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%
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