The Legend of Zelda – Breath of the Wild – DLC

We still have not been able to give the necessary attention to The Legend of Zelda – The Breath of Wild when it comes to the game in general. This is because it really is a title which we want to sit down for, because there is so a lot to say about it. To alleviate that suffering a bit, we decided to do a mini-review (ok we planned it to be mini, sue us) of the DLC that came out for The Legend of Zelda – Breath Of The Wild. 

Because that is a first time for a Zelda title. 

Season Pass

At the launch of The Legend of Zelda – Breath of the Wild it was immediately possible to purchase the Season Pass announced. At the time of purchase you could immediately find three special EX chests in the game, the most unique bonus being a Nintendo Switch T-Shirt.

This release DLC was a very simple teaser for what was to come later in terms of DLC.

DLC 1 – The Master Trials

Earlier this year (June 2017), the first DLC pack released for The Legend of Zelda – Breath Of The Wild with the appropriate title; The Master Trials. This is because the main take-away from this DLC pack was obviously The Trial of the Sword. But in addition, the DLC also contained the Master Mode and several additional gear options.

Master Mode

Basically, hard mode . The first time that we ventured out in Master mode is not something we will forget for enemies could take a real beating while our Link at the slightest touch already went plummeting to the ground. Add to that the health-regain which enemies can benefit from if they are not actively bombarded with an onslaught. We knew it would make for a lot more interesting situations.

Master Mode was a welcome addon because normal mode was good to do if your onlb had standard game skills and knowledge of the game. But what we personally felt a bit dissapointed over was that also in Master Mode the start was difficult but then a reasonably strong weakening back in regard of difficulty. Sure, there were new golden enemies, more silver variants and enemies on different locations and platforms. But they were not really a very big challenge, beyond the fact that you sometimes just would run out of weapons quickly due to them breaking.

If only for instance Golden Lynels would have been somewhat smarter outside their normal routine, and not be given a slowdown. Guardians besides their delayed lasers could have been given more variable behavior. But in our humble opinion the game could have been pulled a little more into a higher difficulty.

Trial of the Sword

You start with nothing except what you have now in terms of health and a possible attack / defense buff. This was certainly interesting, we liked the concept of upgrading the power of the Master Sword as well, that was a good addition. 

Trial of the Sword in Normal Mode was nice but actually gave a bit of the same feeling as Master Mode in general. The further you came in Trial of the Sword, the easier it was becoming actually. But we still had the Master Mode version. But also in that mode Trial of the Sword there is still easier the more you progress; The Beginning Trials are simply the most difficult.

But we will not forget how much we have cursed at  Floor 10 in master mode; This level puts you in an area filled with water and some Lizalfos, of which two silver variants. Anyone who has passed the The Trial Of The Sword will confirm that this level is pure evil. Finally we managed with a 12 (?) Hit sneak strike combination. Despite that piece was really ridiculously difficult we would still have liked Master Mode to be at somewhat the same level. 

Trial of the Sword was very nice feature besides Master Mode.

New gear in a nutshell

• Korok Mask – very welcome as 900 koroks without such a thing is just insane.
• Majora’s Maks – way too overpowered and makes the whole game a joke as only a handful of enemies (Guardians) will attack immediately.
• Midna’s Helmet, Tingle Set Phantom Set – all a bit pointless, we like the throwbacks they provide to previous games but they simply did not add much more.

Other new business

• Hero’s Path – Nice addition to get insight into your last 200 hours of gameplay but should have been available from the start.
• Travel Medallion – Convenient to quickly  go to a very specific place; We still have it just lying by Ganon, but also something that could and perhaps should be available at launch.

All in all DLC pack The Master Trials is what you might expect, a hard mode with fun level up for your Master Sword. Bear with us though, we are still very pleased with this DLC pack. 

DLC 2 – The Champion’s Ballad

This Story driven DLC was first give form during a teaser which was released in July 2017.

Then for a  long time it  was unclear when this DLC would actually be available until in early December the eShop statement did hint at a release before the end of 2018.

Unexpectedly The Champion’s Ballad was released during The Game Awards. Because it is still fairly recent (little over a week), we will not go too deep into things, because we do not want to spoil things for people who have not yet completed it. (Where necessary, we will use spoilers). For the record, we have chosen to play this DLC package only to Master Mode.

One hit kills

When we started this DLC we were really like … one hit kills … WOW. Zelda just became Dark Souls. And for a time that actually was the case. The first death was a swarm of Keese-wing, then followed by a bee, a slightly mistimed jump, an arrow from somewhere … really everything could be your last action. And how strange that may sound; we wish that part of one hit kills lasted longer than it did. It just makes you play the game in such a different fashion

For those who find it really too hard  Majora’s Mask makes this waaaaaay too easy in our opinion

New shrines

Without going into much detail, it’s great too get a couple of shrines where you should have a good sense of what is possible in the game. But how great the new shrines are it’s not like it’s new game mechanics in which you say WTF how can I ever get there. The new shrines do not all accommodate the usual spirit orbs, but now have elements necessary for the specific champions.

New dungeon

The new dungeon that is in this DLC is interesting and built in a fun way. In about two sections you will be going … but how. But if you understand how the dungeon works then it is not all that exciting. Personally, we would have really appreciated an increase of difficulty here, both on the puzzle side but also in regard to enemies in the dungeon to himself.

A dungeon always has a boss and without spoiling that; it is a very nice interpretation with quite some diversity in combat which we really liked. Difficulty could have been a bit more steep though.

New story elements

In retrospect we were maybe expecting more in this regard but the story elements that are added create a good image of Zelda’s relationship with the various champion and the importance they all have in the bigger picture. Of course we wanted it to be more, but is there ever enough Zelda DLC? No. So we’re just glad the life of Zelda – Breath of the Wild could be prolonged with this.

New gear in a nutshell

• Phantom Ganon set, Royal Guard set – both look awesome, But there is not more to it.
• Lobster shirt, Ravio’s Hood, Zant’s Helmet – meh … not really worth mentioning.
• Ancient Horse Gear (Bridle + Saddle) – in terms of features, fun; your horse can be called anywhere almost instantly.
• Master Cycle Zero – if it had been somewhat faster, required no fuel, but still  a motorcycle in Zelda …. Nintendo has lost it’s mind people.
• Amiibo Champion Gear – Helmets based on the Champion’s – nice but don’t add that much. 

Addtional DLC

Outside the two DLC packs and the previous teaser, we have had the crossovers for and Breath Of the Wild. The Xenoverse gear you can earn in BOTW. The BOTW set that you can get in The Elder Scrolls V – Skyrim. 

Nintendo in that area was very flexible; working with opportunities for DLC, and we welcome that.

Conclusion

The fact that The Legend of Zelda has DLC is the most important thing to take away from this. Never had I seen this coming. Nintendo has taken a very important step for the future because what if they do not  limit this to a new Zelda. Consider titles like Metroid Prime, or even Super Mario Odyssey. Really if they do it it makes it quite a bit more difficult to actually 100% / complete these games.

But beyond the general Nintendo DLC story; what is our actual experience of the DLC The Legend Of Zelda – got Breath of the Wild over the course of less than one year?

IMPRESSIVELY well, certainly there is room for improvement in what is presented in the DLC packs, but in our opinion it is well worth the asking price. We have approximately 420 hours invested in this game, of which a good 25 hours is to devoted to the DLC content (ok + some extra Korok hassle). But if this is used as a blueprint for what is going to be DLC for Nintendo and Zelda, we are very happy with that!