Nintendo Reps Cheered on Our Editor-in-Chief as he Kicked Ass in Breath of the Wild

Out Editor-in-Chief, Nathanial Rumphol-Janc, played the Breath of the Wilddemo twice yesterday. The second time, he was kicking ass and taking names as he fought the boss known as Steppe Talus. This was the story he expressed to us in our Discord chat—now you will see why we call him The Boss Man. One thing to note is that there are some curse words included (you’ve been warned!).

Nate: My second time, I was impressing Nintendo reps DESPITE “my Nintendo rep” getting pissy at me for fighting Steppe Talus, claiming I cannot beat it and will be too under-equipped in this demo, basically getting mad at me that I didn’t run from the fight and explore the area more. I calmly told her I have never seen a boss in the overworld before in a Zelda game, so you’re nuts if you think I’m running away from this fight until I deem it impossible.

Myself: Did you die?

Nate: Initially yes, as I was testing the attack Patterns and figuring out if any of my weapons could damage it. Eventually, an arrow hit the weak point (something I didn’t think was a weak point to be honest) and did a sliver of damage before I died. That’s when I realized — if I can damage it, I can kick it’s ass. So in the demo when you die, you basically “come back” to the moment just before your death but with full health. So then, I continued to fight it as she continued to press that I can’t beat it and I’m wasting my time. I broke every damn weapon I got, but it was the most fun I had fighting a damn boss in a Zelda game maybe ever. It was totally like Shadow of the Coloussus as I figured out how to get it to touch the ground just enough to climb it like a boss and wail away until my weapons broke.

Michael: So did you beat it and shut her up?

Nate: Broke everything I had, went through all my arrows, and it still had a third of health left. I KNEW there wasn’t enough time for me to get more items from a group of Bokoblins. So, you have this everlasting bomb on a reset timer. I kited that son of a bitch to a cliff, threw the bomb, blew it mid fucking air and watched it’s health drop like a fucking rock down to like 3%. But the blast radius was so big that it hit me for 2 hearts. THEN, I was prepping to do it again because it’s really hard and definitely not the intended way, but I had nothing else to hit it with, and just as I was about to take it out, my timer went out. And at that point 3 other reps gathered around me cheering me on because they had never seen it killed. My rep, meanwhile, was busy snearing and stuff. Trying to tell ME how to best enjoy this demo. I’m smiling away having fun and she tried really hard to ruin that.

Kristen: This seriously needs to be the next issue of our ZI Comic! Just Link staring down that thing with a rusty sword and bombs, then cut to Link putting on sunglasses saying, “Let’s do this.”

Nate: Needless to say if I somehow make it back to E3 today (because I am so tired I need to sleep, won’t survive the show floor) — But if I get back today, I will be kicking it’s ass for real. Won’t need to do a test death instead I can hit an extra pack of Bokoblins and gather more weapons. Then the second demo, story mode, Seen it once, so you can skip alot of the cutscene stuff. So I skipping it and skipping it. Eventually got the Parasail and was going down to the next land, an area Nintendo clearly didn’t think anyone could get to on a 20 minute timer. And reps were all around me because these folks apparently hadn’t seen anything beyond the first area, and no one else had made it this far. The timer ran out JUST as I landed.

Kristen: Boss as always boss!

Henry: Savage.

Nate: I could have saved time in a few instances that run and given myself a good 4 minutes on the ground in the second area. …Wait, Nintendo in the streams never fought Step Talus? Because I would love to have a world first kill video of that fucker. That rep I had only makes me want to do it more.

Darrin: Yes, they did fight it.

Nate: Did they kill it?

Darrin: They got killed in five seconds.

Nate: YES. I am taking that fucker down for a world first. I will get at least one more chance to play thanks to the booth tour tomorrow no matter what. I told all the reps, “Just remember the Zelda Informer name, because we’ll be back, bringing you never before seen moments in Breath of the Wild.”