Age of Calamity War Log, Entry 9

Current Progress

• Difficulty: Very Hard
• Chapter: 6 (Completed)
  
• Battles: 17
  
• Challenges: 96
• Quests: 240
• Contribution Rate: 64%

 

It's been over a week since my last post and my current speed of progression is quite slow with only one major story mission done per week. But for now I have only little time to play the game and I've also continued to play in co-op on the other Nintendo Switch, so I'm playing most of it twice. We try to keep both my single-player "Very Hard" run and the "Normal" mode co-op save-game about on the same level, so that playing either one isn't a spoiler for the other person.

Chain of Challenges

Before going into the next main mission, "Each Step Like Thunder", I wanted to complete as many Challenges as possible. And I did exactly 86 of them at the time, which isn't everything possible, but the majority.

I still have some missions open because of the time limits, mainly "In the Clutches of the Yiga", "Stronger Yet" (though, this is a close one), and two of the three anti-elemental trainings III with a Blight at the end. I did the "Anti-Flame Training III" already, mainly because it doesn't throw a Fire Lynel at you, but five minutes for Fireblight Ganon was still cutting things quite close.

In co-op we already did all these Challenges, so I already know what's ahead of me here, where you get four more elemental trainings unlocked on top with different combinations of elements and lots of elemental Lynels, Hinox and Moblins on a timer... This game can really be relentless. The reward for all these efforts seems to be a second upgrade for your elemental rod usages (after completing Chapter 6), but I feel like this upgrade is like getting the better Master Sword after the Trial of the Sword: you already will have the worst behind you. Or maybe you won't and this will be totally worth it...

Treasure Hunter

Another set of Challenges, though a much smaller one, is about treasure hunting, which starts in the Gerudo Desert after clearing the "Grains of Salt" mission (I think). Those Challenges were a lot nicer and therefore I've already completed them, which also gives you access to a cool new feature: you now get a sensor for any missing treasure chests in the main mission, similar to the one for Korok Seeds.

While I was aware that any treasure chests that aren't Skull Chests are a one-time deal, I haven't actively searched for them yet, so there were quite a few missing chests in almost all the story scenarios left to find. And this gave me an excellent excuse to play through the story missions yet another time.

My enthusiasm about this didn't last long, though, because here I was, back to Hyrule Field, searching for one last missing chest for multiple hours... This took me back to playing the demo in October, where I also was missing one last Korok and couldn't find it, since this battlefield is simply so large.

So, here I was looking again...

And again...

And again...

I swear, I probably wasted most of my playtime last week just looking for this chest... I didn't even find it at the time, I gave up after a while. It's much easier in the other missions, because the battlefields are much smaller and simpler. But Hyrule Field is so vast, it's easy to miss something there. And this makes me miss the way you used the Sheikah Slate Runes in Breath of the Wild, where holding Stasis basically lets you "scan" the environment for anything that can be interacted with. You don't get anything like this here, where a little bit of help would have been appreciated.

Well, it later turned out that there is more than enough help and the punchline is yet to come, but we'll get to this... And searching for this chest on Hyrule Field at least gave me a different experience in multiple ways. While I like the background music for what it's worth, here it gets quite repetitive after an hour of listening to what's just a remix of the standard battle theme from Breath of the Wild. So, I turned the music off, listening to solely the ambiance, which felt a lot more like actually playing Breath of the Wild.

The ambient sounds aren't as good, of course, and you don't get those nice, little piano tunes from time to time, but it's still interesting to experience the battles like this. This game has some really good music and I enjoy listening to the different tracks a lot, but it also takes away from the ambiance here and then.

The other thing was playing the battle sort of backwards. After defeating the first Moblin, you can go and capture any of the three keeps, not activating the whole tower sequence until near the end. And this is quite cool, where you can also sneak on all those club throwing surprise Bokoblins from behind.

I also went back to the Breach of Demise and Zora's Domain, where I was a lot more successful. And I could have continued to look for treasure chests in all previous story missions, but since replaying these missions is a very good way of refilling apples and rods, I decided to do this in between more difficult Challenges and keep some of it for later.

Each Step a Guardian

Well, I've kept procrastinating this story mission for way too long, so it was finally time to face what could have been one of the worst scenarios yet. But it starts quite nicely with another Vah Naboris battle of mass destruction. It's my favorite Divine Beast, hands down, both as a dungeon in Breath of the Wild and as a playable titan in Age of Calamity. They can throw a whole army of Guardians at you, but with this thing there is no stopping you.

If you hold the L button and just tap the R button to fire, the shield will stay up and you can safely attack and take out most enemies by doing this. And this works with every Divine Beast, except for Vah Rudania, because it doesn't have a shield...

What's weird about this mission, however, is that the Guardians seemingly already did 100 years of terraforming. Mabe Village and the Lon Lon Ranch are still there and I guess they'll have to be, since the "Mabe Ranch Co-op" is still selling me some Courser Bee Honey in the middle of this inferno.

But the rest of Hyrule Field is a lot closer to what we've known from Breath of the Wild. All of those fortifications and villages that you get to explore in the first story scenario? Gone! It's just grass now... As if all of the Guardians completely took down every stone and then carefully covered everything in soils and planted grass seeds everywhere in the meantime. But maybe this is the whole story... Calamity Ganon just wants to bring back nature, embrace the wild.

Awakening for Real

After obliterating 30,000(!) monsters and a ton of Guardians as a nice warm-up, the game brings you to Fort Hateno with an uneasy feeling. After all, this is all about the infamous moment, where Link has fallen in the backstory of Breath of the Wild and where Zelda finally gets to awaken her sacred powers...

But since Vah Naboris and the other Divine Beasts have destroyed almost every Guardian out there, how do you even get Link in the same kind of peril? By throwing all four Blight Ganons at him at once, that's how! Not going to lie, this moment didn't really do it for me... I like the parallels to the scene at Hyrule Castle where she seemingly lost her father, but how she ran blindly into the Blights to defend a slightly overwhelmed Link seemed kind of silly and just didn't have the same impact as Zelda saving Link's life in Breath of the Wild.

And while she is quite overconfident all of sudden about how she will take care of the Guardians, her new moveset doesn't really reflect that. Of course you don't have all of her combos unlocked yet, but it just doesn't feel as powerful, where I couldn't take out the Guardians with the same ease as with Link or Mipha.

The latter was the real star of the mission, because her Special fully heals any ally around her. You only get a couple of hearts yourself, but I was able to completely heal Link and Zelda after they had struggled in battle. So, it's a good idea to summon any hurt fighters to the next big enemy and then unleash Mipha's Special to both damage the boss and heal your allies.

Apropos allies, Zelda's Daenerys speech to the soldiers at the end may seem funny, because it usually doesn't feel like all those soldiers are good for anything, but they actually were quite helpful during this mission. The Hylian Soldiers did a good job at separating groups of stronger enemies by keeping one of them busy.

The best example is the keep near the south-east, where a White-Maned Lynel and two Silver Moblins are waiting for an assault at Fort Hateno. Taking on them all at once can be quite tricky, but thanks to the Hylian Soldiers the Moblins left the Lynel behind, so I could focus on taking it down without any interruptions.

So, overall the mission wasn't as bad as I had expected. And this is despite the fact that you're fighting two of the Blights, two Lynels, and a small army of Guardians... But you can take your time and look around, where the atmosphere is pretty great, especially with all those Guardian beams firing into the sky in the background. And maybe I was somewhat over-leveled here already, where the recommended level was at 42, but all of my characters are in the 50s and Link is already in the 60s.

Kohga, Kohga, Kooloo-Limpah!

Now, this is where you get the next playable character out of nowhere: Master Kohga, who bows his head on the ground in front of Zelda Targaryen. No words, no big story scenario, just like that.

While I expected Kohga to join the good guys after the cutscene with Astor at the end of Chapter 5, I thought it would be a little bit more impactful. Like our heroes are facing a desperate situation, where they are surrounded by monsters and Guardians. And things seemingly get worse when an army of Yiga appears, but then they suddenly start attacking the monsters and Guardians to help out and save the day...

But it's just Kohga bowing and then you can freely play as him after the main mission, where he feels more like one of the optional characters right now. You get a funny training mission, where the badass Yiga Blademasters are praising you like some Banana Jesus, as well as some side quests, but it doesn't seem like Kohga will play an actual role in the story (though, this might change).

Well, the character itself takes some getting used to, but Kohga has some potential if played right. The "stress laser" is a super powerful tool to break weakpoint gauges, though a little bit hard to control. And overall the moveset is hilarious, where I see him as the Tingle of this game. He is just so goofy and I love the humor, where he summons the Yiga Blademaster to carry or support him.

Update: When it comes to the moveset, there are also some similarities to Zant. You have a laser gauge, using Cryonis as a pillar feels a bit like Zant's Forest Temple totems, and they both move around quite quirkily. Throwing the spiked ball is also reminiscent of Zant throwing those orbs.

I still lack some of the moves that he does as a boss, though, like when he walks around on one of those giant spiked balls. Speaking of, based on the artwork I thought that the spiked ball would be his weapon type, but it's actually the Yiga sickles, with the Demon Carver as the strongest version.

This really speaks for Sooga getting the Windcleaver further down the road, but at this point it's unclear what happened to him, similar to King Rhoam. He might have sacrificed himself for Kohga or he might turn up later on... I just hope that he will be playable eventually, even if it's as DLC.

And it's kind of ironic how after two story scenarios that are focused on rescuing Sheikah, you'll unlock a Yiga as a playable character... But if Purah were to be playable, her weapon could actually be the torch, where she carries a blue flame around and activates machines for fighting, similar to the last story scenario. Come to think of it, I've never gotten a torch for Link and Koei Tecmo so far hasn't skipped any opportunities to give Link joke weapons, so it really might be used for someone else (or I simply haven't found one yet).

Anyway, it's of note how every chapter so far has given you at least one new character to play as...

• Chapter 1: Link, Impa and Zelda
• Chapter 2: Mipha, Daruk, Revali, Urbosa
• Chapter 3: Hestu
• Chapter 4: two optional characters
• Chapter 5: Sidon, Yunobo, Teba, Riju
• Chapter 6: Kohga

I think King Rhoam will be the last character and you'll get him in Chapter 7, for a total of 16 base game characters in the end, which is quite impressive. And I'm sorry to speculate about something here that's already wildly know, but this is simply what my expectations are at this point.

Purah and Robbie are certainly not playable or else they wouldn't have gotten those entries in the gallery, but they might be promoted via DLC. Astor seems to be a pure boss character for now, who might get his own DLC campaign later on. Unlike Kohga (and maybe Sooga), he certainly won't join Team Link & Zelda and this seems to be the only way a character will fit into the game at the moment. I'm just not sure about Sooga right now, where this could go either way. I'll probably see soon enough, but it would be very disappointing if he was also a boss-only character.

Treasure Hunter for Real

Kohga wasn't the only thing unlocked at the end of Chapter 6, of course, where one of the new side quests gave me an enhanced treasure chest sensor already, which shows you any missing chests on the mini-map... Okay, okay... Why not right away?!!

Yikes... Seems like I was a little too hasty with my endeavor of searching for any missing chests. All of the time looking for that one chest in Hyrule Field was basically for nothing, where this could have saved me the trouble. Well, and were was the missing chest...? Behind a house at the Lon Lon Ranch:

Not sure what happened there... I suppose the stone chest was somewhat camouflaged against the brick wall and in some kind of blind spot, where each time I went by these houses I was looking in a different direction. This is a little bit embarrassing, but at least I won't ever forget this chest ever again.

So, this is one useful feature, but I'm afraid this will make looking for all the other missing chests a trivial chore instead of a challenge. Overall I enjoy searching for secrets in the environment, where I've played the remake of Link's Awakening without using the Seashell Sensor and so on. Well, but at least the Koroks should still be there as a secret, unless they also get marked on the map later on.

There is also a useful new Challenge for Master Kohga  (and a second fighter) called "Nap Quest!", where you fight two Fire Wizzrobes, two Ice Wizzrobes, and a Stone Talus. Since there are a lot of chests in the hideout, this is ideal to refill apples and your Fire and Ice Rods. The Stone Talus is also the simplest boss, which can quickly be defeated. And refilling the Thunder Rod can quickly be done via the "Anti-Lightning Training I" Challenge.

Otherwise there weren't too many new Challenges at this point, mostly just side quests, where some of them were unintentionally funny again. There are some new quests at Hyrule Castle for Zelda about some research in her study and doing a feast... IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CALAMITY!

I know that Zelda has awakened her powers now and might feel unstoppable, but it seems a little bit too early to already relax at Hyrule Castle, a place still swarming with Guardians, right now... It's like these side quests weren't supposed to be unlocked until later and then they've changed this around at the last minute.

But I should be already ready for the next mission, the first scenario of Chapter 7, which takes you to the Great Plateau in its prime. I haven't started this yet, but the preview already shows the village next to the Temple of Time. So, this should be really interesting and I'm excited.