I may never beat Ganon in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Like most people that I know, my goal is to finish it one day. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. At least, I’ve never defeated Calamity Ganon, the game’s de facto final boss. My friends who have defeated the villain are often the same friends who have wrung the game dry: They’ve solved all 120 shrines, kitted themselves out with the best gear, and found all 900 godforsaken Korok seeds. For some, these are the two ideal states for a person’s relationship with The Wild Breath: Partly charted and known, but forever full of mystery.

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I have left The Wild BreathUnfinished with purpose. Enamored with the game’s spare yet rewarding approach to the open-world genre, I decided I wouldn’t treat its painterly landscapes as a canvas for a campaign of rapid conquest, but instead a leisurely appreciation. When the days got dull and it was time to find inspiration, I would go to Hyrule’s ruins for contemplation. As I understand it, this is a common feeling — The Wild BreathIt is an amazing video game that many people want to continue playing.

The sequel is now available Tears of the Kingdom: Zelda’s Legend, is inbound, it’s finally time to put this particular sentiment to rest. Over the last week, I’ve returned to The Wild BreathWith the aim of seeing the ending, I will face Calamity Gaon. First, there is some work to do. After five long years, I’m going to end this lovely journey, in a few simple steps.

Step 1: The Divine Feast

My final Divine Beast puzzle was simple enough. This was a far cry from the tedious, head-scratching puzzles found in many of my other books. The Wild Breath’s many shrines, the four “traditional” dungeons that must be solved in the game’s main quest are relatively straightforward, and Vah Medoh is probably the simplest. It took me about an hour. I’m very smart.

With the fourth and final Beast wrested away from Ganon’s control, I was able to take on the game’s final challenge — technically something that can be tackled almost immediately upon starting The Wild Breath, but at the cost of missing out on the game’s few big story beats. And speaking of story beats…

It turned out I still needed to find six more of Link’s lost memories, the hidden cutscenes that give you precious insight into more of The Wild Breath’s story. And I couldn’t PerhapsFinish the game and do not leave That.

Step 2: Take a photo of yourself

What’s cool about the side quest for lost memories? The Wild Breath is that it’s basically a series of Google Maps puzzles. To find each memory, you get a photo of a landmark, taken from a certain perspective, and use a combination of map reading skills, information gathering, and a working knowledge of Hyrule’s climes to guesstimate the memory’s location. It’s the sort of puzzle that makes you feel like a genius when you solve it, even if the bulk of the work is done by the world’s immaculate design logic.

The Others cool thing about this side quest is that it focuses the player’s gaze squarely on the world around them, which, as anyone who has played The Wild Breath knows, means that they are guaranteed to find incredible shit they weren’t even looking for to begin with.

Image: Nintendo

For example: One of Link’s memories is located at a place called the Sanidin Park Ruins, the remains of a once lovely fountain adorned with a sculpture of one of the horses that roamed the nearby plains. Link is able to recall a conversation with Princess Zelda as he tries to remember her trip to Mount Lanayru at the opposite side of the map and to pray for the Spring of Wisdom.

Mount Lanayru can be visited only out of curiosity. Nearby Hateno Village is where most players go to find hostile, frozen peaks that are difficult to reach. Zelda told me there was a spring. I agreed with her. So I made the climb — and sure enough, the spring was there. Zelda! didn’tIt was mentioned that the vault was guarded by an a MassiveThe corrupted Dragon

One of the biggest surprises that a player will discover in Dragons is their ability to summon them. The Wild Breath. They’re majestic, almost docile creatures that light up the sky and seem uninterested in picking a fight. This is the best. hugeOnce you get rid of any corruption, he will be benevolent. It’s the sort of secret that The Wild Breath deploys better than any other video game: a majestic sight that leads to a challenge that is more awe-inspiring than difficult — a reward for going somewhere just because you’d never been there before.

Image: Nintendo

Every hidden marvel in The Wild BreathIt is surrounded by more massive, prominent ones. These tend to double as signposts for where the player should go to complete the game’s main story: perhaps one of the Divine Beasts, or, Hyrule Castle, where Calamity Ganon lurks. You can see how every diversion is juxtaposed with your main goals, such as this majestic-looking dragon. But it’s never a problem. This dragon was my help, so I’m going to confront Ganon. All the best.

Step 3: Get ready

Talk about it! The Wild BreathSuperlatives are almost the only way to describe it. These eloquent terms, while not the only ones, are very well-deserved. It excels at almost everything.

In many aspects, it is a standard-ass videogame, but with armor and weapons that are number attached. You get better gear if you have a higher number. If you are looking for better gear, You can find tchotchkes to increase those numbers.

Image: Nintendo

What is the difference? The Wild Breath apart is that it doesn’t explicitly tell you how to do these very mundane things. The act of exploring these methods is exciting.

It’s true: This has been known by many people. The Wild BreathFor six years. I’m just telling you that it is, unfortunately for me, still true. Because I’m trying to fight Ganon, you know? Also, I’d like to be able to use cool threads and decent weapons against Ganon while looking great. And finding all that stuff — well, that’s a whole other adventure.

That led me to a spot I hadn’t known existed.

Step 4: Tarry at Tarrey Town

Image: Nintendo

The Wild BreathSilent protagonists can be very useful. Link can be a target of characters. They will give him some negging and get him to do all kinds of strange things (like collecting crickets for a crush). Link will only shrug his shoulders. Naturally I’ll help.

This is how you accidentally start a new city, as you go about your daily tasks. In a past playthrough I met Hudson, a man who was looking to create a town that he would call Tarrey Town. This led to many requests for resources and people to assist him in building the town.

This is in line with many other wonderful absorbing activities. The Wild Breath activities, these requests required me to reconsider the world I’d been exploring for dozens of hours: to find a Gerudo woman who was good at tailoring, a Goron miner who could be swayed to entrepreneurship, a Rito carpenter, and so on. This was, basically, a chance to go back to all of the characters and places I’d known over the years and to do a farewell tour, before ending things with Ganon.

That was exactly what I planned to do.

Step 5: Hyrule Castle

Calamity Gaon’s defeat is two-part. What is the best way to fight him? That’s just half of it. It’s the second half that involves getting to know him.

Hyrule Castle can be considered the best dungeon. The Wild BreathThe game’s most interesting area is the. This includes a series of stealth missions, combat challenges and some mild puzzle-solving. This game is also extremely poor with powerful weapons. wantYou must leave the area and destroy all those who have made you unhappy in the last 3 hours. Because The Wild BreathBecause it is so open-ended there is no reason why you shouldn’t do this.

Step 6: Revengeance

The Wild Breath It is an amazing video game that teaches you how to start over and heal from a catastrophic loss. You can also swing a double-sized sword at gigantic troll monsters.

Step 7: Continue with the puzzles

Image: Nintendo via Polygon

Ever wonder what rock formations are there? Seven giant statues are located at the Gerudo Desert’s northeast corner. They resemble the Argonath in Lord of the Ring.S? Or what’s going on in those skeletal remains of giant creatures that are now just obstacles to climb? Although there aren’t always conclusive answers, these questions can be answered. The Wild Breath, it’s always worthwhile to stop and wonder a little bit.

Step 8: This is the end

Nobody falls for someone they are not in love. The Wild BreathIt is not that easy to let go of the game. It seems selfish to assume that programmers and artists who made the game will simply produce a sequel. MoreIt can be used to prolong our journeys instead of inviting us to a new world to explore and think about. We might eventually have to say goodbye. The Wild Breath.

Or maybe we don’t. A place doesn’t lose its magic simply because we know every inch of it. Instead, it gains a new kind, one tied to the person we were when we came to it, and the person we’ve become since first going there. The personal nature of video games is a powerful medium. At their most intimate, they’re part novel and part journal, simultaneously a story told and a story written.

The Wild Breath, you can spend much of your time looking at a readily accessible map that is light on details until you’ve actually done the work of a cartographer. In one of the first updates to the game, the developers added a function called Hero’s Path, which allows you to push a button and see the path of your adventure traced out for you in miniature, your personal Legend of Zelda scrawled in green digital ink.

Image: Nintendo

Virtual works are not as degradable and worn in video games than they are in real life. The Wild Breath’s roads will never be more worn than they are now, its ruins will forever have their decay halted, and the story that the developers tell in it will always be frozen in amber. But the player evolves. You can also see my story here, the chaotic and random one that I told along the green path through the world. This is a record of who I am over these six years as well as how many times I come back to the game. How was that person I became when it took me 20 minutes to climb a mountain or wander through a forest or swim to an island on the horizon? Just because? Why was this? Was it because I was thinking of something?

These questions have nothing to do with Calamity Ganon. It’s possible to finish. The Wild Breath now, knowing that I’ll never finish The Wild Breath.