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[MAX PAYMENT]

Is it actually the preferred way to play?

 

[Otnopolit]

I'm enjoying it but it's not compelling me to play it as often as my first play-through. I think I just want the next DLC to be as fresh as possible, so taking a little break will help that.

 

[Mister Wolf]

Is it actually the preferred way to play?

Yeah it forces you to use the tools you have at your disposal more.

 

[Robin64]

I didn't really get too far into it, but it felt like it was just "avoid enemies" mode. Having to break multiple weapons just to defeat a single bokoblin? Rubbish. Might as well just not get into fights.

 

[Blackquill]

Really bad for a paid hard mode, there was a number of ways to make BOTW harder without relying on some stupid gimmicks like health regen

 

[TheMoon]

Is it actually the preferred way to play?

doesn't work that way. it's just another way to play.

 

[Serenitynow]

I would have loved Master Mode being my first experience with Breath of the Wild. Having a Lynel walking through the starting area would have brought back real NES Zelda vibes.

 

[CelestialWolfZX]

Skippable, the Regenerating Health actually makes some of the fun/silly strategies you can use to beat enemies in the game completely unviable. And the difficulty again disappears once you have your armour set powered up and you have enough food on hand for any fight. Just becomes more tedious to fight enemies since they have higher health.

 

[Heroman]

Game isn't really design for combst so it kinda of sucks.

 

[MAX PAYMENT]

I definitely believe the base game is EXTREMELY easy. I have yet to try master mode.

 

[Hugstable]

It get's to be a bit ridiculous later on in the game when you have to deal with like 8 Silver enemies at once considering how long they take to kill, and get's even more annoying with gold enemies. Honestly I found it kind of enjoyable to myself for awhile, but it really burned me out after awhile when you get huge packs of enemies that take each quite a bit to kill

 

[Deku Tree]

I played the game three times to the end with 120 shrines. Once on Wii U, once on Switch, and once on Master mode.

Master Mode was fun but it kinda feels pretty similar. Especially by then you are pretty good st the mechanics so it’s not that hard you just have to keep track of your weapons durability.

 

[kunonabi]

Not really. Its lazy and skews more towards tedious and annoying than challenging. Which is hilarious since that was the last thing the game needed more of.

 

[Galava]

Really hard the first couple of hours until you get some gear and upgrades. Then is just normal mode. Master-mode should've done something more to make the game hard after having nice gear and upgrades. Don't know how though.

 

[The Hermit]

The difficulty in BotW is perfect if you were allowed to only heal at stables/safe places or there was an animation that would make you vulnerable.

Healing during fight banalizes everything, and master mode doesn't fix that.

The trials I still have to play, but the concensus it's that it is very challenging

 

[MattAces]

It was tough at the beginning, but if your aim is to defeat 4 divine and finish Ganon, it's super easy after you have a bow. Bosses are still a joke, not counting lynel of course.

 

[Naked Snake]

My friend got a Switch with Zelda few days ago and I recommended he start in Master Mode, which he did.

Have I done fucked up?

 

[Volotaire]

I'm currently playing it as my 'first time play-through' for BotW.

I tried the tutorial area on normal mode for a few hours, then tried it again on hard mode to see how I would fare for the whole game.

I found it a lot more challenging, and it forced me to change my tactics and approach to the game. Instead of directly engaging every enemy group I encountered, I was forced to either use the environment (boxes, glider), stealth mechanics or avoid them altogether. I really enjoy the addition of the floating Bokoblin platforms.

The one downside is the regenerating health. It is very time consuming, and resource intensive, to combat this effect in the early hours of the game.

Overall, I love how difficult it is.

I would have loved Master Mode being my first experience with Breath of the Wild. Having a Lynel walking through the starting area would have brought back real NES Zelda vibes.

This was a real eye opener. I heard loud shouting and roars to the side of the Temple and saw a raging minatour thing. Eventually I engaged it mutiple times and got pulverized.

 

[KingBroly]

My friend got a Switch with Zelda few days ago and I recommended he start in Master Mode, which he did.

Have I done fucked up?

No, you just need to never stop hitting enemies when you start.

 

[Fanuilos]

Quite a few people go on about how upgrading the armor makes the game easier in both modes. Maybe don't do that if you want a more difficult experience?

 

[Nocturnowl]

Started it the other day, not a big fan.
The changes to combat make it more of a slog than anything else and that's really all it is.

The early game is basically one of evasion. There could've been an interesting approach of using more tactics to deal damage but you'll roll boulders in or blow bokoblins to bits and they tank it more than they should so....yeah.
The difficulty curve also smoothens quick like the main game.

 

[lwilliams3]

Skippable, the Regenerating Health actually makes some of the fun/silly strategies you can use to beat enemies in the game completely unviable. And the difficulty again disappears once you have your armour set powered up and you have enough food on hand for any fight. Just becomes more tedious to fight enemies since they have higher health.

For me, since the enemies have more HP and regen, Master Mode convinced to use different strategies besides nickel & dime and hack-and-slash. For example, I have been using the deku leaf to blow off silver enemies off of cliffs or knocking them into the sea. You can do that in the original version, but it’s more satisfying to take out a stronger enemy in such a silly way.

 

[SnakeLinkSonic]

It's more annoying than challenging, and the Trial of the Sword is just tedious. I'd still recommend the normal mode over it.

 

[TheMoon]

Game isn't really design for combst so it kinda of sucks.

it kinda is heavily designed for combat

 

[RedSwirl]

Enemies have too much health.

 

[Heroman]

it kinda is heavily designed for combat

Eh , the rarely every forces the player into fighting.

 

[ChuyMasta]

I particularly enjoyed it because the difficulty setting forces you to use the environment.

The very first enemy will break all your weapons if you go crazy on it...BUT theres a significant body of water near the bokoblin.

So I just lured the ebemy into the edge and tossed a branch at it. Problem solved.

 

[Piers]

Not really. Its lazy and skews more towards tedious and annoying than challenging. Which is hilarious since that was the last thing the game needed more of.

That's one aspect that I always worry about with higher difficulty: more HP on enemies. That's fine if they're enemies you're suppose to have better gear for, but expecting players to have to patiently whittle away the HP sucks.

 

[StargazerXL]

I started BOTW late, after the DLC dropped, so I thought I'd try Master Mode first. It was OK but it was indeed tedious, as many others have posted. It found the combination of breakable weapons AND health regeneration too wearying. I started over in Regular Mode and had more fun since I could experiment with enemy confrontation more.

 

[jahasaja]

BOTW is one of my favorite games of all time but Master Mode made me almost dislike the game for a while.

The ridiculous amount of health plus the health regeneration makes every single fight boring.

All the fun tactics that you can deploy in the main game against the enemies are suddenly useless. Even bombs and exploding barrels barely makes a dent. You have to get up to the enemy and hit it with x number of swords every single time.

(I really liked the floating treasures though)

 

[RRockman]

Fantastic. It FORCES you to learn the elemental system. In order to kill the strongest monsters without breaking your weapons, you WILL need to take advantage that they can't heal when they are on fire, and that lightling does fantastic damage when hitting a frozen enemy.

 

[Cyanity]

Fantastic. It FORCES you to learn the elemental system. In order to kill the strongest monsters without breaking your weapons, you WILL need to take advantage that they can't heal when they are on fire, and that lightling does fantastic damage when hitting a frozen enemy.

ok now I'm taking notes


edit - As long as you have a steady supply of attack buffing items, Master mode is fine IMO. I'm enjoying it at least as much as normal mode, at least.

 

[AmayaPapaya]

The weapon balance in BotW is so messed up in Master Mode. The original mode isn't good either, but Master Mode is worse. I think the original mode is better as a result.

 

[RoseBell69]

There ought to be a Master Mode++.

 

[molnizzle]

I loved it, but it shouldn't be your first play through. It expects for you to already know and understand the game's systems from the very beginning. It's rough to start out, but gets progressively more palatable over time. I saved my 120 shrine run for master mode.

 

[daxy]

It's alright, but I still think the standard difficulty is the way the game is meant to be experienced. You can really see that the game is not balanced around health regen with lizalfos or wizzrobes. Plus, the enemies are significantly more spongey, which can make combat a real drag sometimes. With the amount of food you can carry at any given point the game's still a cakewalk, but one that requires you to exploit Link's toolset to somewhat greater depth.

 

[Peltz]

Skippable, the Regenerating Health actually makes some of the fun/silly strategies you can use to beat enemies in the game completely unviable. And the difficulty again disappears once you have your armour set powered up and you have enough food on hand for any fight. Just becomes more tedious to fight enemies since they have higher health.

Unfortunately, I agree with this. It doesn't make the game more difficult in a fun sense. It's just more tedious because enemies don't really die from as many cool things you can do in the normal mode. And when they don't die, the regenerating health makes those cool things completely unviable overall because you have to get in close to finish them off. So it basically destroys long ranged combat opportunities, unless you can string a ton of them together. And considering your low ammo overall, you can't. You basically have to enter every encounter with max damage up buff for the skirmishes to feel fun.

Hard modes that make enemies more spongy are not good in my opinion. It would be better if they simply increased the enemy count.

 

[ThisIsMyDogKyle]

Requires you to think about the games systems and alternate ways to kill enemies than brute force, which is good as the ways the various systems work together is one of the games main strengths imo, as well as increasing the usefulness of potions and food buffs. my favorite change though is actually making the time it takes the guardians to shoot lasers slightly randomized, which changed them from free money due to the lasers being easy to parry to an absolutely terrifying threat as no matter how hard I tried I could never get the random timing down.

 

[Twookie]

It was fun to replay the game again on a harder difficulty

I'm not so sure I liked it, it kinda felt a bit more tedious to fight enemies since they were really tanky and had regenerating health AND your equipment sucked

the regenerating health is something I really didn't like, you got really punished if you didn't constantly hail at your enemy all the time.

they should've made your food spoil instead or something, because the encounters still get wayyyy too easy if you prepare your food

 

[Mister Wolf]

I find myself using attribute enhancing elixers a lot more in Master Mode. The usefulness of stealth becomes more apparent. Little things like fighting two silver enemies and freezing one so its out of the way and you can focus undeterred on finishing the other. I also think its fair that if you essentially have an unlimited supply of health at your disposal then the enemies should as well so I'm all for the regenerating health. It brings back memories of enemies chugging an estus on Dark Souls.

 

[jahasaja]

Requires you to think about the games systems and alternate ways to kill enemies than brute force, which is good as the ways the various systems work together is one of the games main strengths imo, as well as increasing the usefulness of potions and food buffs. my favorite change though is actually making the time it takes the guardians to shoot lasers slightly randomized, which changed them from free money due to the lasers being easy to parry to an absolutely terrifying threat as no matter how hard I tried I could never get the random timing down.

Well, I think the guardians are a great example of how all enemies could have been redesign to become more fun to fight. However, instead they just gave the rest more health which is not more interesting and fun.

For example, Giving the enemies better weapons and more shields instead of more health would have been a much more fun change.

 

[afternoon delight]

Is it actually the preferred way to play?

Yes, with Pro HUD mode as well.

 

[Soodanim]

I'm not as positive about BotW as others are, but I can't imagine that Master Mode is something I would enjoy. If what someone said about multiple weapons breaking on a single enemy is true (which makes sense given enemies have higher health) it runs counter to the changes I'd make to the game if I had the choice.

 

[epmode]

I don't like it at all. Making the durability system even more of a hindrance is an awful way to handle difficulty. I would much rather have seen limits on cooking, whether from strict carry limits or cooldowns after using restorative items.

It's too bad that the few interesting changes are locked in a mode I'll never play again. And it REALLY sucks that Master Mode is the only way to use a second save file without creating a new Switch profile.

 

[TheMoon]

Eh , the rarely every forces the player into fighting.

So? One thing has little to do with the other.

 

[Brakke]

I didn't really get too far into it, but it felt like it was just "avoid enemies" mode. Having to break multiple weapons just to defeat a single bokoblin? Rubbish. Might as well just not get into fights.

Yep. It’s not so much hard as it is exhausting. There’s no incentive to ever get in a fight, it’s not fun and the rewards won’t outweigh up to the costs. But disincentivizing fights doesn’t force you into exploring fun systems either, since you can almost always avoid a fight by simply walking around. It’s not like you need or even want to set up cool stealth sequences, you’ll just straight up skip fights when you can.

Bad mode imo.

 

[jviggy43]

I didn't really get too far into it, but it felt like it was just "avoid enemies" mode. Having to break multiple weapons just to defeat a single bokoblin? Rubbish. Might as well just not get into fights.

Yeah pretty much. Enemies regen life as well. Should have been in the base game.

 

[Dreamwriter]

I think they could have done a better job. Lynel at the beginning, floating platforms of orcs, great! Not being able to kill your very first enemy without destroying the only decent weapon you get for a while (and thus never being able to kill anything else), dropping boulders on enemies being useless, crap. Instead of making combat more challenging, it makes it something to avoid as much as possible.

 

[Aurongel]

It's rubbish considering it costs extra and is primarily just an XML edit stat buff mode.

What's most frustrating is that there are easily a dozen plus ways they could have creatively enhanced the difficulty.

I want pitch black nights god dammit.

 

[molnizzle]

Buncha crybabies in here!

Mode was great, forced you to play the game a different way and be far more methodical in how you approached encounters. I thought it was a great way to replay the game after I already completed the shit out of normal mode.