Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Stupid Good Tips For Zelda Noobs!

By Julian and Angie


The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an awesome game for the Nintendo Switch. It’s been out for almost a year now, but if you’re like me and just got a Switch for Christmas, you might be taking your first trek into the wilds of Hyrule. You’re gonna have fun, but after you get your basic skills and make your way off Noob Island (trust me, you’ll see) you’re gonna run into problems right away. There’s bad weather, bad monsters, and poor little link getting plum tuckered out after he swims like...ten feet.  You might be the great hero of Hyrule, but that tiny fish pond doesn’t care. It’s a soulless puddle determined to drown you, Link! And those nearby fish? They’ll just swim by and laugh.


Well, we are here to help! We got some hot tips that are like, stupid good. Which is to say, you can definitely do them and they will definitely work and they are definitely stupid. Stupid good. Check it out!


Weather the Weather Whatever the Weather!


In Breath of the Wild, there’s cold weather, there’s hot weather, and there’s straight up lighting. All of it wants to kill you! Wander out into the extreme weather unprotected and you start losing hearts fast, my friend. The games wants you to get special protective gear for cold and different gear for hot. Or, cook some special food for cold and different food for hot. And then it tricks you by letting you walk out into the Gerudo Desert that’s both cold and hot and also sort of just “exhausting” which isn’t prevented by heat gear it all? Ridiculous! Don’t be a chump. The is one simple solution to solve all your weather problems: Hearty Food.


Does not hurt. DOES NOT HURT!



There’s hearty radishes and hearty durians and both are pretty findable in the Faron rainforest that’s to the southeast of Hyrule. Just spend few hours gathering up as many as you can and cook them each individually. Eat a single cooked hearty fruit and it will instantly refill ALL your heart containers and give you bonus hearts! You don’t need to gather special herbs and spices for cold and hot. All bad weather just makes you lose hearts over time. Snow got you chillin? Volcano got you literally on fire. No worries! Just pop heart tart! A few seconds later, do it again. And again. And again. You can eat your way through ANY weather!  ...Oh. Except lightning. Lightning will still DEFINITELY kill you in one hit no matter how many hearts you have. But that’s not a problem. That’s an opportunity, hero! It time to...


Call Down the Thunder!


Early on, monsters are tough...like really tough. You gonna study combat skills? Explore for better weapons? Heck no! You’re gonna insta-kill those fools with lightning! Here’s how it goes.


Step 2. Find a monster. I recommend a scary blue bokoblin or even his big cousin the moblin.

Step 3. Wait for a storm. Depending on where you are, this may take awhile.

Step 4. Get sparkin’. Run around in the lightning storm wearing a metal shield, metal bow, or metal weapon (or all three).  Eventually, you will begin to spark. That’s when you move straight into...

Step 5. Berserk the baddies! It’s time to yell, “Here comes the thunder!” and run straight at the monsters. No, seriously. I’m pretty sure this doesn’t work unless you actually yell that. Very soon, that sparking on your back will become a bolt from the heavens that will obliterate every monster you are very, VERY close to! Easy peasy electric squeezy. But what about you? Aren’t you dead, too?


Okay...that hurt.

Heck, no! Because you already did…

Step 1. Get a fairy. The early game directs you towards Kakariko Village and there’s a great fairy spring on a forest covered hill just north of that village. Once you activate it (100 rupees required), fairies will begin to appear from time to time when you visit. You just gotta sneak up and capture them. Then, when that lightning blasts everything dead, the fairy just comes out and makes you NOT dead. I love it when a plan comes together!


Of course, not everywhere in the world gets lightning storms. At some point, you’re gonna need to actually use weapons. Early game weapons suck. You start out with a twig for goodness sake! Until you get better equipment, you’re gonna call in a friend for some back up. Can’t you smell what’s cookin’? It’s time to...


Tag Team with the Rock!


In the northwest area of Noob Island (or Great Plateau if you prefer) is a big, round, metal rock, aka, your new best friend! You’re gonna tag in your friend the Rock with your magnesis rune and drag him along to all the bokoblin camps. Then it’s time just raise him up, drop him down, and shake, shake, shake him all around.

Now, it’s true, your friend, the Rock can’t walk. And you are gonna move REAL slow as you drag him around. Crossing the map is going to take you...well lets just say awhile. But when you get there, bokoblins beware! Weapons require you to get close. The Rock comes down from a distance! Weapons break or run out of ammo. Nothing breaks the Rock! Early weapons require you to hit bokoblins multiple times. “One and done!” says the Rock. Plus the battlecries pretty much write themselves. You can be all like, “You ready to rock, bokoblins?” or “Sorry little bokoblins but my friend, the Rock, has such a CRUSH on you!”


Time to hit rock bottom!


Seriously, you need to yell these types of things or the Rock is going to think you’re not awesome enough to be his tag team partner. He might not kill bokoblins out of sheer disappointment. Also, the Rock is a little needy. If you ever save and close the game cuz you need your space or sleep or whatever, he just storms off and leaves you! You’ll start the game back up and be like, “Hey? Where’s my partner?”


That’s okay, though. You’ve been crushing lots of enemies so you’ve probably gathered lots of other weapons to use at this point. So many weapons you might be like, “Where do I put all these sharp pokey things? I want to be able to carry more!” That’s when you know it's time to...


Build a House Holster!


So you’ve smashed up baddies and collected so many awesome weapons you can’t possibly hold any more. What a terrible problem! All you really NEED to do to carry more weapons is….build a house!


Warning: Sometimes being awesome is exhausting!



In Hateno Village (head toward Kakariko village and hang a right at a fork in the road) there’s a house getting torn down. The construction crew will sell you the house for the low, low price of 30 bundles of wood and 3000 rupees. Just think of all the space in your inventory you’ll clear up as you break weapons on trees and rocks to get wood to use and ore to sell! Of course, that only gets you a shell of a house. You still need to spend more money on the three weapon mounts, three bow mounts, and three shield mounts. They’ll cost you a 100 rupees each. You can also spend more money on silly things like flowers and front doors, but who needs that? You’re just building a weapons holster...that you can live in! Now shove three weapons in your new house holster and go find new exciting weapons to carry.


Now you’re really ready for adventure! Climb those mountains! Swim those seas! But uh-oh! Link still has pathetic stamina and can barely cross a small puddle without drowning. That’s okay! With a little engineering and can-do attitude it’s time for your to...


Take to the Skies!


So you need to swim and climb better, but how to do it? Stamina potions? Improving your stamina by going to enough shrines? Nah! Just build and airship! It’s simple. Here’s what you need to get:

1. A Korok Leaf: You should have found a few of these when you were chopping all those trees down.

2. A raft: You can find these in many (but not all) bodies of water. Now true, you could just use that raft and a Korok leaf to sail around and not worry about swimming, but how are you gonna take your raft to the next body of water? Plus how is that gonna help you climb? That’s why you also need...

3. A LOT of Octorok Balloons: There are these octopus lookin’ critters that jump out of the water or the ground and shoot stones at you. Kill them and they drop balloons. You’ll need a bunch.


Now, stand on your raft, hold five balloons, and drop them all at once. Shout, “To infinity, and beyond!” and watch as they all attach to the raft and fill with air. Then, it’s up, up and awaaaaay you go! Fanning the sails with the Korok leaf will left you go forward a little at a time, but mostly you just go up. And in less than thirty seconds those balloons are going to pop so you gotta throw down five more to keep going. And then some more when those pop.


Almost there! Just 10 more minutes and 100 more balloons...


The point is, it’s time to enjoy the adventure, Sky Captain Link! (And the near constant airship maintenance. Seriously, you’re going to go very slow and need a near unlimited supply of those balloons. But then, the world is definitely yours to see!)

Well, that's all the stupid good tips for you we have today. It's a big world out there for a little hero like Link. Good luck!

*Disclaimer: The Growing Up Gamers crew claims no responsibility for game over screens, rage quits, or broken Nintendo Switches as a result of attempting these stupid good ideas. If you want some ACTUAL good ideas to get you started or maybe just to learn a few new tricks, check out our buddy DannyO's video that he made to compliment this post and show you what he wishes he knew when he started Breath of the Wild:



Danny makes videos and livestreams Zelda BotW gameplay on his YouTube channel regularly. He's got some awesome content in the videos, a wealth of knowledge you can stop by and pick his brain about (or just chat Zelda with!) when he's streaming, and he's doing a giveaway when he hits 500 subscribers, so if you find any useful tips be sure to hit that subscribe button while you're there :)

7 comments:

  1. Breath of the Wild is a defining moment for The Legend of Zelda series, and the most impressive game Nintendo has ever created.


    -Jane@bluestacksguides

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  5. This post was interesting to me because this summer I had a PR internship within the gaming and entertainment industry so I learned a lot of gaming that I never knew about.

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