The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is amazing in its own right. Its world is breathtakingly gorgeous and bursting at the seams with surprises. So why am I and other players wasting so much time resetting the Nintendo Switch’s clock so we can keep spawning new treasure chests with our Amiibos?
For me it started with the Sword of the Six Sages. It’s the weapon Ganondorf uses in the final fight with Link In Twilight Princess. Once I heard it was possible to get the sword in Breath of the Wild by hovering the Smash Bros. Ganondorf Amiibo over my Nintendo Switch’s right analogue stick I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I’ve never had any interest in Amiibo before.
They seemed nice but pointless — until I realised one of them could get me the Sword of the Six Sages. That’s when I decided had to get one and my journey to track down a handful of the other Zelda universe Amiibo at reasonable prices began.
Image credit: GameXplain
With the plastic statues in hand, the real work begins. Every Zelda Amiibo will drop something different into the world of Breath of the Wild when you activate it. For example, the archer Link Amiibo created specifically for the game will give you bows, arrows, and different animal meats that each have unique drop rates.
The Falcon Bow is the rarest, and hardly ever drops, while Traveller’s Bows and raw meat will drop frequently. And I’m using the word “drop” here both figuratively and literally. For anyone who hasn’t used and Amiibo with Breath of the Wild, the loot they spawn does indeed drop magically from the sky. (And careful you don’t activate an Amiibo close to a lake or mountain cliff, which I have done on more than one occasion, lest you be forced to dive into the abyss after your treasure).
The rub, however, is that Amiibo can only be used to spawn in-game loot once every twenty four hours. But this prohibition, seemingly put in place to prevent players from exploiting their Amiibo, is actually only a minor obstacle it turns out. To get around it, you can either “savescum,” resetting the game and loading the most recent save anytime a treasure chest doesn’t drop with the contents you want inside it, or simply push the Switch’s internal clock ahead by a day.
As long as the system has been disconnected from the Internet, doing so effectively resets the cool-down on your Amiibo, allowing players to spam them until they collect every piece of Link’s Ocarina of Time outfit or Sheik’s Mask.
Image credit: Zarif
The Sword of the Six Sages, which I still don’t have because even grinding for it with infinite do-overs is still both time consuming and tedious, apparently lasts for 100 hits according to Reddit user Zarif who was methodical and counted ever strike before the blade finally gave way.
Which brings me to both why I’m so obsessed with getting the sword in the first place and also why it feels like a project destined to end in tragedy. Breath of the Wild’s world is a beautiful and filled with wonderment, but also terrifying and teaming with monsters who will not hesitate to put you in the ground. So naturally I want a sword that will have my back and not let me down when I need it most. Also, you know, it looks bad-arse.
Unfortunately, I have a sneaking suspicion that by the time I finally open a treasure chest with the Sword of the Six Sages inside it, I’ll covet it too much to really dive in and start hacking away with it. It almost feels like a curse, and perhaps that’s the real mechanism in place to stop people from truly abusing Breath of the Wild’s Amiibo functionality.
Spawn all the shields and two-handed swords you want. They will eventually break anyway, or languish forgotten in the inventory, forever being saved for a rainy day that never comes. (Actually, it rains a lot in Breath of the Wild, but you know what I mean).
Comments
18 responses to “Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Players Are Tricking Amiibos To Grind For Rare Loot”
Because you are dirty cheats that can’t play a game for enjoyment?
😛
Orrrr we’ve already completely beaten the game besides getting all the gear and upgrading it fully and don’t want to wait to get certain items which could very easily take weeks to months. You can’t say what someone does and does not enjoy because the person you’re talking about may not enjoy something in the same way you do
Also LoZ is a single player game, so if the people enjoy the game with cheats then let them cheat, it doesn’t affect you in the least. cheating is only bad in Multiplayer games because then the cheater will spoil the fun for others which is not ok, but in SP games I couldn’t care less if someone uses cheats or exploits because I’m not affected by it.
I’ve read a lot of the ed’s and reviews of LOZ:BOTW, then played the game to see if the hype was justified.
I think FFXV has many of the elements and motifs of this game but do it much better. I don’t agree with 90% of what you dudes write about this game, and you give way too much airtime on the website (as well as Overwatch).
Yeah no. FF15 is linear as all heck in comparison. And you move around so restricted like. Try playing more than 5 mins if botw (that is if you’ve played it) instead of fan boi’ing to FF15 defence. The two games aren’t even in the same genre. Maybe compare botw to an open world game like witcher or skyrim.
Yeah this. BoTW is far closer to the feel of Skyrim, albeit a bigger open world and feels a bit Dark-Soulsy when it comes to the larger monsters like Lynels (guard, dodge, perfectly-timed-dodge, flurry attack, dodge, get killed in one hit, repeat).
As for the Amiibos, I’m now glad that I got Wolf Link with Twilight Princess HD and slogged through the Cave of Shadows (endurance dungeon that can only be attempted as Wolf Link). Turns out, after a successful run through the Cave of Shadows in TP, you save info back to the Amiibo, including the number of remaining hearts that you finished with. Now use this Amiibo in BoTW and you get to spawn Wolf Link as your sidekick companion with the number of hearts saved to it from the Cave. He’s surprisingly powerful and useful in a melee but if he gets killed, then the Amiibo can’t be used for another 24 hours, like the rest. That said, he can be healed if you drop raw meat in front of him (and watch his happy jump animation) for him to eat or let him kill and eat the raw meat from the local wildlife. He also comes to you when you whistle, for what it’s worth. The other amiibos give you certain materials and items chests, both Wolfy is the most useful and satisfying to use.
Also, a loading screen comment explains that no-one else can see Wolf Link because he’s from another plane of existence. Let’s see them explain that in the timeline.
Yeah, I’ll be waiting on that explanation as well!
Cheers mate, you’ve made my day. I haven’t laughed like that in a long time.
Check out his reply. Absolutely nothing to say in defence.
It’s because he’s full of it. I’ve got both games so I can actually talk about it. Anyone who thinks these are in the same field are smoking some good stuff. Mind you he’s laughing at posts that aren’t funny so I guess he might just be high?
Nah, it’s a classic tactic when you’ve been exposed. Make it seem that the evidence is so bad you are laughing – because you have nothing to say in defence.
Okay, then let me actually argue then
FFXV is linear as hell, yes you can explore a lot, but you will more often than not be locked out of new areas, and sometimes, you can’t go back at all. When you go from A to B, you usually sit and wait for the car to get there. Yes it has breathtaking views, but it takes a VERY long time to get there, and there is next to no reason to go out of the car while going from areas, and Nighttime makes it nigh impossible to go anywhere. with little to no payoff by riding the car there, since it can only follow the roads. BotW instead has to keep you activly invested when you are traveling longer distances, and it incentives you to take stops, as there could be a shrine there, a enemy base you can take out for loot, or a town you haven’t seen. and Nighttime in BotW while it makes it harder for you to travel places, it doesn’t nearly handicap you from going from A to B in most cases
Heck, BOTW is so open that after you get out off the tutorial plateau, you can waltz right into the final boss area and beat Ganon and roll end credits if your twitch skills are good enough to grind him down with sub-par gear and you’re able to dodge with low quality armor and few hearts.
Most of the game’s plotpoints aren’t about getting to the final boss, but about getting it so you have an easier time beating him (and in fact, the plot starts off that you faced off against him once already, but he was too hard and you got curbstomped.)
Eh, just buy some nfc tags and write the amiibos to them!
Pretty sure there is encryption or something on them.
I frequent a few places that comment on Nintendo related news and never come across anyone mentioning this.
I’d be interested to see if it has been done, just for the interest alone, I don’t really want to try it. Although I am going to scan all my amiibos tonight, I’ve yet to use them in the game.
There isn’t. Etsy has a lot of homemade NFC tags put on really convincing custom amiibo cards. It’s not hard to fool an NFC reader.
Interesting. Last time I looked at this they had not been cracked. Or no one knew about it where I asked.
It’s been done. I’ve got amiibo cards myself. Google is your friend. Think I paid 75c/tag (so pricey due to wanting quicker shipping)
I’m a big fan of the amiibo themselves, the in game stuff is more of a bonus. So not really interested in actually doing it, but interested in how it works.
I got the Sword of the Six Sages on maybe the fourth or fifth scan of the Ganondorf amiibo! I immediately mounted it on the wall in my house where it can stay shiny and new forever.
I didn’t think you could get anything else, I’ve gotten it twice in a row now. O.O
I got Epona on my first scan with smash bros link xD that was also funny 😀
I remember when I first scanned my OoT Link amino and I got Epona I’m like”Is this Epona?” Then I got to register her and I find out that she in fact in Epona and is a legendary horse with maxed stats.I was so happy I reared up a bit.
If you let an octorock suck it up it’ll reset the durability.
One time I got Epona and she fell in a waterfall and I never registered her. :’^)