Last year, before Tears of the Kingdom came out, I was busy playing through Breath of the Wild again, for the first time on my Nintendo Switch. It was meant to be a casual playthrough, just to get me in the mood for the sequel and to refresh my memories of this Hyrule. But then it turned into a mad dash, where I rushed from 56% to 100% within a single week, after realizing that Tears of the Kingdom connects to your Breath of the Wild save file on the Nintendo Switch.
Ironically, I already had the one thing that matters for this connectivity: the Picture of the Champions in your house in Hateno. It also transfers your horses, but that's just for sentimental reasons and you can find all special horses again in Tears of the Kingdom. Not that horses matter in the slightest there, though it was nice to have some good ones early on...
So, this mad dash really wasn't necessary. But of course I couldn't have known that at the time and I'm still happy that I did it... The original plan was to play some Breath of the Wild, then go play the new game, and then finish Breath of the Wild afterwards – for the back-to-back-to-back comparison. But it took me such a long time to complete Tears of the Kingdom and it has introduced so many good quality of life improvements that it's hard to go back to the first game now and find the motivation to play much of it.
If I had to collect 500 more Korok Seeds at this point, I would have turned the other way. But there was still something left to do nevertheless: to enhance all pieces of armor. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this post right now, over a year later. It was completely pointless grinding at this point, because I'm not going to make much use of the armor pieces in question, but it was just the right dose of Breath of the Wild for me right now. And it was a task that brings you over all of Hyrule, just to get a feel for the game again.
Some Things Were Better in the Old Days
As I've mentioned, there are a lot of quality of life improvements in Tears of the Kingdom that make playing Breath of the Wild not-so-nice any longer. Well, many of them address issues that I've always been complaining about, but now Nintendo has shown that they can do better and only a remaster will solve this. I will write a separate post about everything that I'd like to see adopted there, like the Froggy Armor for example.
Instead, with this post I want to focus more on the things that I've actually liked better... And the above screenshot sums it up quite well. The Guardians as an enemy were fantastic and there is nothing like it in Tears of the Kingdom. The Constructs aren't the same and they are not supposed to be, but they've felt generally quite unimpressive. Too small and weak. I really wish that they were more like Eyegores or something similar, something with a more threatening presence, which is what the Guardians bring on the table, even when they aren't really a threat in the late game. But they make this particular Zelda game memorable.
And I love blowing them to pieces with my Master Sword. The Master Sword overall, especially in its fully upgraded state, is so much more satisfying in Breath of the Wild. I love the "BAM, BAM, BAM!" noises it makes, and it lasts very long. In Tears of the Kingdom there are only very few enemies that will trigger this state and otherwise it breaks quite quickly...
Overall, it feels that Tears of the Kingdom has traded simplicity for versatility when it comes to the weapon system. There is so much good stuff that you can do with Fuse, where I'm certainly missing some of that in Breath of the Wild, but it's also refreshing just to find a good weapon and simply use it, without the need of going through your material list to get whatever you need to make your junk weapons usable in the first place.
Finally, there is my beloved Master Cycle Zero. Well, I'm a bit torn here. I love how it gives you so much more control, where you can do wheelies, jumps, and so on. I also love that you can simply summon it again, so you don't have to worry about losing it. And refueling doesn't really take much longer than waiting for your Energy Cell to recover, but it will last longer. On the other hand it simply can't match the speed and versatility of a the hover bike, so I did miss this quite a bit. But for this game it's still quite sufficient, if only you could use it in the desert as well...
Roving All Over Hyrule
As already said, my final task was to enhance all armor pieces once more, just to have save data that truly matches my achievements on the Wii U, at least in Normal Mode. I was actually surprised how clear my Hero's Patch was when I had left off, especially compared to that thick web that was spun over my map in Tears of the Kingdom. But that's the difference between knowing where you have to look and not. It didn't stay as clean, however, where it did get those trademark star shapes from the Star Fragment farming... But first things first.
My efforts started with hunting some critters. I needed some Hightail Lizards for the boots and climbing gear, but this was as easy as cutting some grass, quite literally. I needed some Stealthfin Trouts for the stealth gear, where I had missed them at Lake Saria in Tears of the Kingdom. But honestly, having them in the Lost Woods "moat" wasn't too bad either, so I don't necessarily prefer it. Then I needed some Energetic Rhino Beetles, mainly for the Hero of the Wild set, but here I used the exact same spot as in Tears of the Kingdom: the future Dondon ranch at Bronas Forest.
Looking for Smotherwing Butterflies was the highlight, though, because this brought me back to Death Mountain, the area that has probably changed the most between the two games, next to Hyrule Castle. It has a completely different feel to it, where I like the version in Breath of the Wild a bit better, but I love the transformation overall. That's so cool (pun intended) and just let's you experience the same place in a completely different way.
Another thing that Breath of the Wild does better than Tears of the Kingdom are the Lizalfos Tails. I still needed some red and yellow ones, where this was a quick job, because they aren't some rare drop. They drop every single time, like the horns in Tears of the Kingdom. This makes farming so much easier and bearable, it's not even funny.
I wish this was the same for everything in the game, but that's not the case, where the biggest problem are probably the Ancient Cores. I still needed like six of them, where you would think that this isn't much of a problem – just go to Hyrule Castle, destroy some Guardian Turrets, done. But nope, even after hunting Guardians around Castle Town and Hyrule Field afterwards, I barely had enough to enhance everything. And I didn't get a single Giant Ancient Core during all this, but luckily I didn't need any.
Finally, I was in the business for multiple dragon parts and way too many Star Fragments. I wish you could transfer the latter between all Nintendo games that have them, because I have plenty left in Tears of the Kingdom and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. But it couldn't be helped, so I have employed the same method described in my Master Log.
You warp to the southern top of the Dueling Peaks, make a fire, skip to the next morning, then to the next night, and look into the west with as little water as possible in your view. Usually, this gets you a drop near the Wahgo Katto Shrine at the Riverside Stable, a place that feels even more so special after Tears of the Kingdom, where there was my first contact with Hyrule's civilization in the sequel.
It works reliably, but it will take a while, especially for dozens of of Star Fragments that you need to upgrade all the different amiibo tunics. So, grinding them was by far the most tedious part of this endeavor and always has been, where it was a bit better in Tears of the Kingdom, because you can get them more quickly via sky diving and also multiple ones per night. Here I really had to watch something else in the background to not make it as boring.
To have at least some sort of variety, the method can be combined with dragon part farming, where they will appear at certain spots right after 12AM, like Dinraal at the Tanagar Canyon or Farosh at Lake Floria. At the latter location I had to realize that my past self was in such a rush that he didn't bother with opening all the treasure chests there... Which are a lot.
The same happened on the ocean. And this was totally understandable, because I had focused on whatever could possibly count for the save file in Tears of the Kingdom and this certainly didn't include any of those. So, I wouldn't be surprised if my Sheikah Sensor+ might go off in other locations as well.
But that's okay and I may revisit this save file in the future just for the fun of driving my Master Cycle Zero around Hyrule. There is just something wholesome about this, just hop on your bike and ride through the beautiful landscapes, where I will do just that from time to time...
Well, I still have Master Mode open and I'm not entirely sure about this. I'd rather play that than Tears of the Kingdom again when it comes to these big Zelda games, but they have improved so many things in the second title that it spoils Breath of the Wild quite a bit. Add in the horribly unbalanced Beginning Trials from the Trial of the Sword and you have a recipe of "meh".
At the same time I fear that I won't ever play this mode if not this year. If they are really developing a remaster already, then I will prefer to play that once it gets released and I won't ever look back to the Switch version (unless they completely screw up the remaster, which I very much doubt). Of course, I have played and completed Master Mode on the Wii U, so I'm not missing anything here when it comes to the experience. But I really don't like going back to the Wii U, where I like to have everything on my Switch going forward. If only I had all the time in the world...
