No, it is harder than the first game. I am down in the “world” now and it is kind of brutal. I don’t just need more hearts(I have 7 I think); I need stronger armor to not take such terrible damage every time.
Down in the frickin’ Depths, I take a one heart permanent* damage when enemies make contact. It’s brutal.
*until I go back up into sunlight or find a lightreer root.
I lost count how many times I fell/drowned/got beaten/frozen/set on fire.
Hell, I died 4 times figuring out how to get to the last part of the tutorial (after I opened the last doors).
I missed the body of water my first dive and landed on the ground. Splat. Dead.
Did you get the paraglider? I strongly recommend everyone go get it so you can basically open up the majority of the travel options.
I really like the additional tunes Link sometimes hums while cooking. (If they were present in BoTW, I totally missed it.)
Yep, I’ve only managed to do this once. One big downside to the similarity of the controls BoTW was that I kept jumping off tall things and expecting to be able to break my fall with the glider. (No worries, I’ve got the glider now.)
Ascend can get you out of wells, no?
Getting further into the game, and so far my only gripe is that the throwing controls are really wonky. I’ve accidentally thrown my weapon so many times when I meant to throw something else.
Yes, if you can find the right spot.
Ok. I’ve put in a few hours now and some random thoughts/questions. There are no significant spoilers in here as its only the first area thats kind of tutorially:
Thoughts:
This definitely adheres to the BotW philosophy of allowing the physics to determine how the player can solve traversal problems which is very fun. There was a high icy cliff face I needed to get up but I was out of warming foods and couldn’t find any route up. So I chopped down like 4 trees, fused them end to end like a crooked telephone pole, set it on the side of the cliff and climbed up. This is definitely not the text book way of getting there and I certainly bypassed other content doing this. I think this game gets the closest to eliminating invisible walls of any past game.
Ultrahand is a fantastic concept, and after you suffer through the extremely clunky controls and build some kooky machine to move you from point A to point B successfully its very satisfying. But my god… these controls are abysmal. I wish they would have lifted No Mans Skys approach, which is similar but far smoother to use. Shake the stick to unfuse? No thanks. Let me hit one of the 10 buttons that aren’t being used instead. Little stuff like that would remove a ton of friction.
Love the graphics and art style. It masterfully covers the limited power of the Switch. Color pallette is great.
Fusing lightbulbs to arrows is satisfying. So is fusing eyeballs to make heat seekers.
Dragon breath module is fun.
Items still break WAY too fast and there is no real way to know how close you are getting to breaking it until you are one or two uses away.
I dont think this is a spoiler since its the very first scene in the game but I couldn’t figure out why Link and Zelda were in the opening cave system to begin with. She starts freaking out about the art, but didn’t have any real motivation other than “Wow”. Did I miss something?
The Demonking is one of the coolest, mature boss designs in a Nintendo game. He was legitimately evil looking and scary. Again the cell shading helps alot.
Questions:
Is there a way to access your cooked meals via the dpad??? When I push “up” it basically shows a huge list of all of the ingredients and random stuff, not just food, and I can eat ingredients like apples, shrooms etc… but I can not figure out how to put a meal there.
On that note can you use the touch screen for Ultrahanding/Fusing in hand held? I haven’t tried.
In BotW you could warp between all of the shrines and towers once you found them. I’m in the opening area and have finished the 3 shrines and need to make my way back to the Time Tower but it appears that I have to hoof it back because theres no fast travel (yet?)
You will get fast travel once you go back to the Temple of Time. You are basically there.
I haven’t played undocked, but I believe no touchpad controls are in this game.
In better news, my understanding is no motion control shrines this time.
I’ll spoiler box this thing I just did because it might be fun to discover this neat thing on your own. I did something in a fight that was awesome.
No major spoiler here, just something kind of cool I did.
I fought one of those Stone Talus guys from the first game. I ran under him and “ascended” through his entire body to get to the top and destroy his ore.
I just thought that was really neat.
With Hearty Durians removed from the game(I read that this is the case), I am wondering where the best place to get some kind of “hearty” food ingredient so I can get some yellow hearts.
She briefly mentions that giant holes are opening up in the ground and there’s some sort of disease coming out. They think the castle might be the source.
I think no. There is a recipe system, but it still isn’t as good as it ought to be.
As I understand it, there is no way to force the game to just make what you want based on a nice recipe list. I wish my completed recipe list, which does exist, would also come with a “make this now if I have the ingredients” option.
It doesn’t, does it?
I seriously need some hearty ingredients. I’ve found none.
How many hearts and stamina are you at?
I have, I think, 8 hearts and one extra slice of stamina. The first game was so stamina focused…this game needs less stamina(less climbing, to be honest) and a lot more hearts. I may grab another 3-4 hearts straight before upping stamina past 1 1/2 wheels.
The game is really awesome. I have always disliked the battles and I’m getting my ass handed to me quite often, but there’s so much to look at and discover.
I’m spending some more time in the depths and picking up bombs and mushrooms like crazy. I’m getting more comfortable with using the bow and adding fire and bombs to the arrows.
I’m not comfortable with building machines yet.
I found Elden Ring downright undoable after a certain point. I’m not saying this is Elden Ring, but for a Zelda game, it is making me feel incredibly weak. I am up to 8 hearts and the Depths is still almost impossible for me. I don’t know how I’ll ever deal with the fact that I lose a heart permanently when I get hit. It’s overwhelming.
Hardest Zelda of the modern age. But very fun to rise to the challenge.
If it’s not too much of a spoiler how long is it after you get down to the ground before you get the horse? I’m on the ground and am tired of slow running already.
If you have a bunch from the first game, they are waiting for you at the nearest stable. Go ahead and grab them.
If you don’t have a bunch from the first game, you can catch one and tame it almost immediately when you hit the ground. I don’t remember the first location, but they are pretty nearby.
Fast Travel will open up soon too if it has not yet.
If you following along the main quest you wind up at a stable area with horses nearby pretty quickly.
I ended up getting my first horse by taking down some Bokoblins riding a horse-drawn cart.