yeah this is why i think the lost woods rules. it leaves only just the slightest hint by having torches kind of lead your way and making you think you might need to pull out your own torch to guide you once they stop. it forces you to observe your surroundings, and makes you notice how quickly the wind shifts. it’s way different and better than anything like the lost woods in any other game, because you’re already attuned to being this, like, observant, esp if you’ve tried using the rafts beforehand and realize they go in whichever direction the wind is blowing as well. most any other game would require you do some obvious puzzle or follow some super obvious clue, or even return when you have the right equipment.
or that’s what i felt. pretty much everyone else i know just got through it by accident, or by using the method broco described. and i guess trees are suppose to help point the way? anyways that still doesn’t take away the joy i felt when i figured it out and it still remains as one of the highlights of the game for me.
They could’ve forced players to find the proper solution by both making the Lost Woods procedurally generated and making failure irrecoverable. But judging by how many shrines have cheesy solutions, it’s not in this game’s design philosophy to aggressively deny emergent alternate methods (a lost cause at any rate – almost every game has been broken by speedrunners no matter how much the devs tried).
Although I think it would’ve been cool if it were procedurally generated anyway
The shrine treasure puzzles are often difficult enough that I found it pretty unsatisfying to find generic and common rewards in most of them. Oh great, after all that I get an opal, a 30-attack sword, a regular-sized ancient core, or somesuch. It would’ve been a better use of my time to wander around the overworld picking up whatever I find on the ground. It would almost be better if there was no reward at all and just have the achievement noted.
Exactly, that’s why there should be nothing in the chests (or, well, it should not be a chest, but some ethereal spirit of shrine mastery). It’s like the old psychological study that if you give participants a small monetary reward, they get less motivated to do stuff.
The rewards are pretty killer at first, but since you can access all the shrines at any time, all the rewards are basically the same level. Which, I agree, detracts from the shrine itself. I’d rather have nothing, or something generated to be better because I’ve done 30 shrines.
It’s definitely stupid to fight a guardian robo, take 10+ minutes to destroy it, pick up its powerful lazer axe & sheld, and open the “reward” chest to earn a knight’s halberd.
Unfortunately Zelda team is particularly bad at that sort of thing, judging from those tedious memory cutscenes that sap any weightiness, mystery or charm from the lore.
I mean, for those unaware I’m pretty sure the trick to the Lost Woods is to use a torch, someone suggests as much and they leave one on the ground right at the last pair of pre-lit ones. If there is a different “proper” solution I could never figure it out. Also at least a few shrines had clothing in them, I have no clue what I would have done without my beloved climbing gear (it makes such a difference) and at least one piece of it was located behind a major battle.
I have played this game for… a long time now and just finally managed to take down some of those nasty overworld guardians. I’m not sure if there is a trick to them or if I am just strong enough to do (just barely) enough damage now.
I am also still scared to sell anything because I’m worried it might be needed for upgrades later, but I also kinda need more money to buy clothes.
I keep waiting for this game to get stale and boring and repetitive and despite the relatively small set of elements for how large the map is, it never does.
in fact, it still genuinely surprises me. I just discovered my first set of levianthan bones in the hebra mountains, and it was such a joyous, unexpected, and magical moment. part of what made it cool was that I was trying to find the last great fairy fountain, which led me on a series of a wild goose chases, each with its own cool weird little corner of the world that wasn’t what I was looking for but still inherently rewarding, culminating with this big discovery.
I’m like 100+ hours in, too… I mean, I see a lot of ways the basic format could be improved or iterated upon but god, this really is pretty much the best game I’ve ever played, like for the first time in an open world game I can freely explore, poke around, go whatever random place, and not only is the world consistently interesting and fun to experience no matter what angle, you also never feel an ounce of ludo-narrative dissonance.
As for the lost woods… amazingly, I just wandered in with a torch and just kinda found the entrance after a few tries. My plan WAS to just “feel around” using subtle visual cues for the invisible walls… but in fact I carried a torch (bc it might be useful idk it was reassuring) and I found that if I just kept running in a direction that “felt right” and the stopped, got my bearings, and went ahead in the next direction that “felt right”, etc… anyway, I finally got to the end this way after like my second try! and after learning the way you’re “supposed” to do it, now I wonder if the various subtle visual cues that come from wind direction changing were enough to subconsciously point me in the right direction? which only speaks to how amazing this game’s engine is. tbh nintendo could crank out DLC for this for like 4 years and I probably would be happy with it.
I got past a “complete the circuit” lock by lining up all my metal weapons and shields so that the current would pass through them but it sort of felt like cheating.
Beating a lynel to death with a bookshelf
That Hard Mode really is just “Enemies are X amounts stronger” is real disappointing. Unless there’s secretly a bit more weirdness to it like the flying chests and enemies I probably set my expectations a bit high for this one.
Otherwise just stuff that would’ve been a lot more interesting before spending 100+ hours with it. Will be real let down if the map tracker stuff only starts recording your journey AFTER you actually download the DLC but realistically, why would it if the feature is not implemented yet? Will probably just wait until the second DLC drops in the winter before I consider doing a replay to get the freshests amount of CONTENT.
HOT NEW ZELDA PROTIP:
Discovered that if you tilt the camera all the way up it stays fixed in a surprisingly playable top-down perspective to the point where I’m almost certain that it’s an intentional tribute to the 2d games. Even noticed that a lot of enemy attacks are pretty readable from this angle (at least from the easier ones that don’t bolt away from the screen constantly).
A free patch came out today too that let’s you switch the game voices’ language around at will so you can hear the mighty shout of “DARUK’S PROTECTION IS NOW READY TO ROLL!” in 9 different tongues of the world.
