Sometimes in this game you just want to pick a point and then start wandering from there in any direction to see, what the day brings... Yesterday I stopped playing around the Lake Tower, which was a tough place, when I first arrived there early in the game. But now I just plow through the area, where it's nice to feel the growth every now and then, instead of running into Blue-Maned Lynels and lots of Silver Lizalfos in the area.
So, today I headed off from the Lake Tower and followed down the Menoat River, where after my journey I would be back at the Gerudo Desert, completing all the sidequests in the area and on the way.
Mounted Archery
Before you know it, you're stuck in another horseback minigame that takes a lot of patience. In this case it was the Mounted Archery, causing me quite some frustrations at first. But it is mostly a matter of finding the right bow. At first I used a Royal Bow most of the time, because I got lots of them, however, there's still quite the arc to the shots and it draws only slowly, which makes hitting the targets quite difficult.
The best one in the end (other than the Great Eagle Bow, which I don't want to waste on a minigame) prove to be the Shallow Bow, where you can find some for free around Rito Village. It draws quicker than the Royal Bow and the shots have a good distance, so you can aim straight at the targets, but at the same time it doesn't have the zoom that comes with the Phrenic or the Golden Bow, which is rather annoying in this minigame. Only downside to the Shallow Bow is that it doesn't have much durability, where it only lasts for a little more than one round. So, it's best to work with savegames here.
For the five balloons at the end you want to use a Bow with a spreadshot (e.g. a Lynel's Bow) and use Bomb Arrows to destroy all five targets at once. Oh, and just let the horse do its thing, it will follow the road and you only have to make it go faster in the beginning. If you follow these tips, it's possible to get a perfect score.
You get the Knight's Bridle and Saddle here (the latter takes 23 points), so it's worth the trouble.
Gerudo Canyon Needies
Apropos horse stuff, you can only have a total of five horses in the game. I do want to have all the special horses, where there's Epona, the Ganon horse and seemingly also the white "Royal Steed" (which I will probably name "Zelda"). Maybe you can also have the Stal horse, I don't know. But if you want all the special horses, there's probably only room for one or maybe two horses of your own choosing in the end, which means that I will have to let go of some of them. I have a maximum bond with Firsta and other than being a little slow, I rather like her. And Bridga wasn't too bad either...
So, Contesta had to go first. I never really used her and I only got her because of the horse taming minigame at the Dueling Peaks stable. So, I decided to give her to the guy at Gerudo Canyon, who's looking for a new horse. He's picky about the size, but luckily she was a perfect fit.
Good Bye, Contesta! I never liked you anyway...
Other than that I also found the four friends of the guy, who's waiting at the Gerudo Canyon Stable. I first met him on my third day of playing, almost two weeks ago. And it's funny, how these guys survived for all that time. But it would be annoying, if there was a time limit on these kind of sidequests.
I've also collected the 55 Rushrooms for the other guy at the stable. You get a Diamond for your efforts, but it still feels like this was a little bit too much for one gather quest.
Desert Deeds
Back to my favorite part of the game, I decided to complete all the sidequests around Gerudo Town for the Thunder Helmet and explore all of Gerudo Desert, where I found a couple of shrines, but most of them were simple Blessings, because they were tied into some Shrine Quests.
In case of the Seven Heroines and Korsh O'hu's Blessing I don't mind the choice, because this already was a nice puzzle, where you had to pay close attention to the environment to solve it.
From there you can spot another shrine in the middle of the desert, but when I got there, the terminal was blocked by a Gerudo. She's all about some seemingly alcoholic drink named "Noble Pursuit", where you end up in a quest about delivering a block of ice through some ruins... It's a lot of trouble for one shrine, but it still doesn't justify that Misae Suma would give you yet another Blessing, because normally there would be no challenge of getting there. It was probably so hot in the desert that the Sheikah didn't want to design any puzzles, so they just hand their rewards over to the hero. There's no other explanation, because that Sheikah monk honestly couldn't have foretold that in the exact moment, where some hero would arrive, a Gerudo would block the entrance...
In the very least Kema Zoos delivered, where at the end of the "Silent Swordswomen" quest a nice little "Delayed Puzzle" awaited. Thank you. At least someone around here, who isn't afraid to think in the heat.
By the way, if you climb the rock walls behind the shrine, the game will simply stop you from walking any further...
Okay, that's a lame way to create a world border. I don't mind it, if they do this in the middle of the ocean, since the Wind Waker did the same and there's no point to keep going. But stopping me in the middle of the environment seems a little weird. I liked, how they solved the world border in the north. I wouldn't even think about crossing that gap. And the ocean to the east and south does the trick as well. But they should have done something similar to the west, instead of making you run into an invisible wall in the middle of nowhere... But of course it could also be that they might expand in this direction for the DLC. We'll see.
Also, the heat gets so strong in the outer desert regions that the Gerudo garb doesn't help you anymore, despite its Heat Resistance set bonus. The Goron Armor also doesn't help, which is a little weird, because it should be super hot around Death Mountain. But it supposedly only protects you from flames and catching fire. Well, for now I just used potions and food with Heat Resistance, but one Gerudo made it sound like there's proper gear for the area, which I haven't found yet...
What makes the areas so special are certainly the giant Molduga bosses, where I fought three of them. One at the Southern Oasis, one at Toruma Dunes and at the North Dragon's Exile. They create a similar thrill to the Moldworms in Phantom Hourglass at first, but once you arrived on a stone platform, they are easy to fight. You just have to lure them with bombs or explosive barrels and then you can take your strikes.
Only the enemies in the area might cause some problems. I had Bokoblins pushing me off the platform, a Silver Lizalfos that kept spamming his spit at me and several Electric Keese causing frustrations. I especially hate the latter, those bats are real brats. Unless you fight them off quickly with a spear weapon, they will make you drop your things and cause a lot of damage. Well, luckily all of this was for an item that grants you protection from electricity.
Anyway, one of these Molduga fights led to Tho Kayu's Blessing and there was Raqa Zunzo's Blessing as a reward from the Sand-Seal race. At least there they made it so that you claim an orb, where the orb could have been anywhere, so story-wise the Blessing works for me in that case. The Sand-Seal Rally also was quite fun, much more enjoyable than any of the horse-related minigames so far...
Last but not least, I made it to the Hawa Koth Shrine with the nice "Current Solution" puzzle, where in the area I found my first Great Thunderblade for my collection at home and my last Great Fairy. She needed 10,000 Rupees, where I had to sell a majority of my gems to make it happen, but I now can finally upgrade all armor the maximum (where applicable), where the final upgrade animation wasn't a letdown and as hilarious as usual.
It seems that there really are only four Great Fairies in the game (plus that horse god), which means that four stars is the maximum for your armor. I also discovered another maximum with the Stamina Wheels. I completed my third wheel today, where the Goddess Statue told me that I wouldn't need any more. I was hoping that this would be the case and even if it wasn't, I probably would have stopped at three wheels, because it's sufficient and I want to invest into more Heart Containers from now on. But it seems that with roughly 40 shrines left I could only get a total of 27 Heart Containers (three missing for two complete rows), unless the DLC will offer additional Heart Containers or Spirit Orbs.
In any case I completed today's task of helping all the Gerudo, where I finally claimed the Thunder Helm. It makes you "Lightning Proof", where from now on those Electric Keese shouldn't fry me anymore. I also liked, how you had this surrounding quest, where the goal was to do all the sidequests around Gerudo Town. It really adds to the fact that the Gerudo Desert is the best part of the game.
Current Progress:
So, today I headed off from the Lake Tower and followed down the Menoat River, where after my journey I would be back at the Gerudo Desert, completing all the sidequests in the area and on the way.
Mounted Archery
Before you know it, you're stuck in another horseback minigame that takes a lot of patience. In this case it was the Mounted Archery, causing me quite some frustrations at first. But it is mostly a matter of finding the right bow. At first I used a Royal Bow most of the time, because I got lots of them, however, there's still quite the arc to the shots and it draws only slowly, which makes hitting the targets quite difficult.
The best one in the end (other than the Great Eagle Bow, which I don't want to waste on a minigame) prove to be the Shallow Bow, where you can find some for free around Rito Village. It draws quicker than the Royal Bow and the shots have a good distance, so you can aim straight at the targets, but at the same time it doesn't have the zoom that comes with the Phrenic or the Golden Bow, which is rather annoying in this minigame. Only downside to the Shallow Bow is that it doesn't have much durability, where it only lasts for a little more than one round. So, it's best to work with savegames here.
For the five balloons at the end you want to use a Bow with a spreadshot (e.g. a Lynel's Bow) and use Bomb Arrows to destroy all five targets at once. Oh, and just let the horse do its thing, it will follow the road and you only have to make it go faster in the beginning. If you follow these tips, it's possible to get a perfect score.
You get the Knight's Bridle and Saddle here (the latter takes 23 points), so it's worth the trouble.
Gerudo Canyon Needies
Apropos horse stuff, you can only have a total of five horses in the game. I do want to have all the special horses, where there's Epona, the Ganon horse and seemingly also the white "Royal Steed" (which I will probably name "Zelda"). Maybe you can also have the Stal horse, I don't know. But if you want all the special horses, there's probably only room for one or maybe two horses of your own choosing in the end, which means that I will have to let go of some of them. I have a maximum bond with Firsta and other than being a little slow, I rather like her. And Bridga wasn't too bad either...
So, Contesta had to go first. I never really used her and I only got her because of the horse taming minigame at the Dueling Peaks stable. So, I decided to give her to the guy at Gerudo Canyon, who's looking for a new horse. He's picky about the size, but luckily she was a perfect fit.
Good Bye, Contesta! I never liked you anyway...
Other than that I also found the four friends of the guy, who's waiting at the Gerudo Canyon Stable. I first met him on my third day of playing, almost two weeks ago. And it's funny, how these guys survived for all that time. But it would be annoying, if there was a time limit on these kind of sidequests.
I've also collected the 55 Rushrooms for the other guy at the stable. You get a Diamond for your efforts, but it still feels like this was a little bit too much for one gather quest.
Desert Deeds
Back to my favorite part of the game, I decided to complete all the sidequests around Gerudo Town for the Thunder Helmet and explore all of Gerudo Desert, where I found a couple of shrines, but most of them were simple Blessings, because they were tied into some Shrine Quests.
In case of the Seven Heroines and Korsh O'hu's Blessing I don't mind the choice, because this already was a nice puzzle, where you had to pay close attention to the environment to solve it.
From there you can spot another shrine in the middle of the desert, but when I got there, the terminal was blocked by a Gerudo. She's all about some seemingly alcoholic drink named "Noble Pursuit", where you end up in a quest about delivering a block of ice through some ruins... It's a lot of trouble for one shrine, but it still doesn't justify that Misae Suma would give you yet another Blessing, because normally there would be no challenge of getting there. It was probably so hot in the desert that the Sheikah didn't want to design any puzzles, so they just hand their rewards over to the hero. There's no other explanation, because that Sheikah monk honestly couldn't have foretold that in the exact moment, where some hero would arrive, a Gerudo would block the entrance...
In the very least Kema Zoos delivered, where at the end of the "Silent Swordswomen" quest a nice little "Delayed Puzzle" awaited. Thank you. At least someone around here, who isn't afraid to think in the heat.
By the way, if you climb the rock walls behind the shrine, the game will simply stop you from walking any further...
Okay, that's a lame way to create a world border. I don't mind it, if they do this in the middle of the ocean, since the Wind Waker did the same and there's no point to keep going. But stopping me in the middle of the environment seems a little weird. I liked, how they solved the world border in the north. I wouldn't even think about crossing that gap. And the ocean to the east and south does the trick as well. But they should have done something similar to the west, instead of making you run into an invisible wall in the middle of nowhere... But of course it could also be that they might expand in this direction for the DLC. We'll see.
Also, the heat gets so strong in the outer desert regions that the Gerudo garb doesn't help you anymore, despite its Heat Resistance set bonus. The Goron Armor also doesn't help, which is a little weird, because it should be super hot around Death Mountain. But it supposedly only protects you from flames and catching fire. Well, for now I just used potions and food with Heat Resistance, but one Gerudo made it sound like there's proper gear for the area, which I haven't found yet...
What makes the areas so special are certainly the giant Molduga bosses, where I fought three of them. One at the Southern Oasis, one at Toruma Dunes and at the North Dragon's Exile. They create a similar thrill to the Moldworms in Phantom Hourglass at first, but once you arrived on a stone platform, they are easy to fight. You just have to lure them with bombs or explosive barrels and then you can take your strikes.
Only the enemies in the area might cause some problems. I had Bokoblins pushing me off the platform, a Silver Lizalfos that kept spamming his spit at me and several Electric Keese causing frustrations. I especially hate the latter, those bats are real brats. Unless you fight them off quickly with a spear weapon, they will make you drop your things and cause a lot of damage. Well, luckily all of this was for an item that grants you protection from electricity.
Anyway, one of these Molduga fights led to Tho Kayu's Blessing and there was Raqa Zunzo's Blessing as a reward from the Sand-Seal race. At least there they made it so that you claim an orb, where the orb could have been anywhere, so story-wise the Blessing works for me in that case. The Sand-Seal Rally also was quite fun, much more enjoyable than any of the horse-related minigames so far...
Last but not least, I made it to the Hawa Koth Shrine with the nice "Current Solution" puzzle, where in the area I found my first Great Thunderblade for my collection at home and my last Great Fairy. She needed 10,000 Rupees, where I had to sell a majority of my gems to make it happen, but I now can finally upgrade all armor the maximum (where applicable), where the final upgrade animation wasn't a letdown and as hilarious as usual.
It seems that there really are only four Great Fairies in the game (plus that horse god), which means that four stars is the maximum for your armor. I also discovered another maximum with the Stamina Wheels. I completed my third wheel today, where the Goddess Statue told me that I wouldn't need any more. I was hoping that this would be the case and even if it wasn't, I probably would have stopped at three wheels, because it's sufficient and I want to invest into more Heart Containers from now on. But it seems that with roughly 40 shrines left I could only get a total of 27 Heart Containers (three missing for two complete rows), unless the DLC will offer additional Heart Containers or Spirit Orbs.
In any case I completed today's task of helping all the Gerudo, where I finally claimed the Thunder Helm. It makes you "Lightning Proof", where from now on those Electric Keese shouldn't fry me anymore. I also liked, how you had this surrounding quest, where the goal was to do all the sidequests around Gerudo Town. It really adds to the fact that the Gerudo Desert is the best part of the game.
Current Progress:
- Shrines: 79
- Koroks: 181
- Divine Beasts: 4
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