#all 135 pieces of armor were found and upgraded

[lulu2992]

But... What am I supposed to do with my life now?

[moonlight-fox]

I rarely finish Zelda games - and there’s no real correlation between how likely I am to finish a Zelda title and how much I’m enjoying it, my favourite prior Zelda title (A Link Between Worlds) and one of my least favourite prior Zelda titles (Phantom Hourglass) are the ones I’ve finished - and the only reason I didn���t expect Breath of the Wild to fall into that ‘unfinished bundle’ is that usually I'm happily playing, get my fill, and just... Stop, with Breath of the Wild’s ‘can get to final boss from as soon as you’ve finished tutorial’ thing I expected to be able to just stop when I got my fill, but via the final boss. Which I did, 130-135 (Hate. That way of reporting how long you’ve played a game for. If I didn’t know it did it in five hour increments I’d just know 130+) hours in, 107 shrines completed (plus 1 that I wasn’t able to figure out though I had managed to brute force the second treasure chest, plus a shrine quest that I’d long since given up on, and that shrine that the orb to get to is fiercely guarded by Impa known about but unsure how to get her to give me the orb), something like 170 Koroks found, and basically just... Got my fill of navigating the world doing side quests and gathering materials to upgrade gear (Though I wound up doing just that for about 10-20 hours, which... That’s not usually an activity I enjoy in games)

So... A couple of thoughts.

For Overworld exploration, this is exactly what I want from a modern Zelda game - Wide open space filled with things to do and ‘...what’s that over there...?’ distractions from whatever I was planning on doing, with mysteries that you find way before you figure out what you’re meant to do with them (More of that, please.) things you can stumble across via the map and spotting something that looks weird on it, things you can stumble across by seeing something shiny through your scope, etc.

Koroks were... Fine. A couple felt like anti-climaxes, and after you’ve got the Master Sword, Hyrule Shield and about 6 Royal Bows plus some Lynal bows there’s little point in expanding the inventory, but definitely the most interesting version of the now standard Gold Skulletta side-quest I think they’ve done.

Shrines were more motivating for exploration, but dear lord that radar can be misleading at times.

Even 130 hours in, during what I knew was likely to be my final session, but while I thought I might finish upgrading what I suspected was going to be the armour for final boss (I was right, it was, but I just went with one fully enhanced and two *** pieces of gear with it) that world managed to surprise me with content - the golf course. I was not expecting a golf course. Are there others? Maybe, it specified the location of the course, so...

As much as I moan about every hill having a Korok on it, there’s enough novelty in there among the Koroks and the Shrines that I could easily enjoy another game with the same design ethos but with a different world, be it Yet Another Dark Reflection Of Hyrule (c.f. Twilight Realm, Termina, Dark World, and Lorule), another continent, or whatever.

...But I think I’d rather play a nice, intimate, Zelda game between them - Something like a Majora’s Mask follow up as a palette clenser before going into another open world exploration title - Maybe a few towns in an area about the size of 1-2 of the regions, on a full week schedule that cycles but not in a literal time loop so it can change as you make a difference.

Speaking of Making A Difference, the Terray Town quest line felt really satisfying, even if none of the constituent parts of it were that interesting in their own right, because you could actively see an impact your actions were having on the game world.

Dungeons were... I still don’t know how I feel about them, even after doing all four main dungeons plus Hyrule Castle which felt far too integrated into the world to be a Zelda Dungeon. I enjoyed them, don’t get me wrong, and they’re some of the best ‘solve the dungeon by understanding the dungeon as a space’ I’ve seen in a Zelda title... But... I do miss Dungeons that it feels like you’re exploring rather than puzzling out, even with so open and exploration driven an overworld.

Great Fairies were always exciting to have discovered, though realizing their role in the game was... Something of a let down. Honestly I’m always disappointed when Great Fairies aren’t giving you cool new abilities or at least expanding your magic meter (...Not that Link has had a Magic meter since, what, Windwaker?)

Speaking of our Magical Tailors, the clothing system... Was probably the weakest major part of the mechanics for me. A bit too clumpy, and considering how perfect the system for dispalying current temperature and comfortable temperature ranges they had, seeing only a couple of types of clothing able to impact that and in very broad chunks felt like a missed opportunity. Essentially you had five temperatures in the regular climate system (Plus Death Mountain’s stuff), ‘very cold’ ‘cold’ ‘‘fine’ ‘hot’ ‘very hot’, and clothing to help you there just extended your range from fine down, up, or... Really weirdly if you combined some items, both. Combined with some gear being strictly better than others (once you got /any/ gear to the same level as regular hylian clothing, that was redundant, with even your good armor being rendered pointless by the ancient gear, since there were ‘equally defensive, but has special abilities too’ for those), which is a shame because most of the gear was quite effective at being incomparables, and once you started to get some sets to ** the game really strongly encouraged you to not mix and match unless you were just going all out defense (At which point, for me, for the final 50 hours or so of gameplay it was Ancient Curiass, Amber Earrings, and one of my 20 defense leg wear options, usually the ones that also gave me warm because once I got those to 20 defense what was the point in the Hylian trousers?

Overall I think this is my new favorite Zelda title, but it might settle equal second with Windwaker and Majora’s Mask rather than above Link Between Worlds, or between Windwaker and Majora’s Mask, and Link Between Worlds. It’s either a new favorite, or second favorite, though, but if it’s second favourite there is a possibility that it will be in a three way tie for second favorite, and the overall experience was ultimately incredibly satisfying.

Now I can start watching that 10 or so hours of BotW videos I have queued up on my watch later on Youtube, which doesn’t include any LP content, whee. And the timing of my finishing the game ties in nicely with the recent release of Persona 5, too.