Sunday, April 30, 2017

Breath of the Wild Adventure Log, Entry 30


It's the last day of April already and just now I managed to find and complete all 120 Sheikah Shrines in Breath of the Wild. Took me long enough, but this speaks for the game!


Horsing Around

One of my side goals is finding good horses and so far I didn't have much luck with that. Other than the three special horses, I want a black horse named "Hilda" and a blue horse named "Midna", after I had named the white horse "Zelda". But problem is that I keep getting the exact same stats:


Four strength, three Speed and four Stamina. This goes for both the black and the blue horses. It seems like the best that I can get, which is a little disappointing. I've been told that there are places, which give better horses, e.g. the Taobab Grassland, where you can find the Ganon horse. But I didn't have any luck there either, it usually starts with having lower Stamina.

It also doesn't help that you can't see the exact stats of a new horse, unless you let one go. That's somewhat annoying, ideally you could check the stats before replacing another horse, since you never can be sure, if it's really better.


Empty Areas

I've been looking for the last shrine and I arrived at a point, where even Sheikah Sensor+ on Treasure Chests doesn't give any readings anymore (other than the "ghost chests"). So, from time to time I was activating the normal Shrine Sensor, but that didn't really help me either. Nothing on the radar.

My target have been areas with nothing much to be found, like Mount Faloraa for example. Sometimes I would find some new Koroks, with certain named areas it's also likely to discover a Talus or Hinox. But sometimes it seems like there just isn't anything there at all.

Probably the most extreme example would be a part of the Faron Jungle, the Damel Forest and Dracozu River. Everything around this section has lots of stuff, including many Koroks, some Sheikah Shrines and more. But in this particular part of the jungle there's nothing to be found other than some treasure chests. And I have checked this area multiple times now, where I've climbed all the treetops looking for hidden rocks, balloons or windmills just in case there really still might be some Koroks there. What I found were three small caves behind destructible walls... Each of them got me excited for nothing, because there were just some ores inside.


The Final Shrine

Now, I've spent lots of time running all over Hyrule looking for the last shrine, where my intuition, which successfully led me to the previous two shrines, didn't help me this time. Even activating the Shrine Sensor every once in a while didn't help. So, I asked a simple question:

"What's possibly the worst place, where the last shrine could be hidden...?"

The answer was simple: Hebra, of course! And so I went back to the Hebra Mountains, where I just wanted to let the Shrine Sensor do its magic. However, I then switched back to the Treasure Chest Sensor, because I still was missing some chests around a certain area and funnily enough that's what brought me to the final shrine, the Maka Rah Shrine.



The trial was named "Steady Thy Heart" and it was an entertaining little trial, where you open gates and find some sort of threat after each one. I liked it and I'm happy that my last shrine was cleverly hidden and also not some mere Blessing.


One last time... before the DLC.


Other than getting the last Spirit Orbs, you also receive something else for completing all 120 Sheikah Shrines. The reward awaits at the Forgotten Temple, which is nice, because you can also use the big Goddess Statue there to do the last prayer.


If you don't want to know, what the reward is, stop reading now! To me this wasn't a surprise, because I had been accidentally spoiled about this on Youtube, but I don't want my blog to do the same for you. So, if you don't know yet and keep the surprise, stop reading!




Another Armor Upgrade

The rest of the day I spent upgrading the last set of armor. And I was right earlier this month (in Entry 24), when I upgraded all the other armor and speculated that there has to be at least one more piece of gear in the game that needs the claws of each dragon. That really was the case.

Other than that it needed Courser Honey Bee and Energetic Rhino Beetles. The bee hives were found quickly, pretty much every forest area in the game has some. The Energetic Rhino Beetles on the other hand were a little bit trickier and you need 15 in total of them. Don't give any to Beedle! As far as I know, there isn't anything gained from this anyway, other than him not being annoying for a little while. Him asking for the beetles really gets in the way of his business...

Anyway, there seem to be lots of them in Akkala and with the Stealth Armor equipped they are easy to grab. Unless some Yiga Blademaster suddenly spawns right in front of you and scares it of. Or some Stal enemies. Or it starts to rain. Or they just fly off on their own. Or, or, or... For Hylia's sake, the randomly spawning enemies and the rain are already annoying enough, but it's ten times worse, if they get in the way of your prey.

The last armor set also requires all different dragon parts of all three dragons, where I only was missing some of Naydra's. So, I spent the rest of the time on Mount Lanayru, waiting for the thing...


By the way, to farm the dragon parts I'm using the Twilight Bow that you can get with the Zelda Smash amiibo. It shoots in a straight line, so it's the best way to accurately target whichever part you need.

For the fourth upgrade it also costs a Star Fragment each, but luckily I have saved some, instead of already wasting them all on the amiibo gear. By now I've fully upgraded the Sheik's Mask, which took TEN Star Fragments in total. TEN!!!! The amiibo tunics don't seem to be as bad, but I still lost some motivation to "grind" for these. But I did get quite couple from defeating Lynels, so that's good.

I've also kept collecting amiibo gear, until my inventory was overstuffed, because I wanted to know the maximum. You can have a total of five pages of armor, which is enough for all the individual armor that you can get in the game and via amiibo. There isn't much room for having dyed duplicates, however.


What now?

I guess, I'm now finished with the important parts of the game, but there's still things left to do. Other than a total of 255 Koroks, I have still two Side Quests left to find, as well as three Talus and three Hinox for the Medals of Honor. And I have to complete Hyrule Compendium, but I have been doing a lot for this at the sidelines and I'm only missing a few entries.


Current Progress:
  • Main Quests: 15/15
  • Side Quests: 74/76
  • Shrine Quests: 42/42
  • Shrines: 120/120
  • Koroks: 645/900
  • Talus: 37/40
  • Hinox: 37/40
  • Molduga: 4/4
  • Map Rate: 78.74%

Friday, April 28, 2017

Breath of the Wild Adventure Log, Entry 29


Border Patrol

After one week without finding any new shrines, I had to be more methodical. And my main method was studying the map to find "empty" places, where I feel like there should be something, even if it's just a Korok.

This brought me to the edge of the world map a couple of times, because I had the suspicions that there could be something. But it was just all dead ends, literally. One of these places would be a small peninsula at the north of Akkala:


Judging from the map it really was a place, where I wanted to go, but there wasn't anything there and Nintendo just lazily stops you from going on in the middle of the place. They couldn't even wait for the spiked rock formations. And the rocks on the hill, when you're going back, are for some reason not climbable. Weird.

On my way through Akkala I also discovered a new place: the Shadow Hamlet Ruins. It really got me excited for a moment, because I suspected to find something there. But as with all the giant rocks around Death Mountain, this little ruin in the middle of them didn't seem to hold any secrets...

I also explored along the border of the Gerudo Desert and here I noticed, how weirdly shields behave on sand. I already thought that it was odd, how shields don't break during Sand Seal Surfing. But I get it that this would be super annoying, if your shield broke in the middle of the Vah Naboris battle or whatever. However, it seems like shields in general don't break, if you surf on sand. Also, even on small slopes you speed up quite a lot, so you can go relatively fast through the desert even without a Sand Seal. Well, at least it made me appreciate Shield Surfing much more in general, where I'm now using it more often to get around. Outside the desert this also gets rid off all those Royal Shields that you find everywhere.


The Breakthrough

Well, I had been groping in the dark for the longest time to a point, where my motivation to keep going through this game dropped significantly. It had been over a week of playing without finding any of the last remaining shrines. I was even activating the Shrine Sensor from time to time just to be sure that there wasn't anything around, with no luck either.

But then I finally had my breakthrough with the Dow Na'eh Shrine. It was located in an area, where I certainly felt like that there should be a Shrine around, because otherwise there is no quick access to the places around...



Anyway, it felt good to be back in a shrine, where these Portal-esque trial chambers really have this stark contrast compared to the overworld with visuals, atmosphere and even gameplay. I enjoy this quite a lot.


A shrine? Gotta bring out the good gear!

The shrine contained the "Three Boxes" trial and it was another one of these puzzles, where the name of trial gives the solution away. It might have been a little bit trickier, if it was named differently.


One More

My intuitions also led me to Mount Floria, because there was no teleportation point up there. I suspected that there might be a shrine hidden somewhere near the top of the mountain, but I couldn't find anything. This was one of these moments, where I turned on the Sheikah Sensor to be sure. And it did pick up a signal after all. I decided to turn the sensor off again right away to make it not too easy, where after a while I finally found the Tota Sah Shrine...




The shrine was home to the "Toto Sah Apparatus" and the last part felt like using one of these boss keys from Skyward Sword. It's somewhat awkward to do with the Wii U GamePad, because you have to turn the entire controller around in your hands to position the sections. And with the lasts ection I don't think I even got the real solution. I didn't even use the loose staircase, the whole thing was lopsided and I somehow jumped to the goal.


So, now there's only one Sheikah Shrine left for me to discover! Coincidentally I also had one Shrine Quest left and naturally you would assume that they were related. Maybe another gang of Goron thugs would await me somewhere... But it turned out that I was simply missing the "Eye of the Sandstorm" Shrine Quest, where I had found the corresponding Dako Tah Shrine a very long time ago (see Entry 8). But this answered my question from the time, where I wondered, if finding the shrine caused the sandstorm in the area to vanish. The guy at the Kara Kara Bazaar basically confirms this, who's easy to miss, because he sits on some high chair above a tent. And he doesn't talk to you at night, which is why I probably missed this dialogue earlier. I was also curious, what would happen, if you find a shrine before the corresponding Shrine Quest, but it simply will be solved right away.

I guess, to find the last shrine I will have to trust my intuition again...


Current Progress:
  • Main Quests: 15/15
  • Side Quests: 73/76
  • Shrine Quests: 42/42
  • Shrines: 119/120
  • Koroks: 625/900
  • Talus: 36/40
  • Hinox: 37/40
  • Molduga: 4/4
  • Map Rate: 77.00%

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Breath of the Wild Adventure Log, Entry 28


What's on the horizon? Nothing at all. While I have used every evening this week to play the game, I didn't make any significant progress. And with that I mean that I still haven't found any of the three remaining shrines. I arrived at a point, where I'm inclined to actually use the Sheikah Sensor to find them, because I currently have no clue, where I should be looking. It almost feels like there's a super secret place somewhere that holds three shrines... On the other hand I did find lots and lots of treasure chests and Koroks and I also went on the offensive against all types of Guardians.


Canyon Crawling

I made another tour through Tanagar Canyon up to the Forgotten Temple, where this time I took out all of the Decayed Guardians to explore the inside of the temple in detail. This was kind of fun, trying to take them out one by one without getting hit by the others.


For some reason I had the feeling that the next night I will get a Blood Moon, so that the entire place is filled with the Guardians again. And my guts didn't betray me, the Blood Moon really came, but luckily I was done with exploring the place by then. I did find multiple treasure chests, as well as lots of Koroks on top and around the temple...

Nearby is the Serenne Stable, where by now I'm trying to pay attention to all NPCs, just in case I'm missing some valuable information or even a sidequest again. And one of the persons leaving the stable was talking about the "Forest where the Master lives" to the south. I have no idea, which forest he means. It could be the Giant's Forest and simply reference the Hinox there, but I followed the whole road southwards all the way to the Dalite Forest, where I didn't find anything important.

Because I spotted another Korok formation on the map near Vah Naboris, I went on to the Gerudo Canyon, where I honestly thought that going up the Yarna Valley would lead to a shrine. I hadn't explored this small valley yet, but in the end it just lead to places, where I already had been...



Castle Crawling

Highlight this week was exploring all of Hyrule Castle and Hyrule Castle Town again, this time with the Sheikah Sensor+ active, where I've been looking for all treasure chests in and around the castle. And there were lots of them.


I've also destroyed almost all the Guardians, which was a lot of fun and didn't even cost me a single Ancient Arrow. All those Savage Lynel Bows that I had gathered from fighting them really came in handy here. Especially the ones with greater Attack power or Five-Shot Bursts do devastating damage, if you combine them with either Fire, Ice or Shock Arrows. I tend to use Shock Arrows, because they make the most sense when fighting machines, but they also do more damage than Fire and Ice Arrows. I have a stock of over 500 all of these types, so I can fire at will.

Anyway, if you shoot a Guardian in the eye, it takes about six shots of this combination to take them down. So, it's a good way to destroy them and unlike in the Forgotten Temple I didn't have any time pressure here after the job was done. The Blood Moon won't be in effect, as long as you stay in a dungeon. It will keep coming back every night, but as long as you stay inside Hyrule Castle you can keep exploring it with all enemies gone.


And the atmosphere is really great. Since most of the game uses ambient music, having an actual music theme play makes certain places even more impressive. In case of Hyrule Castle the main chorus reminds me a little bit of the Ballad of the Windfish from Link's Awakening, it's just darker and more epic. But I'm always fired up, when I'm visiting this place, humming the theme alongside the game. Nintendo really did a great job with this "dungeon".

So, I kept exploring the castle, looking for all treasure chests, scanning everything with Stasis to find Koroks and fighting my way through all the enemies. Ideally I did this so thoroughly that I never have to go back there again.

With some of this I was reminiscing, how much things have changed over the course of the game. It's not just that I can easily take care of all enemies in the game, but also my perception about some of the items. Early in the game I thought that Stasis was the least utilized / useful ability in the game and by now I'm using it the most. I still rarely use it for its actual purpose, but freezing enemies for a short time and "scanning" the environment for anything that can be moved is invaluable.

It's similar with two-handed weapons. At first I thought that they were at a big disadvantage over the other weapons, because they are way too slow for the damage that they deal and they leave you exposed to enemy attacks. But with three full Stamina Meters you can make good use of the whirling spin attack, where this does so much damage in a short time that even all the silver enemies can be defeated quickly with this technique. Using them is still a risk, but it can be worth it.

Apropos weapons, after I was done with my "Hyrule Castle Mega Tour", I found out about the Royal Guard's gear sidequest... So, I had to go back to Hyrule Castle after all. I did like the idea of the sidequest, where I was looking for all the pieces of the Royal Guard weaponry, which are hidden in different places all over the castle. But it turned out that you only need the sword, which was somewhat disappointing.


Koroks, lots of Koroks

I did find quite some Koroks during my castle tour, even one where I would classify this as a new type of Korok puzzle that I haven't seen before...



During this part I wished that I could just use the Sheikah Sensor+ to target Koroks to make sure that I really have all of them in and outside Hyrule Castle. I can do this with treasure chests and I really enjoy it, when the sensor finally becomes silent and I have "cleared" an area. But with the Koroks I can never be sure, unless I really manage to find all 900 of them. And without any help this might be quite difficult and time intensive to do it all. I don't want to look at guides or maps in the internet, so I would prefer having some ingame help, where a Korok sensor would be the simplest and best solution.

It's also kind of ironic, how I'm unwilling to use the Sheikah Sensor for the Sheikah Shrines, which is its main purpose, while I can't use it for Koroks, where I would be willing to.


2-in-1

This week I made many tours through various other areas including the Tingle Islands, Faron Grasslands, Lurelin Village, Lake Floria (again), West Necluda, Goron City, Hebra Mountains and more... And by now I've gotten exactly two thirds of the Koroks, 600 of them. I'm just afraid that it ends the same way as with the Sheikah Shrines, where I'm unable to find the last couple ones without any help, because they could be anywhere. I probably have to come up with a more systematic way of exploring everything, if I really want to do it all on my own.



Current Progress:
  • Main Quests: 15/15
  • Side Quests: 73/76
  • Shrine Quests: 41/42
  • Shrines: 117/120
  • Koroks: 600/900
  • Talus: 32/40
  • Hinox: 33/40
  • Molduga: 4/4
  • Map Rate: 74.68%

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Breath of the Wild Adventure Log, Entry 27


Far Sighted

Currently I'm on the lookout for my final four Sheikah Shrines and I found the first one right away. I was on my way to the Akkala Citadel Ruins, when I spotted the Sah Dahaj Shrine from atop the Akkala Span bridge. Thing is that I probably had spotted this shrine multiple times before in the game, but didn't bother to go there ealier, because I thought that it would be easy to find somewhere around Akkala or the east side of the Death Mountain. But in reality it's in a nook, where you can only see it from the right angle. And when I explored the Death Mountain area above it, I was distracted with other stuff...

It does contain the "Power of Fire", another puzzle where for some reason the shrine has a lot of leaves growing everywhere. It's seem a little odd to have these leaves in this ancient technology construct, but whatever...

Afterwards I took my time to fully explore the Akkala Citadel Ruins, now that Ancient Arrows are cheap to get and the Guardian Skywatchers aren't the biggest threat anymore. But all I found were some more Koroks. I also returned to the Ordorac Quarry to see, if you can find anything in the "maze" guarded by Skywatchers, but there wasn't anything. So, this "maze" really is completely pointless, because you can simply go around to reach the Spring of Power or any Koroks around the area.

And then I was at a loss again... Where to look? I'm very close to give in and just use the Sheikah Sensor to find the last three shrines. But that almost feels like using a guide and I don't want that. On the other hand I'm still short ten Hinoxes and ten Talus. And those guys take space.


Even though I've been everywhere, truth is that there are still nooks, hills and places that I haven't explored yet, where I probably should have been more systematic, instead of running all over the places. At least I kept marking the positions of defeated Hinox with a skull symbol and the positions of defeated Talus with an ore symbol on my map. This way it's easier for me to identify places that are still untouched.


Ghost Chests

Other than looking for the last shrines, I'm busy following the Sheikah Sensor+, which is targeting treasure chests. That takes the most of my game time currently, because depending on the area there can be lots. Akkala seems to be an extreme example, where there don't seem to be many chests around. The ocean and the Lake Floria area on the other hand have so many sunken chests, you might as well be playing the Wind Waker.


But it's really satisfying, when the sensor suddenly starts being silent and you have found all the chests around the area. Unless of course the sensor targets a glitched chest, which it does in several locations. So far I found these:

  • The Woodcutter's Hut at the Great Plateau. This happens, when you get the Warm Doublet directly from the Old Man. Otherwise there would be a chest in house with this item, where the game now keeps targeting a chest that you can't get.
  • East of Aris Beach there is a chest stuck underwater.
  • The chest game in Lurelin Village.
  • In Hateno Village between the Dye Shop and the Inn the sensor goes off, but there's nothing to be found.
  • At the waterfall leading from Rassia Lake to Lake Floria the sensor also goes off, but there's nothing to be found.

I thought that the last two were just me being too blind to find them, but apparently I'm not the only one with this problem, if you look at this topic on GameFAQs about these chests (yes, I was so annoyed that I actually looked it up).


amiibo Luck

... or lack thereof. I have to say that I'm not too happy about this whole amiibo thing. I like scanning them on a daily basis to get stuff, but I don't like receiving the same Royal Shields, Royal Bows and whatever over and over again. So, I'm more and more using the save scam trick to get what I want, even if it takes several tries. But at least I finally got my first Biggoron's Sword and my first Hero's Shield today, as well as another Bow of Twilight.


The gigantic sheath for the Biggoron's Sword looks odd, though. They just should have used the one from Ocarina of Time 3D.

Now with all these rare items this is, how my current house decoration looks like:


The Ancient Bladesaw on the wall is the best, because it actually keeps spinning and gives off blue sparks while doing so. In general I like using gear that glows for the displays, where the Sword of the Sages and the Bow of Twilight were good matches.

I also stopped selling the duplicate amiibo armor pieces, where I have this weird random number generation phenomenon of getting trousers most of the time:


But it's good to know that the armor menu can have at least five pages. With the upcoming Link amiibo for Majora's Mask and Skyward Sword (which have been officially announced in this week's Nintendo Direct by the way) and any potential DLC outfits I was worried that there might not be enough space for everything. Now I only need the amiibo to give me Star Fragments to upgrade it all...

But I've learned that Silver Lynels also might drop Star Fragments occasionally. It's probably as rare, but it's helping.


Current Progress:
  • Main Quests: 15/15
  • Side Quests: 72/76
  • Shrine Quests: 41/42
  • Shrines: 117/120
  • Koroks: 528/900
  • Talus: 30/40
  • Hinox: 30/40
  • Molduga: 4/4
  • Map Rate: 68.56%

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Breath of the Wild Adventure Log, Entry 26

If updates on this blog are getting less frequent, it's because there is less and less to talk about. I'm currently on the hunt for the last remaining shrines, where I'm not using the Sheikah Sensor to target them. I want to find them on my own. Instead I'm targeting treasure chests, where I keep getting distracted. But this way I explore the environments in greater detail, where I'm finding more and more Koroks and ideally also the rest of the shrines.


A Minor Test of Courage

One of my first travel destinations this week were the river isles to the west and east of Hyrule Castle. Since I haven't been there yet, I thought this should be the first place to look for the last 10 Sheikah Shrines...


And this was quite the success, because I found three shrines in total! The first one was the hidden Noya Neha Shrine. I probably would have missed it, if it wasn't for the cave music that in this case also played on top of the hill, where the shrine was under. This gave it away and made me look in the other direction to find the entrance. I also found the Katah Chuki Shrine near the Hyrule Castle Town walls.

Both of these had one thing in common: they offered a "Minor Test of Strength" as a trial, where I thought that this was funny that I'm facing them so late in the game. These areas are patrolled with Guardians, where my instincts always drew me away from these places. I'm not sure, what Nintendo was thinking here, but maybe they wanted to offer something manageable for those, who try to get to Hyrule Castle early on... But for me it was weird to find these minor strength tests so late in the game, after I've done over half a dozen "Major Tests of Strength" already.

(And since we're talking about such weird things... I just found the last entry in the "Ability Controls" menu right below the options. I was missing the "Jump Slash" technique and it turned out that I had to talk to the guy in Kakariko, who likes to train with his sword. It's funny, how you can find the tutorials so late in the game.)

Anyway, I also found another "Modest Test of Strength" in the Namika Ozz Shrine at the Crenel Hills. This area was also quite nice with the these hollow tree chambers, where each of them housed a different type of elemental Wizzrobes and Chuchus together.


Of Kings and Bosses

Now that I'm exploring more of the center of Hyrule, I finally noticed some references to Zelda II - The Adventure of Link: there's a "Helmhead Bridge" and "Carok Bridge", both named after bosses from the game. Earlier I was afraid that there weren't any references to this game at all. Overall I would have liked, if there was a "Parapa" region somewhere, but these bridges are better than nothing.

I also noticed, how there are "mountains" named after all the kings in the series. There's Mount Daphnes, Mount Gustaf and Mount Rhoam all around Hyrule Field. But there's also the "Tuft Mountain" near the southern coast, which is the first (and probably only) reference to Tri Force Heroes that I caught in the game.

Now, the only Zelda games, where I haven't noticed any direct references yet, are the Four Swords games. But it's not like these two games had much original content to begin with. I guess, you could count the overabundant usage of the word "Talus", but this area name originated from Oracle of Ages...


Full Stash

After collecting 441 Korok Seeds, I was "already" gifted with the power of full stashes by Hestu:


Shakala! This seems a little odd. Why not make it an even 450? That would be exactly half of the Korok Seeds. And why not keep giving the player something for collecting the rest? I bet that collecting them all won't be worth the effort, probably just the traditional endless Rupee supply, if anything at all.


A Quest for Shrines

After finding three new shrines around Hyrule Castle, I was somewhat at a loss, where I should be looking next. It felt like I have been everywhere already, so at first I didn't have any specific destinations and I kept heading out towards random locations or just following the Sheikah Sensor+ from one treasure chest to the next.

Since I was at the Korok Forest to make the final upgrades to my stash, I there went after some treasure chests hidden inside trees that I missed, when I went through the Lost Words the first time. And his led me back to the Military Training Camp...


After I got all the chests there, I decided to make a tour around the Thyphlo Ruins, because I hadn't explored the area north of them yet, the Deplian Badlands. But I didn't find anything interesting there, only some Lynels and Koroks. But this was the perfect opportunity to explore all of the ruins to get all the hidden treasure chests in the area and to finally have some use for the fully upgraded Luminous Armor.


It doesn't give off any real light, though, so you still have to carry a torch around. I would have preferred something more similar to the Light Armor in Tri Force Heroes, so that this set has some real use other than looking cool in the dark and silly in the light.

I've also spent more time in Central Hyrule, where other than studying bridge names I rode against Guardians using horses that I tamed on the fly.


After depleting the Master Sword, I also tried out a Guardian Sword++ and the Ancient Spear against the Guardians, which felt even more satisfying than the Master Sword. It was also a good idea to gradually burn down all of my stronger weapons, instead of clinging to them, so I finally had more space in my inventory for basic tools like Korok Leaves or Torches.


Otherwise I mostly explored around the Necluda and Faron regions, where I spent quite some time around Lake Floria. This whole area is infested with treasure chests, which kept me busy for a while and even lured me back in again and again, when I explored in the areas around, like at the Keelay Plain. I spent so much time there that by now I could open a shop for Farosh body parts, because he kept appearing and I kept taking my shots at him, even though it was basically a distraction from a distraction. But hey, at least I found a lot of Koroks on my way and even discovered a new type of Korok puzzle - after like finding half of them. It involves the local statues, so this type of puzzle is probably only present around Lake Floria and Faron Woods.

Finding chests can also be tricky in this area, where the Sheikah Sensor sometimes isn't of much help. I would prefer it, if it made a steady sound, even if you're standing still, as soon as you're very close to your target. The way it is now, pinpointing the location of chests can be quite confusing, because if the chest is below or above you, you don't get a clear reading.

Apropos chests, there seems to be a glitched chest in the ocean at Aris Beach. It's stuck underwater and I wasn't able to pull it out with Magnesis. I even tried Stasis and shooting things at it...

Anyway, I've explored a lot, found many chests and Koroks, but in terms of finding new shrines, this all has been fruitless efforts. So, I decided to return to my original method and try to pinpoint places, where I haven't been yet. After all I still had three Shrine Quests open, where there had to be more to some of the missing shrines.


And my instincts drew me to the Hyrule Ridge, where I had the feeling that I hadn't explored all that much around it. And this was the right choise, because I found two more shrines at the perimeter.

One was the Maag No'rah Shrine, which was hidden quite cleverly, similarly to the Ke'nai Shakah Shrine in the east. It was hidden so well that you even get a Blessing for the sole act of finding it. I guess, it's not so hard to find, if you're using the Sheikah Sensor to locate shrines, but without this cheat device you have to pay full attention to your environment.

Not so hidden, but simply a place, where I hadn't been yet, was the Sheem Dagoze Shrine. It contains the nice and little "Moving in Parallel" puzzle, which is another puzzle shrine not requiring any runes. It's also opened by the Shrine Quest "The Two Rings", where Kass serenaded his final song. He went home to Rito Village afterwards, accompanying his five daughters:


This is just lovely, I didn't even realize until now that these were his children. It would be interesting to see, what happens, if you haven't completed the "Warbler's Nest" Shrine Quest yet. I suppose, the quest goes on normally, but at least there should be some new dialogs with Kass about his daughters.

Also, I completely forgot about his hut at Washa's Bluff, where he left a notebook about his song locations. I guess, I could have just looked everything up there earlier, but I did find all the locations anyway...


Studying the map made me realize that I haven't been to Mount Nabooru and Nebra Hill yet, you can even spot some Korok rock circle formations near the latter right on the map, as well as some other circle thingy near Mount Nabooru. This is where you can find the "Test of Will", another "Gut Check Challenge" by some Gorons, where you have to endure heat and fire long enough, the second time even without any protective gear. You can still use potion effects or just simply endure it.

It gives access to the Joloo Nah Apparatus, where I was surprised that it wasn't yet another blessing, but a three part puzzle about twisting cubes with different objects bound to their sides. I find these motion control puzzles a little annoying, if you have to twirl the entire Wii U GamePad around. So, I just used Fire Arrows to solve the last puzzle with the torches...


Only four Spirit Orbs remain! (And a little under 400 Koroks...)

Current Progress:
  • Main Quests: 15/15
  • Side Quests: 72/76
  • Shrine Quests: 41/42
  • Shrines: 116/120
  • Koroks: 507/900
  • Talus: 29/40
  • Hinox: 29/40
  • Molduga: 4/4
  • Map Rate: 66.58%

Friday, April 14, 2017

More Link amiibo Announced

You may not have noticed, because - like me - you are too busy with playing Breath of the Wild, but there was a Nintendo Direct yesterday. The only real Zelda news were some more amiibo, which seems like a continuation of the 30th Anniversary line and only really adds more Links...

  • Link from Majora's Mask
  • Link from Twilight Princess
  • Link from Skyward Sword

What? No Link from A Link Between Worlds? Well, these amiibo already are supported by Breath of the Wild, where you can get a full Fierce Deity set from the first one, so this wasn't a huge surprise.


Source: Twitter

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Breath of the Wild Adventure Log, Entry 25

Traverse Treasure Tour

Today was another of these days, where I just wandered from one point to the next without using teleportation. The guidance was the Sheikah Sensor+, where starting yesterday I decided to target treasure chests and see, what I would discover along the way. And this can keep you going and going and going...

I left off at the southern shore area, where I followed treasure chests over Faron Grasslands, Faron Woods to the Deya Village Ruins, to the Dueling Peaks Tower. I then took a raft at the Riverside Stable and followed down the river to Lake Hylia.


Lake Hylia is infested with treasure chests, so I spent a majority of the time here. Even though I've already did some salvaging in the past, there were still many chests left to discover, mainly around the Bridge of Hylia. Sometimes the Sheikah Sensor can be really confusing, especially if something is right below you. In this case there were some chests on the trim near the top of the central pillar...

Or yesterday I had some chests somewhere in the middle of a rock wall behind waterfalls in Akkala. It would be nice if the sensor sounded different, if you're standing right above the correct location. The way it is now, it can be really confusing.

Also, I had this suspicion for a while now, but some chests around the Outpost Ruins and East Post Ruins basically confirmed this for me: it seems that the contents of chests can be randomized. Some chests have fixed content, where you will always get the same weapon. Others work like amiibo chests and give you something based on your progress, where I currently keep getting Royal Bows, Royal Shields, Royal Halberds, Royal Broadswords and Royal Claymores, often with highly increased attack damage.

And I'm not sure, if I'm a fan of this system. My whole inventory is now clunked with Royal and Savage Lynel gear. The latter was of my own choosing, because I kept hunting down Silver Lynels. But otherwise it's simply the game that keeps throwing the "best" items at me. It makes a majority of the other weapons in the game obsolete. Why keep a Knight's Bow around, if you have six Royal Bows already? I only keep one Falcon Bow and one Golden Bow with me for the better distance, in case I'm gunning for one of the dragons or distant Octoroks. But for fighting I mostly use my Savage Lynel Bows and Royal Bows.

Of course this goes hand in hand with enemies becoming stronger multiple times (like the Lynels being upgraded to Silver variants everywhere). But overall I would have preferred it, if the difficulty would be more "regional", as it were in past Zelda games. Strong weapons should be a reward for exploring difficult areas, not something the games hands you, just because it's time for them.

Anyway, my tour ended with... you guessed it, returning to the Great Plateau:



I did actually climb up there, following my rule of not teleporting for today. I wanted to see, if I still missed any treasure chests around the starting area. And there was only one on the outer wall and one in the ice water.

However, a weird phenomenon occurred in the hut of the Old Man. The Sheikah Sensor+ pinpoints a treasure chest right in the middle of the hut, but there isn't anything there... My best guess is that this is a glitch, where he might leave you the Warm Doublet in a chest, if you didn't get it directly from him. And because there can be a chest there, the Sheikah Sensor targets it. Yesterday I've experienced a similar ghost chest in Hateno Village near the Dye Shop, where I couldn't find anything at all, until I gave up. As I said earlier, the Sheikah Sensor can be really confusing.

Well, I still found lots and lots of treasure chests today, as well as exactly 30 Koroks, so it was a good yield. I didn't find any new shrines, though... Maybe tomorrow.

  • Main Quests: 15/15
  • Side Quests: 71/76
  • Shrine Quests: 39/42
  • Shrines: 110/120
  • Koroks: 430/900
  • Talus: 24/40
  • Hinox: 23/40
  • Molduga: 4/4
  • Map Rate: 58.80%

Saturday, April 8, 2017

Breath of the Wild Adventure Log, Entry 24

This week I focused on enhancing all armor to the max, with the exception of the amiibo-exclusive pieces, because those are too expansive at the moment. But at least I've completed my collection of the latter, where I now have all the amiibo pieces that can be gotten from the currently available amiibo:


Enhancing them will be a painful grinding process, however, because you need a Star Fragment on every single step, where I would need to collect over 50 of them to complete this. And that doesn't even include the unreleased amiibo with the Fierce Deity and Skyward Sword tunics. I would have enough gems for everything, but the Star Fragments are just very rare and require you to get out of your current way to get them. I suppose, Nintendo chose them, because they can also be gotten from certain amiibo, but that's probably even rarer than finding them in the game.

Of course you can just "save scam" the whole amiibo thing and reload your last savegame, until the amiibo give you what you want. That way you can get all the exclusive items within four days, even shorter if you're willing to mess with the internal clock of the Wii U. However, I personally like having an incentive / excuse to use the amiibo on a daily basis, where I will keep using them for the chance of getting more Star Fragments and more of the exclusive weapons.

Part of the problem is that all the jewelry in the game already takes quite some Star Fragments for enhancing and I prioritized them over the amiibo stuff, because they come with special effects. (It's a shame, though, that they don't enable set bonuses. With some gear, where the helmet is ugly, e.g. the Ancient Armor, it would be nice, if you could use the jewelry as an alternative without losing the set bonus, especially since these items are so expansive.)

But all the "normal" armor and jewelry in the game now reads a nice red "Cannot Enhance" in the Great Fairy upgrade screen. For this I had to collect various materials all over the world, where I also discovered some new things on my way.


Part 1: Smotherwing Butterflies and Red Lizalfos Tails

This is where I left off this blog last Sunday. I went to the Death Mountain area to collect Red Lizalfos Tails for upgrading the Flamebreaker Armor set. But I also needed many Smotherwing Butterflies, which turned out to be the bigger problem. But it also turned out to be a good use of food and potions with the stealth effect, because you want to wear said Flamebreaker Armor in the area and therefore can't use the full Stealth Gear. The stealth effect does help a lot with collecting insects and critters, where you can even approach them normally without them fleeing.

The Smotherwing Butterflies are also really hard to spot due to the many particle effects around the burning areas. But I've mentioned this before and at least it gives the Sheikah Sensor+ something to do. Though, I've lately been using it to target treasure chests, which kind of feels like having the Compass sound from Link's Awakening. And it certain areas it makes you go from one chest to the next...


Well, I did find a couple of Igneo Talus on my travels through Death Mountain, but otherwise not all that much. What disappointed me that there doesn't seem to be anything on any of the giant rocks around the volcano. Whenever I see a giant rock, I want to climb it in the hopes of finding a Korok or something else on top. Or at least a position from where I can spot something else. But it seems like none of the sharp rocks around Death Mountain are actually worth the trouble...


Part 2: Stealthfin Trouts

This had me all over the place at first, because I didn't have the Stealthfin Trout in my Hyrule Compendium yet and didn't know, where to look for it. My first instinct was to look around Zora's Domain, because there are many ponds with various fish around the area. But I didn't have any luck with this, so my next stop was Lake Floria, where I haven't fully explored the whole area yet. And in both cases I accidentally stumbled over a Stone Talus, but luckily I'm looking for these guys as well to complete the "Medal of Honor" quests.

I've also stumbled over the Shoda Sah Shrine, while exploring Lake Floria, where you have the "Impeccable Timing" puzzle. It's not very difficult, but you can also use Cryonis to solve this one, if the orbs land in the water. I've also had a nice Silver Lynel fight above the area and also could make some shots at Farosh. Both of this would come in handy later, because I needed their materials as well, but again I didn't have any luck with finding Stealthfin Trouts.

I already did have some in my inventory, though, which I had gotten from Octoroks, amiibo and maybe even from where they actually can be found. So far I was under the wrong impression that you can't take pictures of materials that you have dropped on the ground, but I tried this again just to be sure... and it does work. Maybe, when I tried this early in the game, I used gems or other items that can't be "scanned", which is why I thought that you can only take pictures of materials, when you find them in the wild. But it doesn't really matter, what matters that I now could target Stealthfin Trouts and could get more information from the Hyrule Compendium.

Since I was taking pictures of dead fish on the ground, I also used this as an opportunity to neatly arrange them all for my Compendium:


So far all my pictures of fish have been very bad, because it's hard to get a clear shot of them in the water, but now I have them all in similar clear shots, which looks nice and adds a system to the Compendium. Getting nice shots of everything will certainly be a later task in this game.

Well, the Stealthin Trouts actually seem quite rare, even with the Sheikah Sensor and the Hyrule Compendium I only could find some at Lake Saria next to the Kuhn Sidajj Shrine. You can just enter and exit the shrine to have more of them spawn, so ultimately this spot was enough to upgrade my Stealth Armor set.

While checking the waters around the Great Hyrule Forest, I also made my first visit to Mekar Island...


And what's up with this place? At night an army of Stal enemies spawns there, but it doesn't seem like you can get anything from it. There's not even a Korok there, or at least I couldn't find one. Maybe I'm missing something crucial here, maybe this place is just for fun, I don't know yet.


Part 3: Swift Violets and Yellow Lizalfos Tails

To enhance the Rubber Armor set I needed some Yellow Lizalfos Tails and to upgrade the Sand and Snow Beats I needed many Swift Violets. To hit two birds with one stone, I decided to go to the north part of the desert, where you can find both.

Afterwards I decided to visit the Yiga Clan Hideout again, where I haven't been there since my third day of playing the game. I remember, how I pushed myself through the whole thing with only five hearts, because I couldn't find a shrine in the area to go back there quickly later on. Well, there actually is one right in front of the hideout, I just missed it back in the day, because the three Yiga Archers were chasing me right through the entrance, so I didn't look back. Today these guys are some of the simplest and easiest enemies in the game, but early in the game they still gave me enough trouble to not explore the area and to miss this important short cut...


Well, it's the Sho Dantu Shrine with the very nice "Two Bombs" puzzle, which is one of the few puzzles in the game that make use of having two different bombs at the same time.

The Yiga Clan Hideout is now empty, though. I was hoping that I could fight my way through it this time, but that's probably something that I will do when replaying the game.


Interlude: The Sheikah Heirloom

Whenever I go upgrade my armor, I usually do that with the Great Fairy at Kakariko Village, because I like her the best and you can also find a Goddess Statue in the village to trade your Spirit Orbs. So, it's practical. Another reason might have been that I still was drawn to the area, because I hadn't solved the whole "Sheikah Heirloom" riddle, where there's still another shrine near the Great Fairy. I just couldn't figure out what to do to get the orb from Impa.

But for some reason I now managed to trigger a series of sidequests in the village that led to getting the orb... I'm not exactly sure, what triggered it, but it started with the "Journal of Various Worries". But I did read this journal various times before and nothing ever happened. So, I suppose, the actual trigger was showing Lasli some fireflies at night, which I hadn't done before. Afterwards I also could do a little sidequests for the arrow shop girl, where so far I never noticed a red exclamation mark above her and I did buy arrows several times in her shop. But finishing this then finally led to sidequests, where the orb got stolen from under Paya's nose. (I really like her character, because her crush for "Master Link" is simply adorable.) And with this I finally could enter the shrine and receive Lakna Rokee's Blessing:


I liked, how this little storyline was linked to the Yiga, because the timing couldn't have been better after my latest visit to their hideout. And to learn that the mother of Cotta and Koko is actually dead, makes it really sad, how the girls believe that "mommy is still playing hide and seek". That's dark.


Part 4: Lynel Guts

Other than some Star Fragments for the jewelry, I then was only missing Lynel Guts and various dragon parts to upgrade the Barbarian Armor set and the Champion's Tunic. It's a shame, how I haven't been using the latter ever since the early game, because upgrading it was simply too expansive...

I saved dealing with the three dragons for last, so the next step was Lynel hunting. And by now I'm having a blast dueling with Silver Lynels. Those guys are a good challenge and it's a lot of fun to fight them, once you mastered the combat in this game. And what better place to do this than where my journey began with the Lynels at Oseira Plains?

Well, by now every Lynel spot other than Ploymus Mountain and the Hyrule Castle Gatehouses seems to hold a Silver Lynel, which makes me wonder, how I will get my hands on all the weaker Lynel weapons for the Compendium... So, ultimately it doesn't really matter, which spot to chose for a Lynel fight, I just go back to the grasslands out of sentiment. And for some reason I never explored the mountains on the top, probably because there were some Guardians crawling around it.

In fact when I first left the Great Plateau, I was aiming towards the Stalry Plateau, but than evaded towards the Taobab Grassland (where you can find the Ganon Horse), because I thought I spotted a live Guardian on the hills. And this seemed right, but by now those guys aren't an issue anymore. No limits! Also, I got a Five-Shot Burst Savage Lynel Bow from fighting them earlier and I have over 500 Shock Arrows by now, where the combination of the two is very effective on Guardians. I've only used Ancient Arrows once or twice in this game...

Well, I climbed Mount Granajh, where you can find the "Secret of the Snowy Peaks" Shine Quest. And this one was a little awkward. Because of the puddles of ice water I thought that I had to use Cryonis to solve this somehow, e.g. by lifting a large snow ball with the rune. But this didn't work. And the fact that you can only do this puzzle at a certain time of day, didn't make it any less awkward. There are other Shrine Quests like this one, but there you had a Sheikah Tower or some other Travel Gates nearby to get back there during the right time. Here you didn't even know at what time the pedestal activates. You had to wait for it...

Also, I've already noticed this during the "Ancient Rito Song" Shrine Quest, but the sun does shine from the north in this game and not from the south, which is really weird. Almost as Nintendo had altered the way of the sun just to fit these silly puzzles... But at least Suma Sahma's Blessing was mine for the taking. Only ten shrines left!


Afterwards I was exploring the area around the South Lomei Labyrinth. I've completed the labyrinth earlier in the game, but I avoided the hills around it at the time, because there were Guardians up there, which again aren't an obstacle anymore. Because I was still on the hunt after Lynels, I set the Coliseum as my next destination, which you could spot on the horizon...


I then cleared the whole Coliseum, where I worked my way from the top to the bottom with the Silver Lynel, but I didn't find anything major, only a chest of Bomb Arrows and a Korok... I kind of expected more from this, maybe even a shrine popping up after defeating all the enemies. But at least it's a nice source of all elemental melee weapons, even the Lynel is using a Flame Blade instead of the usual Lynel weapons, where the otherwise tiny sword looks gigantic on him.


Part 5: Dragon Parts

All that now was left to enhance my (non-amiibo) armor collection were various parts from the three dragons, mostly the horn. And before this I wasn't even aware that you could target different parts for different materials. You can even get their claws, where so far I haven't found any usage for them. The game keeps telling you that all of the dragon parts have other uses than cooking or selling them. And I suspect that there still might be some valuable piece of armor in the game, which I haven't found yet and which will need the claws for enhancing. Or there might be some other use for these dragon parts that I haven't discovered yet...

In any case it's a good idea to collect as many of all body parts as possible. Mostly I kept running into Farosh, who hangs out at Lake Hylia, Lake Floria and even the Gerudo Highlands. Lake Floria seems to be the easiest place to hit it, where you can get quite close at the source, where it dives in and out.

Naydra seems to be the most complicated one or I haven't found a quick way to farm its bodyparts yet. It does seem to go in a circle starting at Mount Lanayru, through the Lanayru Promenade and the over Lanayru Bay. I haven't seen Naydra anywhere else yet, but hitting it around Mount Lanayru sometimes resulted in the bodypart landing in the far distance (somewhere at Lanayru Promenade), where I lost it a couple of times.

Probably the easiest to farm should be Dinraal, where you just have to wait for it at night on the Tabantha Great Bridge above the Tanagar Canyone Golf Course:


Apropos golf... I was also looking for Dinraal around Akkala, where I found a similar golf course in the north of the area, where you have to shoot a rock with Stasis into a hole. And this took forever to get right. You don't have to score a "hole-in-one" and you can even push the rock to its destination, but it's still easy to lose, because the rocks will roll down the grass hill. And this was quite frustrating. I do enjoy these Korok puzzles, because they can be done fast. This didn't apply to this one, though. There is even a similar hole at Lanayru Tower, but this one didn't give me a Korok, where all my efforts to the the rock into the whole were for nothing. Maybe I did something wrong, I don't know, but I had to mark this spot on my map with a leaf for now...

So, this was my journey about upgrading all the main armor. For the amiibo gear I will need dozens of Star Fragments and this will probably take forever, where it's also not under my control to find them, since it's based on random events. In the next days I will instead focus on finding the remaining Sheikah Shrines. There are still some nooks, where I haven't been yet, so this could be fun.

As a start, I went around the southern Shoreline over Aris Beach, Martha's Landing and the Komo Shoreline, but I didn't have any luck finding any new shrines there. But at least I keep finding lots of treasure chests with the Sheikah Sensor...


Current Progress:
  • Main Quests: 15/15
  • Side Quests: 71/76
  • Shrine Quests: 39/42
  • Shrines: 110/120
  • Koroks: 400/900
  • Talus: 22/40
  • Hinox: 22/40
  • Molduga: 4/4
  • Map Rate: 56.16%

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Breath of the Wild Adventure Log, Entry 23

Today was an almost depressing day of playing, because I spent the entire Sunday walking through snowy mountains... My main goal for today was clearing my "backlog" of Shrine Quests and Side Quests, where I have been working on this all week. Now only one Shrine Quest leading to the cliffside of the Gerudo Highlands was left, one Side Quest about the Leviathan skeletons, as well as two Side Quests about hunting a Talus, one at Death Mountain and one at Hebra Mountain. Good thing that I'm gunning for all Talus and Hinox anyway, so some of my goals go hand in hand here.

But as you can see, most of this brought me into the icy areas of the game, where there might be one too many. Maybe Nintendo wanted to compensate for the fact that Skyward Sword didn't have any ice / snow areas, maybe they wanted to provide as much space for Shield Snowboarding as possible, but overall it seems like there's lots and lots of snow in this game.

Because my inventory got crammed with the ancient weapons yesterday, I also wanted to make some space, where burning the flame weapons seemed like a good way. There were lots and lots of Ice-Breath Lizalfos waiting to be one-hitted...


King of the Frozen Hill

So, I started with the Gerudo Highlands and the "Cliffside Etchings" Shrine Quest. I noticed these etchings way earlier in the game, when I first explored the Gerudo Highlands. It's obvious that you have to do something with electricity here and at the time I even tried shooting Shock Arrows at the "bullseye", but nothing happened. So, I thought that it had to do something with Farosh, who keeps flying through the area at night. But it turned out that Shock Arrows were still the right way, I just had to get much closer... And then I received Keeha Yoog's Blessing for little effort.

I also started a fight with the Silver Lynels on the summit, where the first one wasn't a problem, but the one with the crusher still got me bad. The amounts of damage they do with these crushers is still ridiculous. He even threw me off the mountain, where he fully regenerated, after I went back up (→ reload save game). But the Savage Lynel Crusher came in handy later on with the Frost Talus in other corners of the area. I pretty much defeated every strong monster on top of the Gerudo Highlands and showed these bosses, who's boss.


This also cleared the way to collect the countless treasure chests in the area, there are dozens of them hidden in the snow, giving the Magnesis ability lots to do.

The Yiga Footsoldiers in the area, which usually drop lots of Rupees, also had me thinking, how it's weird that Rupees are collected automatically without the need to press the "A" button. While it's the classic Zelda game behavior, it still feels "strange" in this game, probably because picking things up with "A" gives you more control and at also feels more satisfying.


The Endless Quest for the Hebra Leviathan

Now off to the Hebra Mountains... My first goal here was the Talus at Coldsnap Hollow to complete the "Face the Frost Talus" side quest. And this was easy enough. I even found out that you can melt their ice with fire (e.g. with a Fire Arrow), so you don't slip off as easily.

The other goal was finding the skeleton of the Leviathan in the area. This took pretty much all day long, because I couldn't find it. And this area is huge and depressing...


One of the first things I did was climbing Hebra Peak, where on top I was presented with a very beautiful view of the sun setting at the world border. I wanted to take a screenshot for this blog, but in the exact second I reached the top the weather started to get bad, so that the view was gone... I even tried sitting at a fire to get the weather to become better, but it didn't. In fact it kept snowing the entire rest of the time, which didn't make my task of finding the Leviathan any easier or more enjoyable. The area could be very beautiful, if it wasn't for the weather.

At least I managed to find lots of Koroks and four shrines in total on my way:

  • Goma Asaagh Shrine - "A Major Test of Strength"
  • Rok Uwog Shrine - "Power of Reach"
  • Hia Miu Shrine - "A Major Test of Strength"
  • Gee Ha'rah Shrine - "Tandem"

Both tests of strength had a Guardian Sentinel with all three weapons, where the first had a water floor and the second blocks for Magnesis. And the two puzzle shrines were pretty nice as well. In general I enjoyed doing all these shrines even more than usual, because they really offered some variety in the otherwise dreary snow setting.


Well, it was really the last of them, the Gee Ha'rah Shrine, which gave away, where I could find the Leviathan. The paleontologists at the Serenne Stable tell you that the Leviathan might be hiding in a large cave, so I've been looking for openings and checking all the hollows, with no luck. But for this particular shrine you had to open a pair of temple doors with the power of physics, which then led into a cave.

This felt pretty unique at first, but the rule of thumb in this game is: if you think you found something unique, chances are that there are at least two more of the same around somewhere. So, I've been looking for corners, where another door like this could exist, until I finally found the "Hebra Great Skeleton":


I didn't even mind to receive To Quomo's Blessing in the shrine here, since I've been looking for this place for many hours...


Heat Up

All that was left to do now was finding that Talus at Darunia Lake, which provided a nice change of scenerie:


I will probably explore more of Death Mountain tomorrow and also hunt lots and lots of Fire-Breath Lizalfos, because I need their tails for upgrading the Firebreaker Armor.

But I did reach today's goal, where now I have cleared all open Side and Shrine Quests in my Adventure Log. There are still seven Side Quests and five Shrine Quests left to be found for me, but now I will try complete those, as soon as I receive them.

PS: I now maximized my Bow Stash as well, where the last upgrade only cost 25 Korok Seeds. It's because the six different arrow types are on the bow page as well and it also needs an additional slot for the Bow of Light. But I would have thought the Bow Stash menu would simply receive two pages, where on the second page you would find the arrows. It also seems like you will only need half of all the Korok Seeds to complete the stashes... I wonder, what the rest will be good for, if anything...


Current Progress:
  • Main Quests: 15/15
  • Side Quests: 69/76
  • Shrine Quests: 37/42
  • Shrines: 106/120
  • Koroks: 348/900
  • Talus: 16/40
  • Hinox: 19/40
  • Molduga: 4/4
  • Map Rate: 51.44%