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[Stereogatari]

What do people mean when they say this games over world is one big dungeon? I kinda get it but don't at the same time

Traditional Zelda format: Dungeon is it's own self-contained area behind a loading screen.

New Zelda format: The whole World Map has no loading screens and is sprinkled with things you would find in a traditional Zelda dungeon.

The exception of course are the Shrine puzzles and Divine Beasts which are self-contained and away from the rest of the game. But even then, the way you discover the shrines and beasts on the World Map itself, gives it a nice organic feel, that feels like they are a part of the contiguous World Map as well.

An upgraded BotW formula would ideally give you underworld areas with really tough mazes, enemies, bosses, and no loading times. Those areas would feel like Zelda 1/2 dungeons, essentially, except they'd feel like a part of the world. One big, multi-layered world. Do it, Nintendo.

For me the upgrade to the formula would be absolutely everything being on the overworld, so the shrine puzzles would be integrated with the aesthetic of the various parts of the World, and there are already many examples of such puzzles on the overworld, usually the ones that award you with "blessing" shrines.

 

[WordAssassin]

I mean in terms of actually obtaining it. It's linked to strength / hearts when that hasn't been the case before.

Ahhh yes, ok I misunderstood

I've seen people mention The Lord of

Spoiler

the Mountain

a few times and I have no idea who / what it is. And that's after logging in 110+ hours! No one tell me, I want to figure it out on my own. I'm also really curious about [major location spoiler, presumably]

Spoiler

the floating island

people keep talking about.

I love this game.

I think the "floating island" is a misunderstanding of something else in the game.

Unless I've also somehow missed out on it at 150+ hours?!

 

[octopiggy]

Don't understand how you've messed up a Korok puzzle in a way that requires the respawn.

I picked all the fruit from a tree so it can't match the others.

 

[Regginator]

I've seen people mention The Lord of

Spoiler

the Mountain

a few times and I have no idea who / what it is. And that's after logging in 110+ hours! No one tell me, I want to figure it out on my own. I'm also really curious about [major location spoiler, presumably]

Spoiler

the floating island

people keep talking about.

I love this game.

Do you want a small and vague hint for the Lord of the

Spoiler

Mountain

? If so: sometimes when

Spoiler

it's dark, you'll see a very bright light on top of a certain mountain

. Go there.

As for the "

Spoiler

floating

island", isn't that just

Spoiler

Vah Medoh

? From afar it looks like a

Spoiler

floating island

/platform, but when you're up close you see it for what it is.

 

[QuixoticNeutral]

So I bought an

Spoiler

energetic rhino beetle

off a vendor on the road a few days ago and stashed it in my inventory, not knowing it was for and assuming I would need it as an ingredient for something rare.

A certain desperate collector tries to buy it off of you with an offer that is, frankly, highway robbery, and if you refuse... well, you see a side of this character you ordinarily don't.

 

[Smellycat]

The only big negative aspect about this game is the lack of caves. All these big ass mountains an there are ZERO caves smh

The follow up needs to fix this

 

[Nia]

I got all the memories. I will head to Ganon momentarily.

 

[Regginator]

Would y'all consider H

Spoiler

yrule Castl

e as a mini-dungeon? I fucking loved the exploration and non-linearity in it. A very memorable experience.

 

[jblank83]

The ending cinematic.. was a bit short and dull. Anyone else thought so?

Just finished the game myself.

Yes, the ending cinematic was disappointingly sparse. The entire game was like that, in regards to cinematics, by design. Still, I would have liked just a little more.

Would y'all consider H

Spoiler

yrule Castl

e as a mini-dungeon? I fucking loved the exploration and non-linearity in it. A very memorable experience.

I

Spoiler

swam up a waterfall

, climbed some cliffs, accidentally walked into

Spoiler

the 2nd Gatehouse

, and then made a straight line for

Spoiler

Ganon

. It was surprisingly short. I didn't even realize I skipped the entirety of

Spoiler

Castle Town

and the paths up to

Spoiler

the castle, including the Guards Room, and all the little hallways and whatnot.

It didn't feel much like a mini-dungeon at all the first pass through. But I went back and explored some more afterwards and can see how it might.

That's the beauty of Breath of the Wild though: many styles, many routes, many results, many different experiences.

 

[QuixoticNeutral]

Well, here's a rare disappointment in the interactions the game allows: I finally tamed my first bear, shot down its neighbour from its back, then approached the kill only to find that no, you can't make the bear cannibalize its companion's Raw Gourmet Meat.

Would y'all consider H

Spoiler

yrule Castl

e as a mini-dungeon? I fucking loved the exploration and non-linearity in it. A very memorable experience.

I would consider it a full dungeon, and arguably the best in the game. People may dump on the dungeon design in BotW but I look at this one,

Spoiler

Eventide Island

, and

Spoiler

Vah Naboris

, and all of them stack up with the stronger moments of the 3D series while capturing a certain aspect of what makes BotW unique.

 

[WheelHoss1]

It wasn't a bit short and dull, it was fucking short and dull. Like, I don't want a 30-minute ending cutscene of course, but this was literally a one minute scene where

Spoiler

Zelda thanks Link

, that's all. And if you found all memories, there's another one-minute scene where

Spoiler

both are headed towards Zora's Domain

.

Nintendo shit the bed with BOTW's main story stuff. Everything else is fantastic, but if they had nailed the main dungeons, final boss, and endings as well, it would have surpassed OOT as my perfect game.

Glad there is some balance in this thread. I said basically the same thing in the Moment You Were Playing thread and got ripped.

I just want moments like when Sheik takes off the mask or you pull out the sword in Temple of Time. Moments that make you go wow.

BotW has that in spades when it comes to the world and armor designs. But the story is meh and choosing to reveal it mostly in flashbacks didn't help.

Honestly I felt more emotion in OoT when Saria comes running after you as you leave the forest than any BotW moment. And don't even get me started about the emotional impact of Ocarina's amazing heart breaking ending.

 

[Mik2121]

Is there a way to rename your horse? I wasted my good name on the first garbage horse I caught.

Just call it a variant of your fav. name? My horses are called "Epoon", "Spoona" and "Spona". Make them sound like chinese knock-offs but that's fine



I want Epona

 

[victreeb3l]

Holy crap the

Spoiler

horse goddess

is terrifying. Creeped me the hell out. My surprise at a 5th

Spoiler

fairy fountain

quickly turned into fear.

The only big negative aspect about this game is the lack of caves. All these big ass mountains an there are ZERO caves smh

The follow up needs to fix this

There are some tiny caves but yeah I wish there were some grand sprawling cave systems in the game.

 

[kunonabi]

Would y'all consider H

Spoiler

yrule Castl

e as a mini-dungeon? I fucking loved the exploration and non-linearity in it. A very memorable experience.

Not really, it's too short, too easy, doesn't introduce anything new, the puzzles are mostly non-existent, and getting the majority of the secrets can be done in fairly linear line that actually leads right to

Spoiler

Ganon

. I seriously thought it was going to be something special when I first entered so I was shocked at how little meat there was to it.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

Glad there is some balance in this thread. I said basically the same thing in the Moment You Were Playing thread and got ripped.

Wait, what?

This is what you posted in that thread:

Pulling out the sword in the Temple of Time and returning to Castle Town.

Sheik taking off the mask.

I love BotW but it never really had these kind of story moments.

And, as far as I can tell, I'm the only person who responded to you and I said this:

I don't think a story moment has ever made me realize I'm playing one of the best games ever.

For BotW, I knew I was playing a classic when I received the paraglider and then got to choose which direction to go when leaving the Great Plateau. That moment was greater than anything in any other 3D Zelda for me.

How does this equate to being "ripped"? I certainly wasn't trashing your opinion

Unless you posted something similar earlier in the thread and I missed it?

 

[Burbeting]

It took me around 75 hours, but all 120 shrines are now done. Not going to bother with side quests or korok seeds.

It was a fun 9/10 game, maybe even 9.5/10.

 

[AEREC]

Just finished the game myself.

Yes, the ending cinematic was disappointingly sparse. The entire game was like that, in regards to cinematics, by design. Still, I would have liked just a little more.

Im torn on the sparse story in this, sometimes I think it's brilliant and hearkens back to the classic Zelda and sometimes I really would have liked a bit more in the way of character development.

But really I think it needs to be sparse since you awaken 100 years later and everyone you knew is pretty much dead, so it's fitting I guess.

This Zelda is definitely mostly about the gameplay and exploration.

 

[WheelHoss1]

Well you weren't exactly approving of my addition

I'm just saying that SOME of us DO remember Zelda games more for their story moments.

TBH I've always hated the dungeons. I don't like puzzle games. But I plowed through the Water Temple on multiple consoles because those story moments I mentioned always move me to tears no matter how many times I experience them.

I think Nintendo kind of lost track of this with BotW. As a writer I can tell you that relegating the story to flashbacks is narrative suicide. And where are all the juicy twists? And where is Zelda? The damn game is called the Legend of Zelda not Link's Great Adventure.

Hope that makes sense.

 

[Arrrammis]

Holy crap the

Spoiler

horse goddess

is terrifying. Creeped me the hell out. My surprise at a 5th

Spoiler

fairy fountain

quickly turned into fear.



There are some tiny caves but yeah I wish there were some grand sprawling cave systems in the game.

I came across that early on, really excited that I finally found the second

Spoiler

fairy fountain after the one by Kakariko

, but I got super baited

 

[Crayolan]

Would y'all consider H

Spoiler

yrule Castl

e as a mini-dungeon? I fucking loved the exploration and non-linearity in it. A very memorable experience.

It's as much of a dungeon as any other rendition of Ganon's Castle or Hyrule Castle. And IMO, it's the best final dungeon in the series.

 

[Malus]

Glad there is some balance in this thread. I said basically the same thing in the Moment You Were Playing thread and got ripped.

I just want moments like when Sheik takes off the mask or you pull out the sword in Temple of Time. Moments that make you go wow.

BotW has that in spades when it comes to the world and armor designs. But the story is meh and choosing to reveal it mostly in flashbacks didn't help.

Honestly I felt more emotion in OoT when Saria comes running after you as you leave the forest than any BotW moment. And don't even get me started about the emotional impact of Ocarina's amazing heart breaking ending.

Botw feels very much like Xenoblade X to me in that regard. Lacks the big strong main story of entries past and in exchange you get a big collection of smaller stories. Difference being that the original Xenoblade had a better story than any Zelda imo so I didn't feel the difference as much.

But like I've mentioned before, I still love the ending. Easy boss or not that shit got me hype as fuck both times I beat it. From the decision to finally take on the castle, riding my horse through Hyrule field mowing down guardians, exploring the desolate Castle Town, the incredible Hyrule Castle itself,

Spoiler

the beating heart in the sanctum

,

Spoiler

the four mega lasers of death

, the music and the sheer spectacle of the fight...fuck.

Spoiler

"Courage is never forgotten"

Spoiler

And I like the True Ending cutscene. Zelda going "well, let's get started" so casually about the rebuilding of Hyrule felt right to me.

Of course, I'd have liked more intrigue and depth to the story overall. But I'm not left feeling shortchanged by the experience.

I think I still prefer a more linear adventure with a strong main story, but BotW makes me appreciate this other direction more than most games.

 

[jblank83]

Im torn on the sparse story in this, sometimes I think it's brilliant and hearkens back to the classic Zelda and sometimes I really would have liked a bit more in the way of character development.

But really I think it needs to be sparse since you awaken 100 years later and everyone you knew is pretty much dead, so it's fitting I guess.

This Zelda is definitely mostly about the gameplay and exploration.

I'm torn as well. I love how free form the world is.

Yet I can't help feeling that a little more deft, layered story here and there might be nice. I mean, if you're going to force story as cheesy as the

Spoiler

Rito Champion

, might as well make it good.

The

Spoiler

Zora Champion

story was a little stronger because he interacts with you several times as you progress towards

Spoiler

Zora's Domain

. He's also not nearly as irritating as the

Spoiler

Rito Champion

.

But, really, I'd like to see more story that's layered and progressively built as the

Spoiler

Tarrey Town

quest. That's a nice little archetype that could be implemented on a larger scale throughout the world: specifically, I would like to see

Spoiler

the world progressively changing

due to your actions in the world and interactions with characters.

 

[soultron]

The only big negative aspect about this game is the lack of caves. All these big ass mountains an there are ZERO caves smh

The follow up needs to fix this

It's costly to do caves in an open world game that relies on a terrain height map because it mostly means that any caves are made of meshes. This comes with a lot of issues that need to be solved too, like lighting and navigation for any AI, just to give a few examples. (You can think of the inside of the aboveground part of Shrines, where the little elevator pad is, as an example of a mesh that has a concave "chamber" in it.)

Breath of the Wild definitely does mesh some terrain formations/features, but I can see why they might not wanted to go as far as doing caves.

Could happen in the story DLC though, who knows.

End game spoilers on the above topic: The

Spoiler

lower interior

sections of H

Spoiler

yrule Castle that burrow into terrain kind of showcase the solution to this problem. You can see where the devs made interior castle wall/floor/ceiling kits and match them up to the holes they cut into the terrain (the seams are covered up).

Disclaimer: the above is my limited knowledge of this kind of stuff having worked as a level designer on a few open world games that used terrain the same way BOTW does. A (tech) artist or programmer with the same kind of shipped games would be able to provide a more definitive answer though.

 

[psyfi]

The only big negative aspect about this game is the lack of caves. All these big ass mountains an there are ZERO caves smh

The follow up needs to fix this

This might be my biggest complaint about the game overall.

I imagined sprawling cave systems, some with obvious entrances and some with obscure ones. Some might hide a treasure chest, and some might end to a full blown dungeon. The original Zelda had several dungeons with zero obvious indication, and other open world games like Skyrim are amazing at tucking away major locales deep within nondescript labyrinths. I was really hoping they'd do that with BOTW, but nope. The divine beasts are not what I imagined at all, and they're not satisfying in the least. If they go open world again for the next Zelda (something I'm genuinely curious about), I hope they add in some real dungeons and make us work to find them.

Edit : In reply to the post above me, I'd LOVE if the DLC added in hard to find dungeons. I'd be so so so happy.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

Well you weren't exactly approving of my addition

I'm just saying that SOME of us DO remember Zelda games more for their story moments.

TBH I've always hated the dungeons. I don't like puzzle games. But I plowed through the Water Temple on multiple consoles because those story moments I mentioned always move me to tears no matter how many times I experience them.

I think Nintendo kind of lost track of this with BotW. As a writer I can tell you that relegating the story to flashbacks is narrative suicide. And where are all the juicy twists? And where is Zelda? The damn game is called the Legend of Zelda not Link's Great Adventure.

Hope that makes sense.

That's fine. You still didn't get "ripped". There's obviously nothing wrong with what you personally look for in a video game.

My point was simple. A non-interactive moment has never made me realize I'm playing a truly special game. I was simply offering a different perspective.

 

[Stopdoor]

Actually, I was kind of surprised Hyrule Castle

Spoiler

didn't follow the whole "go around and activate terminals" type formula, maybe with a twist. Seemed a bit silly not to compel you more to explore all the lower caves and stuff. Not a big deal, but might have been interesting.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

Actually, I was kind of surprised Hyrule Castle

Spoiler

didn't follow the whole "go around and activate terminals" type formula, maybe with a twist. Seemed a bit silly not to compel you more to explore all the lower caves and stuff. Not a big deal, but might have been interesting.

That's one of the things that made Hyrule Castle great. You weren't required to explore all of it. I hope the next game's dungeons use it as a base. Give me five or six dungeons like that, with unique enemies and a huge boss at end of each one, and you have the perfect BotW follow-up.

I don't think the open world is perfect (there's a lot of pointless fluff), but I do think the open world is more along the lines of what I want in an open world. You can actually interact with it and do trials on the map, find shrines (depth beneath the surface), collectibles that are fun to interact with, and your main story. Not a 97 for me so far, but I like it.

I agree the foundation is sold and now Nintendo needs to work to make it even better. An amazing base, but lots of room for improvement.

 

[Wagram]

I don't think the open world is perfect (there's a lot of pointless fluff), but I do think the open world is more along the lines of what I want in an open world. You can actually interact with it and do trials on the map, find shrines (depth beneath the surface), collectibles that are fun to interact with, and your main story. Not a 97 for me so far, but I like it.

 

[soultron]

That's one of the things that made Hyrule Castle great. You weren't required to explore all of it. I hope the next game's dungeons use it as a base. Give me five or six dungeons like that, with unique enemies and a huge boss at end of each one, and you have the perfect BotW follow-up.

I played the end game twice. I didn't even know there was any (Hyrule Castle spoilers follow)

Spoiler

other interior sections (aside from the Sanctum) until I replayed it the second time!

My second replay was so much better than the first because I really took my time. I got a lot of great items (like the H

Spoiler

ylian

S

Spoiler

hield

) for my trouble too!

 

[SuperSonic1305]

I can't figure out how to get the chest in the

Spoiler

Speed of Light

shrine. I figure that I have to

Spoiler

get into the final room while the water is up and make an ice block.

Do I need a rune upgrade or something?

 

[Guess Who]

I can't figure out how to get the chest in the

Spoiler

Speed of Light

shrine. I figure that I have to

Spoiler

get into the final room while the water is up and make an ice block.

Do I need a rune upgrade or something?

Hint:

Spoiler

think of how you might could flip the switch that changes the water level while being in the final room.

 

[Vault Dweller 111]

I don't think the open world is perfect (there's a lot of pointless fluff), but I do think the open world is more along the lines of what I want in an open world. You can actually interact with it and do trials on the map, find shrines (depth beneath the surface), collectibles that are fun to interact with, and your main story. Not a 97 for me so far, but I like it.

It's easily the best open world I've ever played in. And will hopefully set the standard for the years to come. The thought of playing a Ubisoft open world now fills me with dread. And even a good one like Horizon would be a bit of a letdown after playing this. I admit I am still in full 'gush' mode, but I have not had the HUD on for the entire game, and haven't given a single thought to the quests, main or side. And I'm still having a great time. That is a first in an open world. (Although if I ever do get around to the side quests many seem rather lame. Are they worth doing in general?). I also haven't fast traveled a single time.

 

[Crayolan]

Honestly I don't care much about caves but I would love if we could just stumble upon dungeons Zelda 1 style. If a dungeon just so happened to be in a cave, cool.

It's easily the best open world I've ever played in. And will hopefully set the standard for the years to come. The thought of playing a Ubisoft open world now fills me with dread. And even a good one like Horizon would be a bit of a letdown after playing this. I admit I am still in full 'gush' mode, but I have not had the HUD on for the entire game, and haven't given a single thought to the quests, main or side. And I'm still having a great time. That is a first in an open world. (Although if I ever do get around to the side quests many seem rather lame. Are they worth doing in general?). I also haven't fast traveled a single time.

Side quests are pretty variable in quality. There's a few that have small stories behind them, and a few that ask you to find something specific on the map or solve an environmental puzzle, but a lot are basically fetch quests.

Shrine quests are mostly good though, usually asking you to clear a challenge, solve a riddle, or follow environmental cues to find a secret area.

 

[The Third Heat]

And where is Zelda? The damn game is called the Legend of Zelda not Link's Great Adventure.

You could look at the title two ways: A legend about Zelda, wherein she's the main character of her story/legend or as the legend of Zelda, speaking mostly in the past tense. And seeing as how we get most of her story through flashbacks, I think it fits nicely in the latter sense.

I don't buy into the "flashbacks are bad" dogma that seems to plague writerly types. Like any narrative device, there are good ones and bad ones. Breath of the Wild uses them just fine, if you ask me. Keeping the story sparse and loose was essential to encouraging the player to do something else besides chase the story beats. I love the way the story is handled. Sure, I think most video games could aim for something deeper, but when a game plays as well as this one does, I'm willing to let it slide.

 

[Ventara]

3rd dungeon down. Gonna head to the Goron dungeon and wrap things up. I'm still having fun, but I'm starting to feel that I've had my fill of the game. I've finished all of the important stuff, minus the 4th dungeon, anyways, and completing another shrine/sidequest or leveling up more gear doesn't really feel that useful anymore as I have more than enough to face Ganon, me thinks. And besides, I've got tons of other games to play and I want to save a 100% run (minus Korok seeds) for when I pick up a Switch.

 

[vareon]

It's costly to do caves in an open world game that relies on a terrain height map because it mostly means that any caves are made of meshes. This comes with a lot of issues that need to be solved too, like lighting and navigation for any AI, just to give a few examples. (You can think of the inside of the aboveground part of Shrines, where the little elevator pad is, as an example of a mesh that has a concave "chamber" in it.)

Breath of the Wild definitely does mesh some terrain formations/features, but I can see why they might not wanted to go as far as doing caves.

Could happen in the story DLC though, who knows.

End game spoilers on the above topic: The

Spoiler

lower interior

sections of H

Spoiler

yrule Castle that burrow into terrain kind of showcase the solution to this problem. You can see where the devs made interior castle wall/floor/ceiling kits and match them up to the holes they cut into the terrain (the seams are covered up).

Disclaimer: the above is my limited knowledge of this kind of stuff having worked as a level designer on a few open world games that used terrain the same way BOTW does. A (tech) artist or programmer with the same kind of shipped games would be able to provide a more definitive answer though.

There are places that count as caves (Hedra

Spoiler

great skeleton

and

Spoiler

Forgotten

Temple comes to mind), but yeah I think this is a matter of cost.

 

[soultron]

There are places that count as caves (Hedra

Spoiler

great skeleton

and

Spoiler

Forgotten

Temple comes to mind), but yeah I think this is a matter of cost.

Haven't been to your first example but the second example is pretty much all mesh work (walls, columns, floor, ceiling, etc. inserted into a hole cut into the terrain height map) instead of the actual terrain height map, but you're exactly right. (But keep in mind that these types of games can also use terrain meshes that can use the same textures/blends shared with the terrain height map.)

Now that I think of it though... the second example might just be a meshed thing that sits ontop of the terrain height map. I can't really remember right now.

 

[psyfi]

Honestly I don't care much about caves but I would love if we could just stumble upon dungeons Zelda 1 style. If a dungeon just so happened to be in a cave, cool.

Yeah, that's really all that matters to me. I'm just thinking back to finding significant locales in nondescript caves / buildings like in Skyrim and Fallout. I think most dungeons should have some hints and not be totally discreet, but two or three should be totally unmarked. I was REALLY hoping BOTW would have a dungeon hidden within a creepy tree ala Level 1 in TLOZ.

But that's when I was on media blackout and didn't know about the divine beasts.

 

[Mediking]

Master Kohga is a joke yet you find morons pretending to be innocent civilians just to avenge his death? What the hell? I just ran into one of them who was very disturbing. They were describing the beginning of the game to me before they revealed that they were evil.

 

[HammerOfThor]

Ugh, I just used an Amiibo for the first time(SSB Link) and got a good horse. The only problem is that I'm on the island that has the Medium Test of Strength Shrine.

Is there a way to get the horse off the island?

 

[Plum]

Just wondering, is there a maximum word-count to posts here? Got a lengthy write-up on the game in the works and I'm wondering when, or if, I should cut it off.

 

[WheelHoss1]

You could look at the title two ways: A legend about Zelda, wherein she's the main character of her story/legend or as the legend of Zelda, speaking mostly in the past tense. And seeing as how we get most of her story through flashbacks, I think it fits nicely in the latter sense.

I don't buy into the "flashbacks are bad" dogma that seems to plague writerly types. Like any narrative device, there are good ones and bad ones. Breath of the Wild uses them just fine, if you ask me. Keeping the story sparse and loose was essential to encouraging the player to do something else besides chase the story beats. I love the way the story is handled. Sure, I think most video games could aim for something deeper, but when a game plays as well as this one does, I'm willing to let it slide.

Well said.

I guess I would just love a bit more surprise to the story however it's told.

The reason Red Dead Redemption might be my most memorable gaming experience is the combination of great gameplay AND jaw-dropping ending twist

 

[Pineconn]

Just wondering, is there a maximum word-count to posts here? Got a lengthy write-up on the game in the works and I'm wondering when, or if, I should cut it off.

24,000 characters.

 

[Plum]

24,000 characters.

Thanks! It's getting a bit wordier than I expected so I'll probably have to cut it in two.

 

[WheelHoss1]

So back to strategy.

I'm having an issue with my Silver Lynel farming.

Most are in the mountains. My best gear is Soldier Set with Amber Earrings which make me super tanky but my Rito gear snow boots and ruby head piece give me much less defense.

If I pop a potion I lose my Attack boost and they take forever to die.

What do you guys do when fighting Lynels in the northern mountains?

 

[atr0cious]

So back to strategy.

I'm having an issue with my Silver Lynel farming.

Most are in the mountains. My best gear is Soldier Set with Amber Earrings which make me super tanky but my Rito gear snow boots and ruby head piece give me much less defense.

If I pop a potion I lose my Attack boost and they take forever to die.

What do you guys do when fighting Lynels in the northern mountains?

Headshot with arrow, mount, dodge, repeat.

 

[The Third Heat]

Well said.

I guess I would just love a bit more surprise to the story however it's told.

The reason Red Dead Redemption might be my most memorable gaming experience is the combination of great gameplay AND jaw-dropping ending twist

No absolutely. And Red Dead is a great example of open world storytelling. But Red Dead's ending works well because of its linearity. It's able to pull off that moment because it builds to it throughout the game. Given the game the Zelda folk set out to make from a gameplay standpoint, I think they had to sacrifice their "twists" in order to let the gameplay be the star. And I think I'm okay with that. The compromise seems to be the Divine Beast stories, wherein they have the very linear "go here, do that" type stuff from Zelda's past.

I haven't beaten the game yet so maybe this does happen, but I think a Witcher 3-style "point of no return" would've also been okay with me. That way they could've maybe told a more linear story in the grand sense at the end of the exploration, and maybe had different moments based on what you saw and accomplished. And twists!

I think my only hope for the story DLC is to not just rehash the format of the Divine Beasts quests, but to actually maybe give us a more linear, meaty narrative about the world at large, with a nice traditional dungeon at the end of it all. That would be perfect.

 

[Stopdoor]

Master Kohga is a joke yet you find morons pretending to be innocent civilians just to avenge his death? What the hell? I just ran into one of them who was very disturbing. They were describing the beginning of the game to me before they revealed that they were evil.

That's cults for ya.

 

[lvl99 Pixel]

Headshot with arrow, mount, dodge, repeat.

That worked for me. Feel like top poacher killing these rare sentient creatures for their parts (their death animation is so dramatic lol) so im just going to beat the game with the Barbarian set.
I doubt anyone else feels this way about videogame creatures haha

 

[Triforce141]

Master Kohga is a joke yet you find morons pretending to be innocent civilians just to avenge his death? What the hell? I just ran into one of them who was very disturbing. They were describing the beginning of the game to me before they revealed that they were evil.

I'm pretty sure I've met one who asked Link if they liked Kohga, and you could choose between carrying on the conversation, or end it right there by calling their leader fat.

I love dialogue choices that are like that, be a jerk if you want to by responding in out of character style decisions.