Support NeoGAF

[SkywardBeam]

Does anybody actually have the script for the initiation ceremony cutscene from the Japanese version? Does Zelda explicitly mention the Twilight realm there? Or is it just that way in the English version of the game? I'm just wondering, as she didn't name it explicitly in the German version. She was clearly referencing SkyS (soaring through the sky), OoT (wandering through time), but no explicit mentioning the Twilight realm. She just said "oder in die Schatten eintauchst" (or delve into the shadows). I have to mention though that they always translated Twilight realm with Schattenreich (shadow realm) in the German version of TP. But they could as well be referencing to the shadow world from ALttP, which would make it fit into The Downfall timeline. It could be interpreted either way judging from The German translation, so it would really help to know the exact wording of the Japanese script (-knowing that the Treehouse team is often very liberal with their translations)

 

[Ms.Galaxy]

Does anybody actually have the script for the initiation ceremony cutscene from the Japanese version? Does Zelda explicitly mention the Twilight realm there? Or is it just that way in the English version of the game? I'm just wondering, as she didn't name it explicitly in the German version. She was clearly referencing SkyS (soaring through the sky), OoT (wandering through time), but no explicit mentioning the Twilight realm. She just said "oder in die Schatten eintauchst" (or delve into the shadows). I have to mention though that they always translated Twilight realm with Schattenreich (shadow realm) in the German version of TP. But they could as well be referencing to the shadow world from ALttP, which would make it fit into The Downfall timeline. It could be interpreted either way judging from The German translation, so it would really help to know the exact wording of the Japanese script (-knowing that The Treehouse team is often very liberal with their translations)

The Spanish and French version also mention the Twilight, so I'd imagine it's the same for Japan.

Edit: Yup, I just checked the Japanese version of that cutscene and while I don't know Japanese, google did translate a part of the scene to say the word "twilight"

 

[Oddish1]

Unlike Zelda, Dark Souls *does* support that kind of hint-searching, because it's written with great care and actually intended to be connected. There are a lot of red herrings and Miyazaki intentionally leaves things out, but it's there. Total false equivalence.

I dunno. Dark Souls only has three games and plenty of blatant retcons and fanservicey references. The existence of the sequel already retcons the first game's "this is a world on the brink of death" into "oh well the world gets like that sometimes, y'know how it is". Not to mention killing Ornstein three different times, in three completely different places. Even the first game taken completely self-contained has tons of contradictions that are waved away with "oh, well time and space are convoluted for some reason".

I guess what I'm getting at is what about Zelda that tends to make it's lore and references dumb kiddy things that aren't worth talking about, but Dark Souls an intricate puzzle that has been laboriously thought out and only the finest minds can put together. Zelda isn't clear on something: "its because developers don't care", Dark Souls unclear: "masterstroke, Miyazaki does it again".

 

[SolVanderlyn]

I dunno. Dark Souls only has three games and plenty of blatant retcons and fanservicey references. The existence of the sequel already retcons the first game's "this is a world on the brink of death" into "oh well the world gets like that sometimes, y'know how it is". Not to mention killing Ornstein three different times, in three completely different places. Even the first game taken completely self-contained has tons of contradictions that are waved away with "oh, well time and space are convoluted for some reason".

I guess what I'm getting at is what about Zelda that tends to make it's lore and references dumb kiddy things that aren't worth talking about, but Dark Souls an intricate puzzle that has been laboriously thought out and only the finest minds can put together. Zelda isn't clear on something: "its because developers don't care", Dark Souls unclear: "masterstroke, Miyazaki does it again".

I think the DS devs place more of an emphasis on the overarching lore, but yeah, I think both series have retcons and inconsistencies - just because Nintendo has a bigger "gameplay first, story second" approach doesn't mean they've sent their story to the wind or that the player can't find enjoyment in the connections between and history of the games.

I disagree, there've been clear lines connecting most of the mainline Zelda games since the beginning (ALttP was intended as a prequel to the original games, then OoT was intended as a prequel to ALttP).

The silliness really comes from side games (where do the Oracles or Four Swords games fit into the timeline? Who cares!) and the approach they took to Wind Waker necessitating a split in the timeline starting with OoT.

I don't particularly care about the finer details of the timeline, but I do think it's fun to see those connections to past games.

I agree with this, the connections can be pretty explicit at times.

 

[SoulUnison]

Ok, so the Calamity Ganon reveal and the Champions Attack cutscene was wonderfully done.
Felt almost like a little mixture of Mass Effect and Final Fantasy,
Realizing where in the timeline the game *seems* to be and seeing Ganondorf's red hair and Gerudo headwear "folded" into Calamity's design made things feel personal.

That said, I hate that they turned Ganon/Ganondorf into Sigma and now he's just this semi-sentient force of "badness." You never fight or even see him as a Gerudo, only in his Incomplete Metroid Prime form. What's the intended solution when Calamity goes golden in the final phase, anyway? Daruk's Protection makes him vulnerable for a small moment, but you can only use it three times. I had to learn beam parrying on the fly after ignoring it for 80 hours because it was the only thing that I hadn't tried, and of course it worked.

Now... Dark Beast Ganon is horrible - just the ultimate in anticlimax. First he returns to the giant flaming boar form from Twilight Princess rather than the badass humanoid blue demon from Ocarina. Then he just kind of stands around in the middle of Hyrule Field seemingly not all that interested in bothering to even aim in Link's direction. (Another element misguidedly borrowed from Twilight - the big climactic battle that occurs in the middle of a random field in the overworld you teleport to for some reason.) Next Zelda gives us the Bow of Light, despite having awakened her powers, like, hours before becoming sealed with Ganon and having no idea how they work, you'd think. The "fight" itself is an almost leisurely trot around a giant pig where you shoot a handful of giant glowing targets as they appear.

Then, finally, after spitting some extremely weighty exposition out of nowhere and wondering how she knows any of that as well - ("He's given up on ressurection!" Wait, so, is Ganon truly dead now?) - Zelda unashamedly informs us that "His heart is out! We can end this!" and we destroy the ultimate evil in the world by shooting an arrow into a big purple eye that's slightly above average sized as big evil purple eyes go but not even the biggest evil purple eye I've seen over the course of this game.

Yeah. Then the ending is just garbage. Just... What the hell?
Ocarina, Majora, Wind Waker, Twilight, Skyward... These all had satisfying credits and ending sequences.
Here you get a loose medley of the town themes and some short, horribly directed, totally generic "happily ever after...but the adventure goes on!" snippets.

Basically, this is a once in a lifetime game, but everything after the first form of Calamity Ganon is so, so uninspired and unimpressive and unsatisfying that it really does a disservice to all the fun and adventure you experienced getting there.

It's a soul-stirring piano solo that ends on a botched chord with a looming "to be continued/concluded through DLC!" threat.

Still a 10/10 game, I just really needed it to stick the landing after the incredible expectations it sets up with its premise and the time the player spends with it.

 

[Kinsei]

Ok, so the Calamity Ganon reveal and the Champions Attack cutscene was wonderfully done.
Felt almost like a little mixture of Mass Effect and Final Fantasy,
Realizing where in the timeline the game *seems* to be and seeing Ganondorf's red hair and Gerudo headwear "folded" into Calamity's design made things feel personal.

That said, I hate that they turned Ganon/Ganondorf into Sigma and now he's just this semi-sentient force of "badness." You never fight or even see him as a Gerudo, only in his Incomplete Metroid Prime form. What's the intended solution when Calamity goes golden in the final phase, anyway? Daruk's Protection makes him vulnerable for a small moment, but you can only use it three times. I had to learn beam parrying on the fly after ignoring it for 80 hours because it was the only thing that I hadn't tried, and of course it worked.

Now... Dark Beast Ganon is horrible - just the ultimate in anticlimax. First he returns to the giant flaming boar form from Twilight Princess rather than the badass humanoid blue demon from Ocarina. Then he just kind of stands around in the middle of Hyrule Field seemingly not all that interested in bothering to even aim in Link's direction. (Another element misguidedly borrowed from Twilight - the big climactic battle that occurs in the middle of a random field in the overworld you teleport to for some reason.) Next Zelda gives us the Bow of Light, despite having awakened her powers, like, hours before becoming sealed with Ganon and having no idea how they work, you'd think. The "fight" itself is an almost leisurely trot around a giant pig where you shoot a handful of giant glowing targets as they appear.

Then, finally, after spitting some extremely weighty exposition out of nowhere and wondering how she knows any of that as well - ("He's given up on ressurection!" Wait, so, is Ganon truly dead now?) - Zelda unashamedly informs us that "His heart is out! We can end this!" and we destroy the ultimate evil in the world by shooting an arrow into a big purple eye that's slightly above average sized as big evil purple eyes go but not even the biggest evil purple eye I've seen over the course of this game.

Yeah. Then the ending is just garbage. Just... What the hell?
Ocarina, Majora, Wind Waker, Twilight, Skyward... These all had satisfying credits and ending sequences.
Here you get a loose medley of the town themes and some short, horribly directed, totally generic "happily ever after...but the adventure goes on!" snippets.

Basically, this is a once in a lifetime game, but everything after the first form of Calamity Ganon is so, so uninspired and unimpressive and unsatisfying that it really does a disservice to all the fun and adventure you experienced getting there.

It's a soul-stirring piano solo that ends on a botched chord with a looming "to be continued/concluded through DLC!" threat.

Still a 10/10 game, I just really needed it to stick the landing after the incredible expectations it sets up with its premise and the time the player spends with it.

You can also dodge and flurry rush when Ganon becomes invincible.

I totally agree with you on how disappointign the finale was. This is the worst Ganon in the entire series IMO.

I don't think the ending was a DLCl hook. I thought it was meant to show that the beasts are going back into a dormant state because Ganon was defeated.

 

[Oddish1]

I think the DS devs place more of an emphasis on the overarching lore, but yeah, I think both series have retcons and inconsistencies - just because Nintendo has a bigger "gameplay first, story second" approach doesn't mean they've sent their story to the wind or that the player can't find enjoyment in the connections between and history of the games.

Thank you. That's all I really wanted to say.

 

[NewGame]

No it's because everyone is grasping at straws that are largely imaginary and require great leaps of logic because little in the texts supports any direct connection beyond recurring thematic elements

Straw makes up 95% of Zelda lore though.

 

[Thud]

The master sword doesn't seem to make much difference. I get that you should be able to beat ganon without it, but it doesn't change the ending at all. Zelda snatches the victory the player should have.

I also think it's dumb Link never uses a shield in the story and continues to do so. That's not courage, that's being reckless...

What makes the ending weird to me is that both zelda and link can continue where they left off like it was yesterday. To me there should have been a penalty for those 100 years. Some sort of fear of letting zelda go.

 

[rrs]

Thunderblight ganon fucking sucked, god damn second stage is the anti-thesis of fun. As for the third stage in that battle, I need to remember that x3 bows and bomb arrows, then blow the ever loving fuck out of ganon when the shield is down

 

[Haganeren]

Is that on the statue of the seven heroine ?
... Who is the eight one in that case ?

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Is that on the statue of the seven heroine ?
... Who is the eight one in that case ?

Honestly this was the most interesting part of the game's history to me. There's this hidden eighth Gerudo heroine that nobody believes actually existed, yet there's rumors that she was worshiped in the Gerudo Highlands. You go up there and find the statue's sword on top of the mountain, and the statue nestled in the corner a bit further down. You go back to the questgiver and he's like "nah, I was just sending you for a ride, everybody knows there's no eighth heroine." Then you show him the picture...

Who was she, why do people think she doesn't exist, what happened to the statue's sword to throw it up there, why was there a second sect of Gerudo in the Highlands who venerated her, and where'd they go?

Really interesting stuff.

 

[Haganeren]

That's photoshopped afaik

What ? Are you sure ? I mean the second picture is text that i have seen in the room of the child chief of the Gerudo. It's not photoshoped so it would be strange for the first picture to be photoshopped.

Honestly this was the most interesting part of the game's history to me. There's this hidden eighth Gerudo heroine that nobody believes actually existed, yet there's rumors that she was worshiped in the Gerudo Highlands. You go up there and find the statue's sword on top of the mountain, and the statue nestled in the corner a bit further down. You go back to the questgiver and he's like "nah, I was just sending you for a ride, everybody knows there's no eighth heroine." Then you show him the picture...

Who was she, why do people think she doesn't exist, what happened to the statue's sword to throw it up there, why was there a second sect of Gerudo in the Highlands who venerated her, and where'd they go?

Really interesting stuff.

Yeah, i wondered too why the sword is so far from the statue, seems like a strange oversight if it's a mistake so it seems to be done in purpose.
So whole idea of Gerudo having desert and snowy mountain at the same place is so strange anyway, maybe that second sect is gone since a long time ? Or maybe it's really the seven sages and the height statue is about Link or something. (But why is it anmed the "Seven Heroine" then) Actually, only the princess seal talked to me about that height statue, it doesn't seem there is much info on that.

 

[Tyeforce]

So with the Hyrule Encyclopedia revising the timeline slightly, it should be clear now that not every little detail mentioned in the Hyrule Historia is the indisputable "Word of God" that it's made to be; details can change slightly, and if a future game wants to do something with its plot, it's not going to worry about some little things written up to go along with the timeline in a book years ago, it's going to worry about the main events and details from the actual games. So stuff like the Hero's Shade existing due to not being remembered or whatever, yeah, I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock in that if a game decides to go a different route. In this example, Nintendo decided to change the placement of the Oracle games, which is a minor detail all things considered, given that it doesn't contradict any other games or anything (the Oracle games are very self-contained anyway). So with that, here's an updated look of the current timeline, with Breath of the Wild thrown in as well (unofficial of course, but it's what I believe to be correct at this time):

Also, I still haven't really seen anyone else talk about what I think is a pretty big hint towards a Child Timeline placement—Zelda's mention of Ganon "giving up on reincarnation" during the final battle. Reincarnation, not resurrection. People tend to forget that Four Swords Adventures exists, but it's the only time so far where we've seen a second Ganondorf, meaning that the Child Timeline, as far as we know, is the only timeline where Ganondorf has been reincarnated as a new Gerudo male. With that and Zelda's mention of twilight being spoken, main story lines, I think they hold a lot more weight regarding timeline placement than other minor text in the game. And those mentions of sages and all from OoT existing in the Child Timeline CAN be explained, anyway, if word of Young Link's tale got out and was remembered as legend.

 

[sphagnum]

I've seen some people say that in the Japanese text, Zelda simply says that Ganon has given up on his body being regenerated, not using the Japanese word for reincarnation. He could just be regenerating his body in his pod thing, especially if he had been resurrected by the Sheikah or Yiga as an experiment that went wrong 100 years ago, and become so enraged fighting Link that he gives up on doing that.

 

[Tyeforce]

I've seen some people say that in the Japanese text, Zelda simply says that Ganon has given up on his body being regenerated, not using the Japanese word for reincarnation. He could just be regenerating his body in his pod thing, especially if he had been resurrected by the Sheikah or Yiga as an experiment that went wrong 100 years ago, and become so enraged fighting Link that he gives up on doing that.

Ah, well if that's the case then the reincarnation line might not mean much. We need official confirmation already, ugh!

 

[RagnarokX]

There's also Gerudo text at the entrance to the Yiga hideout, if anyone could check that.

Is that on the statue of the seven heroine ?
... Who is the eight one in that case ?

I checked out the eighth statue and, while the texturing on it is different, if you climb across it while holding a glowing weapon you can make out the Gerudo text on it. The text is upsidedown compared to the other statues, but it still says "THE SEVEN SAGES".

That's photoshopped afaik

I translated the Gerudo text on the statue...

Ah, well if that's the case then the reincarnation line might not mean much. We need official confirmation already, ugh!

Even in English Zelda does not say that he's given up on EVER reincarnating. If you scan Calamity Ganon his pokedex entry says that he was still in the process of reincarnating when Link interrupted him and forced him to fight in an incomplete form. Zelda is simply saying that Ganon has ceased wasting energy on reincarnation to come at Link with his full power. Reincarnation just means he was trying to take physical form. Zelda even says at the end that he'll probably come back some day.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

I checked out the eighth statue and, while the texturing on it is different, if you climb across it while holding a glowing weapon you can make out the Gerudo text on it. The text is upsidedown compared to the other statues, but it still says "THE SEVEN SAGES".

That's even more interesting.

I wonder if she was a traitor to the Gerudo.

 

[RagnarokX]

That's even more interesting.

I wonder if she was a traitor to the Gerudo.

I wouldn't read into it. Half of the text is upsidedown/backwards on the other seven. One side reads left to right, the other reads right to left.

 

[Zero-ELEC]

Also, I still haven't really seen anyone else talk about what I think is a pretty big hint towards a Child Timeline placement—Zelda's mention of Ganon "giving up on reincarnation" during the final battle. Reincarnation, not resurrection. People tend to forget that Four Swords Adventures exists, but it's the only time so far where we've seen a second Ganondorf, meaning that the Child Timeline, as far as we know, is the only timeline where Ganondorf has been reincarnated as a new Gerudo male. With that and Zelda's mention of twilight being spoken, main story lines, I think they hold a lot more weight regarding timeline placement than other minor text in the game. And those mentions of sages and all from OoT existing in the Child Timeline CAN be explained, anyway, if word of Young Link's tale got out and was remembered as legend.

Reincarnate is in literally reincarnate. As in take flesh once more.

 

[RagnarokX]

Reincarnate is in literally reincarnate. As in take flesh once more.

Right. Reincarnate literally means "to make flesh again." They aren't using it in the incredibly specific way some religions use it where you go through rebirth. Ganon was creating a new physical body to inhabit. By that token, TP Ganon had to reincarnate since he was reduced to Malice form when he was sent to the Twilight Realm and it took him a long time to regain his strength enough to take physical form. Also Ganon in Oracles, ALBW, Zelda 1, and Zelda 2's bad ending would be reincarnations since Ganon had been killed before those games and his spirit had to be given new physical form.

In BotW Ganon never fully reincarnated. His pokedex entry says Link interrupted the reincarnation process. Which is why Zelda says he's given up on reincarnating after he abandons that incomplete form. He's given up on reincarnating into that specific reincarnation. He wants to use the energy he was using to reincarnate against Link.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

I wouldn't read into it. Half of the text is upsidedown/backwards on the other seven. One side reads left to right, the other reads right to left.

I'm surprised it even says anything at all, to be honest. That's really cool (but kind of weird they'd play around with it like that)

Makes you wonder what Ganon was planning on reincarnating into if that monstrosity wasn't complete.

 

[RagnarokX]

I'm surprised it even says anything at all, to be honest. That's really cool (but kind of weird they'd play around with it like that)

Makes you wonder what Ganon was planning on reincarnating into if that monstrosity wasn't complete.

BotW has 3 readable languages in it. Sheikah, Gerudo, and ALBW Hylian.

Ganon was probably just trying to reincarnate into his Gerudo form. Calamity Ganon is basically just his Malice using his blight guardians as temporary body parts.

This is what Ganon's Malice looked like in TP:

So imagine if in TP Ganon had to fight before regaining his strength and he stuck his Malice head on a cyborg body. That's basically what Calamity Ganon is.

 

[ZeroX03]

Boy what a disappointing final boss and ending. The designs were cool, but that's it? The ending was about as generic as you could get. I was never hooked in emotionally like Wind Waker or Skyward Sword either. There's no chemistry with Zelda or personal animosity toward Ganon.

This game had some of the weakest bosses in the series too. Bomb arrows and parry/flurry all do big damage to bosses and they're not exactly hard to do. Dark Beast Ganon was just going through the motions too.

Can't say I care for any of the timeline nonsense and like to view each game as it's own thing.

 

[xochipiltontli]

Just finished the game and everything about the Calamity Ganon fight was amazing. I was disappointed by the second form with the light arrows though, I wish it were as well done as the Hyrule Castle fight was.

 

[Zocano]

While I would have liked to see Ganondorf, the way this game was handling its story and pacing fits better to just having the nebulous evil force of Ganon.

It'd be the same problem of Twilight Princess where Ganondorf just shows up at the 11th hour and starts doing his thing. There just isn't that much impact (even if that fight in TP is a pretty cool set piece). It's why Wind Waker Ganondorf is so god damn memorable for myself and many others. There's just a lot of build up and characterization to him.

With that said, I don't mind them hinting at this Ganon having remnants of Ganondorf (with the headpiece and whatnot) but the whole reveal and fight and subsequent pig form were just really lame overall. I mean having the guardian motif roll into his design is important but it just ended up being another dude with a sword that you dodge/parry.

 

[Kinsei]

While I would have liked to see Ganondorf, the way this game was handling its story and pacing fits better to just having the nebulous evil force of Ganon.

It'd be the same problem of Twilight Princess where Ganondorf just shows up at the 11th hour and starts doing his thing. There just isn't that much impact (even if that fight in TP is a pretty cool set piece). It's why Wind Waker Ganondorf is so god damn memorable for myself and many others. There's just a lot of build up and characterization to him.

With that said, I don't mind them hinting at this Ganon having remnants of Ganondorf (with the headpiece and whatnot) but the whole reveal and fight and subsequent pig form were just really lame overall. I mean having the guardian motif roll into his design is important but it just ended up being another dude with a sword that you dodge/parry.

I never go this complaint about Twilight Princess. Ganondorf shows up after the fourth dungeon. That's nowhere close to the end of the game.

 

[Zocano]

I never go this complaint about Twilight Princess. Ganondorf shows up after the fourth dungeon. That's nowhere close to the end of the game.

I played TP once and over multiple months cause I had to force myself through the slower bits so it's all a blur for me ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

I just remember not caring for that Ganondorf. But to be fair, it'd be hard to top Wind Waker Ganondorf.

 

[KHlover]

In retrospect I'm REALLY glad I fought Ganon about 20 hours earlier than I intended to. I had to beat two Blights before his fight started, had no meals cooked, no armor piece with a higher defense value than 5 and maybe 8 or 9 hearts. By the time Ganon became invincible I had burned through all of my ingredients and fairies, the only thing that could revive me was Mipha's prayer ever 15 minutes or so. Since I couldn't afford to get hit when messing up the timing for a flurry rush I never dodged and ran instead. The only time I could do actual damage was when I parried one of the Wind Blight machine gun laser thingies (that brings him down from the wall and completely strips off his shield for a couple seconds), the only other damage I did to him was when I managed to land a hit in the split second his shield is down when he attacks. By the end of the fight my last shield had the "Shield is badly damaged" message on the screen and I was on my last weapon. Took me pretty much an hour to beat and was a fantastic experience.

When I went to fight Ganon with all Titans down, full Lv. 4 Ancient Armor, like 30 Ancient arrows and an inventory full of Guardian++ weapons tho...lol. Ez.

 

[Albo]

I think the DS devs place more of an emphasis on the overarching lore, but yeah, I think both series have retcons and inconsistencies - just because Nintendo has a bigger "gameplay first, story second" approach doesn't mean they've sent their story to the wind or that the player can't find enjoyment in the connections between and history of the games.


I agree with this, the connections can be pretty explicit at times.

I dunno. Dark Souls only has three games and plenty of blatant retcons and fanservicey references. The existence of the sequel already retcons the first game's "this is a world on the brink of death" into "oh well the world gets like that sometimes, y'know how it is". Not to mention killing Ornstein three different times, in three completely different places. Even the first game taken completely self-contained has tons of contradictions that are waved away with "oh, well time and space are convoluted for some reason".

I guess what I'm getting at is what about Zelda that tends to make it's lore and references dumb kiddy things that aren't worth talking about, but Dark Souls an intricate puzzle that has been laboriously thought out and only the finest minds can put together. Zelda isn't clear on something: "its because developers don't care", Dark Souls unclear: "masterstroke, Miyazaki does it again".

Not to mention zelda is a 30 year long series with 19 games. There's bound to be some timeline retcons and inconsistencies in any long running series like that even if they really cared about it .

 

[EVH]

People take Dark Souls lore seriously and all discussion of its lore devolves into that.

The lore building in Zelda is a piece of crap compared to Dark Souls / Bloodborne.

 

[Crayolan]

In retrospect I'm REALLY glad I fought Ganon about 20 hours earlier than I intended to. I had to beat two Blights before his fight started, had no meals cooked, no armor piece with a higher defense value than 5 and maybe 8 or 9 hearts. By the time Ganon became invincible I had burned through all of my ingredients and fairies, the only thing that could revive me was Mipha's prayer ever 15 minutes or so. Since I couldn't afford to get hit when messing up the timing for a flurry rush I never dodged and ran instead. The only time I could do actual damage was when I parried one of the Wind Blight machine gun laser thingies (that brings him down from the wall and completely strips off his shield for a couple seconds), the only other damage I did to him was when I managed to land a hit in the split second his shield is down when he attacks. By the end of the fight my last shield had the "Shield is badly damaged" message on the screen and I was on my last weapon. Took me pretty much an hour to beat and was a fantastic experience.

When I went to fight Ganon with all Titans down, full Lv. 4 Ancient Armor, like 30 Ancient arrows and an inventory full of Guardian++ weapons tho...lol. Ez.

I had a similar experience, I went straight to Ganon with no dungeons cleared, wasn't able to get past Fireblight, then came back after beating the Gerudo and Goron dungeons, though still with low hearts and supplies, and on my 3rd try I just barely made it through exhausting all my food. It was awesome.

 

[Jonnax]

Is there an explanation for why Zelda is alive?

It seemed pretty threadbare especially with her fighting for 100 years.

 

[tali'zorah84]

I love the Calamity's design in this game, I just wish that his final form when he "gives up" wasn't a boar-pig thing as per usual. If anything, I feel like it would make sense for him to regress into an even more spirit-like force instead.

 

[Kinsei]

Is there an explanation for why Zelda is alive?

It seemed pretty threadbare especially with her fighting for 100 years.

When she used her sealing powers in Skyward Sword to seal Demise it sealed her in a crystal. The same thing most likely happened in this game.

 

[Nosgotham]

Is there an explanation for why Zelda is alive?

It seemed pretty threadbare especially with her fighting for 100 years.

I kind of wished she came out of that pod all fucked up emotionally. She appeared surprisingly well adjusted for just having spent 100 years living alongside evil

 

[Otnopolit]

My favorite endgame part besides Cyber Ganon's reveal was exploring Hyrule castle. We've had previous installments show a little bit of detail of the inside, but never to scale and with hidden passage ways and dungeons like this one. It was really neat to finally open the hood and see how it might be laid out were it a real castle. Very well done. It's only made better by the fact its the biggest building and most typical dungeon-like area in the game.

The Light Arrow trope only works when the boss fight is rewarding. Everything about BoTW is challenging, and then we get giant pig ganon who does basically nothing. It was sweet to kill Ganon while riding his old horse, however.

 

[Fandangox]

So I've seen people mentioning there's a lab in Hyrule Castle, or do they just mean the area where you fight Ganon?

 

[Deleted member 231381]

My favorite endgame part besides Cyber Ganon's reveal was exploring Hyrule castle. We've had previous installments show a little bit of detail of the inside, but never to scale and with hidden passage ways and dungeons like this one. It was really neat to finally open the hood and see how it might be laid out were it a real castle. Very well done. It's only made better by the fact its the biggest building and most typical dungeon-like area in the game.

The Light Arrow trope only works when the boss fight is rewarding. Everything about BoTW is challenging, and then we get giant pig ganon who does basically nothing. It was sweet to kill Ganon while riding his old horse, however.

All of BotW's bosses suffer from the same basic problem that they had to be designed for players to complete at almost any stage of the game. If you go to Ganon too early, you will get destroyed (unless you are very, very good). If you go to Ganon too late, it's a cakewalk. There's a sweet spot in terms of hearts, stamina, and abilities (and obviously player skill) where the fight is really damn satisfying, but the game makes no effort to hint to the player "now is about the right time". One of the few niggles remaining with the conversion to open-world that hasn't quite been solved satisfactorily.

 

[Neoweee]

All of BotW's bosses suffer from the same basic problem that they had to be designed for players to complete at almost any stage of the game. If you go to Ganon too early, you will get destroyed (unless you are very, very good). If you go to Ganon too late, it's a cakewalk. There's a sweet spot in terms of hearts, stamina, and abilities (and obviously player skill) where the fight is really damn satisfying, but the game makes no effort to hint to the player "now is about the right time". One of the few niggles remaining with the conversion to open-world that hasn't quite been solved satisfactorily.

Yeah, the difficulty curve of the game like that bothers me too.

But then I try to think of how other open-world action-RPGs have tried to solve having no gating, no level-scaling, and no level-dependence in combat algorithms, and... uh, have any even done that?

A few key nerfs (limit fairies to 1, nerf "Heavy" armor upgrade values, limit mid-combat eating/potions) and the game's difficulty would probably stretch for another 20-30 hours than it currently does.

 

[Human Trashcan]

Yeah, the difficulty curve of the game like that bothers me too.

But then I try to think of how other open-world action-RPGs have tried to solve having no gating, no level-scaling, and no level-dependence in combat algorithms, and... uh, have any even done that?

A few key nerfs (limit fairies to 1, nerf "Heavy" armor upgrade values, limit mid-combat eating/potions) and the game's difficulty would probably stretch for another 20-30 hours than it currently does.

The eating is the biggest thing. Being able to stuff your face endlessly (well, you can carry 3 pages of cooked items, but that's a LOT of hearts), and the ease with which you can create full HP + yellow heart meals, really breaks any potentially challenging boss encounters (which really don't exist in the first place, certainly with endgame gear/hearts). That's the biggest thing the hard mode needs to address, because just upping enemy damage won't solve it, especially when silver mobs already hit so damn hard.

As it is, the game was hard for about 10 hours before the difficulty just fell off a cliff, it really felt like it just happened all at once. But yeah it's a tough problem to solve, especially in a game that allows for so many valid approaches to everything, including combat. If someone hasn't been using their core combat skills a lot (which is valid) and then bosses require perfect parries or mastery of melee combat, they might get super frustrated. For the most part I think the bosses are okay in terms of difficulty (except Dark Beast Ganon) though leaving aside the fact that the healing is ridiculous. I just think they're really damn boring.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

The eating is the biggest thing. Being able to stuff your face endlessly (well, you can carry 3 pages of cooked items, but that's a LOT of hearts), and the ease with which you can create full HP + yellow heart meals, really breaks any potentially challenging boss encounters (which really don't exist in the first place, certainly with endgame gear/hearts). That's the biggest thing the hard mode needs to address, because just upping enemy damage won't solve it, especially when silver mobs already hit so damn hard.

I didnt find any bosses hard at all, and was certainly never needing to stuff my face. All the ganon forms on the divine beasts were really easy, and final boss ganon just required figuring out a parry or flurry timing once he goes invulnerable. All the open world bosses I fight were even easier, like stalnox cant even hit you if you just strafe left close up.

I wouldve much rather seen a lot more puzzle mechanics on the bosses. Thats what has made zelda bosses fun. However besides things like the sand shark thing eating bombs, fireblight ganon sucking in bombs, and thunderblight ganon's metallic pillars, the game rarely tries to make you think about how to approach a boss.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Yeah, the difficulty curve of the game like that bothers me too.

But then I try to think of how other open-world action-RPGs have tried to solve having no gating, no level-scaling, and no level-dependence in combat algorithms, and... uh, have any even done that?

A few key nerfs (limit fairies to 1, nerf "Heavy" armor upgrade values, limit mid-combat eating/potions) and the game's difficulty would probably stretch for another 20-30 hours than it currently does.

BotW does it pretty well with weapon degradation, and it is one of the main reasons I will staunchly defend weapon degradation. Your weapon inflow is balanced to the area and you have constant weapon outflow, meaning over time your damage output naturally adjusts to your surroundings. Anyone who thinks badly of the system (other than nuisances like the UI and faffing around in the inventory instead of having a better quick switch) is simply trying to play against the game.

The trouble is that there isn't an equivalent system for anything else. Armour doesn't degrade, so your defence gets continuously better throughout the game with no adjustment, hearts and stamina are permanently unlocked, you get access to better foodstuffs, and the Champion Abilities are absolutely nuts, particularly the Rito and Zora abilities.

But I'm just not sure what you do to bridge that gap, because at the same time, you want the player to feel a sense of progression. If you made *everything* work like weapon degradation, you wouldn't get that feeling of returning to an earlier period in the game and mowing things down with ease.

I do think there are some obvious starts, like: food should have to be eaten in real time, and should restore hearts slowly over time rather than instantly. Defence up needs to be halved or even quartered in effectiveness. Mipha's Grace needs to restore some minimum amount of hearts and nothing more.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

BotW does it pretty well with weapon degradation, and it is one of the main reasons I will staunchly defend weapon degradation. Your weapon inflow is balanced to the area and you have constant weapon outflow, meaning over time your damage output naturally adjusts to your surroundings. Anyone who thinks badly of the system (other than nuisances like the UI and faffing around in the inventory instead of having a better quick switch) is simply trying to play against the game.

My problem is that despite your weapons snapping like a couple of pieces of styrofoam held together with JB weld, the game never forces you to really change up your approach. There are only 3 main types of melee weapons. Short weapons, heavy weapons, and spears. Boomerangs and magical weapons can add some variety but even then boomerangs are often used similarly to short weapons. So every time a weapon snaps you just change to another one and continue to approach the fight the same as you did before, just now your hits are doing more or less damage.

If a game is goign to constantly force me to swap weapons, I want to moment to force me to reevaluate the situation, and this game never does that. I wish that clubs, axes, great axes, great swords, and all the types of weapons this game had actually controlled differently instead of just being in 3 categories.

This is an odd comparison but hear me out. DOOM last year had you constantly running out of ammo midfight and at that point were given a choice. Find a way to make one of your other drastically different guns work, or find a way to get ammo for the one you liked for that situation. Which could consist of using another gun to weaken an enemy for a melee finisher, or chainsawing an enemy and wasting precious chainsaw fuel. This created very chaotic and think on your feet moments. I wouldve loved if the combat in zelda was doing that with all my weapons breaking.

 

[Human Trashcan]

I didnt find any bosses hard at all, and was certainly never needing to stuff my face. All the ganon forms on the divine beasts were really easy, and final boss ganon just required figuring out a parry or flurry timing once he goes invulnerable. All the open world bosses I fight were even easier, like stalnox cant even hit you if you just strafe left close up.

Silver Lynels are pretty punishing, and when I've been off my game fighting them I've definitely relied on just eating through the damage. But they're really the only difficult enemies by themselves. I don't like Lizalfos but they're just annoying to fight more than anything else.

But it's worth remembering that Zelda hasn't been about difficult fights for a long time, and that's mostly fine. It's just too easy to completely break the game right now without any real effort on the player's part to even do so. And that absent any puzzle mechanics in boss fights, the lack of mechanical challenge stands out even more and makes the bosses just feel like dull damage sponges.

When you think about it, the set pieces leading up to the divine beasts kind of feel more like 3D Zelda boss fights of old than the Blights.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

My problem is that despite your weapons snapping like a couple of pieces of styrofoam held together with JB weld, the game never forces you to really change up your approach. There are only 3 main types of melee weapons. Short weapons, heavy weapons, and spears. Boomerangs and magical weapons can add some variety but even then boomerangs are often used similarly to short weapons. So every time a weapon snaps you just change to another one and continue to approach the fight the same as you did before, just now your hits are doing more or less damage.

If a game is goign to constantly force me to swap weapons, I want to moment to force me to reevaluate the situation, and this game never does that. I wish that clubs, axes, great axes, great swords, and all the types of weapons this game had actually controlled differently instead of just being in 3 categories.

This is an odd comparison but hear me out. DOOM last year had you constantly running out of ammo midfight and at that point were given a choice. Find a way to make one of your other drastically different guns work, or find a way to get ammo for the one you liked for that situation. Which could consist of using another gun to weaken an enemy for a melee finisher, or chainsawing an enemy and wasting precious chainsaw fuel. This created very chaotic and think on your feet moments. I wouldve loved if the combat in zelda was doing that with all my weapons breaking.

No, that's actually fair. I do think there's a little more variety in terms of the additional effects attached to weapons that layers on top of the three basic weapon archetypes, but I agree more variety would be great - but that's an extension of the degradation system, and not the end of it.

A good game for the next Zelda to learn from, I think, would be Kid Icarus: Uprising, in terms of creating some really compelling weapon archetypes.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

When you think about it, the set pieces leading up to the divine beasts kind of feel more like 3D Zelda boss fights of old than the Blights.

I found it actually jarring when I had to bust out magnetism against thunderblight. I was like "uhh what...I cant hit him anymore" And it took a minute for me to be like "Oh yea, puzzle mechanics in bosses, thats a zelda thing"

 

[TZchassis]

I was chilling around hyrule castle and had a look. The music was so good that I couldn't leave and found myself facing ganon lol. I thought I would die in a second but to my suprise I defeated him untouched. if it was a lynel he would've killed me quickly lol.

This game is my absolute favorite Zelda. Loved it and I am not even done yet, but Gannon is the worst aspect of this game. Hated all his forms (except thunderblight, that at least gave the impression that he's fast and hard to beat which made it climatic compared to the rest). I was really hoping that we would see him in a gerudo form, wanted an epic speech. Also, I wished if the beasts had different bosses other than Gannon forms.

I think I unlocked an alternate ending since Zelda asked if I remember her. Also I am curious is there another way to go through the castle from the inside rather than climbing? I wanted the hylian shield but I couldn't find it, so I guess it's inside.

 

[balgajo]

I was chilling around hyrule castle and had a look. The music was so good that I couldn't leave and found myself facing ganon lol. I thought I would die in a second but to my suprise I defeated him untouched. if it was a lynel he would've killed me quickly lol.

This game is my absolute favorite Zelda. Loved it and I am not even done yet, but Gannon is the worst aspect of this game. Hated all his forms (except thunderblight, that at least gave the impression that he's fast and hard to beat which made it climatic compared to the rest). I was really hoping that we would see him in a gerudo form, wanted an epic speech. Also, I wished if the beasts had different bosses other than Gannon forms.

lol...Same thing happened to me. Finished it first time when I completed only 2 dungeons

EDIT:

I think I unlocked an alternate ending since Zelda asked if I remember her. Also I am curious is there another way to go through the castle from the inside rather than climbing? I wanted the hylian shield but I couldn't find it, so I guess it's inside.

Actually not. This part is the same.

 

[whyamihere]

Wait, there are multiple endings?!