Game of the Month #99 (April 2023) - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Forget everything you know about The Legend of Zelda games. Step into a world of discovery, exploration and adventure in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a boundary-breaking new game in the acclaimed series. Travel across fields, through forests and to mountain peaks as you discover what has become of the ruined kingdom of Hyrule in this stunning open-air adventure.

When focusing on the main objectives, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is about 50 Hours in length. If you're a gamer that strives to see all aspects of the game, you are likely to spend around 189 Hours to obtain 100% completion.

So i've already completed this game but I nom so I could do the DLC. I'm thinking of retiring the Trial of the Sword DLC though as I don't like long challenges where I can't close down when I want and come back to when I can but The Champions Ballad does not seem to have that set up so I'm just started that by collecting all side quest armour. I have started the first trial though as well (The one hit weapon with one hit hit deaths)

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Completion July 23, 2017
Main+Extras 74h 42m 44s
Notes 83 shrines, 84 korok seeds, all beasts, all memories
Review
Breath of the wild is a fantastic game based on pure master class of open world design and creation.

One of the BotW greatest strengths is in fact a point of omittance of stuff which you would normal find in other open world games and that is a list of things to do within the area. In the end your mini map only fills out with the things which you have already done.

Another great strength of the game is the use of the towers. These towers work as a way of introducing a new area on the map but also acts as a vantage point to scope out the area where you pint items of interest. With this it actively rewards the user for exploring and creating their own journey. The game doesn't hold the user back and they are capable of going anywhere. It allows the user to swim, walk and climb wherever on the map they wish which again furthers the reward for exploration the game gives.

The dungeons this time are different from the standard big dungeon, get item then kill boss. Instead the dungeons can be split into two different types shrines and beasts. Shrines are small challenges made up of puzzles and combat challenges which reward orbs which can be used to increase the users health or stamina. The other dungeons are the divine beasts which are the main quest dungeons (although they can be skipped) which are large open rooms with multiple points which the user needs to match to access the boss in the dungeon. Ultimately though while these dungeons are good they don't have the same umpf of which previous zelda games have. Still they work and alot of time a quest leads to the reward of a shrine as they are very useful places in the game (they can also work as travel points)
The biggest weakness the game has though is the opening. The opening ends up trying to rush the user through a simple tutorial without telling the user much as it wants the user to find that out for themselves. While this works well it ultimately leaves the user at the start weak and confused in what to do (it gives a few quests at least) and would be better if the user started with more health and stamina.

Overall this a great new take on the zelda series and builds a fantastic world to explore and experience about.
10/10

Started last week. I'm a little over 10 hours in right now. Working on getting to my first divine beast.

Started last week. I'm a little over 10 hours in right now. Working on getting to my first divine beast.

I think I went for my first Divine Beast after 35 hours when I played back in 2017. 😂

Yeah, it took me forever and a day to reach the first Divine Beast. I went for the Zora one first so that I could get Mipha to save me from my highly frequent deaths. 🤣

Messed up the title there, it's GOTM for April, not March! Fixed!

I'll skip this one since I only played BotW for the first time around September 2022. It's a fun game though, so hope you guys have fun, and I'll join in with the discussion.

I liked the game well enough, it was fun exploring an open world in a Zelda game, and it was cool what type of things you could do with your abilities, like doing a time stop on a block, slapping it so it will fly in a certain direction when it expires, and then getting on it to launch yourself up in the sky. I also liked that some of the shrines had expected ways of doing them, but with clever usage of items and abilities, you could glitch your way straight to the end. I love breaking intended ways of doing things in games, and the tools BotW gives you enables that to a good degree. It was also cool that the game is very open in how you want to approach the main story, allowing you to go straight to Ganondorf should you wish, or tackle any of the Divine Beasts in the order of your choosing.

What I didn't like was the weapon durability mechanic, which meant I had to be careful and ration my more powerful weapon usage, while constantly foraging for good/better weapons, and use subpar weapons frequently. It works well enough and makes sense in the open world environment of the game, but I still much prefer to not have to bother with that, or at least have a blacksmith that allows me to repair weapons should I choose to, in exchange for rupees.

I also would have preferred to have traditional dungeons rather than shrines and divine beast mini dungeons, but that would have meant replacing the shrines in the game with something else to populate the large open world with things that are fun to explore and want to make you engage with the open world, or alternatively shrink it down so it isn't all empty. I also think they went for the shrines since the game is on a hybrid portable console and targeted towards a casual audience as well, who would imho gravitate more towards shorter play sessions, for which quick shrine challenges are ideal.

Cooking was enjoyable, and I nerded out a lot with recipes and did lots of research, some people did the math and came up with ways to min-max your cooking, which was fun.

Overall I had fun, and ended up giving the game an 8/10. It's neither my favorite open world game, nor my favorite Zelda game (Wind Waker), but I can appreciate how it changed up the traditional Zelda formula.

Welp, time to finish that third playthrough!

I think I went for my first Divine Beast after 35 hours when I played back in 2017. 😂

I remember I started this game during my Spring Break from college (since my Wii U was home) and put in 40ish hours, and I didn’t attempt my first Divine Beast until later on in that week so probably about the same for me there.

Side note while I want to replay it someday there’s no way I can before Tears of the Kingdom. I’m looking forward to reading this thread and talking about it though, it’s one of my all time favorite games.

I'm excited to play this one for the first time. I'll mostly post my takes and progress to the Discord thread, but I may post some here, too.

I've finished it before but I haven't gotten around to The Ballad of the Champions DLC yet, so I miiight attempt that this month. I still have too many games going that's definitely up in the air. I'll happily keep an eye on this discussion either way though!

im so happy this won, ive got a great excuse to focus on this game now. ive had this for nearly six years and started many playthroughs, but never got very far. now i really want to complete it, and im currently a little over 20 hours on this playthrough. such a fantastic game so far, this is gonna be a great month.

I put so much time into this game during my first playthrough. There's only a few shrines I didn't do. I'm playing another Zelda game right now, but once I'm done with it, I'll go back to my old save and beat the rest of the shrines and if I'm feeling like a masochist I'll go for a 100% completion.

Right EoW update

Right so today I finished the starting trials for the champion ballad and headed towards the bird village. I'm currently trying to open up the trials for the bird area but basically the openess of the game means I'm finding more and more missing shrines from the first playthrough. So just doing a few of them.

I've completed all the trials to do with the bird machine. Need to reach the bird machine now. Picked a few more shrines from the base game on the way as we'll

So for now champions Ballard is basically just more BotW. Nothing wrong with that but tbh I was expecting more. Prob will need to wait for tears of the kingdom for that

EoW update:

— 04/04/2023 10:05 PM: So I found a Gerudo famished alone in the desert so I went about making her a noble pursuit... Which involved moving a large ice cube along a ruin. Did that and got the shrine underneath. Faced against the muldoking now just about head into the shrine for defeating him

— 04/05/2023 10:05 PM
So finished the desert area and did all the trials. Trials were based on basically switch boards expect the stupid one where you had to count balls. Onto the water area

— 04/08/2023 11:04 PM
So I've now headed to water peoples domains and done The ring race up the waterfall and the kill ancient weapons shrines. From what I see these trials are based around the freeze move will reach the last shrine for this domain before heading for the gorgon domain

Right well I've now completed the champions ballad. I'm glad that the final trial is a whole new divine beast dungeon and finally a none gannon based boss at the end so it adds a few new things but still which there a few more new assests in the DLC. It's a solid 9 and I'll write up my full review at some point

I should also note that I've also retired the Master trials as I don't like endurance trials where I can't quit at any point. If there too long of a period where I'm not able to put the game down and come back later then that's a huge put off for me

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - The Champions' Ballad DLC
Completion April 10, 2023
Main+Extras 19h 27m 39s
Notes A few other shrines I missed and kokoro seeds. Got the bike
Review
The champion’s ballad is basically just more Breath of the wild which really all you can ask for with multiple new shrines, a divine beast and a new boss. It does what you expect unfortunately there is nothing really special in this DLC and it doesn’t offer anything new or interesting to the breath of the wild and ultimately just reuses already available assets.
8/10

Just finished it about a month ago. It's a truly special game. Overall I'd give it a 4.5/5 but I do have some complaints.

- Weapons breaking made me want to challenge enemies less, and therefore explore less.
- Traversal, even with all the climbing gear on, felt a bit slow.
- No great way to find all 120 shrines without looking some up online. They should've had a shrine count by region so you don't have to explore the whole map in the endgame.
- No true endgame at all, just spawns you back at the final area once you beat it.

This is my first time playing this game. Wish me luck!

This is my first time playing this game. Wish me luck!

Good luck and have fun! It's a great game. Enjoy it.

i beat this a while ago, way faster than i expected because i ended up having a lot of time for this one. such a fantastic game that really lives up to all the hype. its weird, because all the issues other people usually have just.. didnt really bother me? i liked weapon durability! it forces you to use different weapons and combinations you wouldnt have in the first place. combat is just so fun in general, except the bosses. those kinda suck. climbing could be a pain sometimes, but it managed to make a mechanic so basic as climbing fun and exihilarting. thats impressive! the story was just kinda alright, but that didnt bother me that much. the champions are really cool characters. i spent over 30 hours on this game, but it didnt feel like it. i completely understand everything people have been saying for years now, and im more excited for Tears of the Kingdom now more than ever.

i beat this a while ago, way faster than i expected because i ended up having a lot of time for this one. such a fantastic game that really lives up to all the hype. its weird, because all the issues other people usually have just.. didnt really bother me? i liked weapon durability! it forces you to use different weapons and combinations you wouldnt have in the first place. combat is just so fun in general, except the bosses. those kinda suck. climbing could be a pain sometimes, but it managed to make a mechanic so basic as climbing fun and exihilarting. thats impressive! the story was just kinda alright, but that didnt bother me that much. the champions are really cool characters. i spent over 30 hours on this game, but it didnt feel like it. i completely understand everything people have been saying for years now, and im more excited for Tears of the Kingdom now more than ever.

Completed - Played:35h 20m

How.

Completed - Played:35h 20m

How.

No idea lol. I guess I didn’t do a whole lot of side Quest stuff? I did a fair few shrines but ignored most side missions. I honestly regret that though, I played through this way faster than I meant to

No idea lol. I guess I didn’t do a whole lot of side Quest stuff? I did a fair few shrines but ignored most side missions. I honestly regret that though, I played through this way faster than I meant to

The nice thing about this kind of game is that you can just jump back into it. It might be easier to sidequest since you already finished the main objective. For me, I suspect that you’ll have finished Tears of the Kingdom before I’m halfway done here. 😆

The nice thing about this kind of game is that you can just jump back into it. It might be easier to sidequest since you already finished the main objective. For me, I suspect that you’ll have finished Tears of the Kingdom before I’m halfway done here. 😆

lol i made the mistake of starting Stardew Valley so i have no idea when ill even get to Tears of the Kingdom, but im really excited for it. gonna be a great game