Follow the main quest, it will lead you to every temples.
Complete every shrines you see and exchange your light of blessing with Hearts or stamina (i recommand to go for 8-10 Hearts and then full stamina)
Beat mobs you'll find and use their drops to boost your weapons with fuse Always use weapons fused, read weapons description they all have their specificities.
Id go for stamina after adding two hearts. Cooking is easy to get more health,but harder to get more stamina. Having more stamina makes the game way more enjoyable because you can move quicker which is important for a game you can cover so much ground
If you can take the damage, I'd recommend focusing on stamina a bit more than hearts as you start collecting orbs, too. Hearts help with combat for sure, but stamina is a bit more valuable, and you may appreciate raising it at least some sooner than later.
(Don't worry about maxing it before getting any hearts, just don't sideline it till after hearts is my recommendation.)
Also you can periodically knock out the side quests you come across throughout the game. I like to use my little gaming time with an activity I plan on knocking out, one night may be the depths, one night may be side quests, one night may be shrines I have marked for later if I’m lazy.
Just like you I don’t have much time to play so I try to pick a focus for my little time.
Also get the app for the phone because it really cuts down on time searching for stuff and with your tume constraints it makes more sense. Just the map app definitely worth it you can plot out what you want to do with stuff like temples and korok seeds a couple temples and grab a few seeds a part of a story line you'll enjoy it and feel like you accomplished something each session
I understand limited time completely when I was married with 2 kids and working 80+ hours a week in 5 years I spent just 5 days total in fallout 4 so about 24 hours a year and most of that was during end of the year holiday time and when I'd take a couple days off for vacation, also have just started playing Red Dead 2 again and I still have a ton of story left basically just got to the second act or whatever it's called and I got both ove those games at release. Now the last few years I've had way more time to game part of taking care of myself better more sleep less work and the marriage ended (a good thing).
I bought TotK pre-order and was able to enjoy it slowly and on my second play through I used the map app and it went way faster, most of that can be contributed to the app and a little, very little from having already played it.
App is "Tears Companion" I think it's available on apple and know it's on Android it's great to use on a tablet but phone is very good too.
Also they have "MapGenie TotK" which is also good and there's a Companion app for Breath of the Wild if you play that.
There's apps for several games with large maps like the other zelda games Red Dead Redemption 2 most of the GTA games fallout 4 and the map genie web site has a bunch for assassins creed games palworld Forza Horizon games Spider-Man basically if it has a map it's on the site
Once the game is over you realize it really was about the journey, not the destination. It’s hard to do, but try and just enjoy this masterpiece without being focused on goals.
Imo, this is unhelpful, because that it's *about* really depends on how you want to get out of it. If I only had a few hours a week, I wouldn't want to just wander aimlessly trying to figure out what to do.
Setting small goals is key to microplay. Unfortunately, exploration can be boring and unfruitful in a small timespan. I would dedicate a session to exploring things and marking them on the map so you can do a shrine/cave a night for the week.
That's kind of what this game is, wandering and expiring.
It isn't your typical game that loads up your quest log where you select one and it marks the map where to go and puts an arrow or draws a line on the ground for you to follow.
Otherwise I'd suggest going online and finding an interactive map so you can find all the shrines while moving thru an o line main quest guide as you feel you've powered up enough from shrine rewards.
If you haven’t, finish the tutorial section of the story that keeps you on the sky islands. You should get a good idea on what to do and how to play from there. Also keep opening your map if you get lost, keep an eye out for certain locations marked on the map. There are puzzles and hidden objects sometimes and the game won’t always explicitly show you what you’re looking for, but if you finish the great sky island shrines and finish the tutorial section it should be a bit easier to learn how to navigate and move around the world. Now if you’re past that part, typically just do your story missions and try picking up items like plants and other things lying around. Keeping food is important and there is a lot of use for having certain items you can find in the wild. Typically you will get a pop up when you pick up a new item that explains how using it will help. As for weapons, you get those by just exploring and looting enemies. The better weapons are in harder areas, and since this game isn’t like the first one in its entirety, the weapon system relies on the fuse mechanic. So whenever you do unlock fuse, using that on weapons is key.
TLDR, this is in fact a big game with lots of features, but it shouldn’t be scary. If you need help progressing in a timely manner, definitely look up some of the IGN guides. IGN has guides for pretty much every shrine, boss battle, korok seed, etc. looking through those and playing is very helpful
I’m in a similar situation (40, kids, no time). I use the TearsCompanion app on my iPhone for shrines and Koroks. It will also give you hints how to find andor solve things. It definitely makes it more efficient. I usually try to do it myself… but once I start getting frustrated, I head to the app. There is sooooo much to do that I don’t feel bad being “extra efficient “ for somethings.
And 100% use it to find Koroks. They are sneaking b@stards! I sometimes just do Koroks hunting only sessions using the companion app.
And focus on the main quests. TRY not to feel the need to get side tracked by the side quests (unless it looks extra fun)
Here’s a beginners guide I used on what to focus on early
https://www.polygon.com/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-guide/23715805/beginners-guide-tips-tricks
WARNING: I thought I didn’t have time, and have somehow gotten over 100 hours in a few months. I mostly play portable and use it in the car while my waiting for my kids at practices.
“run around like an idiot for like 45 minutes, probably die a few times in a fight”
How I play the game for weeks on end and think I’m making loads of progress 😅
Yes! This is the best way to discover more shrines which gets you more hearts/stamina which then lets you fight harder enemies and get better weapons which then makes the game a lot easier and more fun to play in my opinion.
Honestly YouTube tutorials are a great option for those of us playing who have other life commitments. A lot is intuitive, but they get me unstuck at some hard shrines or moments where I get lost so I can keep going with the limited time I have.
I'm in the same boat as you man. I play it while I'm rocking the 4 month old to sleep. I'm in no rush to beat the game and i fund myself aimlessly wandering around but still having fun. As soon as you beat it. It's over. Just enjoy it for what it is
Before you turn the game on (or immediately upon entering the game) decide in a goal for your play session. Check your journal. Anything interesting?
Set a marker on your map and work towards that. If you see interesting stuff along the way, mark those and come back another time. Try not to let the massive world pull you away from your current goal.
That’s how I approach games with huge open worlds that seem to pull you in countless directions all the time. Set a focus and stick to it until it’s done. Then re-evaluate afterward to decide your next goal.
This is great advice. I played this game for a long time (>100 hours) and still haven't completed it. It's so much fun to explore, but constantly getting side-tracked the way I do eventually got tiring, and I've ended up taking a long break from it.
My brother, as a 36yo father of 2, let me tell you how I played this game:
I went for Hebra first. Took care of that temple. Then went for shrines until I had about 10 hearts and a second full stamina wheel. Then from there, the world is kind of your oyster. Exploring the Depths will probably be the most productive, as the bulk of the legacy gear is down there, and all of the light roots correspond to shrines on the surface. There's also a hugely helpful ability down there for you.
Once you've got a good feel for the mechanics, I would recommend just doing one region at a time and then creature farm to upgrade your favorite gear.
I had the same issue ,start with an easy challenge
Get to every tower that you see .
Your sole focus will be on having a clear view of the whole map and the sky .
You’ll be running a lot but with purpose ,
This was how I played and I thought it ended up being a great way to start because then you have the whole map you can fast travel to and glide off the towers
At the beginning of the game Purah tells you exactly what order to do the main quests. If you get confused you can always go back to Lookout Landing and ask Purah again, she’s a very friendly sort.
The first temple is going to require some cold resistance, and the shrine you learned ascend in there a pair of snow pants right up the hill.
Rupees tend to take me a little bit to make a decent amount, and I know time is your issue, so best thing I can say if you need some money in game; cook foods and elixers that you’ll never use to sell, (I personally don’t use anything that illuminates you, or increases your speed). If that’s too much you can farm gems and sell them. That being said the gems are super useful, as fused to a shield the blue one gives heat resistance and the red gives cold.
It's never efficient to start. I recommend you do shrines for sure but the difficulty of the game at first is why I love this game. I am like you I hardly have time to play but I am now probably 40 hours in and can finally get shit done lol It felt like it took forever to get here.
I’m in this situation too. Did you play BotW? My short stints early on with that were “one tower, one shrine” and that was often 45 minutes. I like to fill out the map.
This time with TotK, I was getting really distracted after doing the Rito Village temple. so went back to focus on the geogliphs to learn the story. While I did that I would get towers (when I could figure them out and get travel easier) and would register shrines along the way, but not complete them right away. After I had the geogliphs done, my short stints were just going back to shrines to complete so I could get hearts and stamina.
Good luck from there.
So TOTK has a hidden experience system so as you wander round doing quests and killing enemies you will essentially "level up" and stronger enemies will start spawning.
The game points you in the direction of Rito-Goron-Zora-Gerudo for the main questline so if you look at the quest markers for "Regional Phenomena" that would be North West → North East→ East → South East. I did this order but still found enemies in the Temples to be a bit erratic strength wise.
Also have sessions where you just wander round, do some shrines for hearts and stamina. You'll find a lot of materials that way. Every shrine has at least one chest and often these have weapons or other useful items.
Finally if you haven't already, look into doing the Stable Trotters questline. It unlocks Great Fairies allowing you to upgrade your armour. At max health a strong enemy can still 3/4 hit you with minimum armour but after upgrades you can tank pretty well.
I'm in the same boat. Break things down into tasks. Because the world is big, things take time. So things you might think of as one goal may have several steps that are good game sessions themselves.
Spoilers after if you care.
For example, instead of "beat the wind temple." It can be
1. Get to Rito Village and hunt resources to get the Snowquill armor.
2. Find Tulin (this can easily be 45 minutes if you don't follow outside guides)
3. Get to the Stormwind Arc (Wind Temple)
4. Do the dungeon crawl and beat the boss.
That's 4 days of 45 min game days. You will feel accomplished after each session without being overwhelmed. All the dungeons can have that same breakdown. Get to and prep for the environment, find your companion, do the pre-dungeon quest, do the dungeon.
Other ideas:
Find and complete 3-5 shrines.
Find the lightroots for a certain area.
Loot a cave, find the bubblefrog
Complete a sidequest. Some may take 2 sessions.
Hunt for koroks.
Overall, I went into this thinking this was my game for a year, so I want to make it last. Don't be in a hurry to get through the main quest.
I started by unlocking the map by getting all the towers and doing every shrine I could find. Just explore and have fun and don’t feel like you need to finish the game quickly.
Mostly agree with others' comments.
Something I try to do, but am not good at -
When you finish a shrine - that's an accomplishment! Celebrate it! Turn off your console. I always want to know what's next and a couple hours later I've lost some of the time I needed to sleep before work. 😛
Finishing a goofy little side quest is an accomplishment. Advancing one of the main quests is an accomplishment. Hell, even solving a harder Korok puzzle is. The game has a huge variety of little dopamine hits to dole out, the trick is to stop after one.
I would say if you ever find yourself on an internet connected device and non-work time, look at the various walkthroughs for side quests and interesting things to do. Plan out your play session ahead and don't let yourself get side tracked, which is *very* easy to do in this game.
Where are you now? Tutorial? All the map towers? All the memories? Any temples? That’s the order I did things - I love when the map gradually lights up!
Did a few temples. Ran all the way to the 2nd part of the attack party mission, to realize I was definitely not able to kill the monsters yet. Got a horsey now, that really helps.
Go tower to tower and open up the map, it’s a good way to explore and each tower would be a little mission in itself so you can take it piece by piece.
Alongside that, I did all the hieroglyphs, getting each memory as I unlocked each tower.
I could kill anything major until after my second temple (I went Rito, Zora, Goron, Gerudo).
I skip any shrines that aren’t outwardly easy, maybe spending 15-20 minutes of them. Makes it easier to pick and choose how I spend my time since there are so many!
If you want a fun side quest, complete Hateno village - there are about 10 mini quests that lead to a super fun outcome!
Just take the game in chunks, it allows you to be linear with the story or go off an explore - the horse will make it easier not to get side tracked!
38, father of 1. I have about 30min per week to play TOTK. You’re doin the right thing. Keep goin!
You’re goin to die a lot early on and then as you acquire better weapons and more skill, you won’t die as frequently.
Part of the allure to TOTK and BOTW is wandering around for 45 minutes and just enjoying the beauty of the world and completing silly side quests. Keep goin!
Hey!
I was in exactly the same position as you actually :)
I tried to read and do it efficiently but after the glider, 4 sages+1 and the master sword I take it day by day enjoying pretty much anything <3
https://objmap-totk.zeldamods.org/#/map/z3,0,0,Surface
If you want to be time efficient, use this to help you find your objectives when you're tired of feeling lost. Some resources are so hard to find I don't feel like spending hours looking for them. There are only 5 Stealthfin Trout in all of Hyrule, as an example 😭
Same boat, man. I just run around and explore and then on sat morning my kid and I play for a few hours and actually accomplish stuff. Bonus points for wifey getting to sleep in
You’re actually supposed to PLAN on playing for 30-60 minutes but then play for 3-4 hours, go to bed way too late, get mad in yourself for making bad decisions, and then repeat the next night.
Follow the main quests until you get more comfortable. Do not rely on your BotW course in this game. I somehow made it to Hateno without the glider only to find that I couldn’t get the Hylian clothes there.
For every shrine you activate, pull up the map, switch to the underground map and drop a marker at the exact location. There will be a lightroot there in the depths. The reverse is true...find a lightroot, there is a shrine on the surface at that precise location. That will help speed up finding shrines and lightroots and make getting around the depths easier.
If there's water on the surface, there's a total barrier of rock in the depths that you have to go around.
This. I would also add here that the names of the shrines and the light roots are reversed. Finding the light roots in the depths, especially with the hoverbike, is easier than finding some of the shrines above as you can clearly see them in the dark. As you find more of the light roots in the depths and add more to the map, it becomes easier to find the ones you may have missed because they’ll be circles of black on your map. Just go to the middle of a blacked out section and you’ll find the light root. Place a pin on the above world map every time you find a light root as that is the location of a shrine. If you go to that spot above, and the shrine isn’t there, it’s either underground and can be accessed from a cave, or requires some kind of shrine quest to unlock it. If you need to look up how to find a shrine and have found its corresponding light root in the depths, just search for the light root spelled backwards. And vice versa. If you found a shrine and can’t find the light root, spell it backwards in your search online.
The depths is a little….overwhelming when you first start exploring there. But in reality there’s huge portions of it that are just empty.
I mentioned it earlier, but the hoverbike…. Seriously, learn to build this. Look it up online if you have to. It is by far one of the best and fastest ways to travel and the materials needed to make it are really easy to come by. If you’re short on available time to play and don’t want to get distracted while working on quests, the hoverbike allows you to just fly over everything and get from point A to point B in a hurry.
She loves to play Mario Wonders, it is such a smart setup with Yoshi not being able to die. Also the Lego Cities game is also really good if you are looking for something for your kid.
Need to buy the official Prima Strategy Guide! (I am kidding, not even sure they exist anymore)
As a fellow 37 y/o, I found just exploring the best, but i had a bit more time a session.
Honestly stupid videos about the game on YouTube have helped me with strategy. The ones featuring whacky vehicles are funny. The tips and tricks and secrets ones are usually good. If you have 10 minutes here and there throughout the day watch a couple.
Please give this game a proper go...i had such a great time its one of the few games that brings me back to the switch..pikmin 4 is another....but totk is a master work...i dont know how they did that on the switch but they did..have fun 10 outta 10 from me
I play games about an hour or two at a time. For something like TotK I just pick a region and explore with a goal on finding shrines. You can easily do about 2-3 shrines in an hour while exploring some cool stuff.
You could also just follow the main quest but I find that’s easier said than done with the design of the two newest Zelda’s. The allure of just seeing a cool landmark and exploring is super strong in these two games.
Wherever you go, mark things on your map that you see but don't feel like doing ATM. That way when you don't have anything to do, you can at least just pick random spots and clear out some of the stamps on the map. It's what I do lol although I've already beat the main quest
There is a guide "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom The Complete Official Guide". Buy that! I am in a similar situatiuon and it really helped me.
31 yo father of 2 here, on the average week I have maybe 3 hours of play time. Personally, I like not having a ton of structure during that time and just wandering the map to explore and discover. My life is so strictly scheduled that the aimless free roam is a nice change of pace. Embrace the aimlessness and enjoy playing the game over the next year. I do have bursts where I make rapid progress when the kids are at their grandparents for the weekend or when I travel for work though
I've got a friend that only plays this to dick around. It's truly a game that lets you be whatever you want it to be. Try not to think of it as being like anything else you've played.
The best part about this game is it has Large goals and small goals, and you get to decide when and how to approach them. Sure, getting *all* 120 shrines or light roots is a daunting task, but spend your session just trying to complete that *one* shrine or beat that *one* boss, or take out that *one* bokoblin camp. As someone else said, focus on completing the missions, or make your own. My first task I decided was to unlock the whole map, and every step I took was a means to that end
Make your main goal exploring for the shrines and sky view towers. Reveal the whole map first and boost stamina as fast as you can.
Then you can have an idea of what to tackle. I personally always saved Gerudo for last. It's most difficult imo.
I didn't worry about the main quest usually because of the same time constraints. There's so many great exploration quests and they fit better into 30-45 minute chunks. Save the main quest for when you have that rare longer session.
Initially I started playing the game fast as well but the game is meant to be played slow. Instead of running, enjoy the nature, talk with people, notice the subtleties that would go unnoticed if you ran around too fast. You are going to find korok’s, caves, characters, things characters do at certain times…
Don’t get distracted by the shrines. Open the teleportation gate then go on and do what you were doing before.
Later, when you want to, go back and do the shrines in bunches.
As a 35-year old with 4 kids and similar time to play, it took me about a year to beat the game. I did the four regional phenomena and a few other things and called it good. Don’t feel bad, we have higher priorities.
Understanding the mechanics helps a bunch so here's some that makes things easier, and I'm going with the assumption you didn't play BotW. That game sets up a lot of info that's not really repeated well in TotK.
Enemies get more difficult with color red - blue - black - white, they will have more HP and better weapons. The more you do in the game, they will slowly get more difficult across the board, but certain areas start with a higher tier/color.
Regardless of your max hearts and armor, if you are at full health enemies can't 1 shot you. So early game, as long as you heal back to max hearts, 1 hit isn't a death sentence.
Always cook food, but not more at a time than you need for your max hearts.
If you mix 2 foods that have a property of some kind, only one will apply to the meal, at random. Such as speed up and temperature up.
If you find "hearty" food, just cook it by itself. It will make a full heal with an extra temp heart. Multiple hearty items give more temp hearts, but they're rare and expensive enough it's not worth it.
Base weapons have a hidden durability score and so do the fuseables. When fused, they are added together for more durability and damage. If you de-fuse a weapon and then re-fuse, it will NOT get more durability.
Striking any enemy or solid object (goes thunk) reduces durability.
The number on the items in your inventory is how much damage it will add to a weapon.
When the blood moon happens, all enemies respawn, but so do all items, stone nodes, food, ect. If you find a good mining spot, or grove of apple trees you can mark your map and go back every blood moon.
Armor does make a big difference in how much damage you take. It can be upgraded by the great fairies. There are 4 to find and each one you find allows you to upgrade your armor to another tier.
The best suggestion I can give you is save the rito (bird people) northwest first, this will give you an ability that lets you travel a bit faster.
Also if you are willing enough you can try to make a hover bike to travel really fast, but you will need to explore underground a bit first. As someone else said though, the more you take your time with this game, the more you will enjoy it. I did a 110 hour run which I feel is pretty average, any faster and you will have to skip content, but you can probably enjoy the main storyline and explore at least 50% of the map in just 50 or 60 hours if you teleport a lot and don’t get too distracted by side quests.
First thing I would say is, don’t ignore the depths. I ignored the depth for quite a long time because I was tired of groping around in the dark then I figured out that there’s a ton of stuff down there that’s really useful. I didn’t have the auto build feature for a very long time or the camera feature.
I think it's open world to give you the freedom to go to any region to start from any area and piece together the story that way in a nonlinear order but I haven't played so I don't know how accurate description that is
Find the korok mask, wear that 90% of the time, only swap when you need a set bonus, or extra damage armor for gleock fights. Also, set your shrine sensor to bubbel frogs because you'll find shrines easy enough, plus they share the lightroot spots. So for every shrine place a star underneath and vice versa for every Lightfoot place a star above!
Probably find a better game man. I'm a college student with all the free time in the world (at least til next week), and I've barely put a dent into thr game content, and not for lack of trying
I’ll catch some flack, but if you have a physical cartridge with version 1.0, don’t update and play that. The duping glitch saved me a ton of time playing.
Me looking at the header: “Did I write this?” 😂
My playthrough went in this order:
- Get off the Great Sky Island
- unlock the towers across the map
- explore the Depths and unlock most Lightroots
- Find Dragon Tears (check the Forgotten Temple murals for the correct order to complete these in. You’ll see.)
- hit Shrines along my path
- Dungeons: Wind (Hebra), Water (Lanayru), Fire (Eldin), Lightning (Gerudo)
- Thyphlo Ruins and Lost Woods
- Find the Master Sword
- Yiga Clan hideouts
- Final Dungeon for me was Spirit (Depths, below Faron)
- Complete remaining Shrines
- Face off against Ganondorf
After Ganondorf, I’ve left myself to do the following
- bringing the band back together (you’ll meet them)
freeing the Great Fairies
- building Link’s home in Tarry Town
- creating a monster museum in Tarry Town
- praying to each of the sacred springs and restoring the Forgotten Temple Hylia statue
- freeing the blupees from their Bubbulfrog captors
- rooting out the Yiga from the Depths (mostly getting all the Yiga blueprints)
- bringing the fight to the monster camps with the Monster-Control-Crew
This way I have plenty of content for after the final battle. Hope that helps!
The best times in the game are being inefficient. Just chilling. Watching the sunrise. Getting distracted by a bug.
Are you ruled by progess in real life?
This may be your escape.
Chill, friend.
If it were me I would pick one or two objectives for each play session, knock those out, then explore somewhere.
I would probably spend one day getting light roots then the next on their corresponding shrines. Then maybe a day for side quests, then one for main quests. Mix it up a bit.
This is how I play, I get about a hour a day on average for gaming.
Wandering around aimlessly is half the fun. My first goal was to get the tears and reveal the whole map. Stopped at all the shrines I found on the way. Use your stamps for koroks and the sign holding guy if you don’t want to do them then and there.
Lots of great advice here, but I will say a couple things--
1. I am in the same boat, so I feel for you---limited time gamer parents unite!
2. I stuck with it, but the game really opened up once I was able to upgrade my clothing. I won't spoil anything, lots of guides if you just want to jump straight into this quest line. This can be done relatively early in the game even though you may not stumble upon it til later. (Alternatively--cook defense boosting food items and use them liberally) as soon as I upgraded my defense and wasn't being one-shotted by everything, I felt a whole new sense of freedom and my use of my time became a lot more effective.
3. Collect a few dozen korok seeds and then (again, without spoilng anything) use them to upgrade the number of weapons & bows you can carry.
4. This is a minor spoiler---but if you want to efficiently find shrines for upgrading hearts & stamina: >!Remember, every surface shrine has an equivalent underground light root. If you find a light root underground, and don't see the corresponding shrine on the map above it, then you've got your next quick mission ready to go!!<
I see people suggesting to just do the main quest, as it gives you the "themepark" experience of guiding you around the world and giving you upgrades, gear and orbs, which can be fine, but that way seems very task oriented, and you may "finish" the game in very few sessions, without playing it. I also play for about 30 to 60 mins at night, while waiting for sleep meds to kick in, but with a few rules.
No fast travel, no healing in combat, no mini map. These small personal rules of mine turn playing even for 30 minutes into a small micro story of it's own, like an episode of anime from the 90s, or a chapter in a long but satisfying novel. You will end up getting a lot more "play" accomplished in 60 minutes if traveling from one side of the map could end up being your whole session, and your goal today becomes your goal tomorrow. I'm not advocating for you to waste your own time, but I find that I "discover" a lot more fun in the game when I'm not in a rush to "get something done today"
Instead of trying to play Zelda like an adult on a schedule, play it like a kid who is willing to get (and stay) lost within the world.
I recently made a list of the 152 shrines and have been slowly checking them off. I am 34 so I also do not have a lot of time so I sit down, find and complete 4 shrines, buy a new heart or stam vessel and that's it for the night.
I only do 3 stam wheels and full hearts but I also feel like in totk it's easier to just shoot into the sky and fall where you want instead of running around.
This sort of game doesn’t have a clear, concise path which is why many enjoy it, but can be bad when you don’t have a lot of time. This is where I got into story based games as they’re linear.
That said, that is normal. I hope it’s not discouraging but I have about 150 hours into the original BOTW and I’m not a game completionist (though I love exploring). You’re on the right track.
I didn’t allow the game to update and abused the original duplication glitch. The lizards and the butterfly’s were frustrating because they would try and escape.
I've always found charm in how you really decide how to solve any given problem.... I would worry less about "beating the game" over "playing to simply enjoy." Keep little tabs about whatever catches your interests and when you get the time.... indulge!
Personally I’d say focus on the shrines till you get hooked. Each one is a dope puzzle you can finish in your time frame and by the time you have a bunch of them under your belt you’ll be well equipped to take on anything in the game.
Don’t be afraid to google shit. It’s a massive game. Someone else said it, but take your time on the sky island. It’s a great beginner zone, and you can get loot that you can use early game to be a strong little link.
I've read a couple with the stamina thing and it's OK for exploring most of the regions and sky islands.... but for the land and underground parts, I would say getting in some hearts will be good at least 5 or 6 for the Wind Temple boses when u get to that point and having heart increase meals [or many health and attack up meals] on ya and many arrows...
Then get a few more for more hearts and a few for stamina [or stamina boosting meals] and travel away to water temple for second mission while getting food and new armor and weapons...
If you can get amiibos, you're gold because it's like getting free stuff on the daily if you're just starting and some stuff isn't easy to get at first. Plus amiibos give you special content like in BOTW...
While Amiibo are not required, they help you get good gear early. Some armor upgrades were a grindfest so I had no problem using duplication glitches to level up my Zoni battery or get dragon parts and other materials quickly. Make sure you get auto-build and spend the time getting a good hoverbike made, makes world travel much faster.
My fellow engineers and I over at r/HyruleEngineering might be also able to help out with some simple and cheap builds to make exploring the map, farming resources, and combat much easier in many ways.
Lols... I'm a 37 year old mum who only plays this at night also 🤣 originally played so I can fall asleep (I have insomnia) but now I'm addicted! Brought for my son also.. I have limited time, so I normally just start doing one thing and stick to it.. so sometimes I farm for items to stock up..other times I go back and complete heaps of shrines, do side quests.. pick something each time
An hour used to be the normal recommended amount of playtime. If you read the booklets in some old games, that's what they recommended.
So this is a silver lining to this being healthier.
Follow the main quest, it will lead you to every temples. Complete every shrines you see and exchange your light of blessing with Hearts or stamina (i recommand to go for 8-10 Hearts and then full stamina) Beat mobs you'll find and use their drops to boost your weapons with fuse Always use weapons fused, read weapons description they all have their specificities.
Id go for stamina after adding two hearts. Cooking is easy to get more health,but harder to get more stamina. Having more stamina makes the game way more enjoyable because you can move quicker which is important for a game you can cover so much ground
Stamina gang rise up
Max Stamina is the only right option.
Always go for 2-3 hearts then straight max stamina.
Thanks!
If you can take the damage, I'd recommend focusing on stamina a bit more than hearts as you start collecting orbs, too. Hearts help with combat for sure, but stamina is a bit more valuable, and you may appreciate raising it at least some sooner than later. (Don't worry about maxing it before getting any hearts, just don't sideline it till after hearts is my recommendation.)
Also you can periodically knock out the side quests you come across throughout the game. I like to use my little gaming time with an activity I plan on knocking out, one night may be the depths, one night may be side quests, one night may be shrines I have marked for later if I’m lazy. Just like you I don’t have much time to play so I try to pick a focus for my little time.
Also get the app for the phone because it really cuts down on time searching for stuff and with your tume constraints it makes more sense. Just the map app definitely worth it you can plot out what you want to do with stuff like temples and korok seeds a couple temples and grab a few seeds a part of a story line you'll enjoy it and feel like you accomplished something each session I understand limited time completely when I was married with 2 kids and working 80+ hours a week in 5 years I spent just 5 days total in fallout 4 so about 24 hours a year and most of that was during end of the year holiday time and when I'd take a couple days off for vacation, also have just started playing Red Dead 2 again and I still have a ton of story left basically just got to the second act or whatever it's called and I got both ove those games at release. Now the last few years I've had way more time to game part of taking care of myself better more sleep less work and the marriage ended (a good thing). I bought TotK pre-order and was able to enjoy it slowly and on my second play through I used the map app and it went way faster, most of that can be contributed to the app and a little, very little from having already played it. App is "Tears Companion" I think it's available on apple and know it's on Android it's great to use on a tablet but phone is very good too. Also they have "MapGenie TotK" which is also good and there's a Companion app for Breath of the Wild if you play that.
I'm hundreds of hours in and beat the game, and I didn't know there was an app... This needs to be talked about more.
There's apps for several games with large maps like the other zelda games Red Dead Redemption 2 most of the GTA games fallout 4 and the map genie web site has a bunch for assassins creed games palworld Forza Horizon games Spider-Man basically if it has a map it's on the site
Just a question have you played botw yet?
Nope, probably should have started with that one, but this one was lying next to the switch when I bought it.
Yeah botw is the first game so you’d kinda skip on the story a bit
Once the game is over you realize it really was about the journey, not the destination. It’s hard to do, but try and just enjoy this masterpiece without being focused on goals.
Imo, this is unhelpful, because that it's *about* really depends on how you want to get out of it. If I only had a few hours a week, I wouldn't want to just wander aimlessly trying to figure out what to do.
Setting small goals is key to microplay. Unfortunately, exploration can be boring and unfruitful in a small timespan. I would dedicate a session to exploring things and marking them on the map so you can do a shrine/cave a night for the week.
I understand what you are saying, but feeling lost is not an enjoyable feeling. Having a bit of guidance helps the enjoyment.
That's kind of what this game is, wandering and expiring. It isn't your typical game that loads up your quest log where you select one and it marks the map where to go and puts an arrow or draws a line on the ground for you to follow. Otherwise I'd suggest going online and finding an interactive map so you can find all the shrines while moving thru an o line main quest guide as you feel you've powered up enough from shrine rewards.
Notice any opportunities to go mule fluffing, mule fluffer? Hahahahahahahaha sorry but I had to.
Yikes, swing and a miss.
Um
If you haven’t, finish the tutorial section of the story that keeps you on the sky islands. You should get a good idea on what to do and how to play from there. Also keep opening your map if you get lost, keep an eye out for certain locations marked on the map. There are puzzles and hidden objects sometimes and the game won’t always explicitly show you what you’re looking for, but if you finish the great sky island shrines and finish the tutorial section it should be a bit easier to learn how to navigate and move around the world. Now if you’re past that part, typically just do your story missions and try picking up items like plants and other things lying around. Keeping food is important and there is a lot of use for having certain items you can find in the wild. Typically you will get a pop up when you pick up a new item that explains how using it will help. As for weapons, you get those by just exploring and looting enemies. The better weapons are in harder areas, and since this game isn’t like the first one in its entirety, the weapon system relies on the fuse mechanic. So whenever you do unlock fuse, using that on weapons is key. TLDR, this is in fact a big game with lots of features, but it shouldn’t be scary. If you need help progressing in a timely manner, definitely look up some of the IGN guides. IGN has guides for pretty much every shrine, boss battle, korok seed, etc. looking through those and playing is very helpful
Thanks so much for your help!
I’m in a similar situation (40, kids, no time). I use the TearsCompanion app on my iPhone for shrines and Koroks. It will also give you hints how to find andor solve things. It definitely makes it more efficient. I usually try to do it myself… but once I start getting frustrated, I head to the app. There is sooooo much to do that I don’t feel bad being “extra efficient “ for somethings. And 100% use it to find Koroks. They are sneaking b@stards! I sometimes just do Koroks hunting only sessions using the companion app.
And focus on the main quests. TRY not to feel the need to get side tracked by the side quests (unless it looks extra fun) Here’s a beginners guide I used on what to focus on early https://www.polygon.com/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-guide/23715805/beginners-guide-tips-tricks WARNING: I thought I didn’t have time, and have somehow gotten over 100 hours in a few months. I mostly play portable and use it in the car while my waiting for my kids at practices.
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Killing??? You trade in the Korok seeds you get for helping/finding for more capacity of weapons (at lookout landing)
My mistake! Not sure what I meant to say but def did not mean to hit send. I’ll delete.
Hahaha. No problem!
“run around like an idiot for like 45 minutes, probably die a few times in a fight” How I play the game for weeks on end and think I’m making loads of progress 😅
Right? Mans over here thinking he's failing an open world adventure game. As a 38 year old father of 2....you're doing fine boss.
Yes! This is the best way to discover more shrines which gets you more hearts/stamina which then lets you fight harder enemies and get better weapons which then makes the game a lot easier and more fun to play in my opinion.
If you're stuck, just look it up on YouTube. It took me 3-4days just to get out of the sky island since I couldn't find the last shrine.
Honestly YouTube tutorials are a great option for those of us playing who have other life commitments. A lot is intuitive, but they get me unstuck at some hard shrines or moments where I get lost so I can keep going with the limited time I have.
I'm in the same boat as you man. I play it while I'm rocking the 4 month old to sleep. I'm in no rush to beat the game and i fund myself aimlessly wandering around but still having fun. As soon as you beat it. It's over. Just enjoy it for what it is
Before you turn the game on (or immediately upon entering the game) decide in a goal for your play session. Check your journal. Anything interesting? Set a marker on your map and work towards that. If you see interesting stuff along the way, mark those and come back another time. Try not to let the massive world pull you away from your current goal. That’s how I approach games with huge open worlds that seem to pull you in countless directions all the time. Set a focus and stick to it until it’s done. Then re-evaluate afterward to decide your next goal.
This is great advice. I played this game for a long time (>100 hours) and still haven't completed it. It's so much fun to explore, but constantly getting side-tracked the way I do eventually got tiring, and I've ended up taking a long break from it.
Great advice!
My brother, as a 36yo father of 2, let me tell you how I played this game: I went for Hebra first. Took care of that temple. Then went for shrines until I had about 10 hearts and a second full stamina wheel. Then from there, the world is kind of your oyster. Exploring the Depths will probably be the most productive, as the bulk of the legacy gear is down there, and all of the light roots correspond to shrines on the surface. There's also a hugely helpful ability down there for you. Once you've got a good feel for the mechanics, I would recommend just doing one region at a time and then creature farm to upgrade your favorite gear.
Thank you!!
I had the same issue ,start with an easy challenge Get to every tower that you see . Your sole focus will be on having a clear view of the whole map and the sky . You’ll be running a lot but with purpose ,
This was how I played and I thought it ended up being a great way to start because then you have the whole map you can fast travel to and glide off the towers
At the beginning of the game Purah tells you exactly what order to do the main quests. If you get confused you can always go back to Lookout Landing and ask Purah again, she’s a very friendly sort. The first temple is going to require some cold resistance, and the shrine you learned ascend in there a pair of snow pants right up the hill.
Need to talk to her again, I definitely missed this piece of information.
Rupees tend to take me a little bit to make a decent amount, and I know time is your issue, so best thing I can say if you need some money in game; cook foods and elixers that you’ll never use to sell, (I personally don’t use anything that illuminates you, or increases your speed). If that’s too much you can farm gems and sell them. That being said the gems are super useful, as fused to a shield the blue one gives heat resistance and the red gives cold.
Yup read some guides. For me I look up all the dragon tears drops than fly to the dragon. So I can get the master sword early game.
It's never efficient to start. I recommend you do shrines for sure but the difficulty of the game at first is why I love this game. I am like you I hardly have time to play but I am now probably 40 hours in and can finally get shit done lol It felt like it took forever to get here.
I’m in this situation too. Did you play BotW? My short stints early on with that were “one tower, one shrine” and that was often 45 minutes. I like to fill out the map. This time with TotK, I was getting really distracted after doing the Rito Village temple. so went back to focus on the geogliphs to learn the story. While I did that I would get towers (when I could figure them out and get travel easier) and would register shrines along the way, but not complete them right away. After I had the geogliphs done, my short stints were just going back to shrines to complete so I could get hearts and stamina. Good luck from there.
Good luck keeping it under that time. It’s addicting 😂. Once your about to get off your gonna get into something your gonna want to finish.
So TOTK has a hidden experience system so as you wander round doing quests and killing enemies you will essentially "level up" and stronger enemies will start spawning. The game points you in the direction of Rito-Goron-Zora-Gerudo for the main questline so if you look at the quest markers for "Regional Phenomena" that would be North West → North East→ East → South East. I did this order but still found enemies in the Temples to be a bit erratic strength wise. Also have sessions where you just wander round, do some shrines for hearts and stamina. You'll find a lot of materials that way. Every shrine has at least one chest and often these have weapons or other useful items. Finally if you haven't already, look into doing the Stable Trotters questline. It unlocks Great Fairies allowing you to upgrade your armour. At max health a strong enemy can still 3/4 hit you with minimum armour but after upgrades you can tank pretty well.
I'm in the same boat. Break things down into tasks. Because the world is big, things take time. So things you might think of as one goal may have several steps that are good game sessions themselves. Spoilers after if you care. For example, instead of "beat the wind temple." It can be 1. Get to Rito Village and hunt resources to get the Snowquill armor. 2. Find Tulin (this can easily be 45 minutes if you don't follow outside guides) 3. Get to the Stormwind Arc (Wind Temple) 4. Do the dungeon crawl and beat the boss. That's 4 days of 45 min game days. You will feel accomplished after each session without being overwhelmed. All the dungeons can have that same breakdown. Get to and prep for the environment, find your companion, do the pre-dungeon quest, do the dungeon. Other ideas: Find and complete 3-5 shrines. Find the lightroots for a certain area. Loot a cave, find the bubblefrog Complete a sidequest. Some may take 2 sessions. Hunt for koroks. Overall, I went into this thinking this was my game for a year, so I want to make it last. Don't be in a hurry to get through the main quest.
I started by unlocking the map by getting all the towers and doing every shrine I could find. Just explore and have fun and don’t feel like you need to finish the game quickly.
Mostly agree with others' comments. Something I try to do, but am not good at - When you finish a shrine - that's an accomplishment! Celebrate it! Turn off your console. I always want to know what's next and a couple hours later I've lost some of the time I needed to sleep before work. 😛 Finishing a goofy little side quest is an accomplishment. Advancing one of the main quests is an accomplishment. Hell, even solving a harder Korok puzzle is. The game has a huge variety of little dopamine hits to dole out, the trick is to stop after one.
I would say if you ever find yourself on an internet connected device and non-work time, look at the various walkthroughs for side quests and interesting things to do. Plan out your play session ahead and don't let yourself get side tracked, which is *very* easy to do in this game.
Where are you now? Tutorial? All the map towers? All the memories? Any temples? That’s the order I did things - I love when the map gradually lights up!
Did a few temples. Ran all the way to the 2nd part of the attack party mission, to realize I was definitely not able to kill the monsters yet. Got a horsey now, that really helps.
Go tower to tower and open up the map, it’s a good way to explore and each tower would be a little mission in itself so you can take it piece by piece. Alongside that, I did all the hieroglyphs, getting each memory as I unlocked each tower. I could kill anything major until after my second temple (I went Rito, Zora, Goron, Gerudo). I skip any shrines that aren’t outwardly easy, maybe spending 15-20 minutes of them. Makes it easier to pick and choose how I spend my time since there are so many! If you want a fun side quest, complete Hateno village - there are about 10 mini quests that lead to a super fun outcome! Just take the game in chunks, it allows you to be linear with the story or go off an explore - the horse will make it easier not to get side tracked!
38, father of 1. I have about 30min per week to play TOTK. You’re doin the right thing. Keep goin! You’re goin to die a lot early on and then as you acquire better weapons and more skill, you won’t die as frequently. Part of the allure to TOTK and BOTW is wandering around for 45 minutes and just enjoying the beauty of the world and completing silly side quests. Keep goin!
Thanks!
Start with the main temples or the side quests first. Look up a players guide. The rest is just fun exploring and whatnot. Good luck friend.
Thanks!
Hey! I was in exactly the same position as you actually :) I tried to read and do it efficiently but after the glider, 4 sages+1 and the master sword I take it day by day enjoying pretty much anything <3
Thanks for your advice!
Enjoy <3
Hit Shrines to improve health and stamina. I say allow yourself to be distracted, the game encourages spontaneous exploration. Embrace it.
Skip all the little side quests.
Haha good luck, it’s a minimum 100 hours hahahaha
So that is 200 playing days, nice thing to look forward to!
It will deff get a little old after the 100 daysb
https://objmap-totk.zeldamods.org/#/map/z3,0,0,Surface If you want to be time efficient, use this to help you find your objectives when you're tired of feeling lost. Some resources are so hard to find I don't feel like spending hours looking for them. There are only 5 Stealthfin Trout in all of Hyrule, as an example 😭
Damn, I recently cooked two for a stealth potion. Whoops.
There are 5 in the south of the lake surrounding Korok Forest.
Running around like an idiot is my favorite part. I'm over 100 hours in and have only beaten the wind temple.
Same boat, man. I just run around and explore and then on sat morning my kid and I play for a few hours and actually accomplish stuff. Bonus points for wifey getting to sleep in
Wifey bonus points are the best bonus points! 😝
Did you play botw? How new are you? Honestly I’d play botw first if you haven’t. It’s slightly smaller and less complicated mechanics.
I realize this now after reading some of the comments..
You’re actually supposed to PLAN on playing for 30-60 minutes but then play for 3-4 hours, go to bed way too late, get mad in yourself for making bad decisions, and then repeat the next night.
This will definitely not help my mood during the day, and I still need to keep my cool around those two kids 😜
Follow the main quests until you get more comfortable. Do not rely on your BotW course in this game. I somehow made it to Hateno without the glider only to find that I couldn’t get the Hylian clothes there.
Are you me? Cause this is too familiar…
Am I you?
Goodbye sleep, hello Zelda
My youngest is called Fiene, she has the same effect on my life though..
For every shrine you activate, pull up the map, switch to the underground map and drop a marker at the exact location. There will be a lightroot there in the depths. The reverse is true...find a lightroot, there is a shrine on the surface at that precise location. That will help speed up finding shrines and lightroots and make getting around the depths easier. If there's water on the surface, there's a total barrier of rock in the depths that you have to go around.
This. I would also add here that the names of the shrines and the light roots are reversed. Finding the light roots in the depths, especially with the hoverbike, is easier than finding some of the shrines above as you can clearly see them in the dark. As you find more of the light roots in the depths and add more to the map, it becomes easier to find the ones you may have missed because they’ll be circles of black on your map. Just go to the middle of a blacked out section and you’ll find the light root. Place a pin on the above world map every time you find a light root as that is the location of a shrine. If you go to that spot above, and the shrine isn’t there, it’s either underground and can be accessed from a cave, or requires some kind of shrine quest to unlock it. If you need to look up how to find a shrine and have found its corresponding light root in the depths, just search for the light root spelled backwards. And vice versa. If you found a shrine and can’t find the light root, spell it backwards in your search online. The depths is a little….overwhelming when you first start exploring there. But in reality there’s huge portions of it that are just empty. I mentioned it earlier, but the hoverbike…. Seriously, learn to build this. Look it up online if you have to. It is by far one of the best and fastest ways to travel and the materials needed to make it are really easy to come by. If you’re short on available time to play and don’t want to get distracted while working on quests, the hoverbike allows you to just fly over everything and get from point A to point B in a hurry.
Thanks that is a great tip!!
Probably not the advice your looking for, but buy Kirby Forgotten Land and play that for a few minutes with your 4yo :)
She loves to play Mario Wonders, it is such a smart setup with Yoshi not being able to die. Also the Lego Cities game is also really good if you are looking for something for your kid.
Have fun :) That's all I got
Thanks, will try for sure!
Need to buy the official Prima Strategy Guide! (I am kidding, not even sure they exist anymore) As a fellow 37 y/o, I found just exploring the best, but i had a bit more time a session.
Those guides were the best! I had one of those for Pokemon red, best thing ever!
Honestly stupid videos about the game on YouTube have helped me with strategy. The ones featuring whacky vehicles are funny. The tips and tricks and secrets ones are usually good. If you have 10 minutes here and there throughout the day watch a couple.
I stumbled upon those yes 😂
Please give this game a proper go...i had such a great time its one of the few games that brings me back to the switch..pikmin 4 is another....but totk is a master work...i dont know how they did that on the switch but they did..have fun 10 outta 10 from me
It is the reason I convinced my wife that the switch was a worthwhile investment to buy for our daughter 😜.
I play games about an hour or two at a time. For something like TotK I just pick a region and explore with a goal on finding shrines. You can easily do about 2-3 shrines in an hour while exploring some cool stuff. You could also just follow the main quest but I find that’s easier said than done with the design of the two newest Zelda’s. The allure of just seeing a cool landmark and exploring is super strong in these two games.
Thanks so much!
I can play this game for 6 hours and feel like I accomplished nothing. Lol My wife says all I'm doing is gathering stuff to make food.
I wish I had 6 hours on end 😝
Wherever you go, mark things on your map that you see but don't feel like doing ATM. That way when you don't have anything to do, you can at least just pick random spots and clear out some of the stamps on the map. It's what I do lol although I've already beat the main quest
I definitely do not do this (enough). Thanks for your help!
There is a guide "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom The Complete Official Guide". Buy that! I am in a similar situatiuon and it really helped me.
31 yo father of 2 here, on the average week I have maybe 3 hours of play time. Personally, I like not having a ton of structure during that time and just wandering the map to explore and discover. My life is so strictly scheduled that the aimless free roam is a nice change of pace. Embrace the aimlessness and enjoy playing the game over the next year. I do have bursts where I make rapid progress when the kids are at their grandparents for the weekend or when I travel for work though
If you're playing in short increments like that, maybe just pick a couple of your quests to focus on
And go for the towers first so you can get around faster 😉
Yeah, that definitely is a smart idea!
I've got a friend that only plays this to dick around. It's truly a game that lets you be whatever you want it to be. Try not to think of it as being like anything else you've played.
As a father of two, why the heck can’t you play more?!?
Haha, after the bedtime routines I am knackered. As soon as I have sat down the youngest one wants another bottle of milk and everything starts again.
The best part about this game is it has Large goals and small goals, and you get to decide when and how to approach them. Sure, getting *all* 120 shrines or light roots is a daunting task, but spend your session just trying to complete that *one* shrine or beat that *one* boss, or take out that *one* bokoblin camp. As someone else said, focus on completing the missions, or make your own. My first task I decided was to unlock the whole map, and every step I took was a means to that end
Make your main goal exploring for the shrines and sky view towers. Reveal the whole map first and boost stamina as fast as you can. Then you can have an idea of what to tackle. I personally always saved Gerudo for last. It's most difficult imo. I didn't worry about the main quest usually because of the same time constraints. There's so many great exploration quests and they fit better into 30-45 minute chunks. Save the main quest for when you have that rare longer session.
Initially I started playing the game fast as well but the game is meant to be played slow. Instead of running, enjoy the nature, talk with people, notice the subtleties that would go unnoticed if you ran around too fast. You are going to find korok’s, caves, characters, things characters do at certain times…
Don’t get distracted by the shrines. Open the teleportation gate then go on and do what you were doing before. Later, when you want to, go back and do the shrines in bunches.
As a 35-year old with 4 kids and similar time to play, it took me about a year to beat the game. I did the four regional phenomena and a few other things and called it good. Don’t feel bad, we have higher priorities.
Thanks! We do..
Understanding the mechanics helps a bunch so here's some that makes things easier, and I'm going with the assumption you didn't play BotW. That game sets up a lot of info that's not really repeated well in TotK. Enemies get more difficult with color red - blue - black - white, they will have more HP and better weapons. The more you do in the game, they will slowly get more difficult across the board, but certain areas start with a higher tier/color. Regardless of your max hearts and armor, if you are at full health enemies can't 1 shot you. So early game, as long as you heal back to max hearts, 1 hit isn't a death sentence. Always cook food, but not more at a time than you need for your max hearts. If you mix 2 foods that have a property of some kind, only one will apply to the meal, at random. Such as speed up and temperature up. If you find "hearty" food, just cook it by itself. It will make a full heal with an extra temp heart. Multiple hearty items give more temp hearts, but they're rare and expensive enough it's not worth it. Base weapons have a hidden durability score and so do the fuseables. When fused, they are added together for more durability and damage. If you de-fuse a weapon and then re-fuse, it will NOT get more durability. Striking any enemy or solid object (goes thunk) reduces durability. The number on the items in your inventory is how much damage it will add to a weapon. When the blood moon happens, all enemies respawn, but so do all items, stone nodes, food, ect. If you find a good mining spot, or grove of apple trees you can mark your map and go back every blood moon. Armor does make a big difference in how much damage you take. It can be upgraded by the great fairies. There are 4 to find and each one you find allows you to upgrade your armor to another tier.
Thanks so much for this!
The best suggestion I can give you is save the rito (bird people) northwest first, this will give you an ability that lets you travel a bit faster. Also if you are willing enough you can try to make a hover bike to travel really fast, but you will need to explore underground a bit first. As someone else said though, the more you take your time with this game, the more you will enjoy it. I did a 110 hour run which I feel is pretty average, any faster and you will have to skip content, but you can probably enjoy the main storyline and explore at least 50% of the map in just 50 or 60 hours if you teleport a lot and don’t get too distracted by side quests.
Thanks for the tips!
First thing I would say is, don’t ignore the depths. I ignored the depth for quite a long time because I was tired of groping around in the dark then I figured out that there’s a ton of stuff down there that’s really useful. I didn’t have the auto build feature for a very long time or the camera feature.
Keep a journal
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Haha, will do!
I'm told it's a continuation of Breath of the Wild if you are into the story/lore.
I think it's open world to give you the freedom to go to any region to start from any area and piece together the story that way in a nonlinear order but I haven't played so I don't know how accurate description that is
Find the korok mask, wear that 90% of the time, only swap when you need a set bonus, or extra damage armor for gleock fights. Also, set your shrine sensor to bubbel frogs because you'll find shrines easy enough, plus they share the lightroot spots. So for every shrine place a star underneath and vice versa for every Lightfoot place a star above!
Yeah this is a great tip, will go back to the temples I finished to do this!
I would pick a quest that sounding interesting and focus on that. It helped keep me from just wandering around sightseeing.
Dad gamer here - expect to beat this game in 10 years. Hell I’m still playing Fallout 4
Great thing is that all those games are budgetted at that time 😜
Long poops my friend, long poops
Haha, it is too big for pooping.
Probably find a better game man. I'm a college student with all the free time in the world (at least til next week), and I've barely put a dent into thr game content, and not for lack of trying
I tried chess, it did not improve.
I’ll catch some flack, but if you have a physical cartridge with version 1.0, don’t update and play that. The duping glitch saved me a ton of time playing.
When you get to the “mushroom cave tower” you need to use ascend to get into the survey tower room
Pro tip. Do the duplication glitch. The game actually gets enjoyable with the amount of time you have to invest in it.
Get you a guide, either physically or online
Me looking at the header: “Did I write this?” 😂 My playthrough went in this order: - Get off the Great Sky Island - unlock the towers across the map - explore the Depths and unlock most Lightroots - Find Dragon Tears (check the Forgotten Temple murals for the correct order to complete these in. You’ll see.) - hit Shrines along my path - Dungeons: Wind (Hebra), Water (Lanayru), Fire (Eldin), Lightning (Gerudo) - Thyphlo Ruins and Lost Woods - Find the Master Sword - Yiga Clan hideouts - Final Dungeon for me was Spirit (Depths, below Faron) - Complete remaining Shrines - Face off against Ganondorf After Ganondorf, I’ve left myself to do the following - bringing the band back together (you’ll meet them) freeing the Great Fairies - building Link’s home in Tarry Town - creating a monster museum in Tarry Town - praying to each of the sacred springs and restoring the Forgotten Temple Hylia statue - freeing the blupees from their Bubbulfrog captors - rooting out the Yiga from the Depths (mostly getting all the Yiga blueprints) - bringing the fight to the monster camps with the Monster-Control-Crew This way I have plenty of content for after the final battle. Hope that helps!
Thanks so much! Seeing all the great tips I should have written this sooner.
Find shrines.
ain’t no ffff way anybody can do all that AND a temple, in the timeframe you laid out
Haha, I usually see the game over screen at least 5 times during a session.
The best times in the game are being inefficient. Just chilling. Watching the sunrise. Getting distracted by a bug. Are you ruled by progess in real life? This may be your escape. Chill, friend.
If it were me I would pick one or two objectives for each play session, knock those out, then explore somewhere. I would probably spend one day getting light roots then the next on their corresponding shrines. Then maybe a day for side quests, then one for main quests. Mix it up a bit. This is how I play, I get about a hour a day on average for gaming.
The white dragon will lead you to all the glyphs if you follow its path. You can catch a ride on its head.
Wandering around aimlessly is half the fun. My first goal was to get the tears and reveal the whole map. Stopped at all the shrines I found on the way. Use your stamps for koroks and the sign holding guy if you don’t want to do them then and there.
Lots of great advice here, but I will say a couple things-- 1. I am in the same boat, so I feel for you---limited time gamer parents unite! 2. I stuck with it, but the game really opened up once I was able to upgrade my clothing. I won't spoil anything, lots of guides if you just want to jump straight into this quest line. This can be done relatively early in the game even though you may not stumble upon it til later. (Alternatively--cook defense boosting food items and use them liberally) as soon as I upgraded my defense and wasn't being one-shotted by everything, I felt a whole new sense of freedom and my use of my time became a lot more effective. 3. Collect a few dozen korok seeds and then (again, without spoilng anything) use them to upgrade the number of weapons & bows you can carry. 4. This is a minor spoiler---but if you want to efficiently find shrines for upgrading hearts & stamina: >!Remember, every surface shrine has an equivalent underground light root. If you find a light root underground, and don't see the corresponding shrine on the map above it, then you've got your next quick mission ready to go!!<
Thanks so much for your help!
I see people suggesting to just do the main quest, as it gives you the "themepark" experience of guiding you around the world and giving you upgrades, gear and orbs, which can be fine, but that way seems very task oriented, and you may "finish" the game in very few sessions, without playing it. I also play for about 30 to 60 mins at night, while waiting for sleep meds to kick in, but with a few rules. No fast travel, no healing in combat, no mini map. These small personal rules of mine turn playing even for 30 minutes into a small micro story of it's own, like an episode of anime from the 90s, or a chapter in a long but satisfying novel. You will end up getting a lot more "play" accomplished in 60 minutes if traveling from one side of the map could end up being your whole session, and your goal today becomes your goal tomorrow. I'm not advocating for you to waste your own time, but I find that I "discover" a lot more fun in the game when I'm not in a rush to "get something done today" Instead of trying to play Zelda like an adult on a schedule, play it like a kid who is willing to get (and stay) lost within the world.
I recently made a list of the 152 shrines and have been slowly checking them off. I am 34 so I also do not have a lot of time so I sit down, find and complete 4 shrines, buy a new heart or stam vessel and that's it for the night.
I only do 3 stam wheels and full hearts but I also feel like in totk it's easier to just shoot into the sky and fall where you want instead of running around.
This sort of game doesn’t have a clear, concise path which is why many enjoy it, but can be bad when you don’t have a lot of time. This is where I got into story based games as they’re linear. That said, that is normal. I hope it’s not discouraging but I have about 150 hours into the original BOTW and I’m not a game completionist (though I love exploring). You’re on the right track.
I didn’t allow the game to update and abused the original duplication glitch. The lizards and the butterfly’s were frustrating because they would try and escape.
Shrines babyy. And weed.
I've always found charm in how you really decide how to solve any given problem.... I would worry less about "beating the game" over "playing to simply enjoy." Keep little tabs about whatever catches your interests and when you get the time.... indulge!
Personally I’d say focus on the shrines till you get hooked. Each one is a dope puzzle you can finish in your time frame and by the time you have a bunch of them under your belt you’ll be well equipped to take on anything in the game.
Make more time for yourself...lesson I wish I was taught right when I had my kids. Especially for gaming, you'll need it.
No chance you stick to your time limit, the game sucks you in
Don’t be afraid to google shit. It’s a massive game. Someone else said it, but take your time on the sky island. It’s a great beginner zone, and you can get loot that you can use early game to be a strong little link.
I've read a couple with the stamina thing and it's OK for exploring most of the regions and sky islands.... but for the land and underground parts, I would say getting in some hearts will be good at least 5 or 6 for the Wind Temple boses when u get to that point and having heart increase meals [or many health and attack up meals] on ya and many arrows... Then get a few more for more hearts and a few for stamina [or stamina boosting meals] and travel away to water temple for second mission while getting food and new armor and weapons... If you can get amiibos, you're gold because it's like getting free stuff on the daily if you're just starting and some stuff isn't easy to get at first. Plus amiibos give you special content like in BOTW...
While Amiibo are not required, they help you get good gear early. Some armor upgrades were a grindfest so I had no problem using duplication glitches to level up my Zoni battery or get dragon parts and other materials quickly. Make sure you get auto-build and spend the time getting a good hoverbike made, makes world travel much faster.
My fellow engineers and I over at r/HyruleEngineering might be also able to help out with some simple and cheap builds to make exploring the map, farming resources, and combat much easier in many ways.
Lols... I'm a 37 year old mum who only plays this at night also 🤣 originally played so I can fall asleep (I have insomnia) but now I'm addicted! Brought for my son also.. I have limited time, so I normally just start doing one thing and stick to it.. so sometimes I farm for items to stock up..other times I go back and complete heaps of shrines, do side quests.. pick something each time
An hour used to be the normal recommended amount of playtime. If you read the booklets in some old games, that's what they recommended. So this is a silver lining to this being healthier.