Saturday, March 5, 2016

The Twilight Princess HD Diaries, Day 3

Another day, another province. Let's jump right into the missing bugs from Lanayru:

  • the insect at the lake house
  • one of the four insects in the river tunnel
  • one of the two insects in the center of Zora's Domain
  • the insect in the upper floors of Zora's Domain

It feels more similar to the insects in Faron, where they also reduced some groups and removed an insect behind a house. The one at Zora's Domain saves quite some time, though, because you don't have to climb all the way up again.

Next step was the carriage escort and that didn't go so well for me, because the new Epona controls are too stiff. I've never ran into so many walls in a video game before. The horse gets stuck where it can and actually naming it "Error" was the most appropriate thing I could have done. That doesn't look good, after they've claimed to have improved the controls and after Zelda U apparently has very good horse mechanics...

To make things worse, I fell off into Kakariko Gorge when I tried to shoot the bombing Kargarok. It came too close, the explosion threw me off the horse and into the abyss. Now let me tell you what happens: you have to restart from the beginning at the Hylia bridge... Imagine my outburst of frustration.

Still, besides all the issues with Error, I decided to do some sidequests before the Lakebed Temple, mainly getting all the Bomb Bags. Without warping you have to navigate Hyrule in its entirety and make some good use of the horse. In order to get back up to the Zora River for example, where the rafting minigame is located, you have to get shot up by the cannon, go to the northern field and there use the entrance to Zora's Domain. It's quite the detour compared to simply warping up there, so usually you would want to beat Lakebed Temple first and get the ability to switch between forms and to warp.


Getting the Master Sword is the point where the game gets the most fun for someone like me, who enjoys exploring and sidequests. The sidequests are not really well distributed throughout the game – as soon as you get the Master Sword you can do a majority of them. You don't have to, but I personally like to do sidequests as early as possible. So, that's why I usually spend many hours collecting bugs, hunting Poes, exploring grottos, fishing, opening Malo Mart and so on, before going to the Gerudo Desert.

And... now also collecting stamps! You may not like Miiverse Stamps, but I think that this was the best addition to the game. It's much more enjoyable than just collecting Rupees and it actually now gives you a good reason to search for many of the treasure chests, including the ones in hidden grottoes. There they even added new chests for the stamps, instead of replacing the content of existing ones.


And it's not like losing any Rupees hurts. You still get tons, for example from Agitha, who I had a beautiful moment with. There's this scene, where she slowly walks home from the field south of Hyrule Castle Town during dusk. You can walk slowly right beside her and Link and Agitha will keep looking into each others eyes while romantically walking next to each other, which looks funny, because they are not looking, where they are going. However, their passionate stare walk got interrupted by a nasty Poe, which could do as it pleased, because I couldn't turn into a wolf in front of Agitha...

Apropos Poes, to my surprise they actually did add a Poe Counter to each region of the map. So, they did improve the Poe hunting somewhat. I haven't found the Ghost Lantern yet and so far I didn't get spoiled about its location, which is exciting. I have some theories, where it could be. I'm thinking that you either get it from Jovanni after a certain number of Poes (it's not 10 though) or you might find it somewhere, like the cave at Lake Hylia or Arbiter's Grounds. If you already know where it is, please don't spoil it in the comments. Finding this new item will be one of my goals for tomorrow.


I'll finish this post with the Zelda U easter egg, where they put some E3 2014 images into the store at Hyrule Castle Town. However, as soon as Malo Mart takes over, those pictures are gone. Probably a way of saying that Zelda U is expensive stuff...

3 comments:

Eduardo Jencarelli said...

The post-Master Sword pre-Gerudo desert section is probably my favorite for that very reason. Lots of sidequest options.

Did they fix that game-breaking bug on the Bridge of Eldin? It's the one where if you save after the Bridge of Eldin is warped out of existence, you restart at the wrong side of the terrain, with no way to get across to the Lanayru Province. You pretty much have to get into the Twilight Realm before saving and quitting, otherwise you're as permanently stuck as people who are trying to reach the Thunder Dragon in Skyward Sword.

TourianTourist said...

I didn't want to test this, so I don't know yet.

There was a similar glitch in the sky cannon room. Bet I'm sure that some people will test this soon enough.

Unknown said...

I tested this myself, and I can say that it is patched. I also checked if they tried to fix anything involving Epona being left on it after it as removed; they didn't, she still hovers in midair if she's left on the bridge when it's removed.