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%

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