Although It’s not very common for a company like
Nintendo to include paid DLC in their games, I thought the expansion pass for Breath
of the WIld was a really fun addition to an already great experience. Through this expansion, we were able to play
through multiple fun hours worth of bonus content that added to the base game - such
as more clever shrines, unique boss fights, and by far my favorite challenge - The Trial
of the Sword - an epic 45 room combat dungeon that served as a fun way to test a players
combat skills and wit through survival. So for the most part, I really happened to
like the majority of what this DLC had to offer. But despite all of the positives it brings,
there has always been one major thing about this expansion that I’ve always felt quite
negative about, and this has to deal with the various rewards you get by completing
its challenges, and how their massive impact can actually taint the overall flow of the
game. Now, don't get me wrong, a lot of the rewards
you can get in this DLC are really awesome and fun to mess around with, such as an upgraded
master sword, powerful stat boosting armor, and even a motorcycle..but my biggest problem
with all of these things is how they can completely simplify the difficulty of the base game with
how overpowered and gamebreaking most of them are. Now, It’s not to say that the base game
doesn't have its own share of powerful items you can obtain but the biggest difference between these powerful
items and the ones obtained in the expansion pass is how much harder the base game makes
you work for these items, unlike the DLC that basically hands them out like candy. So today, I thought I would go over the various
rewards of the expansion pass to figure out exactly which ones were detrimental to the
overall experience, how they negatively impacted the core structure of the base game, and what
I personally would have changed about them. So, in order to best explain the negative
impact these items had on the overall experience, I first want to compare the differences between
the powerful items in the base game and the ones in the DLC to figure out exactly where
these rewards went wrong. Let’s take the Barbarian set, for an example
- which is an item that can be obtained in the base game. While worn in its completion, it offers a
massive 50% attack buff - which completely changes the way a player approaches all future
combat scenarios in this game. But the catch here is that obtaining this
gear is no simple task - as the player will have to clear out 3 tough labyrinths that
lie on complete opposite sides of the map from one another, which probably won't be
done on a blind playthrough until the player is at least a good 50 hours into the game,
with the majority of the shrines and divine beasts already completed - which feels like
a very fair placement for an item this powerful. But for the players who downloaded the DLC,
you can easily obtain a very similar set of clothing, the phantom armor, which has the
exact same attack buffs and even a higher armor rating then the barbarian set, RIGHT
after you finish the games tutorial, just by searching the neighboring Hyrule Field. By having such a supplementary item like the
phantom armor available so early on in the game, it messes up a lot of key things that
the base experience tried to establish. For one, it ruins the difficulty curve of
the whole beginning and mid game, by making all of the combat and boss encounters much
easier than they were ever intended to be. Being able to boast an armor rating of 24
and a constant attack buff of 50% right after the games tutorial was not how the game was
intended to be played, as it makes all of the early combat far easier than it should
be, which discourages the use of creativity in battles in favor of just using brute force. And secondly, having a powerful item like
this thrown in the game so early makes similar and supplementary items feel nearly useless. Early game armor like the Hylian set and the
Soilders gear that were once practical in the games natural progression are now completely
pointless to obtain, while late game ones like the barbarian set are now made to be
unsatisfactory, as it only becomes better then the phantom armor after several expensive
upgrades - and by that point, you're probably so late in the game that most players hardly
even care. Now, it's not to say that every single reward
from the DLC is this breaking to the games overall progression, but there still are several
other ones that I would like to discuss that I feel should have been altered more to be
balanced with the core game. The barbarian armor in my opinion just happens
to be the most detrimental one, considering that there are no previous requirements to
obtaining this armor other than just finding its location. But another piece of armor in this DLC that
can also be somewhat gamebreaking is the Majora's Mask - which like the Phantom Armor, can again
be obtained right after beating the games tutorial and going to Hyrule field. This mask allows you to disguise yourself
amongst just about every major enemy in this game, which instantly puts the game into an
easy/pacifist mode that should not be so easily experienced early on. And just like how the barbarian set makes
other armors like the Hylian and Soilders gear useless, the Majoras Mask makes literally
every other enemy mask in the game pointless to obtain - as it contains the capabilitys
of all 4 of them in one. Which is a complete shame, considering that
they were all really fun items to try to obtain using mon in the base game. So, the biggest problem with both the Phantom
armor and the Majoras Mask is that they make the world of Hyrule a far less vulnerable
place then its truly intended to be, at least in the early game. In my opinion, some of the most memorable
parts of a first playthrough are when the player runs across a difficult enemy or situation
for the first time and tries to overcome it, and although the player may not end up victorious
in the end, uses the tough experience as a learning lesson for improving and getting
better. But with such powerful items available so
early on, it taints the difficulty curve of this game by ruining the satisfaction of learning
from this venerability. But fortunately, out of all of the other treasure
based rewards you can find in this Expansion pass, I really didn't have a problem with
them at all, as they did not involve any major stat boosting properties that offset the balance
of the game. Items such as the Royal Guards set, The tingle
set, Midna's helmet, and many more were either purely cosmetic, or their boosts were so minor
that they never severely adjusted the pacing of this game like the other gear did - so
it's fair that you were able to find these items from the very start. But items like the phantom gear and majora's
mask should of been obtainable by harder means other than just finding them in hyrule field,
as with how powerful they were, should have only been unlockable after completing a much
bigger quest or surpassing a major point in the story or DLC. Which leads us into the next topic of this
video - the highlight rewards the player can obtain by completing the main challenges of
the expansion pass - which are the enhanced master sword, the upgraded champion abilities,
and even the Master Cycle Zero. Now, one huge thing that separates these rewards
from the other treasure chest rewards you can find is that each of them require a LOT
of the base game to be completed before obtaining, along with multiple tough challenges of their
own that as a prerequisite. The upgraded master sword, for an example, not only requires the player to first obtain the mastersword in the base game, but also the completion
of the Trail of the Sword - which is an ultimate test of the players wit and skill in combat
that likely won't be able to be beaten until the late game. The other 2 rewards, the upgraded champion
abilities and the master cycle, can only be obtained after completing every single dungeon
in the base game, and beating the entire champions ballad quest line that precedes it. Although im glad that all of these items get
introduced much later in the games progression unlike the armors, I still think that there
should of been WAY more prerequisets before obtaining them, as these rewards are so powerful
that each one can COMPLETELY change the dynamic of the game throughout the entire rest of
your playthrough. The enhanced master sword, for example, not
only has an attack output of 60 - but also lasts a total of 188 hits with only a mere
10 minute recharge window. This means that roughly 70-80% of all future
combat scenarios will be handled exclusively with the master sword - which completely throws
out the past established combat loop of cycling between new and unique weapons to take down
enemies - as now that's only restricted to the small amount of time when the sword needs
to recharge. Considering that Breath of the Wild was built
around this weapon swapping system, having another system to almost completely override
it deteriorates the variety that once made this games combat so fun. Similar situation with the games master cycle. Although its really fun to ride around Hyrule
in an ancient dirt bike, it practically replaces the entire horse and stable system that is
a very key element to the transportation of this game. Despite horses still having some advantages,
like the ability to auto pilot amongst major roads and lack of needing to be fuled, the
master cycle is better in almost every other way - it can overcome some of the games roughest
terrains, can be spawned just about anywhere at any time, and has no way of being killed
like horses can. I will give the developers some credit on
this one though, as the DLC also added in the ancient horse armor - that allowed horses
to stand a chance against the bike by making them faster and allowing them teleport to
you, but there are still far more advantages to the bike where the player will more often
than not still choose it over the horses. But as I stated earlier, I think its fine
that powerful items like this are in the game, but I just think that there should have been
far more prequequesets required to get them. Although pulling the master sword and doing
the 4 divine beasts are quite hefty tasks to accomplish, a lot of players will tend
to just rush through these things in the main story just to unlock the DLC and reap its
overpowered rewards. But after doing this, will be discouraged
to complete all of this games fantastic side content, as the rewards would be inconsequential
to what they got in the expansion pass. With all of this said though, I truly believe
that the best solution to fixing the entirety of the games DLC problem, would be by making
all of the expansion pass content consisting of the Master Trials, the Champions Ballad,
and even all of the treasure rewards, only unlockable after a full completion of the
game itself. So not just the Divine Beasts and the master
sword, but also all of the memories and even the final showdown with ganon. Doing this not only moves the DLC rewards
to a point where they actually make sense with your progress in the game, but it also
adds a proper post game to Breath of the Wild that the fanbase has been asking for for the
longest time now. Considering that the player receives no major
rewards from beating the base game other then the satisfaction itself, making all the DLC
challenges unlockable and adding in all the overworld chests after the fact would actually
make all of this work seem worthwhile. After becoming the true hero by unlocking
your memories and freeing the divine beasts, you are finally allowed to expand your spirit
even further, by restoring the master sword to its former glory, unlocking great ancient
technologies unseen before, and expanding your magical powers to the fullest potential. Although past systems like the stables and
weapon cyclling will still be overridden, it will now be at a point where the player
fully exhausts them, and being overpowered actually feels like a proper next step - unlike
how its currently set up, where these rewards were introduced way too early on. Which actually takes me back to when a lot
of us first started playing, when the game first came out in early 2017. We didn't have the expansions or any of the
DLC at launch, so many of us spent dozens upon hundreds of hours doing all the main
content and completing all of the shrines without the help of the expansion rewards. And when the first DLC pack, The Master Trials,
rolled out later that year, it felt like a worthy addition to our progress, followed
by the Champions Ballad 6 months later, which felt like a great last hoorah to the main
events in the game. All of the overpowered DLC items that we received
were for the most part obtained at levels when they actually felt well earned and deserved. But with how accessible the overpowered DLC
items are to beginning players, it completely offsets the ballane and challenge of how a
first playthrough should be. I’m not saying that a first playthrough
with these crutches necessarily turns a good experience into a bad one, but I do believe
that having these crutches early on does lessen the experience quite significantly. Which is a shame really, considering that
the developers even stated in past interviews that Breath of the Wild is most optimal to
play with the DLC installed right away instead of later, which encourages a much lesser experience
in my opinion. But coming from someone who has lots of experience
with both the base game before the DLC and after it as well, I recommend to any future
players of this game to wait on purchasing it until AFTER you have completely played
all of the main events of the base game, as it is by far the most optimal way to play. But anyways, what do you guys think about
this topic? Feel free to leave any feedback on your thoughts
about the rewards of this DLC, as i'm already predicting that there's going to be a lot
of various opinions on this subject, as there usually tends to be when I make heavily opinionated
videos like this. But regardless, thank you all so much for
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and I will see you guys in the next one!!
Ive seen it before, I think very few people abused these items on their first playthrough.
The game is easy regardless of using these items anyways so its not a problem imo. This games purpose isnt meant to be hard.