It’s finally time for me to beat Ganon in Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Like a lot of people I know, I’ve never really finished The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, At least, I’ve never defeated Calamity Gone, the game’s actual final boss. My friends who have defeated the villains are often the same friends who have finished the game: they’ve solved all 120 temples, outfitted themselves with the best gear, and found all 900 Godforsaken Korok seeds. For some, these are the two ideal states to be in a relationship with. breath of the wild: Perfectly charted and familiar, or forever full of mystery.

In 2023, the Zeldathon is starting. Join us on our journey through The Legend of Zelda series, from the original 1986 game to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and beyond.

I breath of the wild Incomplete on purpose. Enamored by the game’s spare yet rewarding approach to the open-world genre, I decided I’d treat its painterly landscapes not as a canvas for a campaign of rapid conquest, but rather a leisurely one to appreciate. The ruins of Hyrule would be a place of contemplation, something to return to when the days grew dreary and I needed that spark of discovery. As I understand it, it’s a common sense – breath of the wild is an extraordinary video game that once started very few people want to finish.

But now that the sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, It’s inward, it’s finally time to pacify this special feeling. During the last week, I’ve come back breath of the wild With the goal of finally seeing its story through to the end, and confronting Calamity Ganon. But first, I have some unfinished business. After five long years, I am going to bring an end to this lovely journey, in a few simple steps.

Step 1: Divine Feast

Completing my last Divine Beast was a fairly easy task. Unlike some head-scratching stand-alone puzzles breath of the wildMany of the Temple of the Dead, the four “traditional” dungeons that must be solved in the game’s main questline, are relatively simple, and Vah Medoh is perhaps the simplest. Took me an hour. I am very intelligent.

With the fourth and final animal out of Ganon’s control, I was able to take on the final challenge of the game – technically something that can be tackled almost immediately upon starting breath of the wild, but at the cost of missing out on some of the game’s larger story. And speaking of story beats…

Turns out I still need to find six more of Link’s lost memories, hidden cutscenes that give you more precious insight breath of the wildthe story of. and i couldn’t probably: finish the game without doing He,

Step 2: Photo Recall

good point about searching in favor of lost memories breath of the wild is that it’s basically a series of Google Maps puzzles. To find each memory, you receive a photo of a landmark taken from a certain perspective, and use a combination of map-reading skills, gathering information, and a working knowledge of Hyrule’s climate to estimate the memory’s location. uses. It’s the kind of puzzle that makes you feel like a genius when you solve it, even though the bulk of the work is done by the immaculate design logic of the world.

Other The cool thing about this side quest is that it focuses the player’s gaze entirely on the world around them, which is like any player breath of the wild knows, this means they’re guaranteed to find incredible shit they weren’t looking for in the first place.

Image: Nintendo

For example: One of Link’s memories is located in a place called the Sanidin Park Ruins, the remains of a once beautiful fountain adorned with a statue of one of the horses roaming the grounds nearby. As Amnesia regains her memory associated with the park, she returns to have a conversation with Princess Zelda about her pending journey to Mount Lanayru at the opposite end of the map, to pray into the Wisdom of the Spring. For.

There’s no real reason to visit Mount Lanairu other than sheer curiosity. Most players will travel to the nearby Hateno Village and discover a hostile, frozen peak without being seen. But Zelda said there was a spring, and I believed her. So I climbed in – and sure enough, the spring was there. what zelda was not was mentioned that it was also protected by a Big Corrupted Dragon.

The dragon is one of the first big surprises a player will encounter breath of the wild, They are majestic, almost obedient creatures that light up the sky and take no interest in fighting. this is one huge, and altruistic, once you take care of the corruption infecting him. it’s kind of a mystery breath of the wild Delivers better than any other video game: a majestic view that leads to a challenge that’s more awe-inspiring than difficult – the reward of going somewhere just because you’ve never been there before.

Image: Nintendo

every miracle hidden in breath of the wild Draped against the more spacious, clear ones. These double as signposts as to where the player must go to complete the game’s main story: perhaps one of the Divine Beasts, or, Hyrule Castle, where Calamity Ganon lurks. Every turn, like this great looking dragon, is against your ostentatious goals. But it’s never a problem. I helped this dragon, and now I will face Ganon. in good time.

Step 3: Gear Up

people talk breath of the wild almost exclusively in exaggeration. Most, if not all, of these words are well deserved. This game is exceptional in almost everything.

It’s also, in many ways, a regular-ass video game with weapons and armor with numbers attached to them. The higher the number, the better the gear. And if you want better gear? Find out some tricks that can be used to increase those numbers.

Image: Nintendo

what sets breath of the wild Beyond that is that it doesn’t explicitly tell you how to do these very mundane things. However, it makes exploring these processes exciting as hell.

again: people have found out about it breath of the wild For six years now. I’m just telling you that unfortunately for me it’s still true. Because I’m trying to fight Ganon, you know? And I want to make sure I have some good threads and some good weapons so that I can slay it while still looking fresh. And finding all that stuff – well, that’s another adventure.

Which brought me to a place that I had forgotten.

Stage 4: Tarry in Tarry Town

Image: Nintendo

breath of the wild There are many advantages to being a silent hero. The characters hit on Link, give him a nice nudge, and coax him into all kinds of weird tasks (like collecting crickets for a crush) and Link will do little more in response, the implication being: Absolutely i will help,

As such, on your way to doing literally anything else, including finishing the game, you might accidentally find yourself finding a city. I, in a previous playthrough, met a man named Hudson who wanted to start a new town he planned to dub Taree Town, which led to requests for him to bring in massive amounts of resources to build the town. Couldn’t find a longer chain, but at the same time guys help fix that.

Compatible with many other wonderfully absorbent breath of the wild activities, these requests required me to rethink the world I’d been exploring for dozens of hours: to find a Gerudo woman who was good at sewing, a Goron miner who knew entrepreneurship, a Rito carpenter, and so on could be carried forward. In other words, it was an excuse to revisit all the places and characters I’d gotten to know over the past six years, and do a little farewell tour before ending things with Gon.

Which is exactly what I was going to do next.

Step 5: Hyrule Castle

Taking on Calamity Gone is a two-part process. fight with the boy? That’s half of it. The first half consists of him finding his way to the start.

Hyrule Castle is the only proper dungeon breath of the wild, a mix of combat, stealth, and light puzzle solving that includes one of the most exciting areas to explore in the game. it’s absolutely lousy even with great weapons, stuff with numbers so big you absolutely want To release and destroy every goon who gave you a hard time in the last three hours. and because breath of the wild So amazingly open ended, there was no reason not to do it.

Step 6: Vengeance

breath of the wild is a beautiful video game about starting fresh and recovering after a devastating failure. It’s also a great game for wielding a sword twice your body weight on giant troll monsters.

Step 7: More Puzzles

Image: Nintendo via Play Gamez

Have you ever wondered why that rock was formed? Or why, on the northeast edge of the Gerudo Desert, there are seven giant statues that look like Argonaut from Lord of the RingS, Or what’s going on in those skeletal remains of giant creatures that are now just obstacles to climb over? There are rarely conclusive answers to these questions, but in breath of the wildIt’s always worthwhile to stop and wonder a little.

Step 8: The End

no one to fall in love with breath of the wild Really looking forward to working with it. Even with a sequel on the way, it still seems selfish to expect that the artists and programmers who created this game simply deliver us More To extend our journey, rather than invite us to do something new to think about and puzzle over. which means that, eventually, we may have to end breath of the wild,

Or maybe we don’t. A place doesn’t lose its magic just because we know every inch of it. Instead, it becomes a new kind of being, one connected to the person we were when we came into it, and the person we’ve become since we’ve been there. Video games are an intensely personal medium. At their most intimate, they are part novel and part journal, simultaneously a story told and a story written.

In breath of the wildUnless you’ve actually worked as a cartographer, you may spend most of your time looking at an easily accessible map that highlights details. In one of the game’s first updates, the developers added a function called Hero Path, which allows you to push a button and see the path of your adventure unfold for you in miniature, your personal Legend of Zelda green digital ink scattered in ,

Image: Nintendo

As virtual works, the vistas and landscapes of video games don’t warp and wear the way they do in the real world. breath of the wildIts roads will never be as bad as they are now, its ruins will forever decay, and the story the developers tell in it will forever be frozen in amber. Instead, the player takes turns. My story, erratic and haphazard as told by that green path that cuts through the world, is still preserved there, a record of the person I was for the past six years and however many beyond I keep returning to the game. What kind of person was I when I did anything but climb a mountain for 20 minutes, or get lost in a forest, or swim to an island on the horizon, Just because, what was i thinking Why did I go in one direction and not the other?

I guess none of these questions have anything to do with actually facing Disaster Gone. i could probably finish breath of the wild Now, knowing that I’ll never end breath of the wild,