The Master Trials Manages to Make Breath of the Wild Even Better

Breath of the Wild is a massive game. Sure you can complete it in a relatively short period of time but if you want to experience all there is in this open air game you can easily sink hundreds of hours into it. With four divine beasts to tackle, 120 shrines, and 900 korok seeds (good luck on those) the newest game in the Zelda franchise is not lacking in things to do. Now Nintendo has gone and expanded it. Late last month big N released the first bit of DLC that is part of their season pass, the Master trials.

If you are having troubles finding all of those korok seeds, and let’s be honest, who isn’t, there is korok mask you can find that will vibrate when you are close to a seed like the slate will vibrate when you are close to a shrine. There are also quests that will lead you to find Midna’s Helmet, Majora’s Mask, Tingle’s Outfit, and the Phantom armor. Majora’s mask will allow you to fool enemies for a short period of time into believing you are one of them. The Phantom armor has the same abilities as the barbarian armor.

Master Trials

In addition to these quests that reward you with armor, there is also a quest to upgrade your Master Sword. Think of this as Naked and Afraid the Hyrule Edition Season 2. (Season One being Eventide Island). You are dropped into a 45-floor temple and have to fight your way through to the end. You start off on the first floor with only your skivvies and your slate. Fortunately, you do have your abilities such as bomb, and magnesis.

Trying to figure out how to take on 3 bokoblins with only your wits is interesting. I went after them with a stick the first time and managed to kill one and take his weapon. I then used that weapon on the rest of his band. I didn’t even think about using my bombs. The second and third times through I got it down to one bomb to take out the entire group. You’ll have to kill all of the monsters in a room before you can progress to the next. You’ll also want to keep an eye out for treasure chests hidden throughout. This temple is hard to challenge and fun but can also be frustrating. If you die before you reach one of the 3 checkpoints along the way and you’ll have to restart from the beginning. Depending on how quickly you progress this means you could lose hours of your work.

Master Trials

Hero’s path is a new feature added with this DLC that allows you to trace your steps through the last 200 hours of gameplay. You can follow your ragdoll as he travels across the map or you can just look at the green outline traced across Hyrule and marvel about all the miles you’ve trekked. It’s amazing after so much time in the game to look and see just how much of the world you haven’t visited yet.

The final item that was added with the DLC is a Travel Medallion. You can drop this medallion down and create a warp point. With all the temples spread throughout the world that can act as fast travel points, this is the item that gets me least excited. However, it definitely has utility and isn’t just a throwaway from Nintendo.

It’s hard to argue that the content from just this first DLC isn’t worth the $19.99 pricetag. At this point whatever we receive in the Champion’s Ballad later this year is just icing on the cake.

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