Lurker > ZeldaTPLink

Enemy Species:

Bokoblin
Moblin
Lizalfos
Stal
Cursed
Chuchu
Keese
Keese Swarm
Octorok
Wizzrobe
Peeblit
Lynel
Decayed Guardian
Guardian Stalker
Guardian Turret
Guardian Skywatcher
Guardian Scout
Yiga Footsoldier
Yiga Blademaster
Hinox
Talus
Molduga
Wolf
Bear

I'm ranking things that are just the same but stronger/differently elemental as the same species, so this doesn't get too long. Guardian types get separate entries, though all guardian scouts are in the same entry. Mini-bosses are also included. Wolf and bear also make it even if they aren't technically monsters.

24- Stal

This is a neat concept with decent execution that became an endless pain in the ass because Nintendo thought it was a good idea to make them appear EVERYWHERE. After the Great Plateau you are more or less done with them, but they will be with you for the next 100+ hours, wasting your swords or narrowly espacing your bombs. They are a joke to kill most of the time, but sometimes they are get elemental weapons and become an issue, then again the fact they always get knocked out in one hit from any weapon makes them unlikely to be more than an annoyance. I'm taking points away for overuse. But hey, grabbing them and throwing from a mountain is fun, I guess.

23- Octorok

They have been a pain in every 3D zelda to date, and here it just continues. The biggest issue is that somehow got insane range this time, and they will hit you while you are trying to focus on other things, forcing you to stop and shoot them. The treasure and rock variations are more obnoxious, though they feel fresher I guess.

22- Keese

The next entry in the series of 1HP annoyances at least isn't that omnipresent, and dies in one bomb instead of two, but I'm not really singing praises about keeses. It's the same as it always been. Elemental keeses have decent attack power though, so they can be a real threat if you are on light armor. Not too bad, not amazing either.

Bosses

7- Windblight Ganon

Yeah sorry this guy is lame. The vents to make you attack while flying seem promising, until you realize they make an already easy fight pathetic. He can't hit you, his aim is too bad, and you can deal insane damage by gliding and spamming bomb arrows.

6- Beast Ganon

Wins over Windblight because at least it is a pretty cinematic fight. But it doesn't earn many novelty points because TP already did both the beast and the horseback Ganon fights, albeit on different stages. The targets aren't super easy to hit (I only learned after the fight you could get slow motion by hopping from the horse), but you know who is never hitting you? Ganon. So it's just a long puzzle.

5- Fireblight Ganon

Also very easy and not very likely to hit you, but the stage where it becomes immune to everything and you have to throw bombs to damage it is neat, and actually took me a while to figure out.

4- Master Kohga

Pretty fun character. The fight is kind of whatever. It's an extended comedy scene rather than a boss fight, really, but it was a cool ending to the dungeon.

3- Waterblight Ganon

The fact it was the first one may have made it a little more challenging, but the second stage is pretty clever. Water makes it hard to manuever and the ice blocks also take quick reflexes to dodge, but you have small windows to attack. Not a boss to sing home about, but we are getting to the actual fun ones now.

2- Calamity Ganon

He tries. He uses every move from the previous blights, flies high so you have to use arrows, and becomes invulnerable so you have to deflect his guardian shields to deal damage. All of this make Calamity Ganon the most similar to a classic 3D zelda boss, a pretty solid one, in fact. But I want a final boss to make me sweat, and this guy doesn't.

1- Thunderblight Ganon

This boss did, though. He is hard to fight, hard to dodge, can pile up damage quick, and has a puzzle face in the middle that I never figured out myself, just kept spamming bomb arrows until I chipped enough HP to skop to the 3rd phase. Very fun boss that keeps you on your toes and i'm glad I didn't fight this one first because the impossible standard would have destroyed my impression of the other blights (even further than the blights already did themselves). Comparable to some of the best OoT bosses.

Jakyl25 posted...

I forget, did you realize you could shatter Rutas ice with Cryonis? Ive seen people not realize it until deep in the fight or after and its always a hilarious reaction

Yes, I did, didn't take too long.

Dungeons:

6- Vah Rudania

This and Medoh are the dungeons that used the same gimmick (flipping the whole building a certain angle), which honestly is the most basic gimmick that could be used here. Rudania has some thing going for it, the music is good, and the initial part with the darkness is really cool, but sadly, it doesn't last, and you are left with a few easy puzzles.

5- Vah Medoh

Medoh is a little better than Rudania because the 45 degree angles and the focus on wind make for some difficult jumps and glides, so I actually had trouble at some points here. Still not a very creative dungeon, though.

4- Yiga Hideout

I hated this at first, but then I realized I wasn't accounting for the possibility of climbing walls, and the room I was stuck in was the last one, and the boss was great, so this grew up on me. Pure stealth missions have a weird place in this game, because as a flexible game, there is always a chance the player will avoid the stealth entirely. So Nintendo forced their hand by giving enemies one hit kills, which is an out of place game design choice. However you are still given multiple options to get to the finish line so it mostly works.

3- Vah Ruta

Dumbo is better because the movement gimmick is used differently: it's not the whole dungeon that moves, just the trunk, and it interacts with water puzzles a number of ways. It took me a while to understand what was going on, so I think I spent longer here than in other dungeons. This one uses the classic water flow puzzles of zelda, which I usually don't like a lot, but since it's a small dungeon, it just works. Not a dungeon to write home about, but it's one of the better applications of the concept in BotW.

2- Hyrule Castle

I'm probably not being fair here because everyone says what makes this great is entering it earlier and well, I didn't, so I may have missed something. But it's still my experience. It's easily the best final dungeon in 3D zeldas, because honestly, all the others are shit. It's a fun place to explore and to get to know and it meshes well with the game's spirit. The biggest problem is it has way too many freaking guardians. I could kill them at this stage but it wasn't trivial and I feel like I spent at least two thirds of my time there running from laser pointers. I also didn't enjoy entering Ganon's room accidentally, I get it that the game is non-linear, but using Zora Armor to climb a waterfall is not exactly sequence breaking by the game's standards. Other than that, I had fun here, but I liked the next one more.

1- Vah Naboris

Camel wins because it's the one that approaches a real Zelda dungeon, by having a gimmick that affects everything but not always the same way. You don't just rotate the cilinders, you also use them to close circuits, to open doors to the ends of those circuits, and then you have to complete the circuits with other means, use batteries to turn on other devices and move other parts of the camel separately. So in the end, it's one big interconnected series of puzzles, even if not as big as in other zelda games. Ruta also had different uses to the water, but they were not as connected as here, so Naboris get the edge. Also I'm ranking bosses in another list, but this has the best boss among the blights by far so that has to mean something.

Divine Beast Fights:

4- Vah Medoh

I feel like this would be higher if it was the first one, because those fights are all neat, and Bird is no exception. But it's really just much easier than Ruta and Naboris while not doing being much different from them. Hey, gliding is fun. But someone had to be last place.

3- Vah Naboris

Same as above, not being the first fight didn't help, but this feels more different because there is an actual hazard to dodge here, and sand seal fighting is something you only do here. Hitting the beast's legs is so easy, though, so this felt very short.

2- Vah Rudania

Rudania wins over the previous ones for the novelty. Makes sense the Goron scenario is the only slow one. Now actually hitting the beast is a joke, so the obstacle course makes or breaks it here. As it stands, it's a decent one, with stealth bits that can be avoided with runes and creativity.

1- Vah Ruta

My favorite one, but I suspect it's not just for being the first. The ice blocks are really tricky to dodge, and being thrown into the air by Sidon to get a few seconds of shooting is so thrilling. I think this one glitched for me the first time around, because Sidon refused to get to the other side after I finished the first two targets. In my second try, I decided to finish it fast and hit two targets in one climb, just to be sure.

So here is everyone's favorite part in gamefaqs' threads, the rankings.

This game has a lot of characters and I'm not going to rank everyone cuz mostly are one notes. I have made a list composed of major characters, recurring characters or just the ones I've liked myself. Since everyone has their own favorites, I'm going to post the list here and then rank other things (dungeons, regions, bosses, etc), leaving the characters for last. Meanwhile, you folks can request additions to the list and I'll include them (within reason).

Btw, I haven't played any DLCs, so I'm not ranking characters exclusive from them.

Beedle
Bludo
Bolson
Bozai
Calamity Ganon
Daruk
Dorian
Goron Blood Brothers
Great Deku Tree
Great Fairies
Hetsu
Impa
Kaneli
Kass
Kilton
King Dorephan
King Rhoam
Link
Loone
Magda
Malanya
Master Kohga
Mipha
Mora
Muzu
Paya
Pikango
Purah
Revali
Riju
Robbie
Selmie
Sidon
Teba
Traysi
Urbosa
Yunobo
Zelda

Epyo posted...

Climbing is super overpowered without rain--you can avoid any open world combat encounter by climbing around it. It's the #1 solution to any problem. The prime example is the winding path that leads to Zora's Domain, it's meant to be a long combat gauntlet, but with climbing, there's zero reason to experience any of it, climbing past is purely better. So they added perma-rain there.
It's meant to be a game about changing your mind and getting distracted. You were heading toward something, but now it's raining, so you look around, and say "hey what's this big rock over here" and you check it out. A new adventure interrupts your current adventure!
Rain means that often, a straight line is definitely NOT the best path from A to B. This makes you care about the world and its terrain more, forcing you to adapt. It's like how in World of Warcraft, as soon as you unlock flying, the game feels a lot less immersive. So the devs always hold back flying for the first ~year of any expansion.
You can still climb in the rain, if you try hard enough. You start to get a feel for when the Slipping occurs, and if you do a Dash Upward right before the Slip, you don't lose any progress, and now you can do ~3 more seconds of climbing before the next Slip.

1- Making climbing disappear for about 25% of the time does not fix it being overpowered, especially since you can just wait the rain out.

As for Zora's Domain, that's the one place I thought the rain worked, so I feel like it could have happened just there. Just say Zora's Domain blue rocks are smoother so they slip more.

2- You are also not climbing the other big rock either. It's raining. You are probably just putting the controller down and waiting it out.

3- There is no way to adapt to rain except Revali's Gale, unless there is a path that doesn't use climbing, which you were probably already looking for anyway since it's faster. Chances are the path doesn't exist, and you "adapt" by putting the controller down and going to make a sandwich.

I also greatly disagree climbing makes BotW less immersive, as my review praising the system points out. It's the core mechanic of the game.

Heck, I disagree with it being overpowered too. Sure, you can avoid fights, but the map is huge and enemies are easy to avoid even without climbing. This isn't pokemon, you aren't supposed to fight every enemy you see.

4- I know. That is also extremely unfun. And greatly limits the max heights you can reach. If it's too tall, time to go make a sandwich.

Rain reduces overall fun and is mostly countered by doing nothing. If your system forces players to stop playing, something is wrong.

I was pleasantly surprised by the story, considering the premise of a non-linear game. The story is not very present in the game's run because of that non-linearity. But I don't think that is necessarily a detriment. There are many ways to tell a story, with more cutscenes, with the gameplay itself telling it, or in BotW's case, with past events. Metroid prime is another great game that does it similary, with journals instead of flashbacks. Now why did I like this story so much, you ask?

BotW is a story about failure. You, the protagonist, as well as Zelda and the four champions and all major supporting characters, failed at your mission and let the world end. You are reminded of that constantly as you explore, and see ruins of multiple towns and farms, as well as Castle Town. The champions all died before they could fulfill their mission, and you can see how much they want a second chance, and now that they are dead, you have to carry the weight for all of them. It also affects the sheikah elders, Impa, Robbie and Purah, who had to wait for a whole century for you to come back and make their effort worth it. Robbie's diary shows difficult the wait was, and you can practically see it on Impa's face when she learns you fred the beasts. The Zoras also give a perspective of that, due to their long lifespam. So as a player, I felt some of the guilt for that defeat, even if it wasn't really my fault, and it made me motivated to win this time. To make it all worth it. The story of a videogame can have an important role in justifying the gameplay, and botW does that perfectly for me. The big game that I loved as a child was paper mario, and I think one big reason was that it did the same thing at the start, making Mario lose to Bowser. I think getting your ass kicked by the villain and taking a big loss at the start of a game really fires me up.

(The optional memories are a somewhat weaker aspect of that, though, since they all focus on Zelda and mostly on the same aspect of her character, her issue with not having powers)

I don't really get technical stuff so I can't say much about graphics (and this is nintendo so there's probably not much to say technically) but I liked what I saw. There were a lot of times when I'd finish climbing a tall place and just stop to look at the scenery. Many places, such as Zora's domain, are just beautiful. NPC design is pretty solid too, I think the best in the series so far. it doesn't look to ugly or too cartoony and there is so much variety. We've come a long way from the first cel-shading Zelda. There is not much music in this game, but what there was pretty good, too.

Now how do I rate this? Because it has problems. Other than the ones I've mentioned, there is the issue of the dungeons just not being as good as previous zeldas. They are fun, particularly Naboris, but they feel like a step down. I think they could have done the moving dungeon concept but just make it bigger. There is also another issue worth mentioning, the lack of enemy variety. There are maybe 15 species of enemies, each one with a few strength levels or elemental versions, but it is much fewer than any previous zelda games. And that means by the time you are nearly beating the game, it starts to get stale even if you get a really fun fight every once in a while. This couples with the dungeon quality since the variety of enemies is much smaller in dungeons too, so puzzles and bosses have to carry them.

But even if it has problems, it feels like a top tier videogame, because what it made me feel, no other game has for years, maybe over a decade. To get lost in a single player game for maybe 3 months and just love playing it every day. Other games came close to giving that kind of extended joy, but they did it in different ways (the only other recent game that I remember dominating my life like this was Celeste, but it was through difficulty and the feeling of self-improvement, not really the same as this game). BotW does it by taking exploration to another level, making combat a real stimulating mental activity and having a story that is simple but just immerses you into it. BotW feels like a childhood classic, one of those games that I just remember fondly for the pure joy they gave me. It feels like a game I'll have nostalgia for, 20 years from now. It's a game that defines a genre and a generation. It just is.

So uh, 10/10, and make rain less slippery and dungeons longer next time. Probably my favorite game in the series, even if straight up inferior to other games in a number of ways (though that may change as time passes and I have more time to compare the experiences). But right now I want to say it's the best, because what it did well, it was transcedental at.

BotW review

Haven't written a big gamefaqs style review before but I feel like doing it.

This game came at a time where Zelda was getting stale. After OoT, nothing really made a huge success. MM was widely beloved but didn't really go mainstream, WW was hatred at start and only became a cult classic later, TP received mixed reactions for either being too similar to OoT or its gimmicks like twilight realm being annoying, SS wasn't very liked either, and the portables don't really carry the series even if they are good.

At a time, I read some articles from people who really liked the NES zeldas and thought modern zeldas sucked, for their bigger focus on puzzles and dialogue and less on combat and exploration. So when BotW was compared to Zelda 1, I was intrigued. I did like modern zeldas, and Zelda 1 is somewhere in the middle of my list, but I felt like this game had the potential to unlock some hidden forgotten magic from the 80s that could make the series popular in the mainstream again.

Oh boy how right I was. It's not the same game as Zelda 1, of course. This is 3D and 30 years younger. But it also sold like crazy, and it does capture some of the spirit of Zelda 1. The lack of order to do anything. How much of the content is optional and players aren't expected to do everything. The higher difficulty of combat. The feeling of exploring a hostile land. BotW is so different, so ambitious and so expansive it's like they refounded the series. There is Zelda before and after BotW. it came during the era of open world WRPGs, learned some things from them and expanded the formula even beyond that (or so I am told, I don't really play WRPGs).

Playing this game is magical. That's just the way I can describe it. Everything about it is just so fun. I love gliding over hyrule, raiding enemy camps, looking for shrines, stopping to find koroks (I got about 20% of them, and I don't need more than that, but the ones I found were a load of fun). Switch says I clocked 135 hours at this. It feels like much longer though, because those hours were so intense. I immersed myself in this, for two and a half months, playing almost every day, wanting to go home from work to play it more. Exploring the huge map felt daunting at first, but then I started getting lost in Dueling Peaks, Hateno and Lanayru and it just started flowing naturally. I'd move randomly in the map and check for different places, and almost always find something new. People who say this map is empty are blind. There is stuff everywhere. You can't walk on a straight line for 1 minute without getting distracted.

Link being able to jump and climb changes everything. The world is your playground. Heights were such an easy way to constraint the player in previous zeldas, now only shrines and divine beasts do that. Everywhere else, you are limited by your stamina bar and your curiosity, and the former can be avoided a number of ways. This makes the exploration almost addicting, you want to climb everything and go everywhere, because you can.

The combat is so good I'm not sure if I can even come back to other 3D zeldas. The actual weapon control is about the same as before, but enemies are beefier and tougher. However, you get near infinite options to compensate for Link's physical and numerical disadvantage. Abuse elemental weapons to stun key enemies, fly and shoot in slow motion, use stealth, snipe, use runes, blow up powder kegs. Even late in the game I was still getting creative, and still using mipha's graces because I got careless or made mistakes.

This game tries to be realistic, to its benefit but also detriment. The benefits come from the myriad of physical interactions between people and objects, and all the different hazards that didn't exist before. Sometimes those hazards get too unfun, though. The biggest offender to me is climbing during the rain. It's just unfun, and lacking of a way to counter besides Revali's Gale. It shouldn't have gotten through playtesting. Weapon breaking is the next one, it's not nearly as bad as some people online made it out to be, because the game gives you so many weapons it becomes an annoyance instead of a hindrance. But it's an annoyance that didn't need to exist with this intensity. I feel like some more flexibility should have been given, like repairing weapons, or buying them from shops (the lack of weapon shops is so weird) or crafting them. It's like Nintendo decided variety was good and they made a system that cornered the player and forced them to pursue weapon variety, however it is so extreme the player ends up not pursuing anything, just using whatever weapons the game decides they have to use now.

It does offer a delicious selection of weapons, though. There are 3 main types, but also elemental variations, wood and metal versions, guardian weapons and things like boomerangs. This is enough to mix and match weapon properties and have a lot of decisions to make during combat, provided you have paid enough visits to Hetsu. You will have to learn to be detatched and improvise with what the game gives, but coupled with the creative combat options, this improvisation will be very fun.

I don't think I'll ever collect 900 of anything in a videogame tbh, with or without a radar mask.

I find the king's diary. It's pretty sad. He wanted Zelda to be happy but felt like he had no choice but force her to fulfill her destiny. Or else. Even sadder when it says he planned to apologize to her when she came back from the spring of wisdom. But that is the day he died.

I explore the whole place and no shrine. even get to the top of the highest tower where [gasp!] a korok is hidden. Cool view btw.

Eventually I give up and check a faq. In classic Zelda fashion, I just had to light up a torch at the docks. I go into the shrine and find out how powerful ancient weapons boosted by upgraded ancient armor are, when I make a guardian scout 4 feel like the 1st lv one.

I leave, and obtain the game's reward for finding all 120 shrines. Link's classic green tunic. Which is kinda shit cuz it's not upgraded, and doing so requires farming scales from all three dragons. Well, I'm used to those bragging rights rewards. Looking for the shrines was still a pretty fun activity.

As for the memories, talk to Impa and the reveals the last memory to me: when Link almost dies protecting Zelda from guardians at Fort Hateno, and she FINALLY unlocks her powers. We know Link will now sleep for 100 years and Zelda will spend them using her newfond powers to keep ganon sealed. Zelda them speaks to Link telephatically and tells him to kill ganon. Which I did already, but the game doesn't save after the ending, lol.

Welp, that's it. as for the extended ending from beating Ganon again, but I'm either gonna do that some other day or watch it on youtube. I need a very long break from zelda now.

I make enough full healing food to fill a whole page, and some attack and defense boosts too. I go to Tarrey Town and stock up on arrows of all kinds, then to the ancient lab to get some ancient arrows too. I sleep at a Rito feather bed to get more HP and stamina. I go to lost woods to spend my last korok seeds. And I wait for all my champion abilities to recharge.

For clothes, I'm taking the full hylian set +4, painted green. That's not the best set in the game but I dont feel like farming lynels for the soldier set. The ancient set is partially maxed so it's stronger too, but also kinda ugly.
An npc at riverside stable suggests a bunch of paths to get into the castle. I'm using the front door.
And I'm riding Ganon's own breed of giant black horse there. I like the message that sends.

I pick the "Destroy Ganon" pointer in the quest menu.

After opening the front door with stasis, Im met with a swarm of guardians. I almost get knocked down from the castle by their lasers but then get up and manage to get to the first gate, where a blue lynel waits me. I wipe the floor with it.

Ive heard Revali's Gale trivializes the dungeon so I'm trying to avoid using it if I can.

I find the ruins of Zelda's bedroom. In good RPG fashion, her diary is there. This is good stuff. Most are info on Zelda that I already knew from the memories, but there is stuff on Link too. Turns out him being silent in this game is not just a 4th wall thing to make a silent protagonist, it's an in-universe thing. Link chooses not to talk much because he is afraid people will see his weaknesses, and he wants to stay strong to fulfill his role. But after the event where he saved Zelda from the yiga, the two grew closer snd he started talking to her more. Cool stuff.

Bullet thoughts:

- Where the damn memory
- I hate guardian turrets
- Yeah ok you win I'm putting on the ancient armor set

Even this place is full of koroks. Honestly if Hyrule ever decides to have an intelligence agency they should hire those guys. They are more stealthy than sheikahs

Found memory 12. Ofc it was on the roof of Zelda's room.

There, we see the king scold her for wanting to research ancient stuff instead if training 24/7 to unlock her Ganon sealing powers. He is quite rough. But I kind of get him. Sucks for Zelda though, it much suck not to know how you are supposed to unlock magical powers everyone says you should have.

I finish seeing the memory then GTFO because there are currently a dozen guardians taking aim at me.
Also find Zelda's research diary, because she is nerd enough to have a personal diary and a research one. It has some lore on ancient sheikah stuff.

I accidentaly enter the boss room. Climbed some waterfalls and suddenly I was in. So much for 120 shrines before beating the game lol. They should have put a big red door there or something.

Beat Ganon. Cool boss fight. Not super hard, and the champions blast him with lasers at the start so he only has half HP. But it's pretty fun and I like the game forcing you to deflect beams to stun him.

Second phase is not as good because this Ganon has the worst aim Ive ever seen in a final boss. I only got damaged once and it was me losing sight of where I was while looking for an updraft. Though conceptually it's a fun fight, shooting him with light arrows while on horseback then using an updraft to give him a final hit on the face.

I honestly came with lower expectations with how much the internet trashes this boss fight, but it's alright.

The game ends, the spirits of the champions rest, credits roll. And I'm still missing a shrine. Gotta get it later. I'm not putting this away with 119 shrines lol.

The online shop tells me the game arrived in Aug 10th. I think started playing in the same night.

I do plan to write a review, though.

And rank some stuff.

MalcolmMasher posted...

Would it help if I pointed out that they're probably in the castle to entice players into not putting off the whole castle until endgame? <_<

I figured that out, but it just doesn't fit my playstyle I guess. And it doesn't fit the story, either. And I really like this game's story, so when I entered the castle and epic music started playing while Ganon and Zelda were teased, I felt like I wasn't doing the story justice.

Also I tend to put away games when I beat them even if I haven't finished the optional content, and I felt like that was going to happen if I beat it without getting the shrines and memories first, so I decided to complete those first. After I beat the castle, that's probably it for this playthrough.

That said I'm so pumped up to beat Ganon now, you have no idea. It's rare for me to get this invested into beating a game.

Kinda wish the game didn't put the last shrine and the last memory inside the castle cuz now I have to leave it mid dungeon if I want to finish those before seeing the game's ending.

Jakyl25 posted...

Well first youll have to get that last memory and go turn those in <_<

Yeah that's in the schedule too

I've been ugrading my equipment to +4 and recently I started paying closer attention to the great fairy animations instead of always skipping them. I've noticed they get more... violent the stronger ythe upgrade is.

At lower levels, she blows Link magical kisses from a distrance. At lv 3, she straight up kisses him with his giant mouth, and Link looks exhauster after that. And at lv 4... well, she grabs Link like he is some toy and drags him underwater, to do... something to him. This game is not for children.

I use the internet for the last few shrines, cuz i'm tired of walking in circles. 118 is at Ridgelands, very close to another shrine, reason why I didn't bother to look there before (most shrines are spread evenly since they work as shortcuts). It's behind a very hard to see bombable wall.

119 is at the west edge of the desert, and it requires you to light up 4 torches, in a spot patrolled by a Molduga. It's one of those hidden shrines without a quest, which means there is no hint at all, you either see it or you don't. I've passed there a few times but didn't see the torches, and the molduga tends to make me want to avoid the spot since they take a lot of work to kill. Both shrines give me the orb without a puzzle, acknoledging how hard they were to find.

Only one shrine left, and it's inside Hyrule Castle. That means one thing.

The time has come.

Ganon dies tomorrow.

Shrine 116 is found at Hebra's entrance, when I decide to enter it through the road like a normal person insead of the mountains. It's in the canyon, almost impossible to spot without a radar. The puzzle inside is pretty tricky because if the way the game is selective about inertia. Using stasis on a rock plate and hitting it 7 times with bomb arrows wont budge it, but using stasis on a single wood barrel and then hitting it 7 times to make it smack the plate does. I needed a guide for this. Whatever.

One more shrine, at the center of Hebra. Weird region, with more shrines than any other but almost no people or quests. Just rocks, snow and ice. They managed to create a feeling of Siberia in the game, for better and for worse. Well, only 3 left now.

Also find the snowball bowling and shield snowboarding minigames. The first sounds more fun than it actually is, as I find out why this isn't viable irl: snow is just too uneven so it's impossble to predict where the ball is going unless you memorize. The snowboarding one is better, if a little too easy, and I like the dynamic of a retired champion who lives in the middle of nowhere deciding to take Link as her pupil.

I check the area SE of death mountain since Ive found no shrine there. It takes me about 5 minutes to find shrine 114, in a hole. A korok ineicates me I've been here before, but probably had the radar off. The shrine is very easy, with a puzzle that boils down to just burning everything down. Feels like this one wasn't meant to be one of the last in the game.

115 in central hyrule is also out in the open, south of the tower. I just had to look from the right angle.

I just had the most efficient bokoblin camp clear ever. Climbed a nearby hill, headshotted all the lookouts. Then climbed to the top of their lair in which the stronger bokos are and used Urbosa's Fury. Then went inside, killed them all while they were stunned and grabbed their sapphire. The battle music didn't even play.

You know you are about to finish the game when your bokoblin killing efficiency is maxed out.

Test of Will and Fragmented Monument are new. The others I have already completed, just didn't find the questgiver so they didn't go to the menu. Now I did, and the menu is complete.

The monument quest is kind of annoying, those pieces are hard to find even at night, but I eventually finish it. 112.

Test of Will is pretty funny, I think it's the same gorons from the gut check challenge, and they want to test Link's fire resistance now. With no special equipament allowed. Basically eat food to get a lot of extra hearts and then stand on a burning platform losing hp until the gorons decide it's enough. The motion control puzzle inside the shrine is less fun, though. 113.

Those are the last shrines for Faron and Gerudo Highlands so:

Central: 2
Hebra: 2
Eldin: 1
Ridgelands: 1
Wastelands: 1

Gonna try a bit more then check a guide if it takes long enough.

Into the Vortex
Test of Will
The Silent Swordswomen
The Fragmented Monument
The Spring of Wisdom

Some of those sound cool.

I don't know how the Spring of Wisdom is not listed cuz I'm pretty sure I took the scale to the spring, maybe I forgot to check the spring before doing it.

Looking for the last 10 shrines in a game with 120 is work, man. I do find one in Highlands, under a pedestal you have to offer a luminous stone for. The quest is so easy I feel like they put it there just to make the shrine not appear on the radar.

One left in Highlands, and I have no idea where, since Ive walked all over the region now. At least I find a bokoblin desperately trying to free his friend from inside an icicle with a fire rod, which is funny. I offer to help but he tries to kill me, so I kill him and leave the friend in the icicle.

Strongly considering leaving the rest of the shrines for after I beat Ganon cuz this might take a few more weeks if I don't just cheat

Or maybe I can just cheat

shrine 108 found in Hebra, this one took getting a boat to sail to a right place of the rock that I had to get in. Inside, the words "steady thy heart".

What we get is a jump scare themed shrine, with spiked balls and guardians showing up out of nowhere.

You die if you enter freezing water. Even with max level of cold protection. I discovered that by almost dying to it ofc. And only surviving through Mipha's Grace.

But shrine 109 is only accessible by swimming through it since it's under a rock and over water. Or at least that's what I did, the good old gaming kamikaze way. I assume there was probably a safer way, but my inventory is full of healing food.

110 is another snowball door, this time on a very long path so you need to carefully make the snowball go the right path with high speed to get to the door.

Man Hebra is huge but it went very fast. Only 2 of its shrines are left.

Old man at hebra stable tells a sad story about how both his childhood friends, Harry and Mary, died as children because he was a shitty friend who convinced them to go to deadly places.

He then says at least Harry and Mary's descandants are still here.

Wait, if they died as children, how do they have descandants? WHAT ELSE ARE YOU HIDING, OLD MAN?

While looking for the Faron shrine, I spot a heart shaped lake on the map. No shrine there, instead I find a hylian dude and a gerudo girl I have to wingman.

I do it, the guy gives me 20 rupees for the help and the girl scolds him to be less cheap so he gives me 100 more. lol

There's a place where Kass, the bard, keeps his diary, with a list of all the places he plays music in. I check it for any missed quests. There are two. One is a shrine quest for a shrine I've already found, the other one is for 300 rupees. Meh.

Shrine 107 is at the SW edge of tabantha, under a hole, the last one in the region. Inside, it's a minigame about using a korok leaf to push a platform hanged by balloons across a room full of floating spikes, which has "sadistic game dev" written all over it. But I beat it.

Then I come back to Rito Village and find Kass. Since I've beaten all his quests, he tells the story about how his teacher was a court composer who loved Zelda and was jelous of Link. But when the calamity happened, he changed his mind and made it his mission to pass down to Link the songs which would help him save the kingdom. He died, and Kass inherited the mission. The final song is a longer version of the one kass usually plays, and also a remix of the series' theme song. Turns out Kass was singing about Link all along. Really cool character right here.

I've found the compromise between using a FAQ to finish the shrines or spending a ridiculously long time checking the entire map again.

https://i.redd.it/10q2a8410rd41.png

This way I can skip the regions I know I completed while still forcing myself to explore the ones I haven't.

After a counting session, I arrive at this tally:

Great Plateau 4/4
Lake Hylia 6/6
Faron 7/8
Hateno 7/7
Lanayru 9/9
Dueling Peaks 9/9
Akkala 8/8
Eldin 8/9
Woodlands 8/8
Central 6/8
Ridgelands 6/7
Highlands 4/6
Wastelands 11/12
Tabantha 5/6
Hebra 8/13

Hebra is expected, because I haven't finished exploring it yet. Most of those 5 that are left should be pretty easy. The east side of the map is almost completely done, which makes sense because that's where I went first and the game was fresh so I had much more patience to goof around the map. I pretty much just missed one shrine in Faron and one in Eldin. It's the west side that needs a more thorough check now.

I go to the NW, a place called Hebra North Summit, and the radar pops up again. This shrine is hard to find, though. After some time looking for it I spot different shrine in the distance, on the NW edge. 105.

Back to the summit, I figure out the other shrine must be in a cave. I spend a long time combing the north border of the map for some bombable wall. There is an updraft at it and a chest with bomb arrows, so it's like the game ks telling me to bomb a wall. But no dice.

I lose my patience and check a guide. Turns out the entrance is on the other side of the mountain, near a small puddle of water. Damn. I go there and find a locked door that can't be destroyed by bombs. Then I lose my patience again and read the rest of the guide, which tells me to make a cryonis platform on the poll of water and push a snowball over it to break the wall. Bombs don't work but snowballs do. Okay.

Inside, there is a long tunnel with shrine 106 and the third leviathan bones. Nice.

I think I'm going to another region now, Hebra is starting to feel tiring.

I finish the tarrey town quest. The last person I needed to recruit was a zora priest, to get the hylian carpenter and the gerudo tailor married. Now, what are the odds there is a zora priest with -son in the name?

100%.

I go to the wedding, where they make the gerudo vow she will name her children with -son too. Then I gain 3 diamonds, and the city is now built. I imagine this will be a cool place to visit in the next Zelda

I sell a whole bunch of ores to make money and unlock the last fairy fountain. I can't upgrade much though, because almost everything requires ores I just sold. Or lynel parts. This game knows how to make money sinks.

I do the quest for the giant horse. Turns out it's Ganon's horse from other games! With black and orange fur, and it's really huge. I manage to tame it, and take it to the stable, which is tricky since the only way out of the valley where I found the horse is guarded by a lynel. Its got the highest strength stat in the game, but low speed and it can't dash. Not sure if the trade is worth it but battling mounted bokoblins with a horse twice the size of theirs feels good

I name it Shazam, because that's the first super strong character that comes to my mind.

Jakyl25 posted...

There are 42 total Shrine Quests

How many do you have?

36.

CassandraCain posted...

I'm pretty sure there's only one shrine locked behind a quest, the Kakariko one. All the others you can find in the world just by stumbling on them. The shrine quests themselves are usually only to point you in the right direction, but they aren't required.

Some of them are hidden really well, admittedly I had to resort to a guide to find them all. Although that's in part due to my absolute refusal to use the sensor.

I'm pretty sure the sensor doesn't show any shrines buried underground, so if a quest is related to making the shrine appear, the radar doesn't help here, so the quest is mandatory, even if you don't "receive" it first by talking to an NPC.

But some quests, like the Bird, are basically clues to finding it, so the radar gives them away. Those seem to be the minority, though.

Which means buried shrines are the hardest to find if you use the radar.

However, so far every single shrine that did not appear in the radar had a quest given by an NPC, so in theory talking to everyone should give all non-radar quests away. Though with the kakariko one, the person wasn't immediately available to give you the quest.

Hebra's initial exploration is VERY fruitful. I play for about 2 hours and find 5 shrines. First is the final labirynth of the game, whih goes like the previous ones. Next, I circle the area through the north edge, finding another shrine at the tundra in plain sight, and two more on the mountains, in holes under the ice. They are well hidden but the radar just picks them. Which makes me feel a little guilty but I want to finish this game already so yeah the radar stays up.

also, snowboarding is fun, though Hebra's weather is terrible, it's always dark even in midday. But as soon as I leave the mountain area it becomes illimunated again. Not very realistic geography but I'll take it. And I find the last shrine (104) in another hole, and the game tells me I completed the Bird in the Mountains quest. Uh... what? That was a quest I've been meaning to do for a while since a Rito told me about it, but I saw no bird on the way to the shrine.

[checks internet]

Oh ok so the plateau I was standing on was shaped like a bird. I feel like this one shouldn't have been given by the radar, though.

And now my shrine quest menu is empty, which means the final 16 shrines are either in places I just didn't check with radar on, or in quests given by npcs I didn't talk to.

I think the point is that minor design details like this make the game more fun even if you aren't counsciously thinking about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGkG3VGWtls&ab_channel=Afterthoughts

Did some more exploring around. No shrines, just koroks, bokos, etc. And an ice talus who is almost the end of me because its weak point is on the back instead of the top so I have to resort to bomb arrows.

Also conned a guy at the desert who is in love with female dressed Link into giving me his snow and sand boots. And did a fun quest about saving a coward guy's four friends from bokos at the Gerudo Canyon.

Guess its Hebra next, but I seriously doubt there are 20 shrines there (counting the one in the castle). It's gonna get tricky after I finish combing that region too.

CassandraCain posted...

Thankfully that is not a problem on snow! It won't deplete any durability, so long as you avoid the rocky surfaces.

Oh ok I wish the NPC who introduced me to surfing had included that in his pitch.

CassandraCain posted...

Have you tried out shield surfing yet? Several of my hours played were dedicated to hitting the slopes of Hebra.

More games need to incorporate snowboarding as a side activity.

I have, then I realized it takes about 10 seconds for it to break your shield.

Gerudo Highlands it is. My radar soon spots shrine 98 in the snow, behind a hill.

I also find a big skull bone with a 50 rupee chest inside. As soon as I open it, a dozen ice chuchus attack me. Sucks to be them, I have Urbosa's Fury now, so I kill them in one attack

Slowly exploring the mountains, I find a giant statue of a heroine that I need to take a photo of for a quest, lots of things die easily to fire weapons, and shrine 99, which is hidden inside a huge shrine shaped ice block. In front, I find a camp with silver lizalfos, which almost kill me. After taking them down, I realize they have a hoard of wood, which I then light up to melt the ice around the shrine.

The puzzle inside involves taking an ice block to the top, while avoiding pillars of fire, sometimes with magnesis and sometimes with stasis. And for the last one, both stasis and magnesis, where I whack the ice block with stasis then use magnesis to rise a metal block and make a tunnel for the incoming ice block. I feel like there was probably an easier solution but I like the creative one I found.

I go to the north of the fairy fountain and find another sandstorm, mapless area. This one is somewhat bigger, and hides shrine 96, which must be found by following some statues with swords pointed to each other, while killing lizalfos along the way. After I beat it, the sandstorm is over, and I find myself at the northwest end of the desert, having circled it. Were those all the desert shrines? Dunno, but the only areas left to explore are Gerudo Highlands and Hebra, so hopefully there aren't many shrines left outside of those.The game is gonna get chilly next.

I also take a detour to Eldin to take a photo of another leviathan, easier to find now that I know what they are supposed to look like. Then I spend over an hour walking around the NE of the map to look for any missed shrines, eventually spotting one at east Lanayru, another bard song puzzle where I have to break some rocks to form a wind current that I then must fly to a platform. 97 down.

Also now that I killed their leader, Yiga keep attacking me over and over. Google says that can't be shut down, it will last forever. Fortunately yiga arches have paper thin HP, but the blamemasters are annoying.

first order of business, beat the seal racing minigame. It is very easy, and rather anticlimatic. Shrine 94.

I find the real arbiter's grounds, not the one I thought was it. This one is just some old ruins, opresumably because the dungeon is long buried underground. It does have a few ores, though

I go to the west and the map disappears as I enter a sandstorm. Then about 10 seconds later it appears again and I reach a place with a bunch of interesting stuff. I think I got lucky.

The stuff includes shrine 95, the bones of a huge beast called Leviathan (theres a quest to take photos of 3 of them) and the last fairy fountain

She wants 10k rupees from me, though. Holy money sink nintendo! I don't have even close to that, even if I sell all my ores.

I return to gerudo town and give the thunder helm to Riju, then see a memory of Urbosa, the fallen gerudo champion. The memory is really about Zelda, and Urbosa teasing her and Link's relationship

Now we are gonna grab sand seals (Riju has a sand seal named Patricia, lol) to fight Mecha Camel.

Sand seal battle vs Mecha Camel. Riju summons an anti lightning shield while I have to shoot the beast's feet with bomb arrows. Pretty easy tbh but very epic

I dunno who decided camels are lightning themed but it works for me.

Alright. This is a good dungeon. It's still shorter than the dungeons in old games, but it better captures what made them good, which is to have large puzzles that sprawl multiple rooms. This time the animal gimmick throws anatomy aside, to rotate a big cylinder inside the camel's belly. Like with Lizard and Bird, this helps reach tall places, but that's only half the story. The dungeon has a bunch of parts (such as the neck and the tail) that don't move just because you control the beast, you have to use electricity, which means carrying bateries and using the mechanical pieces of the dungeon to form electric circuits. So now you have a dungeon with more than one mechanic, which expands beyond the "rotate the whole place 90 degrees" gimmick.

And the boss is pretty cool. Dude is fast, has a shield, attacks with multiple lightning attacks and can use lightining to defend itself. I'm pretty sure I only won because my stats are busted, because I looked like a fool most of the fight. The red lynel I killed this morning was easier. There's a middle part where you have to use magnesis to move pillars of lightning to it, but I only know that because I looked online after the fight (I often forget to use runes in times like this). I dont know how I pulled this off, but after a long time trying and failing to hit it with bomb arrows it randomly decided to go back to melee and open itself to attacks. But even then I still struggled in the final part and only won by going Leeroy Jenkins and letting it damage me while I attacked.

The camel then moves to the mountain, to fire the fourth and last laser at Ganon. Urbosa goes "I heard Ganon was once a gerudo. That's only gonna make it more delicious to kill him". Hell yeah.

She gives me the last champion power, which summons a bunch of bolts around Link when he uses spin attacks.

Time to put my sword into the pig's neck. After I find and beat the last 27 shrines, ofc.

CassandraCain posted...

Yeah I kinda figured that would be the result of using ice arrows. You'd have to rush through the hideout before they unfreeze and call the alarm. Using ancient arrows seems like the only real cheese method.

I enjoy that sequence of forced stealth quite a bit though, as I'm a naturally sneaky person. It might help to cook some food that will give you a stealth boost, pretty much the only instance in the game where that's useful.

I'm fine with stealth. I have been using it on enemy camps all game, sometimes even when I don't need it. The problem is this dungeon sticks out like a sore thumb as a railroady section in a game that's all but that. I like being able to choose my strategy depending on the situation. So it's frustrating because it feels like the game is suddenly punishing you for that. It's like the usual designers were in a day off and they asked the Skyward Sword team to cover for them that day.

(I haven't played SS but I know it's infamous for its linearity)

Banana dungeon again.

I manage to find a way to cross the run by moving on the wall like spiderman, and get to a place that seems to be the exit after distracting a guard. It leads to a room with a treasure chest. The thunder helm? No, a single banana.

Godamn nerds.

The guard is now blocking my exit so I execute them with an ancient arrow. This cost like 80 rupees but it was worth it. Go eat bananas in hell.

B8 tells me that I can cheese the entire dungeon with ancient arrows but I still have some principles. I'll use them sparingly. Also I only brought 5 of them.

Found 600 rupees in a secret room. Ok Im a little less mad.

After a while I fail to find more exits, so I go back to the room with the single banana. I notice a buried chest on the floor. Then I activate magnesis to pull it and it also reveals there is a fake wall that can be pulled. Ha! Clever dungeon design here.

Behind it is the boss fight against Master Kohga, the leader. He is a fat and stupid ninja, which gives stength to my banana defection theory. After a fun puzzle-like boss fight, I kill him and claim the helm. Goodbye, mandatory stealth mission.

This dungeon was alright. I hate it that nintendo made stealth mandatory in a freedom game by giving enemies one hit kills, but it still offer multiple ways to address the stealth so it feels fresh. I guess I just took too long to realize you could just use the walls.

Test results: freezing the Yiga guard will make them call their friends, even if they can't see you.

This is an open world game that rewards creativity, but nintendo wanted to railroad the player in this specific dungeon and they are not taking no for an answer.

I give up on the banana infiltration for now and go explore the area to the south of lake hylia, which is a bit untouched.

Finding shrines now is like looking for a needle in a haystack, but I find one (93). In a classic case of the developer doing drugs, the orb is right in front if the keyhole but a random lady has it, and she is in love with it. But show her some photos of guardians and she will give you the orb, because she loves those too. Whatever, Nintendo.

Also see a thing in the map that looks promising, and it's a fairy fountain! Wait no it's the horse god. It asks me to give it 1k rupees so it can bring dead horses of mine back to life. I have no dead horses, but I pay anyway because I'm curious. The horse god has a really cool design, which reminds me from Majora's Mask, so I'm only a little sad for throwing all those rupees away.

Also found a horseback shooting minigame that I'm terrible at, and heard some stuff about a giant horse that I have to check out later.

I guess I could glide straight from the stash to the path behind the banner? Dunno if the yiga can see me flying above them, but it doesn't hurt to try.

The worst part is how you have to redo the whole dungeon from the start if you are seen even once.

Jakyl25 posted...

Hints for that stealth room:

Going up to the rafters is the easy path. Plus youll find their secret stash

Also you can set fire to one of the banners on the right side for a lucrative secret path

I found both, but the secret stash is still closer to the entrance than to any exit (I think), unless there is some clever way to jump from it without being found. And I died twice trying to get to the secret path.

I'm probably missing something obvious because in general those main quest sections have been really easy compared to the game's optional content.

Jakyl25 posted...

Did you skip the Gerudo Village fast travel Shrine?

No, I did that like 20 shrines ago when I briefly explored the desert to complete the map.

shrine 92 is the one the thirsty gerudo was blocking. turns out you don't have to make a drink for her, just tell her to go to the bar. But the bar is out of ice, so you have to fix that first, by carrying an ice block through some ruins full of fire breathing enemies. I somehow make it to the end with a very small cube that is apparently enough

I continue the main quest, by going to the Yiga clan. It's s stealth mission. Well, you can try to fight all Yiga, but they have insta kill weapons here, no matter how much defense you have.

There is a salvation, though. Bananas! The Yiga love it so much they will stop whatever they are doing if they see a banana on the floor, to go grab it.

This raises some questions. Are all sheikah addicted to bananas? Or just the ones who defected to ganon's side? I haven't seen any bananas in Kakariko. Perhaps Impa banned the fruit because of all the misery the addiction was causing, and the reason some sheikah decided to defect is so they can eat bananas all day, free from the shackles of society.

The mission is still pretty hard, though. There's this room with like 4 of them and just a few blocks to hide behind. Stealth missions are annoying. I give up to try again later.

I thought only the sheikah knew Link slept for 100 years, but so does Riju. That's some good intel. Other races basically forgot about it, if they ever knew.

I go to the desert. They don't let me take my horse into it. Lame.

Sand seals will have to do

I ride one to some ruins that really remind me of Arbitrer Grounds from TP. The location matches too. After solving a puzzle with some metal balls, I find shrine 90.

Yesterday I had a different nostalgia session, when I found a place named Ranch Ruins at hyrule field. Very dangerous, with guardians and silver bokos, but after I dispatched them, I realized it's a replica of Lon Long Ranch, but in ruins. You can see where each building used to be, from the central fence, to the barn in the back that had a heart container, and even some pots at the entrance. Damn.

Shrine 91 is a puzzle about shooting the sun with an arrow at the right spot at the right hour of the day. Which I'm sure I'd have had a lot more trouble to figure out if I hadn't played Ocarina
Completed the ancient armor set, which is ugly as fuck but means guardian beams probably deal puny damage to me now.

The rito who opened a shop at my city sells every arrow in the game (except ancient) at rather cheap prices. Neat.

There is a sand seal racing tournament. The prize is the orb that opens a shrine. The champion is a gerudo with a red afro, who has a coach following her around and praising her skills. Amazing.

I can only race after I deal with mecha camel, though

Fought a thing named molduga, which is a giant sand fish. It nearly kicked my ass, but it folds if you leave a single bomb on its path while its coming for you underground. Then it stays above ground for the rest of the fight. The song that plays while you fight it it awesome though

Gerudo Town's security is absolutely tight and stone masks aren't a thing in this game.

Clearly there is only one thing left for Link to do if he wants to get in.

Dress like a girl.

Gerudo town is a cool place. Lots of shops, gerudos very different from each other, some quests. There are also hylian girls, rito girls, a goron dude... wait what

Are gorons genderless or something? Now that I think of it Ive never seen a female goron. This raises a lot of questions. Are they born from rocks like in Steven Universe maybe? Or are they allowed in because they provided all the ores in hyrule? I can't imagine that would make good politics though.

I meet the gerudo chief, a teenage girl named Riju.

She is... incredibly clever. She instantly figures out who Link is. Then shes like "well you are a dude but if you say you can control mecha camel I'll let it slide". We need a thunder helm to approach it though, and "conveniently", it has been stolen. Time for a quest.

One thing I really like about the gerudo in this game is that the thieves theme is completely gone. They are merchants not thieves. They live in a town not a fortress. Which has shops and houses and bars, with gerudo drinking and gossiping and reading books, not just walking around with weapons. There are gerudo children and elderly too. It makes them feel more like a civilization instead of an entry in the bestiary. The gerudo felt kind of out of place in Ocarina and Majora imo.

Theres a shop that lets me buy accessories that increase resistance to elements but those seem completely outclassed by all my +2 full sets.

Short session this time. I did the red moon quest for shrine 89 that requires Link to stand naked on a platform, thanks to an NPC who can predict the next red moon.

Spent some time farming cold chuchu jellies and ice keese wings at Mt. Lanayru to upgrade heat clothes since I'm going to the desert next. I also need to upgrade my winter clothes, but those require warm staffinas, which are found in the desert. That's a bit of a paradox going on.

Beat a quest about finding a zora's dude lost wife after multiple searches, by just bumping into her at lake hylia. She was just fishing and didn't notice the time pass. So she dumps all the fish she has caught on me as the quest "reward" and rushes back to Zora Domain.

Also advanced the city building quest, by recruiting a Rito named Feyson to be the city's shotkeeper. I'm enjoying this quest but also doing it slowly because it keeps asking for increasingly larger amount of wood, and gathering that is annoying.