Now, in all transparency, I’ve been playing this game for a while. I’ve beaten the game and the first round of DLC. I had never played a 1v1,000 type game before and had absolutely no idea what to expect. So, while this is a first impressions of this game itself and of the DLC released, this is also a first impressions of this type of game overall!
Grinders Paradise!
There is so much to collect and do and earn and level and upgrade!
At first I was honestly a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of everything needed for all of it, and that’s saying something for me!
I found myself sitting down and just getting all of the items needed for the special requests that strengthen the characters and give them more hearts and such. From there, I got every single item in the game minus monster parts up to 100, which lemme tell you was a feat in itself! I’m still going back and regrinding out certain things! I’m mostly making sure I have materials for cooking and crafting and what’s needed for upgrading my weapons at this point, and the grind still continues!
While I was doing that grind, my levels were increasing for my team! It’s to the point now that I have 2 characters at Level 100 and I’m not stopping yet! I make sure I use the experience boosting food on any level I go in that I believe I don’t need extra help to dive deeper.
From there, the hardest and most grindy grind of all in this game: weapons. Finding the right weapons in this game can be only minority infuriating. Certain seals work best with some and not for others. Finding the good, super powered seals on weapons can be a bit of an annoyance. If you don’t already have a weapon that is good at finding good weapons. And now with the first DLC raising the weapon level to 50? I still don’t have even the Master Sword up that high! This so far is the hardest of the grinds and I’m still workin’ on it as much as I can!
Just as in Breath of the Wild, Koroks are back! To some, that’s exciting, to others the sound of the ‘Ya haha!’ is maddening. However, they are more crucial in this game then there were in previous. You need the seeds they give you upon finding them to power up one of your fighters, and even if you find them all in the main missions, they’re also hidden in a couple of side missions too! There are tons of guides to find the Koroks, you can also get weapons with a Korok tracker in them too.
Learning what characters fit your fighting style is a must!
Every person who ever picked up a controller will play the game in front of them just a tad different. That being said, while OP characters are OP and will always be OP, not every character will fit your particular play style. I found that I do my best with Revali and with Link, but can also switch in Impa and I’m learning Sideon too. Zelda is a bit hard with all of her weapons for me but I do see what power she has with her story unlocked weapon. Mipha is another that in a pinch I can use, but I’m not strong with her as well.
Finding what styles work for you best is going to be what makes you successful. As you continue, the battles get less and less forgiving and the amount of time you have to complete everything is less with every mission. Having a solid 3 or 4 characters you can pull out and be a bad ass with will get you through the game just fine!
Vanilla game does better in level matching than DLC in my opinion
In the pre-DLC version of Calamity, the scaling for making battles tougher and tougher was pretty even. New moves to learn and master, putting you against two, three, or five strong enemies at a time that you would have to time your dodges perfectly to come out on top, bringing back some of the bosses from the main storyline and having harsher and harsher requirements to go through. It made it a challenge and a strategy game around what foods should I use to counteract what is taken away to lead me to victory.
The DLC does this in many ways, in fact there’s a whole mission just focused on ‘Survive’ where you are stuck in a room with around 7-10 strong enemies at a time and many of them are ranged throwing magic at you. And you can’t die for 10 minutes. There is also a couple of new monsters to have to learn the patters for, like new forms of Wizrobes that don’t follow their siblings, a new Moblin that fights with explosive bombs, and the giant Chuchu jellies we saw in Breath of the Wild.
However, where the DLC turns in the wrong way is when it comes to the Vicious monsters. Vicious monsters are basically your average bigger type of monster, not Bokoblins or Lizalfos, but with an extra something to it. This could be ‘Stronger than Strong’ which means it’s gong to hit harder or something along the lines of ‘Unbreakable’ meaning it’s going to take forever and a half to get that defense shielding down and you’d better hope even more that it’s not a Talos with this because from experience this took me at least 10 minutes with Impa to take down.
What it essentially does it turns these Vicious Monsters into the traditional HP tanks. What this means in gaming is when the difficulty slider is pulled up the only thing that’s really changed with the monster in question is that they get most HP and a tiny bit stronger, but it’s essentially the same exact fight, only more time consuming because it’s going to take longer.
Game type and would I recommend?
Honestly? I expected to feel neutral on this game. I expected to enjoy it but not feel compelled to keep going. I’m very happy by how plesently surprised I was and how much I find myself wanting to just annihilate a whole group of bokoblins after a tough day of work.
Would I recommend? Yes, but to those who enjoyed Breath of the Wild only.
The sentimental aspects known in Legend of Zelda games are typically all separated, but this one I feel like needs that connection to the previous game.