"The upgrade system works. Whereas in Skyward it was a bust because you had to collect a lot of random things and the upgrades were basically worthless, things are different in ALBW. The aforementioned sidequest is a variation of the Skulltulla concept and for every ten you can upgrade an item of your choice. Not only is it fun to do the collecting, but many of the upgrades prove to be useful, particularly the fire and ice staves. The final reward for the sidequest isn't anything special, but at least it isn't a complete letdown like in Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword."
This is awesome. I hated how in Skyward Sword upgrades didn't matter at all. I'm glad they fixed that.
I haven't done any dungeons in Lorule, but I will give my impressions thus far.
I'm really glad there is no side-kick at all, I really hope they keep doing this in future Zelda games. The tutorial part is by far the best in modern Zelda games, sure you don't get the sword intermediately, but compare to Skyward Sword this is a blessing, and again I hope they keep doing this.
I honestly really enjoyed the 3 dungeons I have done thus far, all 3 were well done and simple fun to get through. All bosses so far (with the exception of the recycle boss from ALTTP on the Tower of Hera) have been amazing, don't really challenging, but then again, I can't remember the last time I had a hard time with a boss on a Zelda game.
The renting mechanic is great, at first I thought you could only rent 1 item at a time, but I realized you can just rent the whole shop, which is great because it avoids to go back to the house multiple times. Just being able to do as I please from almost the get go is a welcome addition that has been absent from a very long time.
The music has also been fantastic, the remixes of old Zelda games are really well done and the new music fits perfectly. My personal favorites so far are the minigame song and the battle theme during the second fight with Yuga in Hyrule Castle.
I agree with you that without using 3D, is sometimes hard to check your height. But I most say, for someone who doesn't give a crap about 3D, ALBW has really impressed me with the 3D effect, I still don't use it, but I will admit that it looks really nice.
As for the difficulty, I agree that hasn't been all that challenging, but just like I mentioned with the bosses, I rarely have a hard time with Zelda games, so this doesn't really bother me at all.
One "major" problem that I have with the game is that the story so far has been just "meh". Outside of Yuga fusing with Ganon, there's nothing of interest in terms of story, which is kinda sad, I hope it picks up later on.
Edit: Also, extremely minor thing, but I love how the bartender in the Milk bar in Hyrule is Talon and in Lorule is Ingo. Small details like that really make the experience better for me.
Nintendo and PC gamer
