Xeogred wrote:Looks like I'm at about 80 hours, phew... 70 is my normal threshold. About how long would you guys say Hyrule Castle and Ganon takes? I've explored some of the outside area while finding the one memory there.
Hyrule Castle is basically optional. There's obviously plenty to explore for lore, loot, and challenge...but you can also use the Zora armor to zip up the waterfalls to get to Ganon in a minute or two without fighting anything. Assuming you're decently geared, the fight itself should be trivial - there is a second form/fight, but I suspect you have to really try to fail it.
You can probably roll credits in about 10-15 minutes from turning the system on, if that. After that, the game will put a star on your last save to indicate that you beat the game, but you can just glide back out of the castle and continue with finding everything if you feel like it.
That's perfect. I think I want to "beat it" so I can close it off in my mind, but I still want to keep playing for a bit. I just don't want to feel bad if I decide to finally walk away from it. And yeah from what I explored in Hyrule Castle on the outside it was awesome and seems like there's a lot to it in the inside.
I'm definitely excited to check out some speedruns when I'm done, haha. It's really cool how the whole game was formatted to let you do anything the way you want.
I have 25 hearts and just maxed out my Hylian vanilla outfit for 60 defense, so something tells me the final fight will be pretty easy. I'm fine with that though and there will continue to be some fun battles with Lynel's and other monsters.
Finally hitting my exhaustive point aside, while I was playing this entire game I was constantly thinking of how excited I will be to replay it. I don't think I have EVER felt that while playing any other open world game ever, the idea of replaying most of them never crosses me mind at all (I love replaying games, but this genre not so much). Just more of a testament to how amazing this game was and how different the experience will be another time around.
Xeogred wrote:I'm definitely excited to check out some speedruns when I'm done, haha. It's really cool how the whole game was formatted to let you do anything the way you want.
There's three main categories right now. Any%, all dungeons, and all main quests. Any% is looking to break 42 minutes any day now. All dungeons is under 2:30, and all main quests is currently sitting at 4:23 and is likely very unoptimized (big piece of the routing is figuring out what shrines to hit to get the 13 hearts you need). Some of the main tech in any% is using Stasis to launch yourself very far (Stasis, smack it several times, get on, and fly). I'm guessing the time will probably settle around 40ish unless they can find a way to skip some or all of the Great Plateau, which makes up over half the run.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
Xeogred wrote:Finally hitting my exhaustive point aside, while I was playing this entire game I was constantly thinking of how excited I will be to replay it. I don't think I have EVER felt that while playing any other open world game ever, the idea of replaying most of them never crosses me mind at all (I love replaying games, but this genre not so much). Just more of a testament to how amazing this game was and how different the experience will be another time around.
That's where I am. I'm backing off it for awhile as there are other things Switch and not I'd like to dabble with, but finished with it? Nah. Truth be told, it's a decision I guess in the end. Keep the file and keep exploring or perhaps feed that craving and wipe the sucker because I was thinking the same. I don't care for open world, but this one makes me want to return to it and likely replay it too. Maybe I need more self control, stop finding local games and crap which backlog and just do it. Finding that Wii late last month is a boon and a curse as now it's a time sink.
Still muscling through this one. I just finished up the Hebra mountains area. It was a bit of a nightmare with me guzzling down spicy elixirs and food like no tomorrow to stay warm.
I then made it to the Tabantha region and found the Rito village where they sell warm clothing. Well, fuck.
Tabantha is nice and small, so I should clear up this area quickly, especially as I already did 2 shrines, and have the location of 2 more marked out. I'm gonna do the Divine Beast first through, then go find all the shrines and see what sidequests become available in Rito village.
I'm now at maximum stamina and 13 hearts. I've finished 76 shrines and found enough Korok seeds to max out my weapon inventory, though I still have room for a bunch more bows and shields yet. I might focus on maxing out my shields next so I can go shield surfing more frequently - it's super fun, but it just destroys shields too fast for me to use it as much as I'd like.
Haha, after the Goron village selling fire proof armor, I had a hunch there was something for the colder regions. So I explored Hebra a little bit but then went out to find Rito village before I went back to fully explore more.
Wish I had that luck, nothing but trouble when I played it and I was guzzling warm foods to do that central north tower since the coldness went to a flatline on the C even my partial warm weather gear wouldn't get by on. Had I gone to the goron earlier instead of 3rd (Zora was 4th) things would have been smoother. But that's the thing with a game like this, you just work the problem or walk away, and I wouldn't walk away.
I'm curious what it would be like to just overwrite the save and start over at this rate. Sure it would be a hellish loss of hours, but you'd go in not feeling totally screwed by the drastic different way the world works and the combat mechanics too.
Well, assuming you restarted with all the knowledge you have you'd still be facing 15h+ if you still want to do all the shrines, far more if you want to snag a bunch of Korok seeds, plus another couple hours for the divine beasts. And that's only if you have an optimized route in mind.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
