It's been a year that Breath of the Wild has been released and I'm still in the middle of playing it, which is a first for a Zelda game. This game is certainly massive.
Minor, Major, Minor, Modest
Before heading to the Tabantha region and finally taking on Vah Medoh, I wanted to clear most of the areas that I've already unlocked on my map. After the previous entry there was only Hyrule Castle and Hyrule Castle Town left, as well as the west portion of the southern beach.
There you have the girl, who took a liking to an orb and you have to show her pictures of the different Guardians for the "Guardian Slideshow" Shrine Quest. I wanted to combine these tasks and take the Guardian pictures around Hyrule Castle, before I move on to the beach. Stalkers and Skywatchers are easy enough to find around there and there are two Minor Tests of Strength next to the Castle Town Ruins for a picture of a Guardian Scout. There's another Major Test of Strength inside Hyrule Castle, but that's as far as I went there, because I want to save the castle for later.
Anyway, before I could take the pictures, I had to buy all Enemy pictures from Symin, because in this run I don't want to take any personal pictures, so they don't get overwritten in Normal Mode. And it's nice to have a collection of all the stock pictures for once (save for the Sunshroom):
It's kind of satisfying to unlock all the pictures this way. You can actually buy all pictures of one category at once and then get to see, how all the corresponding Compendium pages are filled in an instant.
Except for the equipment, which is the largest category, I purchased all other pictures, which was necessary for certain quests. In the future I will need this for "Lynel Safari", but there was already the Side Quest, where a Korok wants to see a Blupee, and the aforementioned Shrine Quest with the Guardian pictures. The latter leads a Modest Test of Strength, so in the end I had one of each Test of Strength during this tour and no other types of shrines, really.
So, what else was there left to do? Well, of course finding Koroks. Lots and lots of Koroks...
As well as killing that 10th Blue Lynel, before they will go extinct after the 2nd Divine Beast...
The last of its kind...
I also completed the Phantom armor, as you can see on the above screenshot, and found the complete Tingle set. Additionally, I did a couple more things around Akkala like that infamous Korok, where you have to play golf with rocks and Stasis at a hillside, which is super annoying...
Well, here's my Hero's Path before visiting the Tabantha region:
Tabantha Tales
So, finally entering a new area after all this time, what is there to do? Of course finding more Koroks. Lots and lots of Koroks...
With the Koroks I noticed, how there tend to be similar puzzles right next to each other. For example there are multiple windmill puzzles around the Thyphlo Ruins. Or there are many Koroks hiding under rocks in the Tanagar Canyon, though this one shouldn't be as surprising.
There's also another Great Fairy at the Tabantha Frontier and here I would upgrade many of my armor pieces to ★★★. But of course I couldn't do it all yet and there's still quite some grinding left to do later on. But I was able to upgrade the Snowquill set to three stars right away, which was the most important for now with Vah Medoh and Hebra on the horizon.
The Rito story is still a complete joke, however. Zora's Domain is plagued by constant rain (and everyone hates rain in this game), while Gerudo Town is on the verge of being swallowed by a sandstorm. In comparison the Gorons had it already quite easy, since Vah Rudania was just rarely shooting some molten rocks around. But those three Divine Beasts still are/were the cause of natural disasters.
Vah Medoh on the other hand? It's just there flying and shooting things that get close. So, the Rito have to fly low and that's it. One of the first NPCs that you meet inside Rito Village, the future resident of Tarrey Town, Fyson, even blatantly says that he has bigger problems than Medoh, because he doesn't want to work for his mother anymore. And he might as well be right with this judgment...
Then there you have one of Kass' daughters, who even wishes for Vah Medoh to stay hostile, because then she doesn't have to go to a rehearsal. You can't take the threat of Vah Medoh seriously, because there is none and even the NPCs around Rito Village acknowledge the fact.
It's a completely joke and the whole Rito section feels like it was rushed, because it probably was. The "Master Works" book has an artwork, where instead of the Rito you had a Kokiri with a bow as one of the four Champions. So, this part was probably changed sometime during the planning and development, which is probably why Rito Village and Vah Medoh don't feel as developed. But in the least the thing could have created giant storms.
Vah Medoh Revisited
Going back into the giant flying disappointment, I equipped myself with a Flameblade for some additional cold protection, because I wanted to combine the Ancient Armor with the Vah Medoh Divine Helm. You can't get any of the amiibo Divine Helms before completing your first Divine Beast, so this choice of fashion wasn't an option for Vah Rudania. But from now on I always want to look like the dungeon that I'm playing:
And I have to say that I still enjoy the experience of the Divine Beasts quite a lot, so I took my sweet time here. Being on top of this gigantic bird, hovering above the world with the complete view down was certainly quite breath taking. You can say about the Divine Beasts what you want, but having gigantic machines on the overworld as dungeons was an unique idea and created some really impressive sights in the game.
I even found some alternate solutions to puzzles here. For example there's the room, where you would have to use a giant metallic ball to open a door. But it turns that you can just enter this room via the open windows:
Tilting the dungeon certainly offers some interesting ways of exploring the whole thing.
On the other hand the dungeons felt really empty. There's only one Guardian Scout to be found, while there's more than enough space to let you fight a couple of them in different places. This is something that certainly should have done in Master Mode, instead of upgrading all the enemies by one tier to make everything tanky. But one measly Flameblade was enough to beat the entire dungeon, including Windblight.
Hebra Hell
After Vah Medoh was done, I still had the Hebra Tower region left for the taking. And this was probably the part that took me the longest after my last entry one week ago. Three entire evenings were spent on clearing the Hebra Mountains and the Tabantha Tundra, which was still considerably faster than my during first playthrough. But of course it helps a lot, if you know, where everything is located.
I even had some fun here and there. For example the snow bowling minigame is a good source of Rupees, once you figured out how to do Strikes consistently:
And I certainly will need more Rupees for the last Great Fairy and to complete Hyrule Compendium.
But there are also other parts, where I will have to return to Hebra briefly later on, in the form on enemy camps with skull chests. If you have to fight a group of gold and silver enemies to only get a Falcon Bow or a Royal Shield, it's simply not worth the trouble. I will return here later for the sake of completion, when I have Urbosa's Fury and more hearts, because investing a lot of equipment and food for nothing is just not fun.
In general that's an issue with the game. The only things of permanent value are Korok Seeds, Spirit Orbs and armor pieces, where only the latter can be found in treasure chests. So, 98% of the treasure chests in the game only give you resources like equipment, ores or Rupees. And this is simply not exciting or in cases like this even not worth the effort, because you have to invest a lot more resources to get something that you could find a lot easier in other places.
If Breath of the Wild ever gets a "Deluxe" version or a remastered release, they probably should put some of the DLC armor pieces in places like the deadly Hebra camps, instead of having the silly EX Side Quests. And a sequel desperately needs some collectible that's often found in chests.
One minute of clear weather in Hebra, quickly take a screenshot...!
At least there was something else to discover in the form of a red enemy...
It's funny, how the red / lowest tier enemies are somewhat like the golden enemies in Oracle of Seasons. Not in power, of course, but with the fact that there's only one of each to be found in the entire world. It would be a nice quest to find them all for Hyrule Compendium, which I will probably do for my playthrough on the Nintendo Switch in the future. But for now it's nice to take note of all their locations.
I might have seen some low tier Wizzrobes already, but ignored them, and I know that HylianAngel has made a nice map with all the lowest tier enemy locations. But I want to find those spots all by myself, so there's still something left for me to discover in Master Mode, other that the flying platforms. But those were quite boring so far, because they only seem to appear around Sheikah Towers and bridges.
(The only really interesting platforms were at the Sokkala Bridges in Akkala so far, because the Bokoblins there had Lynel Bows and the Lizalfos at the center bridge had a Lynel Spear. That's an endgame source for this weapon, which would have been extinct otherwise. And Nintendo should have done this for all the lower Lynel weapons, but from what I've heard this is it and there are no other platforms like this. What a shame and wasted potential.)
Anyway, Selmie gives you a hint about a rock door, if you take a wrong turn during her shield surfing course, which is actually a pretty big hint for where to find the Hebra Leviathan cave. I just never noticed this before, but that's what you get, if you skip through texts or don't pay much attention to what those generic NPCs are saying.
Major, Major, Major, Major
There are actually three Major Tests of Strength in the Hebra Mountains, plus there was another one at the Ancient Columns, so I was a majority of these shrines during my recent travels.
The ones in Hebra all had no shield, if I recall correctly, which makes them easy to fight and gives you access to three good weapons. With the Ancient Proficiency Set Bonus those weapons do amazing damage.
And overall fighting the Guardian Scouts IV is much, much easier than taking on a camp full of different golden and silver enemies. Pathetically easy, even.
As a side note, I still found the "Defeat the Frost Talus" Side Quest to be quite silly. So, Gesane, the Rito guard, is worried about a Frost Talus at Coldsnap Hollow, because it might come down to the village. First of all, those things don't really move around. Second of all, the one at Coldsnap Hollow is long ways away, while there's another Frost Talus much closer to Rito Village. It's right above the Flight Range, for Din's sake! But no one seems to worry about this guy. And finally, killing this thing doesn't change anything, because it will just respawn after the next Blood Moon. I know that there are similar quests at the other tribes, but this one felt the silliest.
Well, here's my Hero's Path for the Hebra region:
Again, this looks much more defined and directional. My Hero's Path in Normal Mode was literally all over the place. It's crazy, how much white space there is, once you know, where everything is to find... And here's my overall Hero's Path for this episode:
My next goal will be Zora's Domain and Vah Ruta.
Master Mode Progress:
- Divine Beasts Freed: 2
- Main Quests: 8/20
- Shrine Quests: 25/42
- Side Quests: 54/90
- Memories: 13/23
- Shrines: 88/136
- Koroks: 666/900
That's a devil's hand full of Koroks!
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