The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s Champions’ Ballad DLC is mostly good (Review)

For the most part, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s expansion in the form of the Champions’ Ballad pack is good — just with a few missteps.

Note: This will discuss in terms of gameplay the bulk of the Champions’ Ballad DLC pack of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. There will be no story spoilers. 

It almost seemed inevitable that one part of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild had to be disappointing or otherwise underwhelming after the initial game was so good that it won the Game of the Year award at The Game Awards this past week. It almost seems natural that the problem would come with the water portion of The Champions’ Ballad, the recently-released second half of the DLC that Nintendo has dropped for Breath of the Wild. Look, my first game was Ocarina of Time. Say the words Water Temple to any veteran, and you will get a look. Me included.

The bulk of Champions’ Ballad comes in the form of several new shrines — we won’t give you the exact number, lest you figure out what’s going on — and the promised new dungeon. For the most part, these shrines are clever, as were the bulk of the original 120, and while it might take you a few minutes to pick up each one, you can usually get through it.

The hardest part is the initial section, due to a gameplay imposition where you will die in one hit — a bit like the old three-heart challenge, but this time with the ability to also kill anything in one hit too. But while this player may have seen the game over screen more times than she would like to admit in this review during this portion, I didn’t feel as though it was unfair. It only strengthened my resolve to get back in it and prove myself worthy of getting to the rest of the DLC. (Do I have courage? Not really. Tenacity? Yes. Do I hate to lose? Absolutely.)

Most of Champions’ Ballad comes in the form of the middle section, subdivided into four, one for each of the Champions you’ve met along the way. To prevent spoiling the game for those who have just started, you’ll have to clear all four Divine Beasts first, then take this additional set of quests on.

And while three of the four sections are perfectly fine — hilarious at points, touching in others and shedding a lot of light on the world of the game — it’s the water section, especially in its shrines, that are more often an exercise in frustration than they are in feeling delighted that you figured the puzzle out. The other shrines seemed like they were newly designed or ones that were hard to cut from the base game. The water shrines … definitely felt like ones cut.

If you’re wondering, I don’t actually hate the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time, so I have a bit of credit to complain about water dungeons in Zelda as a franchise. I even like the Lakebed Temple in Twilight Princess … aesthetic-wise, anyway. So it’s not that I came in planning on disliking the Mipha section, but, by the time I reached the end, I was more than happy to send Link tramping off to the next set of challenges.

When it comes to the dungeon, it’s a smaller variant of the four Divine Beasts, and the reward at the end, which featured pretty prominently in the trailer … is a motorcycle that you can ride around.

Look, don’t stop and think about how silly it is when horses and warping are the main modes of transportation. You can ride a motorcycle and do wheelies. Even better? Nintendo worked in combat on the motorcycle. Pair it with costumes — and Nintendo picked some good costumes to put in the game this time, including one inspired by Phantom Ganon of Ocarina of Time, as well as the previously-announced The Wind Waker tunic and a previously-predicted Ravio hood from A Link Between Worlds. Of course, the Ganon set is best, though, because it comes with a full cape that happens to flap in the wind when Link pops a wheelie.

Clearly, motorcycle skills are for more than just the Link who appears in Mario Kart 8 and 8 Deluxe. After playing through The Master Trials, I said that it was probably big enough to justify the $20 price tag on its own, and I’ll estimate that I easily got another $20 worth out of The Champions’ Ballad. It seems as though Nintendo has made quite the deal for Breath of the Wild.

Next: 15 awesome Zelda references in Breath of the Wild

Even if a solid sixth or so of this pack (the initial challenge, four Champion sections, and then the final dungeon) is particularly annoying.