Board 8 > Zelda finally plays Breath of the Wild

(+) Yeah! (+)

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.

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)

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.

And of course Urbosas Fury would have been immensely helpful in the stealth section, but you need to beat it to get it <_<

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

You did that ice block puzzle the intended way

The easier way is just to toss it through some of the trickier flames. It can survive a little heat

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.

The rules for durability cost of Shield Surfing are actually pretty fascinating and well-designed! I really wish the game explained them better, 'cause yeah, who enjoys breaking shields.

But if you want one particularly helpful cool tip about durability and shield surfing, click this: there's no durability cost to surfing on snow, sand, AND, dirt paths!! The dirt paths are the interesting one IMO. Although if you jump a lot while shield surfing, that still causes some durability loss, even on those surfaces. There are some other things to learn but I think that's the main helpful thing.

The cooking system also has some really well-designed details the game never tells you either, and I wish it did, because it woulda been a lot more fun. Even though the fundamentals it does tell you are pretty fun.

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

I mean I guess she has a point but also 90% of the things she lists off as complaints I just don't care about at all and never have affected me.

Is the UI for BotW better...?
I guess so?

But its such a minor improvement to me I almost don't care.

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.

Yeah its a subconscious thing. You as a consumer dont think about all the design choices that went into why it is the way that it is, but the mock-ups of BotW with a stamina bar show very well just how much we would miss the wheel

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'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.

Some of them you wouldnt know fuck all what to do without the quest though, like the Crown of Bone one

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.

There are 42 total Shrine Quests

How many do you have?

Jakyl25 posted...

There are 42 total Shrine Quests

How many do you have?

36.

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.

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.

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.

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

The intended way to get in that freezing water Shrine is by going upstream to find a tree and doing some white water rafting

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

Which Shrine Quests are you missing?

• The Skull's Eye
• Into the Vortex
• Trial of the Labyrinth
• The Spring of Power
• The Gut Check Challenge
• A Brother's Roast
• A Landscape of a Stable
• The Perfect Drink
• Test of Will
• Sign of the Shadow
• The Silent Swordswomen
• The Desert Labyrinth
• The Seven Heroines
• The Eye of the Sandstorm
• Secret of the Snowy Peaks
• The Undefeated Champ
• Watch Out for the Flowers
• The Three Giant Brothers
• Secret of the Cedars
• The Cursed Statue
• A Fragmented Monument
• The Stolen Heirloom
• Guardian Slideshow
• A Song of Storms
• The Serpent's Jaws
• Stranded on Eventide
• The Bird in the Mountains
• Recital at Warbler's Nest
• The Ancient Rito Song
• Trial on the Cliff
• The Spring of Wisdom
• The Ceremonial Song
• The Crowned Beast
• Master of the Wind
• The Lost Pilgrimage
• The Two Rings
• Shrouded Shrine
• Under a Red Moon
• Cliffside Etchings
• Trial of Second Sight
• The Test of Wood
• Trial of Thunder

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.

I think theres an NPC at a nearby stable who originally starts the quest and you have to turn it in to him even if you never met him before you went to the Spring

Silent Swordswomen is started by a Gerudo soldier at one of the Gerudo Town exits

Fragmented Monument is along the coast east of Lurelin Village

I think Test of Will is in Gerudo Valley

Into the Vortex is the spiral peninsula on the east side of the map

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.

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.

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'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.

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

Jakyl25 posted...

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

Yeah that's in the schedule too

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.

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? <_<

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.

I do plan to write a review, though.

And rank some stuff.

Out of curiosity do you know roughly what date you started this playthrough since you copy pasted the updates from discord but had already been playing a bit

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

Thats awesome. Id ask how many hours played but Ill just be patient since youre close to the end and Im sure youll include that in your conclusion

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.

To get the full ending you have to turn in the lost memories quest to Impa and then go do one more thing

Its not a huge improvement but it is better

In case youre wondering, if you go to Ganon without completing the Divine Beasts, you have a boss rush of all the Blights you havent killed before he comes down from his sac

One other thing I would suggest you do for lore purposes is find the Kings secret room in the castle library

When you beat the last Shrine, youll get a message from the monks saying they left you a gift at the Forgotten Temple. Its a cool bonus but you definitely dont have to interrupt your run to go get it if you dont want to.

After youve beaten the game, here are the things that change in the world:
Kilton will now give you medals for beating every Hinox, every Talus, and every Molduga (which will now have stars by their names when you encounter them if youve already beaten them)
The quest logs will have completion counters at the bottom of each list
The map screen will show your overall percentage towards completion. It includes Korok seeds so I doubt youll be getting 100% <_<

Hehe yeah everyone walks into the boss fight accidentally. There must have been some reason they designed it that way. But I disagree with it, big flaw IMO.