The Energon Pub

Cobotron wrote:GET OUT OF CARY'S BED YOU CREEPY FREAK!!!

No, that's "his" bed in one of the demo houses they built in Hateno.

So this arrived yesterday morning.


It's amazing. More amazing than I anticipated.

LET'S SEE HOW IT SCALES WITH OTHER FIGURES FROM PREVIOUS CHUG LINES BECAUSE THAT MAKES SENSE AND NOTHING THAT IS NEW IS EVER IT'S OWN THING!!

And by previous CHUG lines I mean books. And by scales I actually mean size comparisons.

In the slip cover:


As you can see it scales well with the Collector's Edition Breath of the Wild guide, but not so much with the other "Encyclopedia" type books.

OR DOES IT?!



And thanks to some crazy mass shifting, it fits anywhere in your collection!!

Joking aside. It's incredible. All the details they go in to on the art style and the way they came up with things and the interviews with creators!!

Here's the other things it came with.

A Spirit Orb with a blessing from the Monk, a folded cover (the Wingcrest cover) with a picture inside (from the end of Champions' Ballad), and a big map of Hyrule (in the Traveler's Shield envelope) that I won't show so I don't spoil anything for Cobotron



I got it for $63 shipped from Amazon (pre-ordered). Totes worth it!!

Looks really nice, but it's not the same as the others, so Ruined FOREVER!



Much like Epona

carytheone wrote:Looks really nice, but it's not the same as the others, so Ruined FOREVER!

You know what else is nice? Just got an email from Amazon stating there was a lower price in between shipping and when I pre-ordered it, so I'll be getting $8.13 back. Woo!!

carytheone wrote:Much like Epona

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO EPONA?!?!??!

itscramtastic wrote:WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO EPONA?!?!??!

That's they quickest way to reach max "Bond" with your horses. You didn't know that?

Cobotron wrote:

itscramtastic wrote:WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO EPONA?!?!??!

That's they quickest way to reach max "Bond" with your horses. You didn't know that?

Yup, thick as thieves now and added bonus of no hernias.

The best part is Epona's reaction

Breath of the Wild is a very open ended game and even lends it self to role-play. I spent an entire day as a pirate


I never could sink that raft

*all those chests were pulled from the sea

carytheone wrote:*all those chests were pulled from the sea*

As opposed to from Eponas' rear?!

itscramtastic wrote:

carytheone wrote:*all those chests were pulled from the sea*

As opposed to from Eponas' rear?!

You never know what you'll find in a horses ass

Nah opposed to summoned by amiibo, but then again you can't summon that many before the older ones start disappearing.

carytheone wrote:

itscramtastic wrote:

carytheone wrote:*all those chests were pulled from the sea*

As opposed to from Eponas' rear?!

You never know what you'll find in a horses ass

Nah opposed to summoned by amiibo, but then again you can't summon that many before the older ones start disappearing.

That's true, it's around 8 or 9, right?

itscramtastic wrote:

carytheone wrote:

itscramtastic wrote:

carytheone wrote:*all those chests were pulled from the sea*

As opposed to from Eponas' rear?!

You never know what you'll find in a horses ass

Nah opposed to summoned by amiibo, but then again you can't summon that many before the older ones start disappearing.

That's true, it's around 8 or 9, right?

I think it's much lower than that, definitely less than what's on my raft.

My biggest fear while toting that much metal around was the ever present threat of thunderstorms.


Right place, right time!


*BTW, in Chrome at least you can open the image in a new tab then zoom in a bit to get a closer view.

You know, I think I had a picture of getting struck whilst fighting a lynel, it was coooooool. Or maybe that's what its image was in my compendium. OR that's what the image was for the treasure chest in the compendium.

Have you ever amiibo farmed while in the presence of a lynel?!

itscramtastic wrote:Have you ever amiibo farmed while in the presence of a lynel?!

Nope and I'm not even sure why you would want to try?

Do the chest freak them out?

carytheone wrote:

itscramtastic wrote:Have you ever amiibo farmed while in the presence of a lynel?!

Nope and I'm not even sure why you would want to try?

Do the chest freak them out?

I'll try it out tonight and let you know!! It's gonna be great!!

itscramtastic wrote:

carytheone wrote:

itscramtastic wrote:Have you ever amiibo farmed while in the presence of a lynel?!

Nope and I'm not even sure why you would want to try?

Do the chest freak them out?

I'll try it out tonight and let you know!! It's gonna be great!!

And by great I think you mean you'll lose a bunch of hearts


Seems like I took a ton of pics of blood moons and sunrise/sets.

For all intents and purposes, I am done with BOTW. I've 100%'d Master Mode. I'm still kinda playing, just arrow farming and Lynel hunting as I'd like to have an inventory of top tier weapons. So I'ma share this with y'all, cause there's not a lot of real life people I know who care
(note the Triforce in the bottom left corner, marker of Master Mode)



Here's my Link! I've pretty much settled on the Fierce Deity as my main armor. Upgraded Master Sword, and Savage Lynel Shield/Bow equipped on the regular.







I've got every piece of in-game armor, DLC armor, and Amiibo armor. Almost. Thing is, there's 107 pieces, and only 100 open slots. So what I excluded was the monster masks (which sucks, I loved those) and the beginners items (worn shirt/pants, warm doublet). And everything that can be upgraded, is.











Then there's my key items. All Champion Power's upgraded, remaining Korok seeds after spending to upgrade inventory slots, that strange picture you get for completing the Compendium, Hestu's Gift (your "reward" for getting all 900 seeds), the three Medallions for monster hunting, every piece of horse gear, and the Travel Medallion.





My map, 100%.



And finally the load screen. Showing three full stamina wheels, remaining hearts attainable, 120 shrines (though it doesn't register the DLC shrines), 900 Korok seeds, and 4 Divine Beasts and Master Cycle. After that, my save file (star indicates Ganon has been killed), and my playtime (a hideous 535+ hours)

Ho.

Lee.

Shirt.

Shaj: “Knock knock”
BotW: “Who’s there?”
Shaj: “Go F yourself.”

Mic drop.

itscramtastic wrote:Ho.

Lee.

Shirt.

Shaj: “Knock knock”
BotW: “Who’s there?”
Shaj: “Go F yourself.”

Mic drop.

carytheone wrote:

Thanks Care. Thanks for all your help too btw

So if you have a job, and are quitting, put in your two weeks, sometimes there's a thing called an "exit interview". Not that I'm completely done BOTW, I've got some final thoughts....

Master Mode
I'll start here because MM is where I 100%'d the game.
When you start the game in normal mode, it's hard. Like a baby, you're dropped scared and naked into an unforgiving world. But it's not impossible, and after a few upgrades and additions to your inventory then you're good to go. But the game pretty much loses all challenge once you get better even equipped. When I had all 120 shrines, armors upgraded, and fought Ganon, it was a landslide. This is why I chose to forgo 100%'ing normal mode, and go straight to Master Mode.

There is a ridiculous increase in difficulty for Master Mode.... in the begging. It is basically pointless to engage enemies in the first 30ish hours of gameplay. They will likely 1 hit you, you'll go through more than one weapon to kill them, and you'll get next to nothing for rewards. But once you gear up it starts to become manageable, you just need to be strategic with that you do. In your quest to 100%, you'll reach a point certain point where MM is no longer punishing, but not a cakewalk either. It'll feel just right, but the amount of work required to get to this happy medium point is kinda nuts. I'd say this happy medium point is after your necessary armors are fully upgraded, most of your hearts and stamina (if not all all 120 shrines done), and your master sword fully upgraded. I know that sounds like end-game right there, but trust me when I say there's still 100+ hours to go (if 100% is your goal). And lemme tell ya, doing the hardest parts of the game, in Master Mode, is hella-rewarding. Which I just wasn't feeling with normal mode. One of the biggest things to overcome is enemy life regeneration, especially with bosses.

The Armors
I really like what they did with this game. It's funny, because they introduced armors with different functions first with OOT (I think) but it was never really expanded upon until now. The armors in this game are all wildly different looking and almost all serve a different and specific function. No to mention (in my opinion) they all have beautiful designs. For the "in-game" armors I'd say my favorite is probably the Desert Voe (with my least favorite being the Flamebreaker). It was actually kind of a pain the ass having to go into the menu all the time to change back and forth, but it was awesome having specific outfits to deal with any given situation.

The DLC armors though... I found underwhelming and useless. Which could have been easily dealt with, if you could upgrade them like the rest. As they are (in Master Mode anyways) they're worthless unless you enjoy in game cosplaying. One or two have their uses (Majora's mask, though why doesn't it work for Lynels?) but that's it. When it comes down to surviving MM, you NEED upgraded armor.

Then there's the Amiibo armors. Through them you mainly get a different green tunics from other Zelda's. They're all upgradeable, but the in-game "of the Wild" tunic does have a higher defense than any of them, and is the only tunic that can be dyed different colors (damn I wanted the OOT in Goron red). What eventually became my outfit of choice, was the Fierce Deity set. In MM, that attack bonus is pretty amazing, especially when fighting Lynels and you've become proficient enough to dodge most/all of their attacks. The Fierce Deity + upgraded Master Sword, going up against a Gold Lynel, I can drop him in less than 2 minutes. Less than 1 minute sometimes depending on my tactics.

Weapons
This is a sore subject for many, and even for me in the beginning. But I turned around after playing for a while. The variety does add a certain level of excitement, however there are still frustrations. There are basically only 4 weapon types: 1 handed sword/club, two handed sword/club, pole-arms, and bows. There are varieties within those groups, but the attack combos for those weapons is exactly the same within their respective groups. For example, Link's attack combo is the same for a two handed sword as it is for a two handed club. So more variety in that aspect would have been great.

The other sore subject is weapon durability. I'm ok with it, but they could greatly improve their system with two simple things: the ability to see your weapons durability meter, and having the ability to fix said item (at say, a town blacksmith?) rather than it exploding into nothingness. Cause it really sucks to see a fantastic weapon that was hard to acquire fall to dust.

Koroks
Nine. Hundred. I honestly believe that without a guide, this is not doable. I used a comprehensive guide, and it still took me 2(ish?) weeks. The ones that are just a simple "find", meh. The ones you had to solve puzzles for though, were fun and rewarding. Of the puzzle types, there were only a handful that I thought were excessively difficult. And I guess I wasn't upset with the lack of a reward since I already knew nothing was coming.

Hyrule Compendium
Basically, get the camera function ASAP, and just take pictures of everything you see. By the time you'll get to the end of your play-through, you should only have a few stranglers. The only specific recommendations I can give would be to make sure you take pics of the bosses while you have the chance, as they're obviously limited.

Quests
I'd say half of these are unfulfilling fetch quests, but the others have some good story heft. I wrapped up all my quests pretty much after I'd done everything else, so the fetch quests were super easy as I had everything needed already on my person. I would really recommend looking up and completing all the quests involving Kass, it has a great conclusion.

Champions Ballad DLC
I kinda feel that the DLC should be slightly cheaper.... but it does add a great deal of content to the game. The added backstory on the Champions is fantastic, and the in game content (in MM) is challenging and fun. Essentially you need to do a Trial of the Sword-like challenge, then go through 20(?) new shrines, then fight all the Blight Ganon's again. Only this time you are given an extremely limited inventory (using the respective fallen Champion's weapon's if I recall) which would be difficult on it's own, but compounded with the health regeneration of Master Mode baddies, made these some of the most challenging things for me to accomplish. If you don't dispatch them quickly and perfectly, you're SOL. Once you've finished all four Blights again, you get the bonus dungeon. I hoped it would have been longer, but it was still a fun and welcome addition.

Trial of the Sword
In MM, this is the most difficult thing you can do in BOTW. The first trial was the hardest, but doable with some practice and strategizing (do some Youtube'ing if you're tackling TOTS in MM). I think the first trial took me somewhere between 10-15 tries. The second trial took less than 10 tries, and the third took around 5 tries. Trials 2 and 3 weren't exactly "hard", but every trial feels equally intense. Honestly, when I completed the third and final trial, I did a shockingly terrible job. In the last quarter, I took a crazy amount of damage and used a crazy amount of provisions, and was still able to make it through to the other end. So trust me when I say, if you can make it through the first trial, you can do all three.

But damn.... completing all three trials is rewarding, and the upgraded Master Sword is worth all the hard work required. It's got double the damage, and the durability is almost ten times better! From what people say, the durability was 30, and is around 200 after the third trial. I can down two gold Lynels before it cracks! In comparison, I'm betting that normal mode Trial of the Sword is pretty easy. I didn't attempt it though because I felt my Link was already overpowered thus making it unnecessary.

100% Map
This will likely be the absolute last thing you do. For me, at the end I was missing about 10-15 locations on my map (and this is after scouring the place for 900 Koroks!). This is another one of those things I feel would be impossible without a guide. With a guide, I finished the last 1.8% of my map in about an hour.

In Closing
Then game (truly) ends with you and Zelda looking over the ravaged but recently liberated Hyrule, saying "what's next?". I really wish that you could continue from that point, as opposed to going straight back to a save with an un-killed (but registered in your save that you have killed) Ganon. That's where I feel the DLC should have taken place, though I understand they did this likely because it's how every Zelda game ends.

I'm actually pretty sad now that I am done. I played it through about 1.5 times, there was a ton of grueling work that I even lamented at the time, and I'm sad. That's how fun the journey was. For all the faults this game has, it was one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I've ever had. A Link to the Past will always be my #1 Zelda, but this takes second place. Wind Waker used to be number two, but I think the fact that I couldn't play WW HD fully through, but BOTW through twice says a lot. Story-wise though, I don't think BOTW would break the top 3 as I still feel it was pretty lacking in that department.

I'm not one of those insanely good gamers like you can see on the Youtubes. I've seen many a video of peeps who can do everything I did, without taking a single hit. I'd say I'm slightly above average, but nowhere near the skill level of those folks. I say this to show you that what I've done is achievable (given you have a sad amount of time on your hands)

Have fun adventurin' people, and if need some advice I can probably help

One final FINAL thing to note... let's call it a public service announcement about the Nintendo Switch: don't game too hard.

I have, in all seriousness, after fanatically playing BOTW (500+ hours in less than 3 months?) developed carpal tunnel. No joke. Right now I can't lift a jug of milk without wincing in pain. It's from the joy-cons. I googled it too, it's not uncommon. Theres a controller apparatus dealy they can plug into, I highly recommend using that. I'm probably going to take a break from the switch for a month or so to see if it gets better, cause ridiculous as it is, it messes with my livelihood! It's been bad for about a month, but today I finally admitted "damn... I gotta stop playing"

Game responsibly folks!

shajaki wrote:One final FINAL thing to note... let's call it a public service announcement about the Nintendo Switch: don't game too hard.

I have, in all seriousness, after fanatically playing BOTW (500+ hours in less than 3 months?) developed carpal tunnel. No joke. Right now I can't lift a jug of milk without wincing in pain. It's from the joy-cons. I googled it too, it's not uncommon. Theres a controller apparatus dealy they can plug into, I highly recommend using that. I'm probably going to take a break from the switch for a month or so to see if it gets better, cause ridiculous as it is, it messes with my livelihood! It's been bad for about a month, but today I finally admitted "damn... I gotta stop playing"

Game responsibly folks!

I have just over 400 hours on Zelda (spanned over a longer time) and I Switch either in handheld mode or split controller. I also play Ps4 pretty heavily. YMMV. Now the PSP would cramp my hands in less than 30 minutes. I also don't find the 3DS XL to be the most comfortable thing in the world (just too top heavy). The Vita on the other hand is a light weight joy.

I'm old and my forearms tend to get exhausted before any issues seem to arrive. And gaming puts my ass to sleep.

Anyway, repetitive stress injury is real kids, take breaks, stretch and stay hydrated


Great summery BTW and even though I've never attempted MM, that's pretty much spot on for me.


Now can we talk about the split controller? I've been wantimg this for years (see old man syndrome from earlier). After a few hours with traditional controllers I get what can be best described as restless arms. It's so nice to set my arms down whereever to game. I had a one-handed controller for my PS1 just for RPGs (thanks Ascii)

carytheone wrote:I have just over 400 hours on Zelda (spanned over a longer time) and I Switch either in handheld mode or split controller. I also play Ps4 pretty heavily. YMMV. Now the PSP would cramp my hands in less than 30 minutes. I also don't find the 3DS XL to be the most comfortable thing in the world (just too top heavy). The Vita on the other hand is a light weight joy.

Other controllers never did this damage to me before. But I don't know if I can blame this controller specifically, or if my age is just starting to show. I think it's a combination of the both. I essentially had a 5 year gaming break, this being my jump back into the arena. I've actually always had another issue called "death grip syndrome" which means I grasp things harder than usual. I used to draw quite a bit, and you shoulda seen. After a good drawing session, some of my fingers would have dents in them from where I help the pencil

carytheone wrote:Great summery BTW and even though I've never attempted MM, that's pretty much spot on for me.

Thanks
If you're seasoned from playing through normal and you don't want to see the adventure come to it's bittersweet end, I'd say give MM a shot

carytheone wrote:Now can we talk about the split controller?

The worst part about these controllers crippling me, is that I really really like them! Why does everything I love push me away

shajaki wrote:

carytheone wrote:I have just over 400 hours on Zelda (spanned over a longer time) and I Switch either in handheld mode or split controller. I also play Ps4 pretty heavily. YMMV. Now the PSP would cramp my hands in less than 30 minutes. I also don't find the 3DS XL to be the most comfortable thing in the world (just too top heavy). The Vita on the other hand is a light weight joy.

Other controllers never did this damage to me before. But I don't know if I can blame this controller specifically, or if my age is just starting to show. I think it's a combination of the both. I essentially had a 5 year gaming break, this being my jump back into the arena. I've actually always had another issue called "death grip syndrome" which means I grasp things harder than usual. I used to draw quite a bit, and you shoulda seen. After a good drawing session, some of my fingers would have dents in them from where I help the pencil

They JoyCons are pretty small and thin. I'm assuming you're using the bumper wrist strap things? That helps beef them up a bit. I've used the turn them into a traditional controller thing a few times. It's ok and makes gripping them easier, but hinders the motion aiming. A pro controller just seems to expensive considering I have perfectly working controllers already.

carytheone wrote:Great summery BTW and even though I've never attempted MM, that's pretty much spot on for me.

Thanks
If you're seasoned from playing through normal and you don't want to see the adventure come to it's bittersweet end, I'd say give MM a shot

Been thinking about it, but the PS4 won't play itself

carytheone wrote:Now can we talk about the split controller?

The worst part about these controllers crippling me, is that I really really like them! Why does everything I love push me away

MP-44 is in the ally with a bat he'd like to show you.

I think I'm still getting over the fact that you 100%'ed Master Mode. It hurts my brain. I was telling carytheone and Cobotron how I'm maybe 45% the regular quest. When I 100%'ed the Compendium I was freaking out!

You are totally right though, once you have some upgraded armor and a stash of cooked hearty durians, you're unstoppable.

I had one of those quick runs on for the Trial of the Sword in Master Mode on YouTube. I think completed in 48 minutes?