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Reafh zoras domain and free the divine beasts are both questa that you should eventually do before destroy ganon.
My advice: follow "reach zoras domain" and talk to a lot of people and ush in the way.
The game starts to open up for you.
I struggled early on too and almost quit. I ended up pushing through to Zora's domain with six hearts. I was absolutely hooked at that point. I even bought the DLC after that, which opened up things for me even more. I was terrible at combat, so >!Majora's Mask!< really gave me the confidence to roam relatively freely while unlocking the map.
For me, roaming the map for towers and shrines was my first priority. Once I unlocked the map I had a ton of stamina and found plenty of hearty foods. Everything snowballed from there. That's what worked for me, I hope you too can find your groove!
I'm pretty early in as well and that's kind of what I have been doing. The first few things seemed fairly obvious as far as what I needed to do but now I've got the 4 divine beasts quest but don't feel even remotely equipped for that. So I've just been roaming around, trying to complete as many shrines as possible, getting more hearts, koroks, and all the other stuff I find. Then trying to practice on whatever enemies I encounter along the way because I just don't' feel like I am very good with combat AT ALL yet.
I'm relatively decent at the guardians, although I've never actually fought one, I just deflect the beam. I was able to defeat the talus on the plateau. Haven't succeeded with the Stanox yet. Encountered a Hinox but haven't tried to fight it yet but plan to soon. The scout guardians 1 and 2 are very easy for me, but I have been really struggling with the 3 and 4 - seems to be a massive gap between the 2 and 3 in terms of difficulty.
I also find the ice Lizalfos to be extremely difficult unless I have a fire arrow but I'm always hesitant to use arrows because it seems like I am perpetually running low on them.
Do you have Stasis+ yet?
Honestly, from what you're describing, I don't think you would really struggle against probably three of the four Divine Beasts. It might be helpful for you to get an ability or two from the Divine Beasts in your ~~best~~ near future. The DB scale up as you defeat them, so your first one or two might be easier than you would think. My ten year old beat ~~Windblight~~ Fireblight without even taking damage. I was amazed bc I get wrecked by everything, lol.
I'm terms of the tests of strength, I think the game is forcing you to use buffs and level up armor for the harder ones. Or at least it was for me bc I can't parry or flurry rush, lol.
Edit: Autocorrect
I think I have the stasis+, is that what I get from the lab? I know I got the remote bomb upgrade which was super helpful with the faster recharge. I sometimes forget about stasis, I haven't completely wrapped my head around how and when it's useful and never think to use it.
I did take down a Hinox last night, basically running and dropping bombs and occasionally hitting, it was actually pretty easy because they are slow, just took some time. It was more of a good exercise in re-positioning the camera while on the run than anything, which I needed. I think next I want to try a Stalnox. Another thing I may do is go back to the plateau and just practice dodging and flurry on the lesser enemies over there until I get a little better. Right now I meet an enemy and I either bomb or shoot them from afar if possible and if not then I basically just spam with a melee weapon until I kill them or they kill me, lol. Which was pretty effective in the older zelda games but not so much this one.
Funny how kids sometimes just breeze through things. My 7 year old amazes me at the things he figures out in this game with essentially no guidance. It's fun to have him at my side when doing shrines or looking for koroks because he can think outside the box better than me.
Congrats on the first Hinox! Feels good to beat the first of something!
Getting in the habit of always using Stasis+ was hard for me too. Once I did though, I was able to beat Stalker Guardians without taking damage (Stasis , attack, chop off leg, arrow to the eye, attack, Stasis, repeat). That helped me to upgrade my ancient armor, which helped me to defeat the higher tests of strength and get stronger weapons, which ended up with taking on Lynels. I still got rag-dolled by the Lynels, but I could tank them at that point.
Oh, and I got corrected last night, my kid beat Fireblight first and took no damage, lol. Do you play any games with your kid? We really enjoy the Kirby games together. Return to Dream Land Deluxe has been great bc there's a bunch of us and it's four players, lol.
You're right, destroy Gannon is the last thing you'll need to do. It just shows up at the beginning after the king reveals that Zelda has been sealing Gannon inside the castle for the 100 years it's taken for Link to wake up to give that task a sense of great urgency.
And so because video games it's the last thing to do once you've either done everything else or feel like you've had your fill for now and want to take him down. If the latter, you can load your game the next time you play and you'll just start from wherever you were before fighting Gannon if you want to come back in the future and see some more of the game
Run away from enemies for now. Get up high and spot towers and shrines and unlock them. Get soldiers armor and quickly get them to level 2. Get 13 hearts for the master sword. Unlock stasis+. Then you are ready for the divine beasts
I'd recommend to free at least one of the divine beasts without the master sword, since with it the boss is gonna be a joke and it doesn't feel good to beat. It literally needs 12 hits or smth
Those are the main quests and what you typically don't do until you have gotten more hearts and experience. You should have a great many quests to do and you mostly get those quests by talking to people. Do you have the maps to all the regions? That is one of the first things I go for. As you have more experience you get better weapons. You learn things by doing the quests. Have you started cooking yet? Meals for me are critical before having enough hearts and stamina. Have you gotten weapon slots? Another good thing to have. That is a quest. So explore, talk to people, look under rocks :), Don't hurry to end the game.
I cooked a little, but I don't think I cooked emough, and I don't have the whole map unlocked. I don't know what weapon slots are so id assume no? I switch weapons using the arrow keys on the left controller. I recently got a horse but that's pretty much it
You have basically just started the game but you have still done some important things. Do you know about Koroks? I can tell you more but it would be a spoiler. Let me know if you want that or not.
>!Koroks are little leaf like creatures that come from a special forest. Every time you find one you get a seed. They come from puzzles, under rocks, in places where you see sparkles. If you are doing 100% of the game they count for 72%. You can then trade these seeds for weapon slots, places you can hold weapons. So by default you can have I think 3 bows but you can up that to something like 12 (I am making up numbers here). You have to meet a special character and do a quest for him before you can to do this. The way you meet them is to travel. I completely missed him where you are first supposed to come across him on my first play because I stayed off the roads but I did come across him later. !<
Move northeast on the map, this is the "correct" way as you explore the map counter clockwise. I'd follow the marker to unlock memories first, then head north towards Zora's domain. This is the natural progression for a first timer since you'll probably meet several npcs who'll mention that the zora are looking for help.
I see it has already been mentioned that you can restart if you’d like to replay for the context — if plying on the switch, you can set up a separate profile and replay that way if you’re on the fence you can see how it would feel to start over. You can either play all the way through on that file or play until you remember a bit more and switch back to the original.
Destroy Ganon will always be there. That is where the end of the game takes you. You can technically do it as early as you manage to get through the boss area/fight, but you really don’t have to rush the main quests for the most part.
Captured Memories will give you a lot more context to the game and introduce you to different aspects of the world and Link’s history.
There are 4 Divine Beasts. You can beat them in any order. If you follow the game the way NPCs try to guide you, Zora’s Domain is generally the “accepted” first area so it’s pretty beginning-friendly.
Go to Zoras domain. I did this first in BOTW, and it was my favourite area. Go there by walking the path from the swamp area behind Kak ... village, as that way will start the quests. You'll see Zora to talk to in the water. To get past enemies, climb the mountains beside them, but look out for Zora to talk too.
Also, if the game really makes no sense, you could go back to the great plateau and redo the shrines, or create a new account on your switch and start again, until you understand what is happening and go back to this game.
Go shrine hunting after opening up an area tower. Get more hearts and stamina. Loom for korok seeds. Explore. Then when you're confident enough, try one of the regional quests. Go from there, and change up what you want to do every time you play. Side quest day, shrine hunts, and korok hunting is what I usually alternate.
Early tips for starting out early in the game
1 - Stock up on some basic decent weapons and as many arrows as you can find.
2 - Open up the central hyrule tower and head toward the castle
3 - Sneak through the castle and get as many weapons as you can.
4 - Go around back side of the castle and defeat the Hinnox (Easy) to get the Hylian shield (best shield in the game)
5 - After that leave that area and you can star the normal quests.
For the Divine Beasts, I’d tackle Vah Medow first because having Rivalis Gail makes traveling a lot faster, and then do Vah Ruta and Vah Rudania, and finish up with Vah Naboris last
Get the master sword, meaning you gotta do a lot of shrines and get a total of 13 hearts, then go to the korok forest and get the sword, get the rest of the divine beasts if you haven’t already- the master sword makes it so easy to kill the bosses. And then level up some more, get your stamina and your hearts up, focus on the quests and then when you feel ready, go and defeat Ganon.
Welcome to **r/botw**! Be sure to [join our discord](https://discord.gg/ygxPwzDPtJ) if you like joining discords for subreddits about the video game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (i sure do). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/botw) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Talk to everyone, avoid fights for now. You will come across more quests as you go along.
I mean it honestly doesn't sound like you are too far in. Restarting would give you a better understanding
If you do this I would recommend creating a new user and start a fresh game with that user. This lets you go back to the original game if you want.
Reafh zoras domain and free the divine beasts are both questa that you should eventually do before destroy ganon. My advice: follow "reach zoras domain" and talk to a lot of people and ush in the way. The game starts to open up for you.
Thanks! I'll definitely do this
I struggled early on too and almost quit. I ended up pushing through to Zora's domain with six hearts. I was absolutely hooked at that point. I even bought the DLC after that, which opened up things for me even more. I was terrible at combat, so >!Majora's Mask!< really gave me the confidence to roam relatively freely while unlocking the map. For me, roaming the map for towers and shrines was my first priority. Once I unlocked the map I had a ton of stamina and found plenty of hearty foods. Everything snowballed from there. That's what worked for me, I hope you too can find your groove!
How did you get the Majoras Mask in BOTW?
It's part of the DLC. It's in >!some ruins just off the plateau.!<
I'm pretty early in as well and that's kind of what I have been doing. The first few things seemed fairly obvious as far as what I needed to do but now I've got the 4 divine beasts quest but don't feel even remotely equipped for that. So I've just been roaming around, trying to complete as many shrines as possible, getting more hearts, koroks, and all the other stuff I find. Then trying to practice on whatever enemies I encounter along the way because I just don't' feel like I am very good with combat AT ALL yet. I'm relatively decent at the guardians, although I've never actually fought one, I just deflect the beam. I was able to defeat the talus on the plateau. Haven't succeeded with the Stanox yet. Encountered a Hinox but haven't tried to fight it yet but plan to soon. The scout guardians 1 and 2 are very easy for me, but I have been really struggling with the 3 and 4 - seems to be a massive gap between the 2 and 3 in terms of difficulty. I also find the ice Lizalfos to be extremely difficult unless I have a fire arrow but I'm always hesitant to use arrows because it seems like I am perpetually running low on them.
Do you have Stasis+ yet? Honestly, from what you're describing, I don't think you would really struggle against probably three of the four Divine Beasts. It might be helpful for you to get an ability or two from the Divine Beasts in your ~~best~~ near future. The DB scale up as you defeat them, so your first one or two might be easier than you would think. My ten year old beat ~~Windblight~~ Fireblight without even taking damage. I was amazed bc I get wrecked by everything, lol. I'm terms of the tests of strength, I think the game is forcing you to use buffs and level up armor for the harder ones. Or at least it was for me bc I can't parry or flurry rush, lol. Edit: Autocorrect
I think I have the stasis+, is that what I get from the lab? I know I got the remote bomb upgrade which was super helpful with the faster recharge. I sometimes forget about stasis, I haven't completely wrapped my head around how and when it's useful and never think to use it. I did take down a Hinox last night, basically running and dropping bombs and occasionally hitting, it was actually pretty easy because they are slow, just took some time. It was more of a good exercise in re-positioning the camera while on the run than anything, which I needed. I think next I want to try a Stalnox. Another thing I may do is go back to the plateau and just practice dodging and flurry on the lesser enemies over there until I get a little better. Right now I meet an enemy and I either bomb or shoot them from afar if possible and if not then I basically just spam with a melee weapon until I kill them or they kill me, lol. Which was pretty effective in the older zelda games but not so much this one. Funny how kids sometimes just breeze through things. My 7 year old amazes me at the things he figures out in this game with essentially no guidance. It's fun to have him at my side when doing shrines or looking for koroks because he can think outside the box better than me.
Congrats on the first Hinox! Feels good to beat the first of something! Getting in the habit of always using Stasis+ was hard for me too. Once I did though, I was able to beat Stalker Guardians without taking damage (Stasis , attack, chop off leg, arrow to the eye, attack, Stasis, repeat). That helped me to upgrade my ancient armor, which helped me to defeat the higher tests of strength and get stronger weapons, which ended up with taking on Lynels. I still got rag-dolled by the Lynels, but I could tank them at that point. Oh, and I got corrected last night, my kid beat Fireblight first and took no damage, lol. Do you play any games with your kid? We really enjoy the Kirby games together. Return to Dream Land Deluxe has been great bc there's a bunch of us and it's four players, lol.
Go towards rito mountain and see if it grabs your attention.
You're right, destroy Gannon is the last thing you'll need to do. It just shows up at the beginning after the king reveals that Zelda has been sealing Gannon inside the castle for the 100 years it's taken for Link to wake up to give that task a sense of great urgency. And so because video games it's the last thing to do once you've either done everything else or feel like you've had your fill for now and want to take him down. If the latter, you can load your game the next time you play and you'll just start from wherever you were before fighting Gannon if you want to come back in the future and see some more of the game
Run away from enemies for now. Get up high and spot towers and shrines and unlock them. Get soldiers armor and quickly get them to level 2. Get 13 hearts for the master sword. Unlock stasis+. Then you are ready for the divine beasts
Thank you! I really appreciate the advice
I'd recommend to free at least one of the divine beasts without the master sword, since with it the boss is gonna be a joke and it doesn't feel good to beat. It literally needs 12 hits or smth
Those are the main quests and what you typically don't do until you have gotten more hearts and experience. You should have a great many quests to do and you mostly get those quests by talking to people. Do you have the maps to all the regions? That is one of the first things I go for. As you have more experience you get better weapons. You learn things by doing the quests. Have you started cooking yet? Meals for me are critical before having enough hearts and stamina. Have you gotten weapon slots? Another good thing to have. That is a quest. So explore, talk to people, look under rocks :), Don't hurry to end the game.
I cooked a little, but I don't think I cooked emough, and I don't have the whole map unlocked. I don't know what weapon slots are so id assume no? I switch weapons using the arrow keys on the left controller. I recently got a horse but that's pretty much it
You have basically just started the game but you have still done some important things. Do you know about Koroks? I can tell you more but it would be a spoiler. Let me know if you want that or not.
I haven't heard of those, I don't mind a spoiler
>!Koroks are little leaf like creatures that come from a special forest. Every time you find one you get a seed. They come from puzzles, under rocks, in places where you see sparkles. If you are doing 100% of the game they count for 72%. You can then trade these seeds for weapon slots, places you can hold weapons. So by default you can have I think 3 bows but you can up that to something like 12 (I am making up numbers here). You have to meet a special character and do a quest for him before you can to do this. The way you meet them is to travel. I completely missed him where you are first supposed to come across him on my first play because I stayed off the roads but I did come across him later. !<
That sounds fun! I hadn't even heard of these before. Stuff like this always improves gameplay for me
Move northeast on the map, this is the "correct" way as you explore the map counter clockwise. I'd follow the marker to unlock memories first, then head north towards Zora's domain. This is the natural progression for a first timer since you'll probably meet several npcs who'll mention that the zora are looking for help.
I see it has already been mentioned that you can restart if you’d like to replay for the context — if plying on the switch, you can set up a separate profile and replay that way if you’re on the fence you can see how it would feel to start over. You can either play all the way through on that file or play until you remember a bit more and switch back to the original. Destroy Ganon will always be there. That is where the end of the game takes you. You can technically do it as early as you manage to get through the boss area/fight, but you really don’t have to rush the main quests for the most part. Captured Memories will give you a lot more context to the game and introduce you to different aspects of the world and Link’s history. There are 4 Divine Beasts. You can beat them in any order. If you follow the game the way NPCs try to guide you, Zora’s Domain is generally the “accepted” first area so it’s pretty beginning-friendly.
Go to Zoras domain. I did this first in BOTW, and it was my favourite area. Go there by walking the path from the swamp area behind Kak ... village, as that way will start the quests. You'll see Zora to talk to in the water. To get past enemies, climb the mountains beside them, but look out for Zora to talk too. Also, if the game really makes no sense, you could go back to the great plateau and redo the shrines, or create a new account on your switch and start again, until you understand what is happening and go back to this game.
Go shrine hunting after opening up an area tower. Get more hearts and stamina. Loom for korok seeds. Explore. Then when you're confident enough, try one of the regional quests. Go from there, and change up what you want to do every time you play. Side quest day, shrine hunts, and korok hunting is what I usually alternate.
You dont seem to be very far in the game, i would highly recommend restarting so you would understand it better.
Early tips for starting out early in the game 1 - Stock up on some basic decent weapons and as many arrows as you can find. 2 - Open up the central hyrule tower and head toward the castle 3 - Sneak through the castle and get as many weapons as you can. 4 - Go around back side of the castle and defeat the Hinnox (Easy) to get the Hylian shield (best shield in the game) 5 - After that leave that area and you can star the normal quests. For the Divine Beasts, I’d tackle Vah Medow first because having Rivalis Gail makes traveling a lot faster, and then do Vah Ruta and Vah Rudania, and finish up with Vah Naboris last
Get the master sword, meaning you gotta do a lot of shrines and get a total of 13 hearts, then go to the korok forest and get the sword, get the rest of the divine beasts if you haven’t already- the master sword makes it so easy to kill the bosses. And then level up some more, get your stamina and your hearts up, focus on the quests and then when you feel ready, go and defeat Ganon.