Its pretty good...

No seriously, believe all the 10 out of 10 reviews you see. Its an amazing game. I binged about 12-13 hours playing it this weekend and all I want to do is play it some more. The open world they have created is just spectacular (and massive). You literally can go anywhere and I found myself just exploring things for hours. It runs pretty well even on my Wii U, only when there is a lot going on the screen does the frame rate dip a bit. The combat is pretty fun and you can attack each situation differently. The enemy AI is really good and certain enemies won't just blindly charge you. They will actually dodge your incoming fire and come at your from different angles. The game can be really challenging at times.

I only have a few nitpicks, but they are pretty minor. The story line gently guides you, but the game is very non-linear. Which sometimes can be annoying, as I occasionally wandered into enemies that were way too powerful for my present weapons or ability. Sometimes its hard to determine if you can take on a bad guy or not. Most of the time its learning out the hard way. You will die a lot.

Another is that your weapons and shields have a limited life. Some are far more durable than others, but many lower powered items break really quickly. Its not uncommon to use up multiple weapons on a single tough boss. I don't mind the mechanic, but I feel like at least the weapons are a bit too fragile. Also, you always seem to be short on arrows. Stockpile them when you can, as the bow is one of your best weapons.

The game also doesn't explain things very well at times. Like I didn't know you can surf on your shield until multiple hours into it. Also, that you can register your horse at a stable so that you can grab it at any stable in the game. But those examples are few. A lot of the fun in the game is discovering new things.

I don't think I'm going to bother getting a Switch for now, as some of the reviews are so-so. However, if you are on the fence and don't have a Wii U, the Switch might be worth it for this game alone.

I don't mind the non linearity. I can spend hours just running around and exploring. I will say, having Amiibo can help with resource issues.

It's one of the best games I've played in a very long time. Anything I were to say about it would probably sound hyperbolic. I now regret not getting a Switch to play it one the go.

This game is nuts. I easily put 20+hrs on it over the weekend, since the only time i wasnt playing it was when i was eating or sleeping or that 3hr period i had to help a friend with something. Ive barely scratched what this game offers. When you jump off the top of a mountain and fly until you hit the ground and only covered maybe a 16th of the map in one line you know its a BIG game lol.

Its brutal too. A mistimed shield block or misjudged reach can easily kill you or send you into the menus for food to recover with. Heck you can die by tumbling down a slope too, had that happen once lol. Guardians are an absolute nightmare without the proper equipment, but they can be beaten when you first find them (DO NOT mess up that timing though or GG).

I do wish weapons had a longer lifespan though. Especially since all the weapons that actually are good come from chests. The only way ive found to buy weapons are Ancient weapons, which are anti-guardian stuff. Dont use them on nonguardians, they suck.

2 hours ago, Sithborg said:

I don't mind the non linearity. I can spend hours just running around and exploring. I will say, having Amiibo can help with resource issues.

I don't mind it either, its one of the major charms of the game. However, I have had those moments where I'm not sure where or what I should do next.

The nonlinear gameplay can stump you but i love it because it allows you to just explore and still progress. Optimally? Not at all, often i had to doubleback because i tried to go too far early on. First shrine i found i couldnt complete was A Major Test of Strength...that thing is a freakin tank lol and i found that shrine long before i got the "basic functions" in my slate back.

Looks like an interesting game. Was watching someone play on Twitch and seems like a load of fun (though he did come over as a **** )

Yup, I think I did that.

I atleast lasted until the first bokoblin i encountered lol.

"Oh its the intro mob. Yaknow the piece of crap that even if you cant fight properly it cant- HOLY CRAP HE KILLED ME IN ONE HIT?!"

YOU. DIE. A. LOT.

Pretty much every bad does pretty good damage, especially the elite units.

Right now I'm trying to get as many shrines as I can. There is a total of 120 shrines so you can get 30 hears or stamina vessels. Whats the best ratio do you think? 2:1 hearts vs stamina?

Its uber easy to get food that add a ton of temp hearts so 2:1 is probably fine. I went full force on hearts at first though because you want 12...for reasons... and only got 2 stamina vessels. Man your stamina is a limiter if you do that though lol.

Also btw this game is so open you can enter the castle way early on, long before you should even be thinking about it. I went in there searching for something and i was blown away with how freaking ominous that place is. Seriously if you guys havnt gone in there yet, check it out, just watch for all the guardians if you cant deal with them yet lol. That place was sending chills down my spines, both for the atmosphere it was giving me and the music sounding both haunting and triumphant at the same time somehow.

So what's the best way to deal with Guardians? Do you need ancient weapons?

Without ancient weapons you are limited to Perfect Blocking their laser attack. Not recommended, especially against the flying ones, since its a REALLY precise thing to do and doing it too early = zapped to the face and too late = shattered shield, regardless of how strong the shield is.

Ancient shield you can just reflect it back by holding it out, though you still wanna perfect block if you can to make the shield last longer. Ironically i find the walking guardians to be the easiest since they plop themselves at the PERFECT range to tap the A button right as they shoot to reflect it back. Immobile ones you gotta know the spacings, and to hell with the flying ones dear god i hate those flying ones. Dont even attempt to fight the flying ones w/o ancient arrows lol

Yeah, I've heard reports of speedruns of 90 minutes. I haven't watched them, because this is a game that demands to be experienced.

34 minutes ago, Sithborg said:

Yeah, I've heard reports of speedruns of 90 minutes. I haven't watched them, because this is a game that demands to be experienced.

I hear you could go and immediatly challenge the final boss, right from the beginning, altough that would be very very difficult. Anybody know if that's correct?

I mean, you have to do the initial stuff to get off the Plateau, but yes, once you are free, you can do straight to the boss. And likely die.

2 hours ago, Sithborg said:

I mean, you have to do the initial stuff to get off the Plateau, but yes, once you are free, you can do straight to the boss. And likely die.

Sweet. reminds me of Morrowind. You were free to go wherever you wanted to from the start. Now getting to the main bad guy's aera at low level was difficult , there was a force wall around it and I don't think the gate watchers let you trough at the beginning, but you could easily brew a flying potion and hop the wall... and then you'ld die.

I don't think it is anything like that. It's just you will not be geared up enough for the final fight. I mean, I tried to do the tower in the Hyrule Fields (I think that is what the area is called). But couldn't because

Yes you can go straight to the final boss. Which im not sure i agree with, i think at minimum you should HAVE to find the Master Sword as it kinda makes no sense being able to take him down without the Evil's Bane.

I love this game and love the switch. Hadn't had any Nintendo stuff since the Nintendo 64.

I am so happy!

So is the map truly massive as i've heard about?

Oh its huge.

To give you a perspective, once you do the first hour or so of the gameplay you get the Paraglider and that allows you to leave the "intro area" due to the massive drop.

You can see as far as the terrain allows you (no mobs are rendered that far but you can see landmarks). I jumped off and started gliding until i hit the ground, which took about....a minute or just under a minute perhaps? Looked at my map once i landed: i had BARELY moved from the wall i jumped from with the map zoomed in.

I believe someone did the math and said its almost 5x Skyrim's map.

Ive lost count how many times ive gone "Oooh whats that?" and 5-10 mins later gone "HOW AM I NOT THERE YET!?"

This game looks really fun, even though I don't know much about it or the in-game universe. I've always been a big fan of open world games. Too bad I am poor and can't afford a new console though...