of MM.

 

[JujuFish]

So far, so meh.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Finally got around to completing the game and found the overall story to be about the worst in the series not counting the NES games which were lacking story for technical reasons. They focused a lot on the world which was fine and it is very well done throughout, but there are no dungeons to explore. Shrines aren't proper dungeons and the divine beasts are not much more than larger versions of shrines. It really didn't feel like a zelda game once I got really into it. What didn't help is that leading up to Ganon the castle is just a deathtrap with no puzzles and the like. At least they could have made Hyrule Castle a proper dungeon I thought. Especially when you can use Zora armor and bypass the entirety of the castle by swimming up the waterfalls. They also really needed to flesh out the story more than the memories did. That's about all I can say. At the end I literally had a WTF moment when I realized there wasn't any closure, I had questions about some of the memories that the game never lets you learn about, and everything I did had no meaning in the end. I do not regret playing it at all. Like I said the world is great. The story is very underwhelming to me and the game is very short if you aren't exploring on purpose. It took me longer to complete OOT because it had actual dungeons to do and more difficult puzzles. I expected something more like that except in a larger world with more stuff to discover. If I had to guess, they built this great world and then didn't know what to do with it in terms of story progression. It kind of felt like that.

 

[purbeast0]

I actually didn't even really know wtf was going on in Zelda story wise. I just liked exploring and the quests. I agree that no true dungeons was a let down, but I liked the beasts. I wish they had more of those. The shrines got old especially how like 1/2 of them feel like they are test of strength. That said, I got all 120 of them and had fun doing it, even while looking at a guide. Just exploring was so much fun. When I first played the game I thought it was just a big ass world "just to be big" but as you explore every nook and cranny, every part of the world basically has a unique meaning to it of some sort.

I also thought the lost woods was fucking awesome. Loved the music in there too.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Yeah but I kind of wanted there to be a more focused story as you go along that route. Didn't get it. Oh well I guess

 

[Tweak155]

Wow no dungeons??? Maybe it's a good thing I haven't put any real time in yet.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Wow no dungeons??? Maybe it's a good thing I haven't put any real time in yet.

Yeah I think a lot of reviews either didn't mention it or glossed over it. That plus the ending and the story behind memories that leaves some lingering questions. Like I said the world is great and it's nice to explore but when you want to get back to playing a Zelda game it disappoints a bit. It does suffer from some of the same issues as other open world games with fetch quests for NPCs but that's not a big deal overall.

The biggest shock for me was when I discovered that Ganon was a joke boss and some of the blights in the divine beasts were harder.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Yea, I found it repetitive pretty quickly. I don't like the shrines at all, and since they make up the majority of the game, it just fell flat. It also tried to be too 'real' with all the crafting and constant breaking weapons. It just didn't feel like a Zelda game. It was more like Witcher in a Zelda skin w/o an interesting story. I might go back to it sometime but there are more interesting games out there.

 

[KentState]

The reviews and reviewers were way too kind to this game. By the second divine beast, I was ready to rush through the game and beat it.

 

[cmdrdredd]

What also irked me is how you can basically never die. You can cook very simple recipes that recover full health + 20 or 25 extra hearts. You should have mipha's grace which brings you back from death with full hearts. You have fairies which you can in theory hold 99 of but I never got more than 3 that bring you back from death with 4 or 5 hearts I forget which. You can pause the game and spam foods you collected to recover small amounts of health. So basically mid fight if you are in trouble you pause the game and go to the menu and heal as much as you want. If on the off chance you do die you probably have at least one way to resurrect. There really was no feeling of urgency when you are low on hearts during a fight.

I did like how you had to use different gear based on the environment though. That was pretty unique to me.

 

[purbeast0]

Yea, I found it repetitive pretty quickly. I don't like the shrines at all, and since they make up the majority of the game, it just fell flat. It also tried to be too 'real' with all the crafting and constant breaking weapons. It just didn't feel like a Zelda game. It was more like Witcher in a Zelda skin w/o an interesting story. I might go back to it sometime but there are more interesting games out there.

This was the common complaint that most people had with this game, but pretty much all of those people (myself included) get to the point where you have too many weapons that are good in your stash and you have the problem of not knowing which weapon to drop when you come across a cool weapon. And that happened fairly quickly too. Weapons breaking became a non-issue fairly quickly. You must not have gotten very far into it I'm guessing.

 

[zerocool84]

Wow no dungeons??? Maybe it's a good thing I haven't put any real time in yet.

No, you definitely should. The world is awesome. There is literally always something to do or find even if it doesn't look like it. In any Zelda game, just like this one, nothing is ever placed by accident. Everything is there for a reason, from a tree to a rock to a hill to climb.

Yes I am very disappointed on the lack of true dungeons. While the four divine beats were pretty cool for puzzles, the shrine mini puzzles just don't make up foe the huge dungeons we are used to.

 

[Nashemon]

As I've stated previously, from the very beginning, the Shrines felt like a turtorial. I feel like I learned a new trick to interact with the environment in a different way in each of them. A great feeling, but a build up that never became of any real use other than solving some minor puzzle tucked away in some corner of the world. There was no ultimate puzzle that incorporates everything you've learned in a different way, like the way a dungeon would work. Even the beasts just felt like a multi room shrine. The only real interesting part was how you entered the beast. This game was puzzle after puzzle, like any Zelda, with perhaps more total puzzles than any other Zelda game, but the Shrines (same environment, same music, same enemies, same textures, same rules) made them dull.

I really hope the expansion has something unexpected to give us. We know it's a completely new story, but I find it hard to imagine that's all there is. With the size of the world they created, I can imagine there's far more hidden things than first sight would reveal. There could very well be full dungeons hidden beneath the surface. I'd like to imagine the game we've played so far is just the tip of the iceburg. The three pendent quest from LTTP, if you will, and the 2nd half of the game has yet to be played.