I went to botw subreddits once when I lost my save file hoping someone had it around where I lost it but no one did. So since I was replaying anyways I started making a savefile dump for lost souls like mine ...

Here you go!

Works with cemu and requires DLC.

I've heard how the English translations changes and alters the dialogue in a way that their personalities actually changes quite a bit from what was suggested in Japanese. I want to know if you guys have such experiences with the localization, especially if you played the game with different language settings.

Original source: https://www.deviantart.com/ayyk92/art/Risotto-1067699288

Original Artist: ayyk9 @ deviantart

PS: I still like BotW-Link's method better. It might be not as convenient als just finding cash and health in some guy's lawn, but it is a lot more immersive. =P

One of the first pictures I took when I started playing BotW in 2017 ... I still like it. The only edit I made was removing Wolf Link's giant health bar and Link's 3 hearts from the pic, but everything else is as it was in-game.

Picture was taken on the northern peak of the Dueling Peaks. You don't need glitches to get a horse up there ;)

This is new to me, not sure if it's more widely known. tl;dr you get fairies and healing meals if you are unsuccessful (either dying or restarting) the Illusory Blight battles in the BotC DLC.

Source: https://www.tumblr.com/belenleoxses/184850413361/both-botw-cover-art-locations

1:1 copypaste in case you don't want to click on an offsite link:

Both BOTW cover art locations

Today I tried to solve this doubt to a member of the BOTW subreddit, and since I don't know if someone has already done this or not, I wanted to share my assumptions after taking a look at the game's map!

EU COVER:

I believe the location Link is at in this picture is the nothern mountain of the Dueling Peaks (CORRECTION: User ConfirmOriginOfFire on reddit checked and pointed out it's the southern one, not the nothern), since it's located in kind of a middle point between Death Mountain and Hyrule Castle, and you can see that small swamp between Bosh Kala shrine and Hila Rao shrine on the left, and the mountains surrounding Kakariko village on the right.

SCREENSHOTS:

This is the view from the Nothern Mountain/Peak. As I said originally, it could also be a possible location for this cover, because all of the referential places appear on the frame, however all of them are much closer to Link than in the cover picture, and part of Kakariko Village's mountains are out of the frame due to that closeness, so even though it's similar, it's not exactly the same view as in the cover.

This is the view from the Southern Mountain/Peak. It fits much better than the Nothern Peak's view (Thanks reddit user ConfirmOriginOfFire for pointing it out!) since the distance between Link and the referential places is very similar to the cover's one, and even the edge where Link is standing looks the same as the one in the cover (Except for the grass on it), so Dueling Peaks' Southern Mountain is almost for sure the location featured in BOTW's EU cover.

US/JAPAN COVER:

In this picture I think Link is at Satori Mountain, because Hyrule Castle is almost aligned with Death Mountain, this last one being a little bit to the right, which means Link is at the Southwestern area of the map, and since the rainy area next to Hyrule Ridge and the Ridgeland tower are very close to him and to his left, the location of this cover is most certainly Satori Mountain.

SCREENSHOTS:

This is the view from the top of Satori Mountain. Even though the rock where Link is standing on the cover is absent (As user ConfirmOriginOfFire pointed out in the comments), the view from Satori Mountain is the most similar to this cover art's since it has both Hyrule Castle and Death Mountain aligned (Although the bridge that appears on the cover is absent too (CORRECTION: The bridge is not absent, the one on the cover would be the stone bridge/passage right next to Mount Gustaf, it is just that in this screenshot it isn't aligned with Hyrule Castle and Death Mountain so it's not very visible. As reddit user Edgarska pointed out in the comments, the picture would be more accurate to the cover if it was taken from a lower, more nothern area of Satori Mountain, such as the apple orchard, instead of the top)) and the rainy area from Hyrule Ridge near Link and to his left, so Satori Mountain is almost for sure the location featured in BOTW's US/Japan cover, although the top of it isn't the most likely spot.

*This is the view from Satori Mountain's apple orchard. As reddit user Edgarska pointed out in the comments, this view fits much better for the cover than the one on the very top of the mountain, since Mount Gustaf's stone passage is also aligned with Hyrule Castle and Death Mountain, just like in the cover. The only cons for this location would be the absence of the rock where Link is standing (Which is also absent in the previous location) and the fact that Hyrule Ridge's rainy area stays a bit out of the frame because Link is on a lower point of the mountain now, but that's a matter of the game's vision width so it's not a big deal.

So instead of the top of the mountain, we can conclude that Satori Mountain's apple orchard is almost for sure the location featured in BOTW's US/Japan cover.*

This is the view from what I call Satori Mountain's dueling peaks. While I was heading to the apple orchard from the top of the mountain I thought about taking a look to the view from that area where there's 2 little peaks next to each other (The left one having some rocks at the top), you can see the exact location on the minimap at the bottom-right of the screenshot, for reference, the pot icon would be the apple orchard. The view from this spot isn't exactly like the cover's because Mount Gustaf's stone passage isn't as well-aligned with Hyrule Castle and Death Mountain as it is from the apple orchard, but since it is actually similar, and it also had a nice rock for Link to stand on, I thought this would be an interesting location to point out!

Disclaimer: I am not the author. The original source is linked at the top.

...oh no. I'm not sure my wallet is going to like this.

In most other games I know, your quiver either always looks full no matter what (including former Zelda games where the quiver icon in your inventory ALWAYS had the same amount of arrows sticking out of it, no matter how many arrows you actually had) or you don't see a quiver at all (like for example in The Witcher 3. Geralt has a crossbow, but seemingly pulls the bolts out of thin air)

It is just a small detail, but a charming one - and IMHO these little things help make the in-game world feel more "alive" and immersive.

~~PS: if the animation doesn't play, try opening the gif in a separate tab/window~~

EDIT: Just added the gif directly to the post as a bandaid "fix".

(If the animation doesn't play automatically, try opening the gif in a different tab/window)

...they just changed it last minute because the murky, dark environment in Zora's Domain pre-Ruta made him not stand out enough, and also because they felt that he looked too different from his sister in general.

Does anyone know what the whistle is for? He does wear it ingame even after his redesign, but I've never seen him use it or anyone else mention it.

Not originally created by me, but it has been reposted so many times that I was unable to find the original source.

I 100% agree tho. It is equal parts macabre and amusing that the Hero of Hyrule has a "this is my life now" look 95% of the time, doesn't even flinch when he sees giant mecha camels stomping around, keeps his cool when laser-blasting urn robots are trying to incinerate him, blankly stares at Revali while he's openly mocking him and is unfazed by the presence of the Demon King himself ....

... and then he goes absolutely nuts for carrot stew, including a happy little jump of joy and humming along with the cooking jingle.

Since so many people struggle with this dang puzzle and most of the online guides are vague at best, I decided to find a solution that would always work, if set up correctly. You do not need any glitches, exploits, cheats or special skills - just an iron sledgehammer, stasis, a cube bomb and about two minutes to set it all up.

Step 1:

Hit the switch to make a shrine orb appear. Stand behind it, target the orb with ZL and summon a cube bomb. You need to place the bomb on the ground behind the orb, so that the crack between the two panels is approximately in the center of the bomb (see screenshot). This is the correct distance, but not yet the correct alignment.

Step 2:

Pick up the bomb again, then target the orb again. Carefully move the camera until the "hoop" on top of the bomb and the bouncing orange "target" arrow align - this is the direction in which the orb will fly off. If you move Link left/right you can fine tune the trajectory to make the orb fly off precisely where you want it to.

You want to aim for the center between the two last pillars, or slightly to the right. This is the right direction, and if the bomb is still at the right distance once you set it down (center of the crack) then the actual setup is complete.

Step 3:

Go to the OTHER side - facing AWAY from the goal, and stasis the orb. Whack it with the sledgehammer 4 times. I usually use a spin attack as it is faster than hitting the orb manually, but you need to cancel the spin with B then (no "ground slam" at the end).

It does NOT matter that the trajectory arrow is pointing in the wrong direction. You only need to "charge" the orb with the right amount of force.

Before Stasis runs out, move away so you're out of the blast radius, and detonate the bomb.

Step 4:

Watch the orb fly into the hole. You did it. Go to the treasure chest, pick up your well-earned Giant Ancient Core and revel in the fact that you won't have to engage with this finnicky trial-and-error design failure of a puzzle ever again (unless you start a new playthrough of course).

In case you'd rather follow a video tutorial explaining the steps, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_-VpeTmuCs

In theory, it was a good idea to add a separate "difficult" mode to spice up gameplay for players who percieve the base game as stale after a while.

Some parts of it are poorly executed tho. The constant, super fast health regen for example. Either you're too weak, so enemies turn into damage sponges and you'll end up breaking your weapons for basically no profit, or you have good enough gear to kill them before health regen kicks in, at which point the game becomes so easy that it can feel lame again. There is very little middle ground, especially since the truckload of high-damage extra equipment from the floating platforms can make you completely OP directly after leaving the starting area.

Take the intro section for example:

• In Normal Mode, the Great Plateau is full of red Bokoblins, which have 13 HP. A regular unboosted Boko Club deals 4 damage points and lasts for 12 hits, and the last hit deals double damage. The "lifetime damage" of such a club is 13*4=52 damage points, which means that you can kill 4 Red Bokoblins before your weapon breaks - at which point you have 4 new weapons. This is a net gain with a huge wiggle room for trial and error, so even if you mess up by throwing your weapon off a cliff or setting it on fire, you always gain more than you lose.

• In Master Mode, the same enemies suddenly have a whooping 72 HP, but the equipment is still the same. The Boko Club still breaks after having dealt 52 points of damage, but your enemy isn't dead yet, so you need to badly damage a second weapon in order to kill it. And if you need nearly two weapons for every foe you kill, then you will end up with an empty inventory and a couple of very angry foes eventually, because you can not kill enemies faster than you can accumulate new weapons. And the very fast, constant health regen make this worse, because if you stop attacking a foe for a couple of seconds, then it will heal back to full health - but your weapons are still shattered.

No amount of skill and technique can fix this - direct fights are unwinnable by default unless you either use exploits (like shock traps), workarounds to OHKO your enemies (like drowning them or sneakstriking them while they sleep) or get better gear BEFORE the fight starts. Creative gimmicks that were viable techniques in Normal Mode, like fire damage, rolling boulders into enemy camps, tossing explosives and the like are suddenly completely wortless which makes fights a whole lot LESS interesting. You HAVE to hit hard and fast with strong equipment, or else you lose.

On the other hand, you can get mega overpowered ridiculously fast, at which point the same fights become flat-out boring.

Lets say you just fiished the Great Plateau Section. It takes all of two minutes to reach the Bridge of Hylia, and there is a Boko on a floating platform, equipped with a 3-shot Mighty Lynel Bow and Bomb Arrows. The platform is directly above water, so if you toss a single bomb at it, the Boko will fall down, drown, and you can get his equipment with zero effort. Congrats, you now have an endgame weapon to terrorize the next foe from afar with zero risk - and it respawns every Blood Moon.

There are tons of these platforms all across the map, with ridiculously strong equipment that is often easy to farm. If you want something even remotely close in Normal Mode, you would need to actually slaughter a mid-tier Lynel for it - no chance to get something as powerful as that with a single bomb and zero effort.

What Master Mode could have done better:

There could have been a million other ways to spice up gameplay without "just" adding damage sponges that hit like trucks. For example:

• Mirroring the map. Doesn't take much effort from a programming point of view, but it can make the overworld feel fresh again as the layout will be unfamilliar. You'd have to actually travel and explore instead of blindly running into a well-known direction as always.

• Randomizing Shrines. Will it be a puzzle? A Test of Strength? A Blessing Shrine? You simply won't know beforehand, so undiscovered shrines are worth checking out again.

• Randomizing Enemies - or at least enemy variants. Ridgeland Tower for example is surrounded by Electric Lizalfos and Electric Wizzrobes, but what if it were Fire- or Ice-elemental enemies instead? Or imagine entering a Major Test of Strength, expecting to fight a Guardian Scout, but instead there is a Talus or Hinox in there?

• Randomizing "dead" Guardians. Once you have the Camera or Stasis+ you can just check which ones are alive and just pretending to be dead, but lets just disable that, too. Is that dead Guardian over there really DEAD-dead or is it a Decayed one just pretending to be dead and you'll get a nasty surprise as soon as you get closer? No way of knowing beforehand!

• Randomizing Treasure Chests. You just found a chest. Is it a weapon, rupees, arrows, a piece of armor? No way of knowing beforehand! Some could be disguised octoroks as well.

• Removing Safe Zones. Settlements, Stables, and a handful of other areas are "safe zones" in which enemies instantly become docile. Enter a village and enemies that were just chasing you WILL stop, look around confused, and then be on their merry way, even if Link is standing within sight range. But what if they would simply never stop chasing you even if you enter a building?

• Adding enemies outside their "expected" environment. Imagine riding across Central Hyrule and suddenly you hear the Molduga theme and a huge HP bar appears on top of the screen ... or you're exploring Faron and there's a Skywatcher just drifting over the jungle. MM currently only has a single extra Lynel on the Great Plateau, but that's it.

• Randomize consumables. Everyone knows that Hearty Durians and Mighty Bananas can be easily farmed in the Faron Woods for super convenient boosts, but what if you would have to find the place where they grow anew in each playthrough? Sometimes they'll grow in Zora's domain, sometimes in the desert, sometimes in Eldin ... you would need to actually explore the map again.

• Additional Gameplay Mechanics like for example hunger / fatigue so Link would need to eat and rest regularily even when he's not hurt. Items could also have weight or certain other limitations (like 1 page inventory MAX) so the player couldn't just carry around 48576 food items at all times without some sort of drawback.

• Nerf Link, for example by removing the auto-pause whenever you open the menu. No more healing / boosting / changing armor in the middle of combat without taking cover first. And how about being able to only carry 1-2 armor sets at a time, with a wardrobe/chest in Link's house for the sets you're currently not using?

• Permadeath Mode. Whether or not faeries / Mipha's Grace work in this mode is up for debate.

• Mimics. Is that ore deposit over there really just an ore deposit or will it bite when I approach it?

• Wallmasters/Florrmasters. As annoying as I personally found these enemies, they DID keep players on their toes while exploring temples in order games. Could be limited to Hyrule Castle and/or Divine Beasts or certain shrines. Or they could appear everywhere, but only during Blood Moon nights.

Any more ideas?

I wonder what that magnificent beast looks like ... oh gee, maybe I'll never know.

Direct link in case the other one doesn’t work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8rRT-CThiA

Disclaimer: I’m not the creator of either the comic or the video. I just found it on youtube ;)

... basically everywhere they were not supposed to be. These screenshots are partially from an old challenge run in which I explored Hyrule without ever leaving my horse behind, and partially from other playthroughs.

And as you can see in the pics, I did NOT use the Ancient Saddle to achieve any of this. In fact, some of these places can not be teleported to even if you have a horse with the Ancient Saddle equipped - the game won't let you.

(open the pictures in a new tab / window to enlarge them)

Death Mountain:

This is as close as you can get to the lava without turning into a horse-hound-and-hero flavored kebab. This was on the western side of Death Mountain - you can see part of the Isle of Rabac in the lava pool.

Death Mountain again:

Different horse, different playthrough, but again literally one step away from the "burning air zone" and I wasn't exactly fond of turning extra crispy. The shrine is the Qua Raym Shrine in Goronbi Lake.

North of Gerudo Desert:

The sand is close enough to touch, but as soon as your horse DOES touch sand, it will despawn and respawn further away instantly, dramatically whinning and collapsing in the process. However, unlike the "entrance" to the desert near the Gerudo Canyon Stable, there is no invisible barrier at this point (the slope west of Dako Tah Shrine) so I doubt the devs anticipated the scenario of someone riding to that spot.

Gerudo Tower:

This took me all week, but it was soo satisfying ♪ This pic was from a challenge run in which I tried to explore as much of the map as possible without EVER leaving my two travel companions behind - they had to be at least within my line of sight at all times, and this had been the last tower I needed to unlock the entire map.

Still Gerudo Tower:

This was a little later. We're standing on the platform of the Sasa Kai shrine from the "Tower's Shadow" quest.

Wolf Link fell off the platform shortly after that picture was taken. Seriously, the hardest part of that challenge was to keep that furry little Moon Moon alive for long enough to reach my next destination in one piece.

Gerudo Highlands:

This is halfway between Gerudo Tower and the Statue of the Eighth Heroine. I wanted to take more pictures of the actual journey, but the weather wasn't having it - we travelled in a raging blizzard 95% of the time, and this was one of the few moments it cleared up.

The view from up there is stunning ... IF you can see it!

Statue of the Eighth Heroine:

The picture I took of the actual statue looks like garbage as a blizzard was JUST starting again, but at least the snapshot of the area title is clear enough to act as proof.

I swear the weather in this game hates me sometimes.

Korok Forest:

That's the Master Sword pedestral in the background. You can freely ride around that area on a horse, but Wolf Link will despawn as he can't enter inhabited settlements like villages and towns, and Korok Forest counts as one.

The Lost Pilgrimage:

Jup. Did that while riding and with a rather loud wolf tagging along. Oaki still didn't notice us, or maybe he was too scared to turn around and look at what caused the constant clippety-clop and chain rattling behind him.

Mount Satori:

Near the cherry tree where the Lord of the Mountain spawns. However, Satori only appears during the waxing crescend, and that night it was obviously NOT a waxing crescend.

Dueling Peaks:

This pic was taken on the top of the northern half of the Dueling Peaks, right above the Shee Venath shrine. It was actually the first time I succeeded in climbing that high on a horse, and I was so proud of that achievement that this pic has been my profile banner since then. (Formerly reddit, now lemmy and youtube since I nuked the reddit account)

Akkala Tower:

This is as close as you can get on a horse, as the Malice hurts and startles them and they'll throw Link off. Reaching the top of Akkala Tower is actually pretty easy if you lose your temper and carpet bomb the enemies there with Ancient Arrows and a multishot bow, which I might or might not have done prior to taking this pic.

Faron Woods:

The yellow-brown heap of rubbish in the background is the "mold" covering the Qukah Nata Shrine. Honestly, I wasn't expecting to be able to reach that spot while riding in the first place, but it is possible if you take a small detour of 45,876 miles east first and then pass the mountain ridge from Uten Marsh to Calora Lake.

Typhlo Ruins:

That was the first time Wolf Link was actually helpful, as he doesn't care about how bright the environment is - HE can see enemies and attack them just fine, which kept them occupied for long enough that Link could just waltz away and continue following the statues.

There were no glitches, cheats or mods involved - just the vanilla game. There are some places where you can make a horse "climb" sideways (hold down ZL and move) and once you know where those places are, you can get pretty much everywhere Link would be able to climb as well, except for the desert which is one big "no no" Zone for horses and WILL despawn your mount as soon as it touches the sand. Wolf Link can follow you tho.

...because you can read it online here: https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/The-Legend-of-Zelda-Breath-of-the-Wild-Creating-A-Champion

Personally I think it is worth it for the background information and concept art alone. For example, I would have NEVER guessed that this random weird pic here is official concept art from when they first played around with the idea of a motorbike:

No joke.

Obviously, they rejected the idea ... at first. The idea of a bike was later brought up again for the second DLC and ended up becoming the Master Cycle Zero, albeit with a lot more "sheika-esque" design.

Seriously, once you notice it, you can not unsee it. Apart from Impa and Robbie (both of which have shrunk with age), there does not seem to be a single adult NPC in the entire Kingdom smaller than Link.

... and I'm not even talking about NPCs that are huge by default, like Sidon and his brethren. Nope. I am talking about other Hylians, like for example Bolson and Hudson, both of which don't exactly look "big" .... except when Link is standing right next to them.

And that little mockery even begins right at the start of the game, because the very first NPC you ever meet is the "Old Man" ... and just look at how small and insignificant Link looks right next to him.

The only NPC that was not outright a child and still a tiny bit smaller than Link, is Riju. However, since Riju is canonically 12 years old during the events of BotW, I count her as a child still.

As for the other tribes, Link gets the "short" end of the bargain again. Gorons are huge by default, just like Zora are, but what about the Rito? Well ... Teba is as big as Link! ...when he's sitting down, that is. As soon as an adult Rito is standing upright, they have to look down on the tiny Hylian again.

But surely there must be SOME adult characters that are smaller or just as small as Link, right?!

Well ... I haven't found any so far, and I've been playing since launch. If you find one, please let me know.

Because even the effing Koroks can be bigger.

Seriousy, if you find a Hylian or Sheikah smaller than Link that is NOT a child, I would like to know.

(open pictures in a new tab to zoom in)

• Food, restores hearts.

• Ingredients, add extra duration for first of each unique [Ingredient] in recipe.

• Second column of Ingredients will fail if cooked alone.

• Hearty, adds temporary additional hearts.

• Energizing, restores stamina.

• Enduring, adds temporary additional stamina.

• Spicy, cold resistance, two levels.

• Chilly, heat resistance, two levels.

• Electro, electricity resistance, three levels.

• Fireproof, fire resistance, two levels.

• Hasty, increases movement speed, three levels.

• Sneaky, decreases noise from movement, three levels.

• Mighty, increases attack, three levels.

• Tough, increases defense, three levels.

• Elixir Ingredients (marked with a skull) will REQUIRE at least one Monster Part in the recipe, or the recipe will fail. If a Monster Part is added to a meal which does not include an Elixir Ingredient, the recipe will fail.

• There are three levels of Monster Parts, I call them "Horns," "Fangs," and "Guts." Hinox Guts provide absolutely no benefit over Bokoblin Guts, they are both Level 3 ingredients.

• Dragon Parts, and Star Fragments, always produce the Bonus Effect.

• The Bonus will add exactly one of the possible effects as long as that effect is already part of the dish, and it is not already at its maximum level.

• A dish containing Monster Extract will NEVER get the Bonus Effect, even if you include a Dragon Part.

Originally posted on imgur here: https://imgur.com/a/eMX7h

Note of the author: This is everything. Feel free to use these images in your click-bait articles, I don't care.

...and just to prove that this isn't fake, here is the video of how it was created.

The "model" is called dickbutt and it originated in this comic: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2155351-dick-butt

It took way too long and is incredibly immature, but that's how I roll ;P

I tried to come up with a title starting with "Hylian on/in a ..." but couldn't think of anything that rhymes. And "Link in the Sink" is already a classic ;)

... and I honestly had a hard time recalling the word "blupee" at first because my brain immediatly accepted buñata as canon.

Original Source of the Artwork: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VdYynN

Original Artist: Chris Kotiesen @ artstation

Disclaimer: The following post and the core idea behind it are solely one of my theories about a peculiar in-game model, but none of it is canon.

Now for the actual theory, let's visit the Hateno Tech Lab.

There is a lot of various Sheikah-type debris lying around; screws. plates, propeller blades from Skywatchers, etc. ...and hanging from the ceiling, this thing right here.

It does not look like it is a part of any existing Guardian - rather, it looks like something unique and already assembled. But what is it?

I think that it might be the in-game model of a fifth, scrapped Divine Beast. And there are frankly quite a few points why it makes sense. For example, the Creating a Champion artbook has concept art from when the designs of the Divine Beasts weren't yet finalized, and would you look at that? There is a manta ray (lower left corner)[^1]

The body of the in-game model is a little more plump and with whale-like flippers, but it has the same "tusks"/lobes than the manta from the artbook, and the core concept of a swimming Divine Beast would have been the same either way. It might even be a hybrid as the in-game model lacks a fluke and instead has a long-ish, pointy tail.

... and let's be honest here, the other Divine Beasts aren't exactly anatomically correct either. I'd chalk that up to artistic freedom.

Butt hat isn't all. No matter where you are in Hyrule, you can walk a dozen steps into any one direction and you WILL find something you can interact with: Koroks, NPCs, signposts, trees, mushrooms, enemies, animals, loot, chests, barrels, crates, rusty weapons, memory locations, blupees, buried chests, breakable rocks etc. etc.

...and then there is this giant bay here which has nothing of interest to offer besides a single boring island in the middle. It even has a name, but is otherwise completely irrelevant.

That bay is bigger than the entire Great Plateau, yet it has less content than the dang Woodcutter's Hut. And what little content this bay DOES have to offer, is simply boring. The most interesting item here is a chest with ten arrows. That feels like a joke, but not a particularily funny one.

Why does this giant waste of space even exist?

Well, there ARE similar places like these, mostly devoid of content - like for example the almost barren plain in Central Hyrule where the last bossfight takes place, the area around the crater of Death Mountain where Rudania stomps around, or the part of the desert where Naboris happily zaps passerbys. Giant creatures need a lot of space.

Now an XXL mecha animal stomping in a circle wouldn't exactly fit into Link's backyard, but it WOULD fit into that empty bay perfectly, making its rounds around the only island smack in the middle of it much in the same manner as Medoh circles Rito Village. With a water-bound fifth Divine Beast, that area would have an actual purpose and wouldn't feel nearly as pointless.

...but in order to make such a Divine Beast work, you need underwater exploration. The lack of underwater content has been one of the no.1 complaints about the game since release, and I can't help but feel like it WAS planned but got scrapped some time during development.

Why? Because there IS underwater content. Lots of it, even. An in-game example that you can easily recreate yourself is in Lurelin: From above, even during bright sunshine, the mini bay here doesn't look much different from any other body of water. It is blue, it has waves, end of story. Nothing to see here, move along.

That all changes when the Fire Nation atta- ehrm ... when you shove Link under the dock and wiggle the camera around a bit until you get an underwater view of the mini bay.

Beautiful reef, isn't it? Brightly colored anemones, swarms of tiny fishes, seaweed, sponges, corals, mussels ... all highly detailed, but the only thing you can see from the surface are dull, grey blobs. Someone spent a lot of time and effort creating a vibrant, fascinating environment - but why put so much energy into something that the player was never supposed to see in the first place? It doesn't make sense.

Unless, of course, the player WAS originally meant to see it up close.

Other, older Zelda games, like for example Majora's Mask or Twilight Princess, already had underwater content, so it isn't as if the devs had to invent balanced underwater controls from scratch. And for all of these games you always needed a special item to "unlock" the ability to dive and swim underwater first ... and guess what? Breath of the Wild has a perfect candidate for that: The Zora Armor.

It has 3 parts, and each one offers one level of swim speed up. The chestpiece grants you the ability to swim up waterfalls - somthing you can noch achieve with elixirs, food or other armor pieces. The helmet grants you the ability to execute a spin attack while swimming, which is also unique and can not be achieved by any other means. And the Zora Greaves ... complete the set. That's it. They don't do anything out of the ordinary.

ALL other armor sets in Breath of the Wild have their effects distributed evenly: Either all 3 items have an effect, or none has. The Zora set is the only one where two out of three pieces do something special and the third merely exists for the sake of existing.

What if the greaves were originally meant to grant the player the ability to walk underwater, in a toggleable manner like the Zora Mask from Majora's Mask? The N64 controller has noticably less buttons than the switch, and they still figured out an easy way to change smoothly between swimming and underwater walk. It would have been an effortless no-brainer to just recycle the same mechanic.

Some of the "impossible" chests would also make sense then: there is at least one chest in that bay that is stuck in the ground, but you can not get close enough to it to reach it with magnesis ... something that wouldn't be an issue if the player were able to dive down, stand next to it and use magnesis underwater to shake it free.

Oh and you GET the greaves in the Zora's Domain "city" ... which also has lots and lots of water around it, with zero content except for the occasional duck. The only things you can do down there are:

• A) Trying to get back up, and

• B) Drown.

It would have been a neat, enemy-free tutorial area to get the hang of the underwater controls, maybe with a little race/minigame. As of now, the sunken part of the city feels like a blank spot on an otherwise brigthly painted canvas. There is something missing here, and once you notice it, it is hard to ignore.

And then there is Lurelin village. An entire village, with an unique art style, 'Hylians' that look like they are actually their own unique tribe (similar to Gerudo), their own music, their own culture... they have all the same "benefits" the other towns offer, like an inn, a general store, their very own elder, a uniquely decorated Goddess statue ...

What the village does NOT have, is a purpose. They just exist, but are cut off from the main story. ALL other settlements have some sort of connection to the overarching story or contribute major gameplay elements: Rito Village, Zora's Domain, Goron City and Gerudo Town have their own Divine Beasts and Champions, and in case you missed any ofthose villages, the unique quest to build a village in Akkala will send you to each one. Hateno has the Tech Lab where you get the Camera Rune and Hyrule Compendium, which in turn unlock more quests. Kakariko is the home of Impa, who gives you a main quest (memories) and adds lore to the story. Korok Forest is a "village" you will visit if you want to get the Master Sword, which is THE most important item in Hyrule.

Yet you can ignore Lurelin entirely and the overarching story won't change. It feels almost unfair that this charming village is so irrelevant.

Another detail I noticed, tho this might tiptoe into nitpick territory, is that the map layout would have been a lot more aesthetically pleasing.

If you divide the map into four equal parts, then you have Hyrule Castle and the Calamity Ganon fight in the center, Medoh in the northwest corner, Naboris in the southwest corner, Rudania in the northeast corner, and Ruta ... in a weird place straight east, with the southeast corner being unoccupied. But if there was originally going to be a Divine Beast there, it would have made sense to shove Ruta out of the way and into that odd spot to make space.

Another odd detail are the Blights.

Thunderblight uses lightning. Fireblight uses fire. Windblight uses wind. Waterblight ... uses ice. The arena is filled with water, but the Blight itself does not have a single actual water-based attack.

When Waterblight floods the area, I'm always reminded of the Water Temple boss from Ocarina of Time: the room has the SAME layout with 4 rectangle pillars protruding from the water. I fully expected the water itself to attack ...or at least do something interesting.

Now you may argue that ice is nothing but frozen water anyway, and you're right. But the rest of Zoras Domain and the Ruta dungeon itself revolve around water ONLY. There is no frost involved whatsoever.

What if Waterblight was originally meant to be Iceblight? Look at Zora's Domain: slippery half-translucent, "ice"-looking rock formations everywhere, and that Zora don't do well in too cold environments is something we already know from Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess.

I wouldn't be surprised if the original idea was to have Zoras Domain frozen over, and they decided against the idea last minute as to not recycle old ideas from former games and/or because there are already too many cold zones on the map. It would have made a bit more sense than fish people being concerned about having too much water.

Seriously, King Dorephan's explanation feels like an afterthought. He claims that the reservoir might burst and "Hylian lives downstream will be in danger", but there is literally not a single Hylian settlement downstream - only monster camps, from the (headspring) to the (wetlands).

The actual Waterblight and its Divine Beast would then have been free to appear in Lurelin, creating harsh currents that made it impossible to travel by boat or catch fish, which IS a pretty big problem for a village full of fishermen and traders, and Link beating Waterblight 2.0 and "Vah Manta" would restore the ocean and thus Lurelin's everyday life to normal.

Having FIVE Divine Beasts would also have avoided a Japanese superstition:

The Japanese word for "four" 四and the word for"death" 死 are both pronounced shi. It is said to bring bad luck to, for example, give someone a gift containing 4 pieces of anything, because it bascially means that you wish death upon them^2. This superstition goes so far that some buildings, especially hotels and hospitals, don't have a fourth floor, or parking lots skip the fourth parking space because noone would use it anyway.

And this has even affected videogames.

For example, Crash Bandicoot. It was created by an American studio, and since that superstition isn't known in America, they didn't have any reason to avoid the number four. Crash Bandicoot has four fingers on each hand, and noone cared about that fact.

...until the game became popular enough to tap into the Japanese market. Suddenly there were concerns about it, so the studio gave that character additional fingers especially for the Japanese release.^3

By the way, NONE of the tribes in Hyrule have four fingers or toes. Hylians, Gerudo and Sheikah have five of both, Rito have 3 toes and technically 5 "fingers", Zora have 5 fingers and two toes, and even the enemies follow that rule, with Bokoblins having two toes and three fingers.

It is a tiny bit weird that they avoided having the number "four" appear in their game on such a minuscule, nitpicky level, but then they're completely fine with four Divine Beasts, four Blights and four Champions. On that huge scale, it suddenly doesn't matter? Odd.

Unless there have been five and one got scrapped.

I admit that last part is a bit of a stretch, but all in all, there are just too many coincidences that fit right into such a theory.

Thanks for reading =)

[^1]: Creating a Champion artbook, page 206