Finally got around to beating Ganon. I was putting it off for weeks. Months even, trying to complete as many other things as possible. But now it's done. I wanted it to be done before the expansion pack releases. Also, now I can finally buy the strategy guide because there's nothing to spoil anymore.
Or is there?
So I went out to find and complete every shrine, did every side-quest (I think), found all the memories, completed the encyclopedia, found and upgraded every piece of clothing, went exploring literally everywhere and found every town and area (again, I think) and beaten the four Divine Beasts and finally Ganon. Final score is a whopping 220 hours and 34 minutes.
And then I looked at the completion statistic that's put on the map after beating the game...
54.67%.
What? 0.0
But I guess those seeds just count for a lot then...
Needless to say, but still, I'll say it again, the game's absolutely brilliant. Before this I couldn't have imagined there'd ever be another game that would even get close to threaten my all-time favorites in my list for the upcoming Top 50 Favorite Games thread.
The vivid, varied, realistic, majestic, grand and beautiful world is the best game-world I've ever played. The physics engine making it all the more enticing, giving you a level of interaction with it and an ability to think out of the box I've never seen. You are sucked into it, and there are no restrictions. The structure of the game is as such that even though you're never really told what to do or where to go, you're never at a loss for what to do or how to proceed, because no matter where you go there's always something to find and a new way to move forward. They've found the perfect balance.
The Shrines and the Divine Beast were great, there's clever puzzles to find and because of the physics I've found clever ways of completing them. They all have a 'true solution', but I'm sure I've cheated my way through a handful with tricky bow shots, tight gliding manouvers and clever use of the four powers on anything in the environment, giving me a great sense of accomplishment. These substitutes for dungeons are one of the only smudges in the game's otherwise near-perfectly shining shell however, because none of these can really stand comfortably alongside real, long and themed dungeons of Ocarina of Time/Twilight Princess/Skyward Sword calibur.
The same goes for the bosses, of which there aren't many, and none as epic as the best from other games. I liked the first phase of Ganon though, but with the second phase I think it's safe to say that Ocarina of Time retains the crown of containing the most epic endgame.
A brilliant game like I said, and it'll stand tall and proud among my favorites, probably for a very long time, if not forever.
