• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.
  • Do you have audio editing experience and want to help out with the Famiboards Discussion Club Podcast? If so, we're looking for help and would love to have you on the team! Just let us know in the Podcast Thread if you are interested!

Discussion Anyone else want botw 2 to be just a little more challenging after playing elden ring?

Probably the main thing they need to do is fix how items are used. Being able to pause and use a bunch of stuff without consequence sort of kills the difficulty of BotW.

In terms of what BotW2 needs to "learn" from Elden Ring, I'd say the latter did a much better job in connecting with the previous games' linear/wide-linear content in that there are numerous locations that feel like they were a level/area in a Souls game. Between the legacy dungeons and mini-dungeons there's a whole Souls game built inside an open world that is also filled with catacombs/caves equivalent to BotW's shrines. Comparatively BotW wasn't really able to provide the "dungeon" style content people expect from the series. There's obviously tons of shrines, but the major dungeons themselves were obviously a let down, and there weren't enough of them. Similarly you don't really get much in the way of new items and abilities after the initial tutorial area, so I think that would be something to fix as well.

My ideal for BotW2 would be to have a lot of the same style of content from BotW, but additionally having a bunch of traditional style dungeons coupled with some new weapons/items you can get that can then be used in the open world and in conjunction with puzzle shrines. Elden Ring was very good about not being a afraid to tell/show the player that they shouldn't be in a certain area, I think BotW2 should be similarly not be afraid to tell players they are unable to tackle a certain area/dungeon/shrine because they have not acquired the necessary abilities or tools yet.
 
For those who have played Elden Ring: what are some examples of enemies that incentivize a different combat strategy than usual?
I’m actually curious about this too. I’m playing through Dark Souls 3 now and I’m basically using the standard sword and shield. Tried the cool bigass sword which slows me down, messes up my timing so I die. FP is too limited to go all in on magic. I found a cool looking spear but it does less damage than my sword.

So I just stick with the sword.
 
My opinion is just the opposite, if I feel that a game is forcing me to "Only this strategy is efficient to complete this" I get bored.
It’s not only this strategy, there should be multiple strategy’s with multiple tools

I didn’t even dodge in ff15 because it was more effective to just take the damage and use potions, so the easiness made dodging worthless, no value
 
Last edited:
0
I don’t think bringing up FF15’s combat as easy as the reason why most people didn’t engage with its combat system is a good example. This is because most everything about the combat in FF15 was cheeks. About the only good thing was warp strike, summon animations, & the occasional sync kill.

As for the Souls games combat works just about the same in all versions. No matter the weapon or magic; just different timings, damage, combos, & the like. Backstabbing has always been a good way to deal big damage & sometimes you can use the environment to your advantage. But if you get good enough, or stubborn, there is not much just smacking something with a stick won’t kill.

BOTW has all the tools at your disposal to use whenever & however based upon the game logic & your creativity. If you don’t wanna engage with that further then smacking things with a stick that is on you. There are tons of videos out there showing off the combat system from the wacky to the absolutely skillful to just plain silly. There are more then enough options in BOTW to pull off multiple strategies against a single enemy.

What they should do though is give people the flexibility to make “classes”. Whether this be through armor or upgrades (weapon, spirits, sheikah abilities) or both. Like if I want Link to be a “wizard” with strong spirit & sheikah abilities then have at it. Maybe be a chef who as access to more advanced or better effects off food. Regardless this would expand the rewards in dungeons. Perhaps more unique named weapons as well.
 
I’m actually curious about this too. I’m playing through Dark Souls 3 now and I’m basically using the standard sword and shield. Tried the cool bigass sword which slows me down, messes up my timing so I die. FP is too limited to go all in on magic. I found a cool looking spear but it does less damage than my sword.

So I just stick with the sword.
Yeah, it's why I think doing a bit of research about the game's systems is recommended before jumping into games like Souls or SMT. Sometimes you realize you would really like to use that lance, but the inertia of your earlier decisions just pulls you away from it.

And I'd be surprised if 'I just stick with X' isn't, at least for the more casual Souls players like me, a thing that you carry across multiple games. Generally, I've always sticked to the same strategy of kiting + the biggest sword with the widest arc, and it's worked like a charm every time.

I don’t think bringing up FF15’s combat as easy as the reason why most people didn’t engage with its combat system is a good example. This is because most everything about the combat in FF15 was cheeks. About the only good thing was warp strike, summon animations, & the occasional sync kill.
Yup. FFXV's combat is legitimately broken/tedious (magic), and even then I don't see how you could go for completion in that game without exploiting magic heavily.
 
Just looking at ff15 and how easy it was, I never used magic because 90% of the time it was faster to just use warp strike, there were hardly any enemies I felt like I had to use magic. It was just a waste of time to use it

If the game was harder I might have been like I need to try more tools to try to take this enemy down because warp strike alone isn’t cutting it

I only use what have to win
Except FF in general are incredibly easy and half of the fun is to experiment. Like take FF5, you can break that game in 20 different ways and there is even a chairty event where you're assigned random jobs just because many jobs can be broken. There doesn't have to be a reward for stuff. And no, making a reward isn't what everyone wants nor is it a good incentive for every player.

FF15 in general has a busted combat system though.
 
BotW’s difficulty was perfect for me, especially Master Mode. I died so many times on my first play through of each mode because I was constantly trying weird/experimental/stupid ways of approaching situations. Watching that replay on the map screen and seeing just how many times I died was quite a hilarious eye-opener.
 
Funnily enough, Elden Ring borrowed a shit ton of original design from Breath of the Wild - one of the greatest games ever made. It’s all the better for it as well.

Absolutely, and the fact that so few games are able to borrow from botw and make it into something great is a testimony to Zelda's genius.
Constructive inspiration is a good thing.
 
Except FF in general are incredibly easy and half of the fun is to experiment. Like take FF5, you can break that game in 20 different ways and there is even a chairty event where you're assigned random jobs just because many jobs can be broken. There doesn't have to be a reward for stuff. And no, making a reward isn't what everyone wants nor is it a good incentive for every player.

FF15 in general has a busted combat system though.
I died a few times in other FFs I died 0 times in ff15
 
I died a few times in other FFs I died 0 times in ff15
I've played every FF there is and I'd argue it's easier to get a game over in 15 than in many of the older titles just because you could feasibly run into a higher level enemy in 15 and die. They're all pretty easy games honestly, with some famous difficulty spikes existing but they're famous because they're so far from the norm in the first place.
 
For those who have played Elden Ring: what are some examples of enemies that incentivize a different combat strategy than usual? I'm trying to think of examples from other Souls games, but there aren't that many that come to mind. The mimics and the brainsuckers in Bloodborne, maybe?
As far as basic enemies go, crystallians are a good example. They have very simple attack patterns, but an extreme amount of poise and are heavily resistant to a lot of magic and physical damage. If you manage to stagger them, their armor breaks and you can now flinch them while dealing a million damage. Those encounters make you focus on keeping up stagger build up, rather than damage. They are also vulnerable to blunt damage as well. So that leaves you with 2 options as a melee user, one that involves changing up gameplay patterns and another equipment.

There are boss fights that encourage you to do different things too, like Radahn being a fight about risk management or the Big M healing on hit. The key thing is they rarely reward players just swapping around inventory, but they are more about just understanding the combat system. Sometimes understanding your build helps you make different decisions though. Crucible Knights are a good example. If you have heavy weapons, you should be jump attacking over their sweeps for big damage and stagger, since rolling is less rewarding. Jumping requires more stamina and better timing though, so you have to be okay with the risk/reward payout. On the flip side, builds with other options like weapon skills that blow through it, faster weapons that can combo better off rolls, ranged abilities etc. can approach it differently. It helps that there are large disparities with risk/reward on a lot of options, so you're forced to be making that decision at a decent pace.

Fromsoft combat mostly still relies on subtlety though, where the player has few simple options but using them correctly is more rewarding. Stuff like rolling in specific directions, knowing when to drop shield, how flinch/stagger work, how recovery works, etc are all weighed enough to be important. There's a very consistent risk/reward too, which pushes players to actually try and learn about these things. It's nothing mindblowing, it really is action games 101, but a lot of action games mess this up (botw included) so people really praise it.

That's also kind of where the conversation goes off the rails from the OP. This has very little to do with difficulty, but because difficulty is a knockon effect and FromSoft make "hard" games people get that shit conflated. Having well balanced combat with very consistent risk/reward and enemies that force you to engage with it inherently brings some kind of difficulty, but that can be offset by making punishment less brutal than how FromSoft goes about it. I'd wager that's what most people who say they want a "harder" BotW want.
 
Yeah, it's why I think doing a bit of research about the game's systems is recommended before jumping into games like Souls or SMT. Sometimes you realize you would really like to use that lance, but the inertia of your earlier decisions just pulls you away from it.

And I'd be surprised if 'I just stick with X' isn't, at least for the more casual Souls players like me, a thing that you carry across multiple games. Generally, I've always sticked to the same strategy of kiting + the biggest sword with the widest arc, and it's worked like a charm every time.


Yup. FFXV's combat is legitimately broken/tedious (magic), and even then I don't see how you could go for completion in that game without exploiting magic heavily.
Outside of just being broken and using what you posted here; most people, ie general audiences, probably were fine with pot spamming, letting the auto attack do it’s thing, & every so often pushing a button on a skill cooldown.
 
And the player should not be rewarded for overcoming a harder challenge?
As someone who recently beat the Super Gore Nest Master Level in Doom Eternal on Ultra Nightmare, and was rewarded with the golden combat shotgun skin:

No, that stuff shouldn't be locked behind higher difficulties

The reward for beating games on higher difficulties is the pleasure of beating games on higher difficulties. Learning encounters, how your abilities work together, the different ways your weapons affect different enemies... it's a rush. It's deeply satisfying. The skins, though? Those should be available to everyone, even if they're as ugly as a golden combat shotgun
 
As someone who recently beat the Super Gore Nest Master Level in Doom Eternal on Ultra Nightmare, and was rewarded with the golden combat shotgun skin:

No, that stuff shouldn't be locked behind higher difficulties

The reward for beating games on higher difficulties is the pleasure of beating games on higher difficulties. Learning encounters, how your abilities work together, the different ways your weapons affect different enemies... it's a rush. It's deeply satisfying. The skins, though? Those should be available to everyone, even if they're as ugly as a golden combat shotgun

High difficulty rewards should be at most a little golden shit in your inventory.
 
I'm fine with the difficulty level being the same as BOTW- not every game requires the difficulty of a Souls game.

It doesn't need to be hard but it'd be nice that the most viable strategy wouldn't be just pressing a until the health bar is depleted without any tactic or strategy. No other Zelda worked like this.
 
I want to point out that OP isn't asking anything crazy, because there are tons of strawmen answers here; the title says "just a little more challenging", and more useful items throughout the world. Those are fair points I believe, especially the latter. No one is asking to turn BOTW into a FromSoft game either.
 
It doesn't need to be hard but it'd be nice that the most viable strategy wouldn't be just pressing a until the health bar is depleted without any tactic or strategy. No other Zelda worked like this.
I don't think this is the most viable strategy against any enemy type in the game excepting lone, shieldless moblins/bokoblins, keese, and non-elemental chuchus

The best and most useful strategies against different enemies in Breath of the Wild were already quite varied (spears being much better against lizalfos because the strikes come out faster and reach far instantly; hinoxes, lynels, and taluses needing entirely different skillsets; two-handed weapons being the shortcut to damage against shielded enemies; crowds of enemies having elemental or physical solutions; etc) and that was already a pain point for many players

BOTW is already a very hard game for the average player. There are many people, even long-time players, for whom it didn't get easier as it went along, and each of the bosses was an overwhelming obstacle. Ganon's second stage requiring you to get a parry or a flurry rush meant that a significant number of people ended up relying on Urbosa's Fury to stun him and actually get damage in, because the timing for opening him up otherwise was simply beyond their ability to react

I would like to argue that BOTW doesn't need to be harder; if anything, it needs to be more breakable. When you see someone take a boudler and use it to bash a lynel to smithereens? That's the stuff. People should be able to cheat in almost any fight, if they want to
 
I want to point out that OP isn't asking anything crazy, because there are tons of strawmen answers here; the title says "just a little more challenging", and more useful items throughout the world. Those are fair points I believe, especially the latter. No one is asking to turn BOTW into a FromSoft game either.
If you read the OP's follow up responses, they sorta do. That or they want it to be like the NES/SNES Zelda games because they haven't liked a Zelda in over 30 years, which kinda makes me question why even care about what's even done with an IP that is so clearly never gonna appeal to them again. Also some odd ones too like having things locked behind a higher difficulty
 
Last edited:
But was it fun to use magic?

FFXV magic was amazing when it completely changed the environment around you, it just felt awful to use - so I ended up dumping it on Ignis to use infrequently. Making the stuff was a bore too.

I did enjoy the rest of it though.
 
0
As someone who recently beat the Super Gore Nest Master Level in Doom Eternal on Ultra Nightmare, and was rewarded with the golden combat shotgun skin:

No, that stuff shouldn't be locked behind higher difficulties

The reward for beating games on higher difficulties is the pleasure of beating games on higher difficulties. Learning encounters, how your abilities work together, the different ways your weapons affect different enemies... it's a rush. It's deeply satisfying. The skins, though? Those should be available to everyone, even if they're as ugly as a golden combat shotgun
I don't generally agree with locking content behind clearing high difficulty content, but by "content", I mean things like entire levels, unique weapons, or something involving a new gameplay mechanic.

You don't believe even an entirely cosmetic skin should be locked behind a high achievement, if the devs will it so? I think it's a pretty solid compromise: yes, there's something only obtainable for clearing difficult content, but it's nothing essential, just a skin. At that point, the only players disappointed by that are the completionists that feel compelled to earn absolutely everything, I reckon.
 
I don't generally agree with locking content behind clearing high difficulty content, but by "content", I mean things like entire levels, unique weapons, or something involving a new gameplay mechanic.

You don't believe even an entirely cosmetic skin should be locked behind a high achievement, if the devs will it so? I think it's a pretty solid compromise: yes, there's something only obtainable for clearing difficult content, but it's nothing essential, just a skin. At that point, the only players disappointed by that are the completionists that feel compelled to earn absolutely everything, I reckon.
You know what, I guess that's fair enough, theoretically

I still think something like the Doom 64 Marine master pack, for instance, should be available to everyone (which it was). I'm all right with smaller, dinkier cosmetics being locked behind difficulty, in theory

But the things the OP suggested, like whole new equipment or a new form for a boss or whatever... to those ones I say a very firm "nah"
 
I wish that BOTW2 would take a page from the FromSoft playbook by locking stuff behind a higher involvement of the player, rather than higher difficulties. Having lots of optional areas, bosses, dungeons and so on, possibly involving the use of some of the great gameplay mechanics from BOTW, would greatly improve the experience and the impression of a coherent world beyond the main story. Hollow Knight did that very well too.
The Forgotten Temple felt a bit like a missed opportunity in that regard.
 
... higher involvement of the player, rather than higher difficulties.
I was just going to post something quite similar. I think BOTW had a decent level of 'reaction-time' difficulty, which occurs when fighting enemies, for instance. What I want to see in the sequel is more mental challenge. I've thought of three areas this could be applied:

1. Navigating from one location to another. Needing to plan a route and what supplies you'll need to get there. Do you have enough stamina, is the slope too steep, what is the weather like?

2. Environmental storytelling. I really liked how the Guardians were strewn about near the Duelling Peaks stable and how there were a lot near the big gate leading to Hateno. It takes a certain mental effort to consider how that relates to what happened in the past. I'd like to see more explicit world building like that.

3. Solutions to puzzles. In BOTW there was often an obvious and simple solution to the puzzle, then there was a slightly more creative one which was more rewarding, but then there were many more you might be able to pull off which the only reward was your own satisfaction. I think the balance needs to be rethought with these situations. Too many of them were too easy and the real creativity was unrewarding, not to mention it felt like cheating.
 
Is there a concentrated effort to make Elden Ring the most overrated game in history? Because everyone that feels compelled to only relate to comparable games based off of it is doing a great job at it. It's not that good.
 
Is there a concentrated effort to make Elden Ring the most overrated game in history? Because everyone that feels compelled to only relate to comparable games based off of it is doing a great job at it. It's not that good.
It's only been a month, and we're still very much in that post-launch window where hype and buzz are ubiquitous, so I think it'd make sense to wait juuust a little while longer before we say it seems like it may become the most overrated game in history.
 
0
The only way I would want BotW2 to be “harder” is making it so where the player is encouraged to use the amazing physics systems more.

That’s kinda already what master mode does. Enemies are way stronger, so I found myself not wanting to try melee combat, but use the environment around me to get a leg up.

I don’t really care if the actual combat itself is more difficult, but maybe limiting melee combat resources in a way that would make utilizing the vast underlying systems of BotW more encouraged, if that makes sense. Like what the starting area and Eventide did.
 
The only way I would want BotW2 to be “harder” is making it so where the player is encouraged to use the amazing physics systems more.

That’s kinda already what master mode does. Enemies are way stronger, so I found myself not wanting to try melee combat, but use the environment around me to get a leg up.

I don’t really care if the actual combat itself is more difficult, but maybe limiting melee combat resources in a way that would make utilizing the vast underlying systems of BotW more encouraged, if that makes sense. Like what the starting area and Eventide did.
Eventide was my favorite part of the game. It encouraged you to use absolutely everything to survive. Even finding bananas growing on some tree made me feel a sense of relief. Took me several tries before I finally beat it, and it felt great, once I did.
 
Eventide was my favorite part of the game. It encouraged you to use absolutely everything to survive. Even finding bananas growing on some tree made me feel a sense of relief. Took me several tries before I finally beat it, and it felt great, once I did.
I liked that too, I just wish I got something more special for completing it
 
0


Part the Third



I recognize that my posts on this topic have, to this point, largely taken a wide view; while this might serve to lay a foundation, it seems pertinent to more tightly fasten these previous points to the more specific topic at hand: The Sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

That Which Came Before

A large element of these posts has been the general framing of difficulty and the hidden need behind that: engagement. Difficulty is often used as shorthand for engagement.

Though there is often an association, making something difficult doesn't inherently increase the level of engagement, nor does decreased difficulty necessarily provide less.

it is also good to consider that different people will find different things difficult, and at differing levels.

Even if difficulty is increased, that demands a thoughtful exploration as to the reasons and methods employed. It's not so simple as "make it more difficult."

With these points in mind, possibilities for this particular game might be explored.

The Methodical Dance

From Software's games, particularly those under the Souls umbrella, are often used as examples of what Zelda could be like, and a common takeaway is that it could be difficult, hard, grueling, but, as suggested previously, the difficulty level likely isn't the point, even for those who think it is. More likely, the core draw comes from the combat mechanics themselves, specifically the way in which they provide and demand engagement to and from the player.

Again, this engagement comes in the involvement required of the player, using one's given abilities to their best potential in a given scenario, making decisions in a give-and-take, risk-and-reward situation, a methodical dance.

To some, such a combat system represents what an evolution of Zelda's own could have become. After all, 3D Zelda has historically provided these elements to varying degrees, but not to the same extent. Regardless, the tools exist -- different sword movements, blocks, dodges, and so forth -- but remain unrefined by these standards.

In this way, it doesn't seem unreasonable to make the connection, considering the potential growth of combat following what the series has already displayed. It seems a refinement of this system, the give-and-take, the risk-and-reward, the unchoreographed yet methodical dance, would provide the increase in engagement while still harking to the series' history.

But combat isn't strictly what Breath of the Wild is known for; rather, all the various interconnecting systems set this game apart. With that aspect expanded and an interplay between it and the combat, a dance once methodical can now become a dance chaotic. And a refinement of the general combat system, in accordance with the basic concepts outlined previously, should provide more flexibility and opportunity for integrating the myriad systems into an unpredictable dance.

The Chaotic Dance

These systems, after all, are made for experimentation. Playing around with all these features, trying new ideas, running mad experiments, should be encouraged. This is to the game's benefit.

To facilitate such, the world should provide playgrounds, numerous and sundry permutations of low-risk environments in which to test the most ludicrous of ideas.

Note that the provision of such testing laboratories throughout the world does not preclude the existence of areas which carry higher risk. Rather, they allow one to goof off but also to discover and train on possible tactics for these less laid-back areas and encounters.

This allows the unadulterated joy of playing around with all the tools at one's disposal, allowing this experience for its own sake, but also allows a further purpose, that of testing, with the idea that there are higher-risk areas where being to seamlessly combine use of the different systems to create various effects would be most helpful.

After all, a living world is unlikely to be static in difficulty, and these less laid back encounters provide a different experience in engagement. Of course, difficulty progression and pockets of increased difficulty runs the risk of individuals being unable to complete the content; however, this chaotic dance, the interplay of combat and physics and magic and items and all the other systems, can allow some alleviation of this.

Consider, if you will, the setup of an encounter -- whether combat or otherwise -- in a pen and paper tabletop RPG. The encounter is constructed with a number of variables, potential abilities and tactics, in mind, and meant to reside at a particular level of difficulty. However, the player has the ability to discover a path through the encounter which is not intended, which could even break the encounter. Even something intended to be a challenge can theoretically be trivialized, even if that ability is not intended.

This is the chaotic dance, the unpredictable give-and-take, risk-and-reward as different systems interweave and create endless possibilities.

About Difficulty

Having covered some about engagement and how that might come into play, now seems a reasonable time to wrap back around to difficulty.

Different people will experience difficulty in disparate ways and will have varying preferences on the matter; hence, one cannot always please every person, which leads to arguments in circles when based entirely on preference.

However, as noted previously, the idea of the chaotic dance can open up possibilities for individuals to get around even encounters designed to be difficult. And, given individuals finding different things easier or harder, opening multiple planned avenues for success makes it likely someone will find one of those easier than the others.

That said, it cannot be guaranteed someone out there won't find an encounter or puzzle prohibitively challenging -- consider the disparate opinions on Breath of the Wild itself, from easy to hard and everything in between.

I find a planned difficulty progression overall to be beneficial (and consider the myriad systems providing unending opportunities to break encounters), with numerous playgrounds of low-risk environments strewn throughout, but also some areas -- likely clearly indicated through environmental cues -- more challenging.

The key, however, remains levels of engagement. Without that, it makes little difference whether something is easy or hard; it would drag on in monotony either way.
 
Eventide was my favorite part of the game. It encouraged you to use absolutely everything to survive. Even finding bananas growing on some tree made me feel a sense of relief. Took me several tries before I finally beat it, and it felt great, once I did.

I don't think you'll get much of an argument that Eventide is among the best experiences in the game. I actually think the Trial of the Sword captured a little bit of this feeling - but it was just a tad too unforgiving in it's checkpointing for my tastes.

The push-back around difficulty in this thread is probably because it's based on comparisons to Elden Ring - I don't want Breath of the Wild 2 to touch that game's approach to difficulty (or 'engagement') with a ten foot pole.

Creating moments that really challenge the player to think about their entire arsenal, and not necessarily in an extremely time sensitive way, is all I really want Zelda to do. I don't actually think they really failed on this ask in BotW
 
BotW was already more challenging than other Zeldas when it came to combat, but i don't need Souls like difficulty to enjoy my Zeldas.
 
I'll echo others and say that BotW was plenty difficult compared to other Zeldas.

However a hard mode would be welcomed - and not the awful hard mode from BotW's DLC. That thing was almost insulting how poorly thought out it was. It just boosted health to ridiculous levels, and introduced a self-healing to enemies that ran totally contrary to the rag doll physics that most of them were subject to, as well as contrary to the weapon degradation system. Nothing worse than smacking an enemy with a broken weapon, sending him flying, only for him to have recovered his health by the time you reach him, and now you waste another weapon, maybe until you run out. It didn't encourage experimentation so much as it discouraged any fighting at all.

Hard mode - you should take more damage but give more damage, AND enemies should attack more frequently AND counter windows should be slightly shorter. That makes the game more difficult in a far more meaningful way.
 
Have you fought Gannon without clearing the beasts? Might be what you're looking for.
What's the point of that tho... when the only way your final boss is hard is by skipping through the whole story. C'mon now.
Sure you can do it on second playthrough, but like any boss should be hard that way.
I think they just need to work on the healing process and ad a time limit to when you are going to be able to eat next or simply by making it realtime eating without pausing the game.
 
What's the point of that tho... when the only way your final boss is hard is by skipping through the whole story. C'mon now.
Sure you can do it on second playthrough, but like any boss should be hard that way.
I think they just need to work on the healing process and ad a time limit to when you are going to be able to eat next or simply by making it realtime eating without pausing the game.
What story? They tell you everything you need to know by the end of the tutorial and your one quest is defeating Ganon. And you can still go and find the memories without killing the bosses. It's a valid way to play the game. The game has a ton of ways to relegate the difficulty, I feel complaining about something like how fast you can heal is like complaining about the incredibility leaf in the Mario game, just don't use it. Personally, I don't upgrade my stamina or hearts and don't heal mid fight and that's more than enough, but I guess some people want more of a challenge.
 
Last edited:
.
I don't think you'll get much of an argument that Eventide is among the best experiences in the game.
Eventide is a name consistently sung in praise. It seems more along the same concept, and variations thereof, would be generally welcomed.

The push-back around difficulty in this thread is probably because it's based on comparisons to Elden Ring - I don't want Breath of the Wild 2 to touch that game's approach to difficulty (or 'engagement') with a ten foot pole.
Some of the pushback probably is specifically related to that, given From's recent output has been touted most everywhere as "hard, grueling game for the truly devoted gamer: get good!" Though I'm not sure that's the case for all pushback.

By "approach to difficulty," do you just mean the "Get Good" element, or is there something more specific?

... is "engagement" in scare quotes?


What story? They tell you everything you need to know by the end of the tutorial and your one quest is defeating Ganon. And you can still go and find the memories without killing the bosses. It's a valid way to play the game. The game has a ton of ways to relegate the difficulty, I feel complaining about something like how fast you can heal is like complaining about the incredibility leaf in the Mario game, just don't use it. Personally, I don't upgrade my stamina or hearts and don't heal mid fight and that's more than enough, but I guess some people want more of a challenge.
There's definitely more to story than introductory exposition and an end goal. Glom even wrote up a thread attempting to delve into this idea of Breath of the Wild's story and mount a defense for it (Granted, it was supposed to grow beyond that, but its initial defense was lost on people). Though, yes, one of the major elements touted for the game is the lack of necessity for doing most anything. Going straight to Ganon was, indeed, specifically called out as something you can do.

It is a valid way to play the game.

Specifically not beating the other bosses in favor of the final boss being a challenge might not be the most preferred of valid ways for someone who's concerned about boss difficulty in the first place.

I suspect that is, in part, an element of the pushhback here.
 
My favorite part of BotW by far was hunting for monster medals. That part of the game was a 10/10 for me. I want those fights specifically to be more challenging. When you confront a Hinox, you should feel it.

My dream BotW sequel is basically Shadow of the Colossus on an expanded Hyrule map where you have to hunt down all the Hinoxes, Modules, and Taluses, charting their locations on your map. Give me showy fights against giant, hard-hitting opponents that you have to break down with deft stick work, please.
 
0


Back
Top Bottom