Baby’s First Switch: Breath Of The Wild Beginner’s Tips From Kotaku Australia Readers

It’s been about a month since I started playing Legends of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and asked all you Zelda icons out there for your beginner’s tips and tricks to help me get started.

But wow, you all came in clutch. To say the very least, I was frazzled, bewildered and bewitched by all the responses I got. I don’t know if that makes any sense at all but I’m rolling with it.

Anywho, it’s safe to say that I had more than enough Breath of the Wild beginner’s tips to get me started in the game.

As I mentioned in the original callout for beginner’s tips, I was very scared to start playing Breath of the Wild mostly because I suck at puzzles, I struggle with basic principles of gaming and the people I had to defeat in the game seemed much stronger than me.

I also had to outsmart them which is a struggle for me. To quote myself, “I have the same logic skillset as a 4th grader, actually, they might be smarter than me.” This may still be true but because I had all of your tips and tricks for Breath of the Wild beginners, I was all set and ready to go.

Although I still struggled with many of the puzzles and failed many attempts to stealth past many enemies (the one where I had to throw bananas around took me longer than I’d like to admit), I managed to get along pretty well. I owe all of that to you, so thank you.

So, because you all (finally) turned up and gave me so many Breath of the Wild beginner’s tips and because they were so immensely helpful, I’m shaking this week’s Baby’s First Switch up a little bit.

If you’ve followed these for a while, you’ll know that I normally go through my thoughts, feelings and concerns I have with the game and then I’ll give you some of the tips I picked up myself from playing. After that, I then pop a few of the comments and tips that are given by the Kotaku Australia community.

But this week I’m handing over the mantle entirely to the readers. Yes, you people. The very avid commenters who sometimes break my soul. But this time your comments actually gave me something tangible to work with and not just y’all calling me a bigot, so that’s fun. I even got some tips from Twitter, the most sacred place on earth.

Breath of the Wild beginner’s tips from the Kotaku Australia readers

Darath: “Pick up everything. You’ll need it for food, poti9ons or armour upgrades. Go do the shrines, most puzzles are really simple. Some are combat shrines so you just have to fight and the name tells you how hard it will be; minor, modest, major.”

“Guardians are annoying. Getting the shield parry timing correctly to reflect the laser is tricky (can vouch, this took me a while – Ky). Make sure you get a shield!”

“Watch out for people on the road. Some are assassins. Later you’ll be happy since they drop a lot of items.”

“Always go light up the towers, makes it way easier to see where you’re going and for teleporting later. Get a horse, you need stamina potions or upgrade to have enough.”

Calla142857: “When you finish the Great Plateau, head to Kakariko, then to Hateno. You get the Camera Rune in Hateno and that can help with some shrines and can just help in general if you need to remember something.”

“Timing is super important. Learn the timing for flurry rushes and shield parries, even if you die a bit in the process. Just make sure to save first. I recommend a Test of Strength shrine (probably not Major, but Minor and Moderate should be fine) because the Guardians in them have a final phase where they shoot a Guardian beam at you, which is probably one of the safer ways to learn the timing, even against the stronger Guardians.”

“There’s no shame in saving a shrine for later. If it feels too hard at the moment, you can just teleport back to it later.”

Scree: “Don’t be afraid to use a walkthrough. Zelda has the ability to make you feel like a moron (again, can vouch – Ky) and also a genius at times. Weather, heat and cold are important. If you wear the wrong clothes in the cold or hot climate, the game will warn you. Explore lots of places and don’t be afraid to run away.”

ksdem: “Take care of the Divine beats at Zora’s Domain and Rito Village as early as you can. The two powers granted at these are extremely beneficial to the rest of gameplay.”

Cheerydan: “The first Divine Beast the game naturally leads you to is the one in Zora Kingdon but I don’t think it’s a great first one to try early in the game. I personally found the boss at the end quite overwhelming. I’d personally recommend trying the flying one in the Rito Kingdom first.

Czekaj: “If I offered one main piece of advice, it is to take your time. Despite the many speed runners out there, there are no points for finishing the game in a hurry.”

“I’d set about unlocking all the towers first and finding where the villages are. Walking your horse into a rainy village at night with torches lighting your way is the perfect level of escapism.” That’s a very picturesque scene they’ve created for you there.

LazyLofu: “You can use cryonis to place ice blocks sideways if the water is falling, like on waterfalls for example.”

Nebarik: “There are only two things you ‘need’ to do to finish BOTW; the tutorial and beat the end boss. Everything else in-between is totally optional (but worth playing of course).”

“Can’t win a fight? Just avoid it, go do something else. You will die a lot, and that’s ok, there’s a very generous autosave system.”

“There’s a million ways to solve every puzzle and encounter. This is one game where being creative will absolutely help you.”

Aram: “After the Plateau make a run for the end castle and raid it for weapons. Every time I got low on solid weapons I would make a loot run for the castle and stock up on end-game level weapons.”

“The bandit cave in the desert (and the town) has lots of bananas. Fill your kettle with them for a good snack in tough fights.”

Bentheeperson: “Pick up every item and activate every shrine you see! Don’t be afraid to open the door to a shrine and run away, you can always come back later if you activate the warp point.”

“Follow non-divine beast main story quests. They usually lead to amazing upgrades, weapons, armour or other cool stuff! Yes, this means hunting down all those memories, yes, it’s worth it.”

“Do side-quests, especially around temperature-specific areas. Most rewards in the area will significantly help with traversal around hot, cold and fiery regions.”

“Have fun! Feel free to hunt downtowns, stables, shrines and side quests in your free time.”

Rom: “Don’t make my mistake and sell off all the ancient gear you find. It comes in very handy down the line.”

“Don’t be too intimidated by the giant creatures you come across. Most can be defeated if you keep your head. Lynels are really tough and you should initially give them a wide berth and Taluses are a pain to fight in the wet because you usually have to climb them to do damage but the Hinoxes are generally fine as long as you’re patient and don’t go toe to toe with them.”

“Almost every landscape feature could be hiding a korok – if you see a rock on top of a hill, pick it up. If you see three apple trees in a row, look for discrepant apples to shoot with your bow.”

Estella: “Practice a lot with [your] bow and arrow and use the elemental arrows to bring down enemies. Collect the bows that have unique strengths, such as multiple arrows or long-distance targeting.”

Jimmygunawanapp: “Talk to the mysterious old man then explore the area while slowly understanding the battle mechanic.”

Char77Jo: “Use terrain to your advantage and get good with using bombs.”

As you can see, I couldn’t give any better advice than that! Thank you all so much for your Breath of the Wild beginner’s tips, I appreciated them.