Another (Two) Weekends With Zelda: A Breath of Fresh (Wild) Air (Part 2)

I've been hacking away at Breath of a Wild for about two weeks and three weekends now, so forgive the slight inaccuracy of the title. I think I'm nearing the halfway point of the game. There is still a good chunk of the world map waiting for me to explore plus many areas I need to go back to. Hyrule is too huge of a world for me to uncover every rock and find every shrine (it's definitely possible, but I don't think I will).

The small annoyances in the game have started to affect my enjoyment of the game. I'm getting more frustrated with the inventory system rather than the weapon durability system. It's alright that weapons break frequently; the need for improvisation is great and keeps me engaged in combat. It's the constriction of weapon, bow, and shield slots that gets me. Increasing inventory space requires "Korok seeds" which you find by seeking Koroks in out of the way areas and by solving small puzzles in the overworld. The game gives me so few slots at the very beginning and the method of increasing them gets exponentially harder as the game progresses that a lot of my time is spent chasing these seeds. The puzzles are engaging and it's fun to accidentally come across one, but this leads to larger point...

Though it's optional, you'll be seeing these a lot in Hyrule

The issue I am having with this game is that everything is so important to do that the main quest becomes the lowest priority and not really that interesting. My thought process goes something like this: "I'm dying too much. Maybe I should increase my hearts. Okay. Complete more shrines. Man, all these shrines are giving me good items but I can't take them all. Okay. Upgrade your inventory slots. Go find Koroks. Oh look, there's a shrine! Maybe I should go check it out. Oh look, I see a puzzle I can complete to get a korok seed." and so on and so on. But the fact that I'm complaining about having too much engaging content is pretty silly. I'd like to say this isn't a critique, it's my feelings toward the game and mine a lot. However...

Rain looks cool and dynamic, but it ruins climbing for me. 

Stamina and weather conditions inhibit a lot of exploration. I end up giving up on climbing a ledge or scaling a tower because the rain ruins everything. Stamina already does a good job at limiting how far you can climb and fly, but rain...rain is terrible. I wouldn't mind if it causes the occasional slip, but you slip all the time. There's no escaping it, and it frustrates me to no end. The game does this beautiful job of showing the horizontal and vertical aspect of exploration but then actually has places in the game that are always raining until you solve the puzzle. It's really my biggest gripe with the game. Every time it rains, I end up just fast forwarding to the next day. It's just not worth it.

This stealth mission frustrated me until I figured out the trick.

One other thing I'm just not patient enough for is sneaking. Stealth is just really hard to do in BotW. Link must walk at a snails pace to get within range to pick up bugs or mount animals. I would have gone mad at some of the borderline mandatory stealth sections in the game if I didn't have those "ah-ha
 moments (which wasn't much of one, since someone flat out tells you the secret to the section) that made those sections a breeze (but still fun).

I'm enjoying the story, though. Link was frozen by Princess Zelda for 100 years to be protected from Calamity Ganon. To remember everything from 100 years ago, Link has to find spots in the world that match the pictures on your tablet like device, the Sheikah Slate. The memories found really flesh out the relationship between Zelda and Link. It's great because it really gives you a reason as to why you need to get to Hyrule Castle as soon as you can. Zelda saved Link 100 years ago and now it is time for Link to save her.

Despite some of my qualms of the games mechanics, nothing beats solving a puzzle on my own or looking across the vast landscape when the sun is rising or setting. It still gets me that this game exists. Yes, there many things I would love to have changed to make the game easier to traverse, but there's this feeling I get from this game that keeps me going. I've probably put in forty hours in this game and I'm only halfway done with the story and have completed probably a third of the shrines in the game. I guess the other games I'm anticipating this year will have to wait.