The beginning of Zelda Breath of the Wild (BOTW), the Eventide Island quest, and the Trial of the Sword are all about survival and growth, starting with little or no resources and building up. This is (for some) fun. Consider experiencing that anywhere at any point in the game.
- Optionally, save your game.
- Deposit your hearts and stamina with the Horned Statue.
- Kill all your horses.
- Sell all your sellable armor.
- Sell or drop all your materials.
- Sell all your meals.
- Spend all your rupees.
- Shoot away all your arrows.
- Drop all your weapons, bows, shields.
- Delete all map stickers and pins.
Some of these are tedious; it would be nice if the game could make doing subsets of these tasks quick and convenient.
Furthermore, even with all of the above gone, the game might still be too easy. You might still have
- Master Sword
- Champions' Abilities
- Runes
- Upgraded Runes
- Master Cycle Zero
- Ability to sense Hyrule Compendium items
- Map
- Unsellable armor
- Paraglider
- Horse gear
- Access to Horse God
- Travel medallion
- Expanded weapon stashes
- Spirit orbs (possibly indirectly stored at Horned Statue)
- Probably most importantly, activated fast travel points
We wish the game would provide the ability to voluntarily giving up subsets of these things but with the ability to regain them the normal way. Subsets are important, because simply losing all of them can easily be done by beginning the game anew.
We imagine giving up spirit orbs deprives you of hearts or stamina, so requires you to do shrines again. Doing the shrines again is more difficult than depositing at the Horned Statue, because the latter simply requires earning some money to get them back. We imagine the fast travel points for shrines to be distinct from shrine completion. You could give up the latter but not the former, in which case, one can quickly travel to all the shrines to complete them. Or you could give up the former but not the latter. Giving up the fast travel points reenables the shrine quests (including Eventide Island, which was the inspiration for this post).
Similarly divine beasts and Champion's abilities, though it would be nice to be able to use a Champion's ability on the boss of the corresponding divine beast. (Champions' Ballad lets you do this, but with limited other materials.) In that case, all you earn is the heart container. What happens if you keep the heart container and Champion's ability but give up the divine beast fast travel point? You have to (get to) do again the prelude challenge, gaining entry to the divine beast. Activating its fast travel point then would (weirdly) immediately complete the divine beast, causing it to move to its resting spot.
The prelude challenge for the divine beasts should probably include some of the prelude quests: rescue Yunobo, get the Thunder Helm, beat the Flight Range.
What's the game like if all you start with are all the fast-travel points and Master Cycle Zero?
EmoticonEmoticon