I finished playing Breath of the Wild [Spoilers!]

After approximately 8 months and 400 hours of gameplay, I finally finished Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

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Now, I've mentioned before that BotW was the first Legend of Zelda game that I've ever played at length, and with that, it was the first of the franchise that I've finished. When I started playing the game, I didn't think I'd finish it. I felt that the tasks were too big and that there were too much to do, and I didn't have the skills to defeat Ganon. Plus I'm used to a very linear JRPG style of game where you can't progress until you finish a certain part, and I disliked LoZ's battle system.

But I just kept playing, though. There were days when I'd log in and just roam around Hyrule. I put off fighting the Divine Beasts because I thought I couldn't. Then there were days when I think, "Ok, let's fight (insert enemy name here)." Which was how I managed to get through the Divine Beasts.

Sometimes I go play this game and just enjoy the views, y'know?

Beating the Blight Ganons

My train of thought with the order of how I fight the Divine Beasts were based on the information that each Blight's HP goes up. The first will have the lowest at 800, and the next will increase until the last will have 2000 HP. I figure I'd start with the Beast whose power will be the most useful for me, and the fair easiest, so I went with Vah Medoh/Windblight Ganon.

My next one was Thunderblight/Vah Naboris, and my logic was its HP will only be around 1000, and Urbosa's Fury will be useful! I didn't have any strategy, because I suck at parrying and I couldn't remember how to avoid attacks to activate Flurry Rush once in battle. I just went straight to Thunderblight Ganon, hit it until the shield broke and hit him again until we moved to stage 2. From there, I stepped out of the battle arena (there's a small doorway heading out) and waited there for a good five minutes just to calm myself down. Eventually managed to wear it down and got a lucky parry in and defeated it.

I was actually more annoyed with Waterblight Ganon, because of the second stage where the water rises and swimming was a little difficult. Eventually got lucky with a parry (do the Guardian shields automatically parry lasers?) and used Urbosa's Fury to finish it off. Fireblight Ganon was my last, and that was fairly easy.

Around this time as well I had switched my game's voice language to Japanese, just for the heck of it.

Completing the Shrines

Throughout the game, I also thought I won't complete the Shrines. I disliked the Major Tests of Strength ones, because again, I wasn't too confident in my battle skills. There was a hack that I saw where you can set up an electric field with a Thunderblade and metal weapons and trap the Guardian there, but it took a long time for the stronger Guardians. Eventually, I figured I can don the max upgraded Ancient Armor and hack away using Ancient Weapons. I actually finished all the Major Test Shrines within an hour.

All the Memories

It took me a while to get the memories too, because yeah, I was scared to approach Hyrule Castle. But by that time I had learned how to use Ancient Arrows to one-hit decimate a Guardian, and I had been going around Hyrule getting them for the parts so I can get Ancient Weapons. When I managed to get to the last memory in front of the Castle, I went to the memory in Blatchery Plain, and that was it.

Final Battle

After several weeks, I decided to take the jump and just go for Ganon. I had spent so much time putting it off and got additional 200 Koroks with my exploration. And with Drew lending me his Tears of the Kingdom, I figure it was about time I finish the game. 

I also tried to fight a Lynel, specifically the one in Ploymus Mountain, just before battling Ganon, just to say that I defeated one. I am still scared of them.

Like with my Blight battles, I had no real strategy. At the most, I planned to use Ancient Arrows, the Ancient Shield to block the lasers, and Urbosa's Fury. For some reason I was pretty clumsy and couldn't find my footing while fighting Calamity Ganon. I also didn't have the Ancient Shield equipped until I tried trying to parry. I don't really know how I managed to defeat Ganon, but definitely the arrows and Revali's Gale were helpful.

The Dark Beast battle was actually a lot more frustrating. Not because it was difficult, but because I got a really bad horse. Somehow, I got one that was temperamental, had only two spurs and had a tendency to run away from the battle. I had trouble controlling it so when I was down to my last two spots to hit on Ganon, I ditched the horse and ran around on foot. A Revali's Gale lifted me up for my final attack, and the game was done.

Goodbye to this Hyrule?

I had no expectations about the ending of the game after watching the cut scenes. It did frustrate me that I ended up back at the entrance of the Sanctum, and the only indication that I've defeated Ganon was the star next to my save. No change in NPC dialogue to acknowledge that Link rescued Zelda and Ganon was gone. Not even from Impa. 

Some Redditors say that was standard of all Zelda games, which was disappointing considering how different BotW was from the previous games, you would've expected the developers to do something different at the end too.

Still, I enjoyed this game more than I thought I would when I first started it. It's why I don't want to leave it yet, and I had gone back into the game for a few more Koroks and trying to get Kilton's Medals (I got the Molduga one, but I don't think I'll try the others). My completion rate was 77.35% (ish).

On to Tears of the Kingdom

I said to myself that I'll start Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in December. It's that now, but somehow I can't bring myself to do it yet. The ambitious side of me wants to try and stream it but I don't have a setup that will let me, so I'll just play for myself lol. But I am excited! Unlike BotW where I gorged on tutorials and videos before playing and during play, I am embarking on TotK somewhat blind. Sure I've seen the trailer, I've seen a lot of the cutscenes, and I know about the three maps but I don't know much about the gameplay and the tasks I need to do. Am I tempted to take a peek? Yes. Am I going to? I will try hard not to.

Let's go.