Current Events > Horses in Breath of the Wild

(+) Yeah! (+)

Are they fun? This will determine whether I get the game

Theyre pretty much useless. Between fast travel and being able to climb everything on foot theyre more of a hindrance than anything.

They can cut down on travel time in some areas, especially if you get a good one early on.

However, you could play through the whole thing without catching one and not a great deal would be lost.

I didn't ride a horse at all on my first playthrough.

You get a motorcycle

Turbam posted...

You get a motorcycle

Yeah but by the time you can get it there's not really any point.

Theyre fun to ride around on, but truth be told I mostly preferred to wander around on foot.

Turbam posted...

You get a motorcycle

Thats extremely late game. Discrediting horses for something thatll take you probably fifty hours at minimum to get is not very logical.

I thought the motorcycle was DLC?

They were never around when I wanted one

Pretty much just another tool in the sandbox. For what they are, I believe they work well enough. Normal controls, not overly finicky, couple useful tools you can get later. The dumbest thing is you cant use the specialty gear on the cool horse.

saspa posted...

I thought the motorcycle was DLC?

It is, but its late game DLC.

saspa posted...

I thought the motorcycle was DLC?

it's the reward for beating the dlc content

Only two horses I bothered getting were the two special ones that are the reincarnations(?) of Zelda and Ganondorf's horses.

For everything else, I just ran.

Until I completed the second DLC, anyway.

Basically pointless unless you get the teleporting horse armor from the dlc

Jabodie posted...

Basically pointless unless you get the teleporting horse armor from the dlc

This. Once you get the Ancient Saddle, which is DLC, then after you Fast Travel your horse can Fast Travel right after you. The horse is invaluable at that point.

Theyre some of the worst horses in modern games imo.

257Loner posted...

This. Once you get the Ancient Saddle, which is DLC, then after you Fast Travel your horse can Fast Travel right after you. The horse is invaluable at that point.

This. Didn't use one other than very briefly early game until I got this. Still don't use it much but will it's i fast travel to a open area (not a lot of climbing to be done)and a distance from my destination

257Loner posted...

This. Once you get the Ancient Saddle, which is DLC, then after you Fast Travel your horse can Fast Travel right after you. The horse is invaluable at that point.

this sums it up

I'm shocked at the consensus here. I found them very useful for, you know, going faster.

Guide posted...

I'm shocked at the consensus here. I found them very useful for, you know, going faster.

I used horses even when I didn't have the DLC. It was just slightly more inconvenient is all.

Guide posted...

I'm shocked at the consensus here. I found them very useful for, you know, going faster.

A lot of climbing involved in this game. I climb more than run on flat land so with out the dlc saddle it's just too much a pain to try and use a horse.

lww99 posted...

Theyre some of the worst horses in modern games imo.

Worse than TES?

WorsCaseOntario posted...

Worse than TES?

I can climb mountains on horseback in TES.

Not intentional game design but I do it.

I think assassins creed was the first time I was impressed with horses in a game

WorsCaseOntario posted...

Worse than TES?

How is TES bad

MedeaLysistrata posted...

How is TES bad

They do steer like tanks.

I have a couple horses in my game, sometimes I use them when I do over land travel as it is significantly faster. But as soon as I need to climb it swim I ditch the horse and just run.

I've been using speed boosting food to run around Hyrule.

Wait you need a dlc saddle for a horse? Doesn't whistling bring your horse out of thin air like ocarina of time/other games? It's been 2 years since I played the game...

saspa posted...

Wait you need a dlc saddle for a horse? Doesn't whistling bring your horse out of thin air like ocarina of time/other games? It's been 2 years since I played the game...

Not out of thin air, it has to be roughly within draw distance, or it just doesn't hear you.

When your horse is trained well enough, you can get it to autopilot while you eat a snack or something and just pan the camera around to enjoy the view.

They're pretty nice if you're following a road. You can just hold the Go button and they'll take care of steering while you play with the camera and keep an eye out for things to plunder.

The problem is, they don't climb or safely descend cliffs, and most interesting things aren't at road level. So you climb a thing to nab some treasure while your horse waits at the bottom. But if you see something you wanna glide to from there, you're probably gonna end up outside of calling distance for your horse, so you'll be on foot until you reach a stable, which can retrieve it for you, or until you double back for the horse.

The teleporting saddle fixes this and lets you call it from any distance. It still won't help you climb up to a shrine or whatever, but you'll be able to retrieve it whenever you reach a place where it might come in handy again.

I prefer the bike personally, although you do hafta wait until you're done with most of the main story quests and all of the dlc before you can get it. That does leave plenty to do with it if you get it asap though.

I appreciate the attention to having the horses behave like horses, rather than cars.

They're definitely fun to chill on once you've trained them a bit

If you wanna get somewhere quickly, and can't fast travel there, they're invaluable. They self-drive, give you some nice height for slow-mo archery, and allow you to escape Guardians without wasting weapons. Once you've unlocked a good amount of fast travel locations, they become less useful, but they're always quicker than walking, except over uneven terrain.

Guide posted...

I'm shocked at the consensus here. I found them very useful for, you know, going faster.

95% of the time I need to abandon my horse to climb within 3 minutes of mounting. And for those moments when a horse would be nice, I don't feel like teleporting to a stable and asking them to teleport my horse for me.

i like riding that giant horse you can find somewhere on the map (i forgot where lol)

Horses now have a specific use

Horses are nice for traveling long, open distances faster. But their usefulness is limited; ultimately they're a holdover relic from games where traversing an open world mostly involved charting a course and finding a way around obstacles, whereas BotW is more focused on encouraging you to cut a straight line to your destination by climbing over and hangglide off of every obstacle you see.

MedeaLysistrata posted...

How is TES bad

> horses are easily killed
> horses themselves are terrible at combat, yet often insist on running into the middle of it; if they don't get themselves killed, you'll probably accidentally kill them yourself
> mounted combat is a joke - no magic, archery targeting is ass in 3rd person, and melee swings are too slow to effectively kill enemies while offering no damage bonuses to offset this. And your horse can get stunlocked way too easily, which in turn stunlocks you.

If you want to truly see how far behind the times TES horseback riding is and always has been, you need to experience the Wild Horses Creation for Skyrim. They clearly tried to ape BotW's taming mechanic but just ended up with a janky, inferior knockoff.

One thing that bears mentioning TC is that you can tame and ride wild deer that you come across in the woods, which is pretty damn fun. On my second playthrough I didn't even bother with horses and just snagged a passing deer anytime I wanted to cover ground faster.

It's pretty relaxing taking your horse for a ride across the country. And I agree with the other posters that horses are quite useful in battle situations when escaping from guardians or just dealing with hordes of enemies with the mobility your horsey provides you.

horse mechanics are crippled to make the player enjoy travel options like hang glide and fast travel. i dont really miss it but i did notice that i would rather just run than use a horse.

I never used them, but I rarely use mounts in games anyway.

There's too much "ooh, what's that?" in BotW, and getting on and off the horse is repetitive for me