jebmo’s posthaven

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The new Zelda game is incredible, and it is also complicated. Breath of the Wild has interlocking systems that enable you to do some incredible things, but you may find yourself overwhelmed when you start. And I’m here to help.

Before we get into it, a piece of advice: Don’t sell the loot you collect unless you’re sure you don’t need it. You can sell the items you craft, like food or elixirs, but you will have a use for just about anything in your inventory. And you don’t want to sell all your Ancient Shafts only to find out you need them an hour later.

OK, now let’s get on to the tips.

Understanding weapon durability

Your weapons are going to break. Get used to it.

Early on, the weapons you find and take from other creatures seem like they are made from balsa wood and built by a blacksmith who hates their job. It’s common for a new spear or sword to crumble after just three fights.

You can get frustrated with this, or you can accept it. The tip here is that you should use this as an opportunity to experiment with different kinds of weapons. And you should also try to hang on to at least one strong weapon in case you come across a more powerful enemy. The strength of the weapon is the number in the box on the inventory screen, and you can tell if a weapon is more or less durable than normal by reading the flavor text on the inventory screen.

Beyond that, just know that you’ll start regularly getting awesome weapons later on.

How to get more stamina and more heart containers

Breath of the Wild doesn’t have pieces of heart containers hidden around the world, and you won’t get a full container often, either. Instead, you’ll expand your life meter and stamina bar by completing the more than 100 challenge dungeons. Spirits Orbs are standard reward for solving one of the smaller puzzle dungeons, and you can go pray to a goddess statue and select either an extra heart or more stamina after collecting four of them.

You can find goddess statues in most villages, but you can always find one at the Temple of Time or in the center of Kakariko Village.

What to do with Korok seeds?

Soon after you start, you’ll begin finding little forest spirits called Koroks. They’ll reward you with seeds for uncovering them. You should take those seeds to the river north of the Dueling Peaks Stable. Don’t cross the bridge; instead, walk around the river until you find a giant Korok who is sad about his lost maracas. Follow his quest to get his maracas, and then he will accept your seeds in exchange or expanding your inventory slots.

Cooking 101

I don’t think you’ll need to download a list of recipes for Breath of the Wild. You could, but I think that’s a waste of time. Instead, you should learn the basic rules of how this system works.

Here’s what you should know:

• You can cook in any frying pan. If it’s not already over a fire, you’ll have to start one. You can light the fire under a pan using a nearby fire and a torch, flame arrows, or a flaming weapon. But it’s most efficient to place a flint stone (found in ore deposits) next to the wood and striking it with a metal weapon.
• Cooking meat, fruit, veggies, and other substantial foods will make them slightly more effective.
• Mixing ingredients together in the pan is the key to making complex meals that will provide you a lot of health, extended status effects, and more.
• But don’t mix items at random — try to pair meat together with salt to make salt-grilled meat that can replace a lot of hearts.
• For status effects, pay attention to the name of the ingredients. The Staminoka Fish and the Stamella Shroom can both replenish your stamina, cooking them together can have a compounding effect that increases the effectiveness of the meal.
• Don’t mix together two different kinds of effects, as they’ll cancel each other out.
• Don’t throw in a bunch of ingredients for the hell of it. If you mix together a multiple mushrooms and one piece of meat, the result may cancel out the meat to give you a mushroom skewer that you could’ve made without wasting the meat.
• Early during your adventure, mixing two or three ingredients is better than three or four because you probably don’t need a meal that replenishes 11 hearts. You’d be better off with four meals that recover 3 hearts each.

But really, you should experiment. Cooking is something you can learn in this game, and I think it’s really best if you go for it.

Elixirs 101

Making elixirs is similar to cooking, but it’s maybe a bit easier.

Here’s what you should know:

• For most elixirs, you can mix a status-affected bug or reptile with monster parts to get what you want.
• The flavor text will tell you what something like the Sunset Firefly does (it improves your stealth rating), and you can pop it into the pan with four bokoblin horns to get a long-lasting elixir.
• If you want a more powerful elixir, you can try using some of the more rare monster parts.
• Be careful: Read the text for the monster parts. If it says something like, “it may have a use,” don’t mix it for an elixir. Save it because you’ll need it for other kinds of upgrades.

Upgrading your clothing with monster parts and chu jelly

Speaking of Kakariko Village, just to its north, you’ll find the Ta’loh Naeg Shrine. Walk past that into the forest and you’ll quickly discover a Great Fairy Fountain. This fairy will improve your clothing if you give her certain monster parts. All of the monster parts that she accepts will say something such as “it may have other uses” in the flavor text.

How to easily catch bugs and fish

Are you finding that bugs and fish always scamper away from you before you can grab ’em? Then you should get the stealth Shieka armor from the armor shop in Kakariko Village. It’s expensive (try cooking some meals and selling them if you need the cash immediately, and be sure to sell your precious stones). If you buy the whole set, you can easily sneak up on bugs and fish even without going into the stealth stance. It makes catching those critters much easier.

What to do with Luminous Stones

There’s a Zora near the front of the Zora domain that shows up after you finish the temple in that area. He wants 10 Luminous Stones, so try to save them until you meet him

How to use the camera to find certain items

One of the most important items in Breath of the Wild is the camera. You’ll get it from the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab on the outskirts of Hateno Village. You can use it to scan everything in the world to add it to your Hyrule Compendium. Once it’s in your compendium, you can set your Sheikah Sensor to help you track down that item. You’ll need this if you’re trying to quickly complete certain side-quests.

How to spot active Guardians and then kill them

The camera also has another use. You can point it at the dilapidated Guardians, and the camera will tell you if it’s going to suddenly come to life and attack you.

When you do get into combat with a Guardian, you’ll likely have a tough time beating them. Here’s a couple of tricks:

• Find a Guardian shield and only use it to fight Guardians. If you hit the A button while holding the lock-on targeting button right after the Guardian fires its blue-colored blast at you (and I mean right after you see that blue coloring), you’ll deflect the attack right back at the ancient machine. If you time it right, this will also not do any damage to your shield.
• If you are struggling with the shield, you’ll need Ancient weapons. You can get these by traveling to the Northeast to the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab. There, you can trade in more ancient parts (which you pick up from broken or defeated Guardians) and rupees to buy items like swords, arrow, bows, and more that are designed to kill Guardians.
• But you should probably get good with the shield trick.

Are you wondering how to do something and don’t see it here?

Hey, email me if you have an unanswered question about Breath of the Wild. Let’s figure this out together, so we can expand this guide for everybody!

from VentureBeat http://venturebeat.com
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