tips and hints

First choose at least 2, but up to 5 items to hold in your twiggy hyrulian arms

1) mixing bugs, frogs, lizards, monster parts, and fairies = potions.

2) mixing plants, fish, and other animal products not listed above = normal food.

3) mixing items from 1 and 2 together will make food so nauseating that the game censors that shit.

4) Food and Elixirs can only have 1 effect at a time. You can’t get a food bonus to armor AND stealth at the same time. Mixing effects will either make gross food or it will pick a single effect to apply.

5) once you have your items in your arms, dump ‘em in a cooking pot with the fire lit. Congrats, you cooked.

BASE FOOD RECIPE FOR EVERYDAY ADVENTURERS:

1) hold a meat. The bigger the meat, the more hearts you get restored. Bird, crabs, and snails count as meat.

2) hold 1-2 food items that share a keyword of the effect you want in its name. (List of keywords below) - variety doesn’t matter.

3) throw it in the pot.

BASIC ELIXER RECIPE

1) hold 1-2 monster parts without an effect in the description, like horns, wings, tails, or guts.

2) hold 1-2 critters that both share the effect you want. The more variety the better!

3) throw it in the pot

KEYWORDS IN ITEM NAMES FOR USEFUL EFFECTS

“ARMORED” “RUGGED” “FORTIFIED” or “IRON” beefs up your defenses: aka How to be less squishy when your armor sucks.

“MIGHTY” “BLADED” or “RAZOR” increase your attack power. Your weapons do more damage! Kill things faster!

“HASTY”, “HIGHTAIL” “FLEET”, “SWIFT” “HOT-FOOTED” or “RUSH” increases running speed. Get places faster!

“SPICY”, “SIZZLE” “WARM”, “SUMMER” or “SUN” increases cold resistance. Run through the snow in your underwear! (Except the sunset firefly, which is for sneaking)

“ENDURA” “ENDURING” or “TIRELESS” - give yourself a chunk of bonus stamina wheel for later. It will also fill your stamina wheel to 100%. Very valuable.

“RESTLESS”, “STAM-”, “BRIGHT-EYED” - restores stamina a bit. That’s all. It’s nice for climbing, swimming, or taming a horse.

“HYDRO” “COLD” “WINTER”or “CHILL” gives heat resistance. This is for the desert!! You cannot go on the volcano using this.

“FIREPROOF LIZARD” and “SMOTHERWING BUTTERFLY” - are the only things that can be used to give the “fireproof” effect to climb the volcano. Not useful in the desert. Elixer only.

“VOLT”, “THUNDER” “ELECTRO”, or “ZAP” gives electricity resistance! It’ll lower damage and reduce likelihood of being paralyzed by it.

“STEALTH”, “SNEAK”, “QUIET” or “SUNSET” - get sneaky. This is super valuable to me, because max sneakiness lets you walk at normal speed and critters won’t flee from you. Makes resource collection way easier.

… That’s everything!

-shooting the fish with a bow and arrow (this is the only actual irl fishing method in the entire game)

-bombs

-creating pillars of ice beneath the fish and then picking them up as they flop around

-swimming really fast and grabbing them presumably with your bare hands and/or teeth

-swimming really fast and chasing them until they beach themselves and then picking them up

-electrocuting the water with magic weapons

-wearing rubber armour and metal equipment and sitting in the water and waiting for lightning

not actual ways to fish in botw:

-rod and line

Breath of the Wild 2