Daily Debate: What are the Best Recipe and Elixir Effects in Breath of the Wild?

For all of the major changes and additions that Breath of the Wild made to the Zelda formula, I feel the chemistry system often gets overlooked. Foraging ingredients to combine into meals and potions is nothing new to open-world games, but it is to the Zelda series, at least in this form. It’s also a more or less optional system that can be totally ignored while dedicating triple-digit playtimes to the game. Despite this implementation, the idea of these lite-RPG systems appearing in my Hyrulian adventures is intriguing to me, and I try to exercise Link’s culinary prowess as often as possible to experiment with the effects of the results. What is the best effect gained from food or elixirs in Breath of the Wild?

The most obvious answer, deservedly so, is probably healing. There’s been much discussion about the balance of how healing works in Breath of the Wild. A quick, invincible, time-stopping trip into the menu can bring you from a quarter of a heart to full health in seconds for comparatively little cost. Fully formed recipes aren’t even necessary.  Many raw ingredients are instantly consumable for their healing effects. Perhaps the most powerful, however, are “hearty” meals. Recipes crafted with hearty ingredients, like truffles or radishes, give Link additional yellow hearts to temporarily extend his health beyond the maximum. The crazy part is that he must be returned to maximum in order to trigger this effect. As a result, any hearty dish, regardless of the quantity or quality of ingredients, is a full heal and then some. I’ll have what he’s having!

More interesting to me are the various buffs that are common to many games with RPG systems, but are novel to the Zelda franchise. Effects like stamina replenishment, defense boosts, or improved stealth allow Link to interact with the world in a variety of unique ways. Breath of the Wild‘s incredible flexibility sometimes renders these boosts unnecessary, but they can be a lot of fun for their own sake. My favorites are the recipes which allow Link to temporarily withstand extreme temperatures. In order to fully mitigate damage, significant amounts of rare materials are usually required, making the interaction feel consequential.

What about you? What effects from food and elixirs do you like the most? How much do you engage with the chemistry system in Breath of the Wild? Let us know in the comments below!

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