@kriswright I feel like that is one game I'd be ok with giving a 0 without actually playing it. There is no amount of good gameplay that could make up for that.

The lowest scores I have actually given out on here are a trio of 6.5s to Ice Climber, Wrecking Crew and Yoshi. I love Nintendo but some of their early NES games were pretty mediocre. I guess some of their modern games are pretty mediocre too but I tend to avoid those, somehow I ended up owning all 3 of the above though.

I originally had Skyward Sword ranked as a Zero before I actually reviewed it.

Hero_Of_Hyrule said:
I think tbun als gave Final Fantasy I and II on GBA a zero, but I dont know why.[/quote][/ref]
Haha, what the heck? That got a 7.5 from me. Although it's possible I accidentally gave something else a 0 on the site, I can't think of any game I hate THAT much.

Sense of puzzlement - love it.

"Will this work?" - love it.

"Am I doing this right?" - love it.

I spent all day exploring Hyrule Castle but not actually going into it. I did manage to finally find the final memory of those original 12 that I was missing which was found above Zelda's Study and Bedroom. It was quite exciting to finally make it there and nab that. Now that I am getting really good at timing my guardian parry's to return it's beam I am beating up Guardian's left and right. I'm running out of guardian shields though since I'm not perfect at this tactic.

I have a really nice armor set going on. It's not the greatest looking but it still looks cool in it's own way. It's the Ancient Helm, Ancient Cuirass, and Ancient Greaves all of which are up to level 3 which gives me a Ancient Proficiency bonus. With all my memories back and the Master Sword in my possession… with all four Divine Beasts under my control… it may finally be time for me to go fight Ganon.

However, I feel like I want to get more hearts and more stamina before I do it. I wanna be a rocking God of sorts when I get up there because I know it'll be tough either way. Oh, that reminds me… my general proficiency with fighting those Silver Lynels found within the castle grounds made me feel pretty good but its always great to save before a fight…

Did anyone else take more time before fighting Ganon or did you do anything else like I think I will? My stats right now are as follows, so I suspect I am all good but I still want to be better! I think it'll be me spending time doing whatever side quests and shrine quests I currently have. Oh yeah, the stats. I've got…

79 Shrines Completed.
Two and 4/5th's Stamina Wheel
17 Heart Containers
122 Korok Seeds Collected
2,277 Rupees on hand
Four Divine Beasts Resolved

@DrFinkelstein You can perform that trick with any shield. Even the pot lid.

@DrFinkelstein

I kinda went in on a whim expecting to get my butt kicjed. I didn't prepare correctly - wasn't even wearing my best armor - and managed to just eek out a win. So I wouldn't say I took my time, but I didn't go in with complete seriousness, either.

@Mop it up

That is phenomenal to know! I thought it was just the specific ones to their type of enemy.

@kriswright

Noted. Maybe I'll first go back and explore inside more. Today I spent my whole day exploring outside of it pretty much. I want to find that cookbook for that random side quest.

But I'm pretty sick atm so I should probably stop playing and just go to bed.

So a planned scouting mission to Hyrule Castle turned into a calculated plunder of Hyrule Castle turned into...well, I like how the cursor starts on "Downloadable Content" after the credits roll, haha.

And now, to grab MS, actually finish all four DBs, and find that danged last memory photo I'm missing. I managed to get the last two or three based on landmarks in the background, but this one's just a picture of some trees...I don't think I'll be able to suss out which of the many forests this memory takes place in. And I can put a few of the more interesting items I got in Hyrule Castle to good use at the special shrines....

@nate38 Have you been to all the stables? I found that one from the hint provided by the painter guy. Well, that's pretty much how I've found any I've found...

@Mop it up It's entirely possible that I'm missing one or more stables. I did make a run around all of the stables I have (or at least I think I did) looking for him to get clues, but I may also have missed a stop or two.

Did a bunch of exploring the southwest/Gerudo region, and finished my remaining side missions in the area. Although this eventually expanded into further exploration of other regions in all corners of the map. I'm 1 shy of 100 shrines, and I've been working on upgrading most of my armor. Everything's up to at least Level 2, and about half of everything else is up to Level 3. Feels good to have my Champion Tunic up to Level 3 -- hunting those dragons for materials is one hell of a rush.

My march towards Ganon begins tomorrow. I haven't sniffed most of the center of the world map, so I won't be going straight to the castle, but I should fight him sometime this week I imagine.

99 Shrines Completed.
3 full Stamina Wheels
21 Heart Containers
233 Korok Seeds Collected
834 Rupees on hand
Four Divine Beasts Resolved
8(13) Memories recovered

@DrFinkelstein

I've just been buying up ancient arrows with my surplus rupees. Takes 'em down in one shot. I'm so bad at doing parrys, though I've got a ton of good shields right now so I might try practicing that a bit...

@nate38

That's the memory that's had me scratching my head as well, though I still have to find 3 others. It's just trees. Stuff I've gleaned from NPCs about a certain important location made me think I was sure where it would be, and based on how it looks on the map, everything checked out. But...it's not there, it's not the spot. So I really don't know. I'm hoping it's somewhere I haven't been to yet.

@TheBigG753

I found a good amount of activity in Central Hyrule, realizing I never found shrines there yet. So that'll probably naturally take you into the 100 shrine mark. I need to go back to the south west. I did a good amount of stuff but I know I didn't thoroughly search it

I decided to actually focus on the main quest a bit for the first time in a long time, met up with the Zora on the bridge and started heading that way. Without taking any major diversions there's just a lot going on there, I played for almost 4 hours and still haven't gotten to the dungeon yet. The shrine over in the Zora city was pretty fun too, the first really interesting physics puzzle I've had in awhile.

One thing I'm seriously confused about is why Nintendo introduced so many of those "kill a bunch of enemies to unlock this special chest" things early on, which felt like they were teaching me to get used to this as a common, recurring gameplay mechanic... and they seem to mostly be non-existent everywhere I've been lately. There are still small set-piece type battles that would make you THINK they would have those special chests, but they don't anymore, usually just have regular chests or... nothing really. From a game design perspective I've been trying to understand what exactly is happening here, why introduce this so heavily early on to pull it away later? At first I felt like there were too many of these but now I'm actually missing them.

@Hero_Of_Hyrule

HE HAS A DIFFERENT OPINION, GET 'IM!

I do agree with a couple things you're mentioning, albeit not to the same degree. But I feel I should point out you said you were growing tired of it by 65 hours and the world's magic eventually wore off...I mean, isn't that longer than almost all the Zelda games in and of itself? Is your issue that the game doesn't have enough content? All good things must come to an end, after all!

I'll agree that BotW's "peaks" aren't quite up there with the best of the series--or to put it more accurately for myself, its narrative and scripted peaks in this case. Granted, I haven't done all the dungeons and story stuff yet, but no single scripted moment has come close to Wind Waker's Old Hyrule or Tetra reveals, OoT's Sheik reveal, MM's Anju/Kafei story or SS's late-game conversation with Zelda. What's there has been nice--the Zora story was on-par with solid moments like TP's Midna stuff--but I'm missing that level of emotion that the series has dipped into successfully in the past. Again though, it could still be coming--haven't seen Zelda's famous crying scene from the trailer, for instance.

But for me, the difference is that while it's lacking great scripted moments so far, it's balanced out by the great UNSCRIPTED moments. All those adventures I've had in the game so far are cool not because some dev out there wanted to show me his clever writing, but because they were mine. The memories with BotW are more personal than in many past Zelda games to me because I'm getting my own experiences out of the game that I feel aren't shared with other players, at least not in the way that I've experienced them. It hearkens back to the good old days of playground talk about games, before the internet made nothing feel like a secret anymore, and I've had plenty of these "Had any adventures?" type conversations with my friends and brother since the game came out. It's truly a refreshing approach to a series that prides itself on adventure.

To put it another way, my favorite parts of past Zeldas are almost all stuff that everyone who's beaten them will have experienced. "That was cool when Sheik turned out to be Zelda." Conversely, when I think of BotW, I'm not thinking of story stuff, but how great it felt to make a daring run into Hyrule Castle before attempting any dungeons and stumbling upon a real treasure, then escaping with my life. That experience wasn't necessarily better than entering the Dark World for the first time in ALttP, but it feels exciting because of how personalized it was, mixed with the usual thrill of "breaking the rules" in a game.

I'll agree a bit on the dungeons too, from what I've played. I miss 'em. But each Zelda game has its own strengths and weaknesses; BotW's dungeons aren't as good as TP's, but its world is a heck of a lot more enticing to explore. It's story isn't as surprising and delightful as TWW's, but its challenge and balance are way better. Even my favorite game in the series (the original) is severely lacking in character and emotion compared to many of the later games. So I can't really hold those elements against BotW all that much; character, exploration, rewarding gameplay and dungeon design are all really important to me in Zelda and it's hard to think of a single game in the series that fully nails all of them. I guess OoT, MM and TWW have a pretty strong balance but are all bested in some areas by another game.

@Zero

I actually think the puzzles might be among the best in the series. I love that they're physics-based now, as it leads to a lot more logical solutions. Instead of trying to get into the developer's head, you're utilizing what you know of your runes and your equipment to try to solve them. Heck, I'd say they extend to the overworld, too. Getting over that mountain, taking out that camp without using too many resources, clearing that river. They all fall under the umbrella of "problem-solving" and each have several solutions and approaches to take. And new problems crop up all the time to solve. It's raining! Should I wait it out? Try to shimmy up by climb/jumping and restoring stamina with food? Find shelter and build a fire to stay at until morning? Find a different, longer path up the mountain? I like how my brain is always being tested with the game, and not just with static (and if I'm being pedantic, unnatural) puzzles in dungeons.

@Zero

It kinda makes sense, actually. They train you to take on enemy hideouts by rewarding you with treasure early on, and then that behavior is ingrained in you for the rest of the game. The monster parts you get from those encounters are valuable enough on their own anyway!

@Secret_Tunnel That was kind of my thought, like maybe I was thinking about this all backwards. Instead of having this THING that they did a lot with early on then stopped using so much, perhaps it wasn't even there at first and they realized players were just skipping the battles so they decided to throw it into the early areas to get players actively taking on battles.

It's still bizarre that it disappears though, especially since a lot of the "set piece" type battles I've run into since still have treasure chests (just not the special ones that only unlock when you kill everyone.) If the chests work as motivation and they would (theoretically) be easy enough to put into more areas, it's weird that they kind of disappear. I felt a bit more motivated to fight for those chests, now I'm like... maybe I will, maybe I won't.

@Zero

That's funny, it didn't even occur to me that there are fewer of those "combat chests" as you get away from the plateau, but you're absolutely right. Weird that it never registered for me.

Not to be a pedantic pissant, but it actually returns to the prototypical Zelda.

And the combat is awesome. I don't know what you even mean by calling it shallow. And, again, I don't understand the complaint that the world can never surprise you like it did in the first 40 hours because what's the alternative in an exploratory game like this? If you're not content with this open world then I can't see how you could be content with any open world. I'm literally 100 hours in and still finding new stuff.

Honestly not trying to hassle you for your opinion, but it's really almost completely counter to my own experience. Very hard to find any common ground.

I'd say the prototypical Zelda had way more of a focus on dungeons though. And with Link to the Past, puzzle-filled dungeons.

I think there is always a worry with big exploration / secret-filled games that eventually you do everything there is in the game and 100% it and then... there is no mystery left, you know every single thing that exists in the game. My strategy to manage that is to NOT try to do everything. Which it seems like is probably necessary in a game like BOTW anyway... unless you want to spend hundreds of hours to 100% it.