The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s combat offer players a variety of ways for players to approach their enemy encounters. One of the most difficult yet satisfying moves inBreath of the Wildis the parry, and one fan has figured out a pretty neat way for players to practice their timing.
Parrying inBreath of the Wildoffers players two major combat advantages when performed successfully. Firstly, parries will negate an enemy’s attack, and in some cases even deflect the attack back at them, like with aGuardian’s laser beam. Furthermore, when fighting in close-quarters, parrying will stagger opponents and give players an opportunity to perform a Flurry Rush, a state where time slows and the player can perform a massive combo to inflict a lot of damage. The catch that comes with parrying is the timing: being too early with the parry will likely result in the player taking damage, while being too late will probably just result in a blocked hit, but the shield will take damage.
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Routine-Artist8200 shared to theZeldasubreddit an interesting way players can practice theirparry timing inBreath of the Wild. The post titled, “Actual way to learn parry,” shows Routine-Artist8200 in the throne room of Lady Riju, where after drawing their sword, Lady Riju’s bodyguard Buliara also enters an active state, telling the player to put their weapon away. By refusing and continuing to swing at Buliara, she will ultimately end up attacking the player, and as Routine-Artist8200 shows, her attacks can actually be parried. Like with any other encounter, perfect parrying Buliara will cause a beam of blue light to appear and time to slow, though she will be staggered by the action.
According to a comment by Routine-Artist8200, this sort of NPC reaction can be done with any character carrying a melee weapon.Breath of the Wildhas hundreds of different NPCsspread across Hyrule that will act and react to the player’s actions, from the Zoras in the Zora Domain to the wanderers at the various outposts littering the lands. Unlike other open-world RPGs likeThe Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrimor theFalloutgames, the player cannot simply kill any non-enemy NPC they come upon, so the most that can happen is the interaction seen with Buliara. However, Routine-Artist8200 is unsure if it works with Hylians and the Elder Gorons.
Almost five years later and players are incredibly stillmaking new discoveries inBreath of the Wild. It is a testament to the game’s polish and creativity that such unique interactions and situations are continually being found, even if they do not have a large bearing on the game overall. With this parry detail in mind, if players don’t want to try pursue enemies in particular to practice, they now know to just go to practically any old NPC with a weapon and can do so with them.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildis available on Switch and Wii U.
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