Yeah but I forgot about it already so you basically spoiled the experience I would have had due to my bad memory.

Been away for like 2ish days, excluding quick portable time on work breaks. I'm jonesing wanting to dock it! Hyrule needs me!

@carlosrox

No it doesn't. It got tired of waiting for your slow ass to save it, they contracted out to another hero to do the job.

@Shadowlink&@TheBigG753

Finally found all the shrines. I had already gotten all the Kass shrines, and I had three shrines left aside from the one for sand seal racing that I knew of. Two I found by shrine locator by traipsing around the world until I found them both in Hebra. The last one, I had to look up because I had no remaining quests, and my shrine locator wouldn't have signaled for it. It was the second Super Gut Challenge in the Gerudo region. I was close to seeing the Goron brothers when saving some travelers for a side quests, but yeah, would not have returned to the area for any particular reason for a long time.

@Shadowlink That one had me confused too, though eventually I could tell from the way the sensor was working that it was in the mountain. Still took some doing to find after that. It was only one of a few times the sensor wasn't very helpful, but overall it did more good than harm.

@Mop it up

Yeah I figured that as well, but I spent 20 minutes floating up and down the north side looking for something to bomb. The actual entrance was so much further away in the other direction....

So like... Zelda has always been pretty heavily inspired by Indian culture, right? Am I off here?

Just thinking about this because Shirley and I just watched a movie set in India (well, and Australia) called Lion and a lot of the scenery and some of the customs (like the little dishes set in front of statues to put food in as an offering) and such really made me think of Zelda.

I know some of this stuff exists in Japanese culture too. But the Zelda games even use "rupee" as the currency in the game, so...?

Just saved the day last night! What a great game. While I have a few small complaints (lack of traditional dungeons, music and story are merely good instead of great, some inventory-related niggles), the game as a whole was so far beyond almost anything else I've played lately that they barely matter.

Final stats upon the initial ending:
All shrines!
All memories!
52.25% complete
160+ hours

In fact, as of now, BotW is my third-favorite Zelda, my favorite game of the current millennium, and my seventh-favorite game overall. Outstanding job, Aonuma and team! One day I will write more on it, but I'm one happy camper from Zelda.

EDIT: I voted it a 9.8 here and am currently the third-lowest score for the game. Hah!

@Zero

That's strange because I heard there was quite a bit of Norse mythology swirled into the mix too. And of course that cross on the shield back in the day....I think it's fair to say there's been a range of influences.

@TriforceBun

I grabbed my last shrines last night. I'm apparently at something like 47% or something. But at this point I'm kind of feeling...now what?

Do I really want to go find more Koroks? Why?
Farming for more Armour upgrades? Eh.

Maybe I'm just burnt out, but I think HoH has mostly nailed it. I feel like I've seen all there is to see and the rest is basically busywork. The exploration elements were excellent of course...whilst they lasted. But after that it feels like the game doesn't really have much more to offer anymore. I dunno.

@Shadowlink Yeah, and obviously the Gerudo are Middle Eastern-inspired, and I was reading about how the bird people (forget their names) are inspired by somewhere in South America? I guess they just grab from everywhere?

Zelda's about all cultures and/or ancient aliens.

They snuck a (mild) swear in Breath of the Wild!

Possible small spoiler?

I'm...not sure how to feel about this. Kinda weird...!

@Shadowlink

Well, all good things must end. There's naturally going to be a point where little is surprising in a game, but for BotW to take over 100 hours to get to that point is extremely impressive. I really can't complain that it eventually feels "conquered" when that "eventually" basically amounts to playing it for the amount of time one would normally spend on five games...

The desert region....... blown away all over again.

185+ hours! Lllllllllovin me the desert.

I haven't played in almost three weeks now. I've broken Zelda's spell on me. I'm free!

That's not to say I'm bored of it or anywhere close to "done," though. On the contrary, it's exactly the kind of game I can pick up for an hour or so on a whim and have a good time just ticking off boxes or exploring parts of my map that look suspiciously barren.

@TriforceBun
I suppose when you look at things from that perspective it make sense. I just feel like after the very impressive (and long lasting) outer candy shell of exploration, there's nothing underneath. It's just feels kind of hollow. I need my dark chocolatey center! I still can't help but feel I'd be far more satisfied by some deeper and more meaningful sidequests or some terrific meaty dungeons. Or exploration that gives me more satisfying rewards than my 300th Korok or 20th Royal broadsword

To sum up: They've put together an *amazing* Zelda framework that's rightfully blown me and everyone else away in it's ambition and scope. Now they need to take it to an even greater level and fill in the details.

...I am being so unfair to this game. It's a masterpiece and I still want significantly more lol.

@Shadowlink To me finishing all shrines / defeating 4 beasts / defeating end boss are the only goals I care about 100%. Everything else is stuff I'll happily engage with as I find it, but I'm not going to hunt it all down.

I've gotten through all the beasts but I'm only through 50 of the shrines. Man, some of these shrines, especially the ones that are over world challenges/puzzles, make the game so much more special.

I beat the game and didn't even bother to track down all the shrines. I feel satisfied with the 90 hours I put in, I'm sure I'll go back and play more whenever I have the desire to.

I can't believe I'm not even through half the shrines in the game. How the hell...? How is there so many??? And Korok seeds are even worse! I'm only at about 200! How the fuckkkkk are there sooooooooooo many???

I've also hit a wall between the 175-200 hour mark. I'm taking it into work a few times during the week and just exploring a bit for an hour at a time during lunch, but after doing the last shrine I felt like I was pretty much finished. There's still stuff out there to find, but no surprises left.

Can't complain, though, as I sunk over 150 hours into the game before I ever started to tire of it. That's something.