In Breath of the Wild, clothes absolutely maketh the man. As such, you may find yourself changing your shoes more often than Carrie Bradshaw.
Our hero’s attire – called armor, even when merely an old shirt and well-worn trousers – consists of three categories: headgear, bodywear, and leg or footwear. Headgear includes helms, jewelry, bandanas, hoods, scarves, and the like. Body armor may be a shirt or tunic or something that actually resembles what we’d call armor, although it’s typically – shall we say – flashier than anything hanging in the Tower of London or the Terracotta Soldiers museum. Finally, Link’s lower half may be clad in tights, greaves, or boots.
Link may wear only one piece from each category at a time. Thus, you can’t wear tights with your boots or a circlet with your hood.
And other than protecting Link’s modesty, of what benefit is the armor? The first is obvious from the name: it protects our hero from damage. There’s a rating attached to each piece that denotes the level of protection, from the nearly why-bother Old Shirt’s rating of 1 to the far more impressive 32 of a fully-upgraded Champion’s Tunic. (It must be noted here that Itzal, never understanding ratings and bonuses, has dozed off.)
Second, specific armors provide specific benefits such as extra protection from cold, heat, or lightning strikes; the ability to swim or climb faster; stealth; or facility walking in snow and sand.
Third, because Itzal has to wake up to play the game, some of the armor sets are just better looking than others. Somedays, a hero just wants to put on his top hat, tails, and spats and spend a night on the town! (Note: sadly, there are no armor sets consisting of top hats, tails, and spats; don’t go looking.)
“I’m down for that!” you exclaim, having already drowned once or twice and shivered in the snow, or having always wished you’d walk the catwalk at Fashion Week. “Where can I get armor?”
Like most things in Hyrule and in life, armor can be found, earned, or bought. At least a couple of pieces, such as the Flamebreaker body armor, can be both earned and bought. And some, like the Snowquill set, may only be bought. But armor doesn’t come cheap, and it isn’t easy to access the requisite shops until you’ve opened a good deal of the map. For example, we’d love to have had the Ancient Armor set from the get-go, but that requires lots of rupees – no less than six thousand! – as well as ancient parts. Moreover, you first have to get to the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab and light its furnace, a not insignificant task.
Early in the game, however, Link can earn the Champion’s Tunic from Impa. In addition to a base defense rating of 5 – quite a step up from the Old Shirt – the Champion’s Tunic provides another fabulous benefit: it enables you to see the “health points” of an enemy, even one behind a wall or under the water.
That, in turn, alerts you to an enemy presence you might otherwise not notice, allowing you to make an informed decision of whether to run away (1500 health points? Live to fight another day, if you’re still at the four-heart stage of the game!) or to fight (12 health points? Piffle!). It’s also encouraging to see a monster’s health points going down when you’re slashing and thrashing.
Other armor sets readily available for early purchase:
The Hylian set, which has a low defense rating and no set bonus, but costs only modest rupees, available at the Hateno Village shop.
The Soldier’s set, which has no set bonus but a high defense rating, available at a moderate price at the Hateno shop.
The Sheikah set, which has a low defense rating but increases stealth and offers a set bonus of night speed, available at the Kakariko Village shop for a higher price tag.
Among the armor sets that must be earned are the Climbing Set (highly recommended!), the Rubber Set, and the Barbarian ensemble (which is not a four-piece orchestra appearing nightly in Ganon’s Lair at Hyrule Castle). We won’t go into those now, but stay tuned.
Some Final Points
Clever Reader, or already-Clever Gamer, will have picked up on the set bonus references above. As we know from a visit to My First Fairy, armor (which Cotera adorably calls “clothes,”) can be enhanced. For a price, of course. The price may be monster guts or herbs or diamonds or pieces of falling stars. She’s eclectic in her pricing.
And remember, the Great Fairy would also like you to wake up her sisters, of which she has three. When you do, she (or her sisters) will further upgrade your armor. When all three pieces of an armor set have been upgraded twice, the set may offer a “bonus” when the full set is worn. For example, a twice-upgraded Sheikah set, in addition to providing additional stealth, enables Link to run faster a night. The Climbing set’s bonus is faster climbing without draining one’s stamina as quickly. And so on. Each piece of armor can be upgraded as many times as you have awakened Fairies – that is, four times in total.
Although you are otherwise free to mix and match, you must wear all three pieces to generate a set bonus, and not all armor has a bonus. Also, don’t waste resources upgrading past the second level unless you know you’re going to wear a set later; you don’t want expensive shoes gathering dust in the closet. (In a role-playing pivot, Izal likes to harp on Demelza for the purchase and upgrading of the Radiant Set, which she wanted because it looked slimming, but he never wore because it looked uncomfortable, like bike shorts and a too-tight tank top required for gym class, but we digress.)
Most but not all armor can be dyed at the Kochi Dye Shop in Hateno, and you can buy special-effect jewelry in Gerudo Town. One piece, the Diamond Circlet, is also awarded for bravery and valor in a shrine to be named later; don’t spend your rupees on it.
Zelder Tip: Don’t pay for the Ancient Headgear if you have any one of the Divine Helms, courtesy of the Four Champions’ Amiibos; you’ll get the Ancient set bonus with a Divine Helm without having to fork over 2000 rupees, plus you get a special effect from the Helm itself. On the other hand, all the Divine Helms are kind of ugly.
We’ll delve more deeply into certain armor sets later. But right now, we’re going to go rearrange our closets.