Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Breath of the Wild: Golden Enemies?

With the upcoming DLC of Breath of the Wild Nintendo will introduce a "Hard Mode", where all enemies move up one tier by default. This raises the question, what will happen to the different silver enemies, which are currently the top tier? In their press release Nintendo talks about "higher-ranking enemies players wouldn’t find through normal play", so apparently there will be a new level for enemies. And you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that this will probably lead to the return of Golden Monsters:


Golden Monsters were first seen in Oracle of Seasons, where there was a Golden Moblin, a Golden Octorok, a Golden Darknut and a Golden Lynel found in certain spots in the overworld only during specific seasons. They had a lot more health than their normal red and blue counterparts and some of them would also attack a lot faster.

Golden Monster returned later in The Minish Cap with Golden Octoroks, Golden Tektites and Golden Ropes that get spawned after certain Kinstone fusions. They also have a lot more health than usual enemies and attack with excessive speed. (Other than that golden enemies were also a thing in Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland.)

Much like Breath of the Wild, both of these Zelda games were directed by Hidemaro Fujibayashi, so it shouldn't come as a big surprise, when certain features of these game see a return. Breath of the Wild makes much greater use of enemy tiers than any other Zelda game in the past. There are the traditional red and blue tiers, as well as the black tier, which has been quite rare in the series. The game also introduced the silver tier as enemies, which are a lot more resilient.


It seemed like a weird choice to use "silver" for the strongest enemies in the game, but it appears that Nintendo simply reserved the gold tier for the DLC. At first these silver enemies can be quite annoying, especially since during the midgame they start appearing everywhere, even when you're not prepared for their strength at all. But when you reach an endgame status, it becomes much and much easier to defeat them quickly. So easy in fact that golden enemies would be a welcome challenge later in the game.

Only Lynels might be a little more interesting, because the silver variants didn't gain any health over the White-Maned Lynels, they have the exact same stats.


And to be honest, they didn't have to, because they still are furious tanks and the toughest enemy in the entire game. Golden Lynels with even more health certainly would become a big challenge, even with endgame gear.

Of course all the golden enemies should be worth the trouble. Ideally all golden enemies would have a high chance of dropping Diamonds and Star Fragments, especially since you need so many of the latter to upgrade all armor available in the game.

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