All this means that the starting (tutorial!) area of the Great Plateau becomes a deadly arena filled with Blue Bokoblins and a bloody Lynel. For anyone familiar with the title (and really, if you’re not familiar do NOT start with Master Mode) you’ll know this means everything is pretty serious right from the get go.
Whilst my proficiency at dispatching harder enemies isn’t bad – even consider Link only has three hearts to start with – resources, i.e. your flimsy weaponary, breaks constantly against the tougher skulls of blue and black enemies. Whilst I never had a problem with BOTW’s durability mechanic in its vanilla incarnation – indeed, I’m one of those annoying types you see online defending the latest Zelda’s biggest point of contention – Master Mode twisted my love for the controversial system and turned it into something hateful and rage-inducing. Instead of being allowed to engage in honest scraps with the minions of Ganon I more often that not found myself fleeing from their camps. Then I began working out ingenious little ways of dispatching them without ever directly interacting with them, utilizing Breath of the Wild’s endlessly imaginative set of tools. You have to kind of rewire your brain for the first few hours of Master Mode, and it was something that was originally uncomfortable and annoying, especially after fifteen or so ‘Game Over’ screens. But once I got into the new swing of things, I began enjoying my second, more insanely difficult playthrough of Breath of the Wild nearly as much as my first.
It’s definitely not going to be for everyone, and those first two hours on the Great Plateau are going to challenge even the most battle-hardened Zelda fans, but Master Mode is a wonderful inclusion and a brilliant excuse that I totally didn’t need to spend another two hundred hours with the title. My biggest recommendation for challengers, and what turned the playthough from aggravating to awesome, is an early-game raid on Hyrule Castle, securing as much end-game weaponary as little Link could carry. It was tough to even reach the castle, but once I managed that it played host to a genuinely thrilling heist (especially considering all the end-game guards dotted about the place) After returning to the main questline kitted out in deadly gear, things finally started falling into place.
The Master Trials also adds a slew of fan-service costumes for Link that speak to the series’ storied history in fun ways, and a much needed Korok mask that helps you track down the 900 optional mini-puzzles scattered around Hyrule. This works great with the new map feature that allows you to see where you’ve been (and, more importantly, not been) in the last couple hundred hours – a really helpful addition. However, at this point in my main playthrough I’d already obtained some fairly killer duds, and the non-upgradeable new costumes simply couldn’t compare. It’s an oversight I hope Nintendo will fix in a patch, as I’d love to spend my Hard Mode adventure dressed as Tingle (as long as I can upgrade its meager defense).
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild reintroduced punishing difficulty back into the series after decades of absence. The Master Trials DLC ups the ante significantly and asks you, fittingly, to become a true master of the title to see any sort of progress. From it’s brilliant arena challenges to an entirely new, skewed playthrough, The Master Trials refuses to take things easy on you. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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