The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)

Revisiting BotW now, I realize that the gear upgrade changes in TotK are actually worse than I thought at the time of playing the latter. I was annoyed by the level of grinding required to upgrade gear but I erroneously thought they had just increased the base upgrade costs in rupees. Playing BotW again and I realize, there is no rupee cost for upgrading gear, just a materials cost. So while you have to grind a tiny bit in this game, TotK is an abysmal grind fest. Some people defend it saying g you don’t need to upgrade every price of gear. And while I agree, just upgrading a few is a huge pain compared to BotW. It does feel like Nintendo doesn’t want players to upgrade all their gear, because I can’t figure out why else they’d make TotK such a miserable grind.

And the sad thing is, that grind is probably why I’m not likely to play TotK again, even though I enjoyed it.

When the Nintendo Switch was revealed in its first trailer, I knew, it was going to be massive. Especially so, when rumors of Breath of the Wild's greatness started to unfold.

One of my largest regrets is not following my gut and invest everything I had in NTDOY. It was a trigger I didn't have it in me to pull. Anything of the sort strikes my fear of financial risk. Yes - hindsight is blistering. Yes, its extremely stupid etc etc etc.

That said, I still thought about it. I talked about it and I sat on it... The aftermath of the Nintendo Switch release arrived and the stock price doubled. I've been thinking about it ever since.

This sort of Hail Mary, Wolf of World 1-1, was a notion I never had before nor could have about anything else. If the investment worked out, I wouldn't have been well off, at all, but it would've left me with the satisfaction of putting myself on the line for something I understand and be safer for it.

With the Switch 2 coming, I don't think lightning will strike twice, but I'm sure not betting against Nintendo. I can't do that to them if I'm right, or to myself if I'm wrong. Too much risk.

I don't really need diamond hands. I only need to know I'm safe, with a controller in them.

Didn't think I'd finish this game this weekend yet here we are, and it's barely the afternoon.

I was hesitating to storm the castle and face Calamity Ganon because I wasn't sure if I was already strong enough. I'm still two levels away from maximum equipment upgrades, and I haven't reached the maximum number of hearts and stamina level. I already struggled a lot with Thunderblight Ganon so I thought Calamity Ganon would leave me miserable. Turns out, sneaking around the castle, or even fighting the guardians and monsters there, was manageable, and the boss fight was less difficult for me than that with Thunderblight. Shoutout to the champions and their gifts. I prepared so many weapons but I didn't even use most of them. I should have brought more cooked food.

This is such an amazing game. It is rich but not overwhelmingly so. However, I'm not sure if I'll pick it up again to do the remaining shrines, quests, and upgrades. When I tried to do that last week, it was not very fun. I think that was because I was following a guide instead of exploring on my own. Right now, I'm 90+ hours in, and not following a guide for the rest would take me tens of hours more. I've already been itching to move on to another game for some time now, mostly because there's so many great ones out there, and I'm already overly satisfied with my experience with this one so maybe it's time.

Highly likely that I'll play Tears of the Kingdom although I can't tell when yet.