I hope hard mode lets you start with the paraglider, that'd make gimmicky runs a lot more interesting!

I beat the game last night. A complete masterpiece in gaming, and a benchmark in which all other open world games will be compared to.

@Pokefreak911

Kind of a shame that Nintendo didn't just design like one supremely 'impossible to find your first time playing the game' route off the plateau, specifically for speed runners.

Time to put some good time into the game while docked. It seems I only get that like once a week and then the other times are short bursts of play and/or portable mode.

The far southwest-ish region is amazing!!

@kriswright Maybe they did, but because it is impossible to find...

I beat Breath of the Wild last week. Not terribly difficult given end-game stats after 120 shrines and 4 divine beasts, but still a rewarding experience. During the final encounter, I jumped off my horse to catch an updraft, and Ganon proceeded to stomp my horse to death, so... uh... that made it just a little bit harder hahaha. I loved the look of the Blights and Calamity because the style was a bit reminiscent of the Twilight creatures, but I really liked Calamity's aesthetics for being particularly creepy too.

I do wish there was a little more depth. I enjoyed the shrines, the Divine Beasts, the Lost Woods, and Hyrule Castle, but I am left really longing for some classic, themed dungeons with their unique architecture, music, puzzles... feel. I hope the DLC delivers in some capacity. I am totally cool with nonlinear progression for most of the game, and I don't think a dungeon requires the same formula of getting a specific item to proceed, but a mix of more (harder) puzzles, enemies, and some sort of better reward would have been great (more armor, indestructible weapons, new combat techniques?). I would have loved a few enemy gauntlets too. How great would it have been to be exploring the world, then you burn some tree, place a weapon in a conspicuous statue's hand, or moving a giant, sealed door like the ones in Hebra, to discover some ancient temple with its own enemies and boss(es)?

Breath of the Wild was fantastic though.

200 hrs bay BEH!!

@carlosrox

Just hit that marker myself.

BTW something I've been wondering, there are certain parts of the game where the gameplay is a bit more linear / defined, but like... does anything stop you from completely sidestepping them?

Specifically I'm thinking about the quest in the desert to retrieve the thunder helm thingy. You go through this very specific, defined stealth section and get to a boss fight, but the boss fight is outside where it appears you could have just came down to it from the surrounding mountains. Would it have been possible to just skip the section leading up to it? Or would the boss not be there if you came that way or something?

@Zero

I found that area before the boss fight while looking for how to get in to the hideout and was confused as to what it was and why I couldn't go down that huge hole. I'm pretty sure just nothing happens.

But... you'd have to go out of your way to not find the normal way into the hideout. It's a huge valley leading straight to it!

@Zero

IIRC once I got into the Gerudo village I tripped some sidequest I wanted to go see through so when I finally decided to go to the hideout my starting point wasn't the village so I didn't go through the valley.

Hmm, did you have the map above unlocked at that point? Because I didn't so the valley was like SUPER OBVIOUS since it juts out of the top of your current area's map.

I actually kind of wish that once you unlocked new areas of the map the old borders were still visible, because I tend to explore right to the edges of an area and sometimes I will do the tower of a new area before finishing exploring the old one and then I get confused about what I have and haven't done yet since there is no clear border anymore. Some areas have more natural borders than others.

With that said, there kind of IS a pretty clear border down there since the whole top of the area basically runs along the mountainside... except for that valley which cuts deep into it.

@Zero
Funny you mention that part when in the spoiler thread I mentioned I was really disappointed by the direction they took it.

So the sidequest in the Gerudo area where you are supposed to like... solve everyone in the town's problems or whatever... does that just mean go around finding OTHER sidequests to do and do all of the sidequests for people in the town? Because it doesn't really give much direction about what it means.

@Zero

Yes, that's it. You need to do all side quests which originate in Gerudo Town. The prize is nice so it's worth it. Go talk to everyone you can find.

@DrFinkelstein

If you have all the Rubber armor though, isn't it kind of redundant?

@Shadowlink

Sort of. But that's a big if, and it requires you to wear all of it for a similar effect instead of just the head. And even then, I don't think you're fully immune to lightning like the Thunder Helm is.

@TriforceBun

I tested it yesterday. Same effect. But pairing the one thing with some other, better armor is a nice way to go.