Tears of the Kingdom Adventure Log, Entry 10

This will be yet another entry without touching any of the four main dungeons. While I really wanted to head back to the Zora already, I was traveling in real life for a couple of days and didn't feel like doing anything major in the game during that time. So, I focused on more quests around the stables, which brought me to the Highland Stable at the Faron Grasslands, a paradise for horse fans. But not before another stop at the Great Plateau, where my quest to join the Yiga clan began.

Four Eyes and a Shop

There were still some shrines for me to find at the Great Plateau, where I've learned about their locations from the Lightroots below. For one of them you truly have to dig deep below the walls of the Plateau, where there is even a sturdier, black version of these breakable rocks. I've settled for a small hole through them, but I've also learned that it's fastest to dig through these large clusters with a boulder attached to a spear, where this works like the Drillshafts in Breath of the Wild.

The other shrine was in a cave behind the giant waterfall, which originally was a stash for the best weapons you could find during the tutorial. There might be a fourth shrine, but I haven't found it yet. And at the four original shrine locations you will now find chasms, where it's almost like the Gloom broke through the old elevator shafts left by the Sheikah...

Now, the Goddess Statue at the Temple of Time ruins implores you to find something at the flooded gate, where now you can drain the water and effectively open the Great Plateau up again for business. This leads you to another of the four-eyed statues, which deal in Poes, but here you first need to throw its eyes into the four chasms on the Great Plateau.

Well, I did exactly that and then wondered why nothing happened... But you actually have to follow the eyes down there and then bring them to a spooky, gigantic version of the statue, which resides under the Central Mine. Why didn't it say so right away?

Now I had to go back to all the chasms and throw the eyes in one more time, where navigating the Great Plateau is not as convenient as it used to be. You can go to the shrines that I've freshly discovered and use Ascend, but that's still far from the convenient travel points in Breath of the Wild. So, I often made use of the fallen rocks, where I let them lift me up a little via Recall and then I fly the way to my destination.

The reward for your troubles is either a Heart Container or a Stamina Vessel, your choice. I went with the latter, because I've already collected 13 hearts by this point, which was the threshold for obtaining the Master Sword in Breath of the Wild. And for a moment I thought that this might be the new Horned Statue, where you can trade Heart Containers for Stamina Vessels or vice versa, but that's not the case.

Instead, it expands the shop for Poe Souls, where you can also buy pieces of a dark set, which protects you from the Gloom effects. This sounds good, but so did the Froggy suit and you still slip with that one, it only lets you climb a bit longer. Maybe if you have all three pieces combined and enhanced to two stars, you will get full protection from Gloom or rain via the set bonus, but right now I'm a bit underwhelmed.

But there are two more of the four-eyed statues to find, probably to unlock the other two pieces. You can also re-purchase the amiibo stuff that you've gotten before, including the weapons, where I had a See-Breeze Boomerang from an amiibo chest and now I can buy another one with Poe Souls. So, this answers another my questions, because I didn't expect Cece to offer me such things, only the armor.

Trash to Smash

Speaking of weapons, while I'm not too far in the game and shouldn't expect to have overly strong weaponry, I'm convinced that the whole idea with the decayed weapons simply came to be to counter the possibilities with Fuse. If the weapons were as powerful as they were in Breath of the Wild, then you could just create really good stuff very early by fusing them together. So, that's why everything got decayed and only does around half the damage of what it did originally...

Like with the other abilities, Fuse is giving the player possibilities that they could only dream of in Breath of the Wild, but it came at the cost of convenience. It lets you make really good use of all your materials and create some potent weaponry, but they had to balance things, where you don't just find good weapons everywhere any longer.

What you also can't find everywhere any longer are chests in or on water, which is a good change. This is something that was really overdone in Breath of the Wild and they must have realized that people are probably sick of fishing treasure chests out of all the lakes and rivers. I don't want to jinx it, of course, but so far I have rarely encountered chests like that.

And what you find is still the usual garbage, where chests aren't usually worth the trouble. There are chests with armor pieces, but you often know in advance that these treasure chests have something special, because they were literally put on a pedestal, like Misko's caches inside caves. That treasure chests aren't worth your while was a big problem with Breath of the Wild, but so far it doesn't seem like Tears of the Kingdom has done much to improve this. Oh, another Large Zonai Charge, fantastic...

There are the Sage's Wills, however, so there is a new reward from treasure chests that seems to be a unique find, but I have no idea what they are good for yet, because I only found three so far. Still, I'm happy that there is something, even when it seems to be mostly confined to chests on sky islands / Zonai structures.

Join the Yiga!

There was one more place that I hadn't checked out at the Great Plateau and that's the old man's hut, which now got completely fortified by the Yiga. Sadly, it seems like some fortifications can't be destroyed, but it's easy enough to get in there anyway. Knocking on the door spawned my first encounter with a Yiga Blademaster, who was still doing significant damage, even with his decayed Windcleaver, but at least it wasn't a one-shot.

This earns you the Yiga Mask as a reward and that's a really cool idea, where I was actually hoping for such an item to be in the game, essentially as another "monster mask". It's not just that, however, because it can be upgraded and there is a full set. You can find a map of all the important Yiga locations in the hut as well, which gives you a good hint of where to look for the other pieces... So, the hunt was on!

Unsafe Travels

For the next Great Fairy, Kaysa at the Outskirts Stable, I had to find the flute player of the Stable Trotters, Pyper, who was said to be hanging at the Highland Stable. This is what had brought me back to the Great Plateau to begin with, because I was passing over the area to get there. I could have taken the Great Bridge of Hylia, but maybe let's save that for later....

Well, I tried to fight some of the Thunder Gleeoks around, because they don't cause extreme heat, like the Flame Gleeoks do, but my weapons did barely any damage. I actually fled down the chasm near Akkala Citadel, after the Gleeok there showed me who is boss.

Instead, I went over the geoglyph to the west of Lake Hylia and from there into the Taobab Grasslands. This is where you could originally find the Giant Horse, but there don't seem to be any horses in this area any longer. Instead, I was greeted by a Gloom Spawn and this caught me off-guard, where I couldn't climb anything in time... But you can just teleport to safety, should one of the Floormasters grab you.

In general, I like the idea of using the knowledge and expectations of Breath of the Wild players against them. This is something that Master Quest had done quite well with its dungeons, where the solution to a puzzle might escape you, because you're trying to solve it in a similar way to Ocarina of Time. And Tears of the Kingdom has the chance to lure you into traps, because you want to investigate a place that used to be a point of interest in the first game.

Also, I managed to beat the Gloom Spawn by cheesing it with Bomb Arrows. The first time nothing happened, but the second time...

It summoned Phantom Ganon, who looks just like Gibdorf, only completely made out of Gloom. He disappeared before I could do anything, though.

Faron Horselands

The Faron Grasslands were already quite horse-centric in Breath of the Wild, but maybe they are even more so in Tears of the Kingdom. You can find a lot of horses on the Grinnden Plains and I think that this might be where the horses from the Taobab Grasslands went. I was able to find a horse with five stars of speed there, which belonged to the best groups, where those could only appear near the Giant Horse or at Upland Lindor.

Hopefully, there is a more convenient spot to find, because going all the way around Harfin Valley to the Highlands Stable takes a while. Well, at least you don't have to pass any Lynels or horseback Bokoblins this time, though there are two of the latter at the Grinnden Plains, even an armored one... Fighting it makes me feel bad, because the best way to deal with it is a Bomb Arrow, but that's not nice for the poor horse below. You can just avoid them altogether, however, because they are a bit up north of the horse groups.

If you're looking for Malanya, you will find one of the new special horses instead: the Giant White Stallion. It's essentially a breed of the White Horse and the Giant Horse from Breath of the Wild. Since I've named those "Hylia" and "Demise" respectively, this one now goes by "Hymise". Its stats are the exact same as the Giant Horse, however, so it's really just a difference in looks. You can also have more horses than before, where you can unlock new slots from Pony Points, where I'm willing to experiment a bit more and bring in new horses.

It sucks that you can't see a horse's stats before registering it, however, and you can't register it unless you let one of your other horses go, where this is a problem if you want to compare before calling the new horse a keeper. So, I'm saving the game first and then reload if the newest addition isn't to my liking.

I'd like to find a horse with the best possible pull stat, where there is even a new mini-game at the Highland Stable by Blynne, who now wants you to transport a box while racing through goalposts. I'm having issues with this, however, because my horses tend to move sideways whenever they are pulling something, which is quite annoying... Maybe it has to do something with the temperament as well, but I will have to try different combinations.

Then there is the Golden Horse, of course, which I haven't found yet, but might have best stats on everything, making all the other horses obsolete. And I found out that none of this matters any longer a bit later, but we'll get to that.

Pirate Shores

At the bridge near where the Mounted Archery Camp used to be, you can find a pirate ship docked, which looks pretty cool and brings back memories of The Wind Waker. Now, throughout your adventures you will meet several people from Lurelin, who are all reporting that the village was taken over by pirates. And I've been wondering about this, where either those pirates are just normal Bokoblins and Moblins, or they went with something more creative. Like, it could have been Constructs wearing bicornes and eye-patches, paying homage to Skipper from Skyward Sword.

It's just the Bokoblins, of course... No eye-patches or anything. Too bad. But I really enjoyed the Monster Forces battle, where you join Flaxel, some Hylian soldiers, and Gorons to clear that ship. These are really engaging and so much more fun than just battling monsters normally.

 

Stable Trotters Reunion

After helping out Pyper with lighting up some tree, I got the last of the Stable Trotters, where now it's only a matter of visiting all the Great Fairies and bringing the troupe to them, where you have to get more and more creative with modifying their favorite wagon, "Breezer". For Kaysa you need to add big wheels to cross bumpy terrain and for Cotera you have to make it swim.

I suppose, for the last Great Fairy, Tera, you will have to make them fly, but I haven't been to the Snowfield Stable yet. And even if I can now unlock all the Great Fairies one after another, it's still quite expensive to upgrade everything due to their new "labor" costs. Together with the house building, it seems like Rupees will be even more valuable in Tears of the Kingdom than they already were in Breath of the Wild.

Akkalanya

You're told that Malanya can now be found in the north of Akkala and the Ancient Tech Lab there became one of the Yiga bases marked on the map, so I had two good reasons to return to Akkala and explore more in the upper regions. The Yiga put up warnings for anyone who goes near the lab, but this won't stop the brave Addison:

I noticed that the game actually installs these signs at the exact angle it was standing with your support and even remembers this, where this is some nice attention to detail and invites to either try your very best or to push the boundaries of what will be accepted here.

Anyway, that was piece number 2 of the Yiga set. In addition, you can discover a prototype for the Travel Medallion at the lab, which you can't use yet, as well as hidden diary from Purah.

You will also find Malanya nearby, where the Horse God has some extra functionality in the new game: you can now also upgrade the stats of your horses!

It doesn't let you do this with everyone, where Epona, the Giant Horse, and the Giant White Stallion are out of question, but it let's you upgrade the White Horse from Breath of the Wild. This requires you to cook certain foods, where this is a big incentive to collect as many recipes as possible.

But despite the efforts, it's a really good feature, where now any horse can become the very best. You don't have to look for horses with the best possible stat combinations any longer. Well, it still helps, but you can just pick any horse you like and then upgrade it to the max.

 

Shrine Shenanigans

There were also some fun shrines around the area, where one of them had a big jenga tower. But instead of going for the intended solutions, where you need to grab three blocks without collapsing the tower, I simply let it crash and caught the orb via the Ultrahand.

The shrine with the propeller in the middle had me confused for a while, because I couldn't find a good way of reaching the chest. Of course you can just always attach a rocket to your shield and move up that way, but I normally like to try the intended solution first, using whatever the shrine places at your disposal.

In this case I simply didn't move in the right way, but before I figured this out I tried all sorts of crazy things with the flame emitters, for some pretty effects...

Yiga Membership Club

I fought my first Lynel at Upland Lindor, which was still a red one, so the enemy scaling hasn't gone all too far, which is great. Either that or it's a fixed normal Lynel, but it's a weird one anyway, because it only wielded a Soldier's Spear... I've wasted several good weapons to defeat it, but didn't get much out of it, save for the materials. Well, there is also side quest by the East Akkala Stable which requires you to craft a weapon out of the antlers, so it wasn't for just that.

After the battle I gave one of those portable cooking pots a try, which you can get from capsules. Well, it's really not worth it, because it only let's you cook a single recipe before it vanishes... And I don't get why it needed such a limitation.

But the real reason I went to this area was finding the last piece of the Yiga set, which was relatively well hidden, mainly because I couldn't see anything thanks to the constant, intense rain. I know my screenshots are telling a different story, but believe me that I have received the bad weather copy of Tears of the Kingdom.

Whether in good or bad weather, I'm officially a Yiga now. I love how you still have the blonde hair with this outfit, doesn't attract attention at all...  But I'm excited to give this new outfit a try, given the chance. Glory to Master Kohga!

Progress:

• Memories: 7/18
• Shrines: 60
• Lightroots: 23
• Towers: 11
  
• Korok Seeds: 157
• Sage's Wills: 3
  
• Bubbul Gems: 27

Tears of the Kingdom Adventure Log, Entry 9

Well, yes, you've guessed it...! I didn't make any progress in the story whatsoever, again, where I have been looking for Hestu in all the wrong places, before I finally found him. This got me into some hilarious adventures at stables and brought me all the way into Akkala and Tarrey Town. But I've also seen the Master Sword memory, which raised some interesting questions, and explored the northwestern parts of the Depths a bit.

Tears of the Dragon

Since I've already been to the Typhlo Ruins Tower and spotted the geoglyph in the shape of the Master Sword nearby, I thought it to be a good idea to check this out next, because maybe this will reveal how to get the Master Sword back. And the memory shows how the Master Sword traveled back through time, into the hands of Zelda, for those prominent scenes from the final trailer. During this, the sword is making Fi noises again and Fi's theme plays in the background, causing PTSD to anyone who has played the original Skyward Sword on Wii.

The full memory confirmed that the ancient Temple of Time truly once stood at the same location as the "new" Temple of Time, on the Great Plateau, where I really enjoy these type of connections. It's all quite poetic. But the memory also introduces you to the idea that people can turn intro dragons, where this implies that either Rauru or possibly even Zelda has turned into the Light Dragon, who flies around the Great Sky Island at the beginning.

This explains why these memories are called "Dragon's Tears" – they were probably shed by the Light Dragon all over Hyrule, leaving the geoglyphs as a result. So far all memories have included both Rauru and Zelda, but the one about the Master Sword is really just a memory from Zelda, where I'm leaning towards the thought that she somehow became dragon, explaining her phantasmal and mystical appearances in the present... Plus, if Rauru were the Light Dragon, why didn't he introduce himself like that after the tutorial?

When Zelda said that Link must find her at that point, these words could have come from the dragon, but when I looked for her at the Great Sky Island again, she was nowhere to be found. I did finally spot Dinraal during my adventures, however, so this one is doing fine after all, where maybe the Light Dragon went somewhere into the Depths and the other three dragons are searching for her/him/it, maybe even showing you the way...

Come to think of it, the three dragons always went through the cloud barrier in Breath of the Wild, so they basically kept moving towards the Light Dragon there as well. And now this could be the same thing, just in a different place. In the least, this would be a big motivation to go down there, where so far the game hasn't given you any other than helping Robbie to take a picture for Josha.

Giants in the Dark

The lack of motivation to visit the Depths truly hasn't stopped me from doing so, however, where I just feel the urge to jump down any chasm I'll come across and see what awaits me. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of this area, I can't deny that there is a certain thrill to diving down these ugly holes into the dark.

Now, there is another chasm near the Typhlo Ruins and since I was nearby, I had to go down there as well. Usually, I just try to find the nearest Lightroot(s) to have some sort of save point and then I let it be, but this time it wasn't so trivial, because you run right into what the Little Frox become once they've grown up... Well, they are not so little any longer...

It's a new overworld boss, or underworld boss in this case, the Obsidian Frox, where these creatures seem to be domestic to the Depths and they are the only living thing down there not covered in Gloom, other than the dragons.

And the fight seemed simple enough at first. It had the classic weakspot with its eye, there are some hills nearby, and I had a Phrenic Bow in my small inventory, so what could go wrong? You have to break Zonaite Deposits on its back, where it's similar to a Talus battle as well, and when it shakes you off, you are so high in the air that you can just aim for its weakspot again.

But this thing can also leap and it does so big time. And its favorite "attack" is inhaling you and then munching on you, where this used up my remaining food very quickly. Still, I came close to defeating it, with only one deposit left, when suddenly it leaped so far away that it despawned... And when I found it again, it was back to full health... Okay, thanks, game! Moving on... All my good weapons were used up to get it almost down, so I had to bail. But I will be back!

I still made it to a Lightroot, but it's not like I had any important business there. So far I've only explored the Depths for the kicks, which scored me the last Zonai ability and some expansions of the Energy Cell, so it certainly wasn't for nothing. But there hasn't been an actual, real reason to go down there, like an objective.

Well, this is still in the early game and there are at least the treasure marks from the Old Maps that I've been collecting, where I went to one of them in the northwest, below the Tabantha territory, which leads you to the Tunic of the Wind. And this is where I found this gigantic structure left by the Zonai, a huge pillar going all the way up:

You can use Ascend below this thing and this emerged me somewhere at the Tabantha Hills at the foot of the Hebra Mountains. I didn't want to go there yet, so I went back down, but it was interesting that the game let's you use Ascend to rise from the Depths.

This calls for some experimentation later on. Maybe it's just certain points where this is possible, but technically there must be a ceiling and you should be able to go to the ceiling with Zonai devices. I would love to know what happens when there is a cave between the Depth ceiling and the surface. Could you enter certain caves from the Depths?

I guess, there will be some limitations here, but I didn't expect this to be possible at all, because the Depths are probably their own separate world, where the game hides some secret loading times when you dive down or ascend up. But this also means that you could theoretically still play this game without ever teleporting, where I know that some people like to do this (I'm surely not one of them). Though, the places where you can go up with Ascend are probably rare... It's the first one I noticed.

The Search for Hestu II

There was one more thing I wanted to do before continuing the story in one of the four problem regions and this was finding Hestu. I had collected over 100 Korok Seeds already and the lack of inventory space really started to annoy me, so I desperately wanted to trade the seeds, but I kept having the wrong ideas where to look and then started getting into more and more distractions on the way.

My thought process was that in Breath of the Wild you meet Hestu early on your way to Kakariko and Impa. You can't really miss him. Then he tells you that he's heading to the Korok Forest, but you'll meet him one more time at the stables on the way there, where for me it was usually the Wetland Stable.

In Tears of the Kingdom you meet him the first time near the Lindor's Brow Tower. Well, I first met him there, maybe there are several possible points, but the game is directing you towards Impa at the New Serenne Stable, where this is in the proximity and most players will head to the tower from there. So, in my case this was similar to Breath of the Wild, but just in a different location.

Then he tells you that he will be going "east", where the only way he could have been less specific is by saying that he is going "somewhere". Well, he was looking for a new home to feel safe, but this is all I could remember... and in hindsight I simply didn't get the hint, took "east" too literal, and overcomplicated things. I thought that he might be aiming at one of the villages in the east to find a new home there: Kakariko, Hateno, or Tarrey Town. And on your way there you might meet him one more time at the stables, like you did in Breath of the Wild, or possibly another tower, so I was going all around these spots in the eastern half of the map.

My first destination was the Wetland Stable, because this is where I always met him in Breath of the Wild. No Hestu there, but you could finally take the raft and bring the guy to the Floret Sandbar, where you learn why Zelda has a picture of the crazy flower lady, Magda, in her house. Well, they both love flowers very much, but this was a neat little quest...

I've already been to the Wetland Stable, so I've investigated the Woodland Stable next. No Hestu there either, but I got a bit closer to the Gorons and even activate the Skyview Tower close by, where I've read that Yunobo has now its own corporation. But at the stable they keep warning you that the Gorons have turned rabid after eating rocks filled with Gloom...

The tower brought me to another one of those cross-shaped sky islands, where you have a Shrine on one end and a Device Dispenser on the other, with a rotatable pusher in the middle. I guess, they have these absolutely everywhere, but at least the way there was unique with the rails.

It always feels weird to be back up in the sky again. This melancholic tune that plays on them makes me so nostalgic, as if the tutorial took place forever ago. And it might as well have, considering how long I've been looking for that walking and talking tree.

I searched through the Lanayru Wetlands and out of desperation I went all the way to Zora's Domain, because I just wanted some progression while I was searching. I will talk about this part in my next entry and I was even ready to go help Sidon, but there were so many Zora weapons around that I got annoyed again... Hestu, where are you?!!

The Floor Is Gloom

On my way into Zora's Domain I've ran into the Gloom Spawn monster once more, at the Tabahl Woods, but I could save myself quite easily on a rock, as I did the last time. I tried taking a picture, but the camera didn't recognize anything... So, I will keep calling this "Floormaster", because it seems very much tied to the floor anyway. It will give up quickly and then leave some Dark Clumps, which is the stuff that you can buy for Poe Souls and that can be cooked into something that helps with the Gloom.

I had another encounter near the Sahasra Slope again, at the same spot where I met it the second time. So, maybe it's not entirely random when you meet it, but there are certain fixed locations where it can spawn. I will have to be careful around the forest at the Great Plateau again, I guess...

For the Princess!

Hestu wasn't to be found around any of the stables where he gets lost in Breath of the Wild. And while this wasn't entirely surprising, since this game tries to do things differently, I was running out of options where to look. But I thought that Tarrey Town would be the perfect new home for the guy, since people from all the different tribes of Hyrule were living together in this place, it was only missing a Korok. So, I headed there next and checked the stables on the way there, which led me to this...

Apparently, Princess Zelda ordered the Zonai Survey Team to explore a cave full of monsters in nothing but underpants. Clearly, they must have misunderstood something, but it was still hilarious to play along. That's one interesting princess we got there if she wants her people to run around nearly "nekkid".

This leads to another Eventide scenario, where they take all your things away and you have to defeat a bunch of enemies with what you can find. But why did they have to take my weapons? You have to use the weapons in the cave to defeat the enemies anyway, or else you can't possibly win this... Of course, the game needed some excuse to take everything away again, but it was still silly.

Luckily, I already had learned that the best way of dealing with the armored Bokoblins is a rock or boulder hammer, so it wasn't all too difficult. I could just smash the armor with one sneakstrike and then grab the bow for some easy kills. And overall these type of trials are a lot more fun with the Fuse ability, because it gives you many more options than just grab what you can get.

There are also some silly Proving Grounds to be found in Akkala, where one makes you take advantage of the homing devices. I just let them loose and then watched from a behind a corner how they slowly poked the Constructs into oblivion with spikes. Another one is all about vehicles, where it took me this long to realize that inside the Shrines of Light you don't need batteries or your Energy Cells for the Zonai Devices, they will run infinitely. I also didn't see that there is a big car already equipped with emitters right in the middle, but what I had put together myself did the job just fine anyway, so these "Mini Trials of the Sword" were fun overall.

I'm also having more and more fun with putting together vehicles, like this little Korok cart I made to transport the little guy over both land and water. This was near the nudist cave from before, at the Maw of Death Mountain. But I'm not sure how I feel about the Zonai devices and building material stashes found everywhere. Either it feels very contrived, like "use this and this to make it happen", or it's just missing crucial parts, like a steering wheel, where then you have to tap into your capsules all the time. It might not be as contrived then, but it's certainly inconvenient.

This is especially bad with many of the Zonai device "shelves" down in the Depths. There is just enough there to build something useful, but don't expect to be able to steer it afterwards...

Cave of Chests

The girl at the Foothill Stable is really annoyed by all the guys in underpants, including Link, but if you're decent enough to talk to her with some clothes on, she will teach you that dogs become treasure hunters when fed. That's not exactly a secret to anyone who has played Breath of the Wild, but in this case there are three dogs who all lead you to a different chest, which is new. If there were more than one dog a stable in Breath, then only one of them would lead to a treasure.

Anyway, you will be making use of this to find the needle in a needle stack, where the wannabe treasure hunters, Domidak and Prissen, have discovered a cave full of treasure chests, left by Misko... But they are all filled with a single green Rupee. The real treasure is somewhere in there, but they are exhausted and joke about using a dog to sniff the treasure out, which is exactly what you will be doing then. I wonder if you can still find it normally or if you have to use the dog in any case, because the dog chests normally only appear after feeding them. But this dog took twice as much meat as the others, so maybe this is a special case... I will give it a try the next time.

As someone who will be using the chest sensor eventually, such a place is a nightmare and I'm opening all chests anyway, just to get rid of them. It won't be the last that I saw of this cave, however, because there is a gate that will only open when you wear the complete Fierce Deity attire. This will earn you the Fierce Deity Sword, where it's nice to see that you also can find the amiibo weapons, not just the armor. It also teaches you the location of all three pieces, where I already had found one of them and the other two are not far away...

This means, however, that there must a place where you can purchase these special weapons again. And I very much doubt that Cece will simply add weapons to clothing options in her boutique. 

Tarrey Town Troubles

My next big destination was Tarrey Town. While I still hadn't found Hestu yet, I was so close that I simply wanted to know how the town has flourished since Breath of the Wild and say hi to Hudson. But they've totally butchered the place...

It's now just all about Hudson's new company and only the family of the rich guy still lives there normally. Except that he doesn't seem to be rich any longer, because he's scamming people into paying for the railway down to the Torin Wetlands, which aren't wetlands any longer, but one giant construction site.

Can't say I like what they've done with the place. It's like the Zelda team was discussing how to change the villages from Breath of the Wild and someone up top just said, "mess 'em up!", where Hateno seems to be the only place that still looks mostly normal. The other villages all got hit by some catastrophe...

Now, Tarrey Town wasn't the prettiest place to begin with, but they somehow managed to kill all its charm and just turn it into a business, where all the characters with their names ending on "son" you've recruited are now simply workers at Hudson Construction. And none of them remember you, of course, but at least the married couple, Rhondson and the great President Hudson himself, recall the guy who brought them together, so that's something....

They also have a child now, Mattison, who looks like a Gerudo girl with Hudson's hair, which is freaking funny. She's old enough to walk, talk, and write by now, where almost everything in the game suggests that it has been around five to six years since the events of Breath of the Wild, basically the same amount of time that has passed between the release of the two games, which feels right.

I'm saying "almost everything", because there is a glaring problem and that's all the other children. They haven't grown at all. Take a look at Gleema from the South Akkala Stable, for example, who is the girl who wanted to see all the different darner dragonflies:

You are still little!!!

She says that she has grown up, but she looks exactly the same as in the first game. It's similar with other of these side quest kiddies from Breath of the Wild, like Nebb in Hateno, or Shamae at the Woodland Stable. It seems like the developers wanted to update the children and then forgot. Or they didn't bother, because they didn't expect anyone to pay attention to this. But the fans are always paying attention and the devil is in the details, which is at least one thing that Tears of the Kingdom has in common with the previous game.

Anyway, there is this small quest line about how Mattison has to go to Gerudo Town, to grow up without the influence of men, as by Gerudo tradition. This has the parent worried and sad, where I thought that you need to find a way that Mattison can stay with them. But you're just really helping them out to get her there... still honoring that Gerudo tradition. After the excellent side quests in Hateno this was a bit of a letdown, but at least I should be able to meet Mattison later... given that she has survived, of course. Rhondson even remarks how the desert is not in a good state right now, with all the catastrophes going on all over Hyrule, but this won't stop them from sending their only child into the middle of this mess via a hot-air balloon. What could go wrong, right?

First Look at House Building

Mattison is a necessary sacrifice in any case, because this is the only way to unlock your "dream house", where Animal Crossing and The Legend of Zelda finally have the crossover that I've always wanted. I've been excited about this topic for a while, even before they introduced us to the Ultrahand. But with the Ultrahand this just needed to happen: you can finally put together the Bolson-style container houses in any way you want to build something of your own.

Zelda might have stolen your house in Hateno, but you get a nice patch of land on a hill in Akkala, close to where the Great Fairy Fountain used to be, just at the right height so that you don't see the ugly Tarrey Town beneath, and so you can watch Dinraal doing its rounds from your balcony in the afternoon.

Grantéson will make sure that everything is within boundaries, where I love how Granté apparently has changed his name, just so he could join Hudson Construction. Well, I told you that in the next game everyone will be named son, even the evil Ganondorfson, or the next king of Hyruleson.

This building feature is something that the Zelda team had planned with Breath of the Wild, which is why there were these container houses to begin with. But they had to scrap this, where I'm super happy to finally see this come to fruition, and where I will have a lot of fun putting together a house for myself here.

There are also many different containers with different features. You can have a cooking place, a Goddess Statue, and a bedroom to create a full base for all your needs. You can also have stands for weapons, shields, and bows again, where there are three per container, just like there used to be on the walls in your old house in Hateno, before the evil dragon Zelda took it all down (I'm just kidding, it was very sweet of Link to give her his house). But theoretically you can have more containers of the same type, so if you want nine weapon stands, then this should be possible. I will give this a try once I have enough Rupees.

I'm not 100% happy, though... Well, I never am, but that's only because Nintendo refuses to make anything perfect. My biggest complaint is: where are the windows?!! I want to build a house, not a cave. This looks quite ugly without any light from the outside, really, and the normal Tarrey Town houses have them... So, why not here? Just because you could block them by putting a container in front of them?

The other complaint is the lack of greenery. You can place flower spots, but that's really it. I'd like to have some trees, at least, because the meadow for your house looks really bald...

But this is a start. And I'd love for them to expand upon it. Originally, my ideas went even further, where there could be patches like this all over Hyrule for you to build new villages. And if this is not part of the game already, it will make for a fine DLC expansion. They have all the things to make it happen, all it needs is to use some empty spots in Hyrule, where there still should be plenty...

Hyrule Racecars

The Ultrahand activities at Tarrey Town don't end with your house, there is the huge construction site can be used to put together and test vehicles. The Zonai Survey Team has built an entire course and this even got the attention of the former Sand Seal Race champion, Tali, where she and her manager, Shabonne, have come to the place to drive cars now. I didn't expect to see these two here again, but this makes it all the better.

You are tasked with showing them how it's done, after introducing them to the magic steering wheel, and here I've simply put four small wheels onto a cart. This might seem redundant, but the small wheels seem to be the fastest, while the tiny wheels underneath the cart will prevent you from getting stuck on the ramps or other obstacles. So, this worked out pretty good and I cleared both courses on the first try... Not that this was any difficult.

I still miss the Master Cycle Zero, though. You had a lot more control and agility with it, and it wasn't as over-the-top as all this stuff, where I'm beginning to understand the people who feel like all this technology doesn't belong in a Zelda game. I mean, I was in the same place before, where originally I thought that the Palace of Twilight in Twilight Princess was "too Sci-Fi", but the Zelda series has really eased us into this stuff, like with the Lanayru Robots in Skyward Sword. But all the Zonai devices can be a bit much, especially when the people of Hyrule build entire race tracks around them...

Nevertheless, I'm still sure that I will appreciate all of it later in the game, once I start to build my own tanks, where I'm only beginning to understand all the crazy things that you can do with the Ultrahand. 

And that's only one of two very potent abilities, where the things you can do with Fuse are also great. Like, I love using rockets as a one-time use Revali's Gale. Or, the cart from before – you can actually fuse it to your shield to make a skateboard:

This is ingenious. And I keep saying "this is ingenious" quite often with this game. However, the devil is again in the details, where for some reason this skateboard has the same damage rules applied to it as normal shield surfing. So, if you use this on wood or hard grounds, it's going to break quickly... While it really shouldn't, because it has a car with wheels underneath.

I also love fusing explosives with spears and throw them as a giant Bomb Arrow at my enemies. That's my favorite way of saying "hi" to enemies.

Shakala!

Now, while all the possibilities around Tarrey Town are exciting, it didn't get me closer to my ultimate goal: finding that giant Korok. How hard can it be? I've also searched at the South Akkala Stable, where you have this quirky quest with the talking Cucco, which makes you do stupid trials. Luckily, it's now very easy to climb to the very top of the stables thanks to Ascend.

But I've been to so many stables and pretty much all the towers to the east now that I had to give up searching for Hestu in these areas. There was another idea that I had, that he might make a stop near Lookout Landing, so I went there next... I haven't been there in a long time, because without the mini-stable in place, it's a bit inconvenient and I prefer to warp to one of the stables instead. I probably will have to complete one of the main dungeons first, before it gets ready. Right, Karson?

Riiight. Wait, a second... Is that Hestu over there? He was at Lookout Landing this whole time?! Come on, now...! I've never facepalmed so hard in my life. Not only was he very easy to find here, it's not even a stop – he decided to make this his new home, because he feels safe within the walls. And it makes sense, considering that he was threatened by monsters... With a bit of deduction I could have realized this sooner, where I even considered the possibility that he might go there, but it was simply at the bottom of my list...

But I like this placement, because it's funny how he observes the people, while they can't see him. And it truly adds to having Lookout Landing as your base of operations. There is everything there that you might need: a Skyview Tower, a bed, a Goddess Statue, a cooking pot, the Poe merchant, and now also Hestu. In Breath of the Wild I used the Korok Forest in a similar way, but this has more options and is also very central. Now, all it needs is that mini-stable. Looking at you, Karson...

Yeah, yeah, I will go for the first dungeon now... Probably. I've been playing for over a week now with around nine hours per day, which is quite a lot (maybe not compared to others), and I haven't even been to one of the main dungeons yet, so I'm still at the beginning of the story. And that's quite amazing in its own right, considering that I can 100% complete any of the classic Zelda games within the same time span.

Here you start at the center of Hyrule and are told to go into its corners, but there is this giant ring of distractions all around you: first and foremost the stables and the quests surrounding them, then all the sky islands, caves, and chasms, but also also the usual shrines, towers, and Koroks. There is so much to do in this game that my version of Link has proven to be a master procrastinator and might never save Hyrule or find Princess Zelda.

Now... sadly, the part of my vacation that I wanted to dedicate just to myself and my hobbies is officially over, where from tomorrow on I won't have the same amount of time to play this game and write about this game. Well, it can't be helped, so you should expect that these posts become much less frequent from now on. But they will keep coming!

Progress:

• Memories: 6/18
• Shrines: 50
• Lightroots: 20
• Towers: 10/15
  
• Korok Seeds: 120
• Bubbul Gems: 23

Tears of the Kingdom Adventure Log, Entry 8

Having arrived in Hateno, I explored the town from top to bottom and got involved in a series of side quests. Afterwards, I went to the tower on top of Mount Lanayru, went to the sky islands above, found another memory at the Talus Plateau, finished some other quests that required Hylian Rice, and got some cool new armor, including the new Champion's Leathers.

The Unknown Hero

A lot has changed since Breath of the Wild in Hateno Village, where the most notable thing is the addition of a school, and the obsession with mushroom-based fashion in a part of the town, creating a bit of a hodgepodge together with the Bolson housings and the traditional housings.

Worten, the guy who used to hang out at the balcony of the Ton Pu Inn all the time, is now married to its owner, Prima. Manny has therefore moved on to stalking checking Ivee, the girl from the grocery store, where now you have to collect 10 frogs for him instead of 10 crickets. Well, not so much has changed after all, I guess...

What they all have in common is that NO ONE remembers you. I used to be a citizen of this small town! I'm the guy who drove you all mad with his loud motor cycle, remember? No? Not even Nebb remembers you, where I was worried for a moment that he wants to see more weapons, but the kids are into some superhero called "A-Zone" now, or "A-Zoom", or something like that... I don't recall. But gee, you would think that at least this kid remembers you after all that you've done for him.

Well, there is one guy in town who still does remember who Link is and that's Symin, who is now the teacher at the new school. The first lesson is about the Great Calamity, where the kids show some real wit and question everything he says, because it could just be a legend or a fairy tale. They want to see some sort of proof. So, he tasks you with taking a picture of the Calamity Ganon Tapestry, which you can find at Paya's place... I was just there the other day... I even pointed the camera right at it, but I didn't release the shutter... Ugh, okay... I'll do it later.

Now, once you bring it, this counts as solid proof to the children and the lesson can proceed. At the end he even talks about the events in Breath of the Wild, and references the hero with the legendary blade, as if Link isn't standing right next to them. Isn't he aware who Link actually is? Or did he simply want to avoid the children demanding proof that Link is really that hero...? Maybe this whole scene plays out differently if you already have the Master Sword back...

Teacher, I also have a question! What happened to the Divine Beasts after Calamity Ganon got defeated just recently? Where did all the ancient Sheikah shrines and towers go? I'd really like to know this!

Mayoral Madness

The school isn't the center of attention for Hateno, however, where it's located at the outskirts of the village, near Kilton's old landing spot. Instead, all eyes are on the Cece, the new fashion icon, who has taken over the Ventest Clothing Botique. The shy corner girl, Sophie, is her sister, who now has to take care of many more things outside her comfort zone.

Now, Keanu Reede, the town's mayor, is all but happy about what Cece is doing around Hateno with her ugly mushroom art. I actually had to go back to Breath of the Wild to check if this character already existed in the game, because I could not recall him at all. Well, he does, but he was completely insignificant, despite his role as the village chief, where it's nice to see that some minor NPCs are getting expanded roles.

But their quarrel calls for a new mayoral election, which leads to a series of different side adventures, where you have to investigate both mayor candidates. And this was fun.

There is a sequence where you have to follow Cece through the night, which is very reminiscent of following Mila at Windfall Island in The Wind Waker. It's a bit shorter here and Link doesn't make any cat noises, but I still really liked this part.

Another quests wants you to enter a closed shack, where most of the shacks in Hateno now actually can be entered, unlike in Breath of the Wild, which includes the one behind Zelda's house. But this is part of what I had envisioned for the Ascend ability, which made me quite happy, where for this you have to explore the wells all around Hateno, which are all connected via tunnels.

Down there I finally found the treasure chest that has been causing beeping noises from my Sheikah Sensor+ around Hateno for years! I'm kidding, of course, this is not actually the glitched chest (where people even have found ways of retrieving it in Breath of the Wild), but it's the thought that counts.

Otherwise you have to run around town to bribe people with mushrooms, who might be voting for Reede, while Reede himself wants to remember some recipe that might make the town trendy again with its old values of farming. Which brings you to the ranch near the lab, where the Retsam Forest is now infested with squirrels, which I found hilarious.

Of course it all comes together, where Reede and Cece really want the same things for Hateno, and you get a happy ending for series of nice and wholesome side quests all around the town. Well, you also get this..

Uhm, thank you...?

The legendary, one and only Cece Hat! I think this thing might protect me from the gloom monster, because I wouldn't go near anyone looking like this.

But Cece also finally opens shops and acts as this game's Granté, where you can repurchase all the secret armor items that you can find, e.g. from Misko's treasures, but for quite the price this time. I hope that this game simply won't have some arbitrary armor limit again, so that you won't be in need of selling anything ever. Yes, I'm still salty about that in Breath of the Wild.

But that the map now lets you place 300 pins, instead of just 100, gives me some hope. This is – of course – completely unrelated, other than the fact that the limit for armor also used to be 100, but hopefully they have increased this limit accordingly, because you will need the space for all the new things. And maybe even some extra for having the same pieces in different colors.

amiibo Analysis

Speaking of, one big attraction of Hateno has always been the Kochi Dye Shop, where they have the new feature of changing the fabric of your Paraglider. I've already collected a couple, where they get taken out of your inventory by Sayge, which is a bit weird.

On the hand it removes a quick overview of what you've collected so far... On the other hand it does not clutter your inventory of key items as much and you still have the overview where you need it the most. And it makes sense that he has taken them, where this is also true for other key items, like the Korok Seeds. But why doesn't it work the same with the horse gear? It already annoyed me in Breath of the Wild that half of the key items are the saddles and bridles. Wouldn't it be enough to have those at the stables?

Anyway, changing your Paraglider is really nice, where I remembered that amiibo will give you exclusive fabrics as well. And next to Link's house is what I call the "amiibo meadow", because I've always scanned my amiibo right there on the flat ground in Breath of the Wild. It was a real ritual. So, I decided to go there and do just that to give it a try.

So far, I hadn't used any amiibo at all, save for the Link from Twilight Princess and Wolf Link for some quick tests, where the former still gives you another Epona, on top of the one that already got imported from Breath of the Wild. Well, you also could get multiple Eponas before if you had both the Twilight Princess and Super Smash Bros. Link amiibo or multiple of the same amiibo. And Wolf Link didn't work at all, it just threw a lot of meat at me.

But since I knew that you can now find the amiibo armor pieces in caves, I didn't want to scan any, because they feel very much like cheating in the early game, where it spawns a lot of stuff that I haven't found normally yet. However, I assumed that the exclusive fabrics could be gotten from scanning the amiibo at the Dye Shop somehow, but this is not the case. They are normal treasure chest drops, where they seem to be quite common, luckily.

Ideally, it would always give you the fabric on your first scan, where this would have multiple advantages. You could see right away which amiibo will give you a new piece of fabric to begin with, while it also prevents you from getting any of the armor pieces, given that you want to collect them for real in the game. Save scumming still works, though, where you simply save before scanning a given amiibo and reload if you don't like the result. Ironically, now I use this technique whenever I get one of the armor pieces, and not the other way around. It's upside-down compared to Breath of the Wild.

And it looks like most of the amiibo give you an exclusive piece of fabric now, even the ones who didn't have anything exclusive in Breath of the Wild, like the Bokoblin, or Archer Link. I really like the "Ancient-Sheikah Fabric" from the Guardian, for example, where I'm using this right now. Anyway, I will keep scanning the amiibo until I got all the fabrics, and then stop using them.

Link's house also used to be a great place to pick up sledgehammers. And in general, you often could find hammers and axes around, where all of this seems to be removed from the game in favor of the fused items. While it's nice to turn any rock and stick into a hammer in case you need one, I don't see why there shouldn't be any normal hammers around any longer. Plus, I often fail to find the necessary stones for axes whenever I need one...

Copy and Paste Archipelago

While following the quests at Hateno Village, the tower at the top of Mount Lanayru was smiling at me all this time. So, I just had to climb up there and activate it. I expected something bad, like a Frost Gleeok defending the top, but there was nothing alike.

In fact, this has been the only tower so far that I could just activate right away. The only hindrance was that you need double cold protection, but I still had some leftovers from the sky islands, which I made during the tutorial, and the warm pants, so that was enough...

Using the Skyview Tower, which is technically a modern version of the Sky Cannon from Twilight Princess, brought me to another group of sky islands around, where at first this seemed to be quite unique. You have drive up with some prepared flying vehicles, while Constructs on floating platforms shoot at you with arrows fused to rockets... I didn't even think of fusing any capsules to arrows yet, where they are giving me new ideas here!

But when I arrived at the top, I found an almost identical shrine quest to the one at West Necluda, where you have to fly the crystal out of a cave at the side of a sky island, and then bring it to an island with one of those rotatable pushers. What the hell? This is just bad and seriously bumming me out, because it's the level of laziness present in The Wind Waker, with all the near-identical reefs and fairy islands. I was looking forward to the whole sky setting so much, only to find the worst of Zelda's world design repeated here... Still better than Skyward Sword, though.

At least the whole flying machine transport worked better than it did the last time. I could directly re-create my vehicle from then using Autobuild, where it even gave me the option to replace the green crystal with Zonaite, because I didn't have it next to the other things at first. I don't think this counts, but it would be worth a try to just attach a crystal to something plentiful from a capsule and then autobuild this in front of the shrine. But I need to keep a mental note to always attach the crystal last to my creations, so I can remake them without it.

There is another diving ceremony nearby, where I experienced another absolute fail related to me not knowing what the R button does while gliding. I was just gliding down normally and couldn't even get close to the required time, where I remembered that during the first trial I was switching between dropping and diving to make it... And while this brought me closer, it still wasn't enough, but then I finally realized that you can just hold R again while diving to dive down really fast. "Ahaaahhh, now this I can do!" And before you knew it, I became the new record holder... at least according to the Construct, I'm sure people out there already have amazing world records for these mini-games.

But once you know how the controls work, the sky diving is really fun. And I'm amazed how many problems I had to figure out this one button... I will now have to go back to the first diving ceremony and beat the record there as well.

Masked Sages

Below where I was, I could spot a new geoglyph, the one that looks like one of the tears, so of course I had to go for this next, because I'm very curious to learn more about the past. This scene introduces you to these "Zonai Stones" and the sages of that era, but sadly they are all wearing helmets, obscuring their faces and voices.

These look a lot like the Divine Helms which you can get from the Champion amiibo (and presumably also find elsewhere now), where this is another indicator that the entire ancient Sheikah technology is highly derivative and based on the Zonai technology.

But this also looks like Nintendo didn't want to put any focus on these characters, only their descendants, as well as Rauru and Sonia. Well, maybe you will still see their faces in one of the other memories, or maybe they will be revealed in DLC later on, but judging from this scene alone it doesn't seem like we will get to know the other sages from the past.

Also, it seems like the Zonai Stones are initially blanks and then develop their power from whoever wields them. The Rito Sage, for example, touched the Zonai Stone and it carved the "wind" symbol into it. Sonia's stone gives you the power of time, which ultimately found Zelda in the beginning of the game. And Rauru has the power of light.

There is a fifth sage in this scene, who is the only one where the mask isn't obscuring her face: a Zonai woman, with an owl mask. She's the one who says the "you're not alone" line in the final trailer, where I've been wondering who that might be. I first thought it might be Riju.

She also is already in possession of another Zonai Stone, where together with the ones from Rauru and Sonia this makes seven in total, like on the mural. With Zelda's duplicate tear from the future, it makes eight, which supports the idea that the statue of the Eighth Heroine was meant to represent her from that era. Ganondorf also gets his hands on a Zonai Stone, however, where his is on his crown at the beginning of the game, but this could be one of the stones from the others.

Well, I'm sure I will find out soon enough and I always feel the need to apologize about theorizing mid-game, but it's part of the fun for me to write down my thoughts of how everything will come together at the end.

On a site note, you can also find a larger bay cave nearby and there I made good use of just throwing Frost Fruits into the water for traversal. Since you can also pick these ice platforms up with the Ultrahand, you could probably cheese a number of shrines just by building something with them, as long as there is water around.

Full Circle

Now, why did I go to Hateno to begin with? Right, I wanted fresh milk and some Hylian Rice, both of which can be gotten easily there. This let me solve one of the open side quests at Kakariko, for the Gloom-curing porridge, where now in hindsight it was very clear that this quest is supposed to send you to Hateno, since Lasli talks all about going there herself.

I also didn't need the weird stuff from the Poe statue, but the new "Sundelion" herbs that you can find on the (fallen) sky island ruins. That this can cure the Gloom effects is also something that you learn at Kakariko by studying everything around the Zonai research. Or by simply reading the description of the item... Well, good thing is that I had realized this before wasting some of the ingredients that cost Poe Souls.

While I was in Kakariko, I also did the funny "follow the Cuccos" quest, purchased some stealth armor, and took the picture of the Calamity Ganon Tapestry for Symin., so it was worth the trip. Back in Hateno I was a bit surprised to find someone in my, errhh... I mean, in Zelda's house:

It was the mayor's wife, Clavia, who was sweeping the place. A domestic help, great... Zelda was also quite busy with decorating the place, where the Picture of the Champions is one of the few things there still left by Link. She has added a lot of pictures of her own, where it's interesting to study them a bit.

You can see a golden horse, but also these rumored creatures at Faron, which are the talk at the New Serenne Stable. They don't look to be very large, so it's probably not that creature we saw in the first teaser trailer. Then there is the crazy flower lady for some reason, and a photo of the gourmet group, how sweet...

Oh, wait...! The gourmet group! They are still stranded at Batrea Lake with belly aches, which is where this whole detour to Hateno began. So, I immediately went back there and completed my fourth successful investigation with Penn, which scored me this baby:

The Froggy Sleeve! Yes! I can't wait for it to rain while I climb somewhere, so I can give this a try. Please, Nintendo, please also add this to Breath of the Wild! Like, right now! Patch it into the game, even if it's only on Nintendo Switch, I don't care, I need this!

Another improvement over Breath of the Wild comes with Octoroks. There are quite a lot in those woods and this was one of the most annoying enemies in the first game, not because they were tough or difficult, but simply because they were really annoying. But in Tears of the Kingdom you can just use Recall on their projectiles to drop their own rocks on them. This works most of the time and is highly satisfying.

Now, there was one more piece of armor to get for me at the moment: the Champion's Leathers, which Zelda mentioned in her other diary. She hid it at the throne room and since I've already been there, it wasn't a big deal to check it out. Some Zelda fan I am that I didn't recognize the torch puzzle on my first visit...

It does not put the Hylian Hood down, as I thought it would. How do you recreate the look from the artworks? Is there a second Hylian Hood item which is worn differently? Or wait... will this be the hood that Zelda wore during the intro? That would make sense and add a lot more meaning to that particular outfit... And in that case I already have an idea where to find it...

The Champion's Leather requires a "Light Dragon's Scale" to upgrade it, which brings me back to a theory I had back in February about how the game might handle light as another element in addition to the four we had in Breath of the Wild: fire, ice, electricity, and wind. Well, if it wasn't already obvious enough, it is now, where there is also a mirror Zonia device that I got from capsules. Can't wait to have some old-fashioned Mirror Shield puzzles.

But I wonder if the dragon really is just called "Light Dragon" or if the game is nice enough not to spoil the name for me at this point. I've been calling it "Hydron" so far, where it's probably something similar to the names of Dinraal, Farosh, and Naydra, but with the Goddess Hylia in mind. I haven't gotten close to it yet, though, while you can see the other dragons a lot more frequently now. Or at least their routes now are closer to the more populated areas... 

At least Farosh and Naydra, I don't think I have seen Dinraal yet. Maybe Dinraal is in a similar position to Naydra in Breath of the Wild, where she was infected with Malice. Maybe Dinraal is trapped in the Depths somewhere, which is why Farosh and Naydra keep going down there... They might besearching for their friend.

However, I'm done with distractions now...! I'm going to search for Hestu, because I'm really annoyed by how many Korok Seeds I'm carrying and how little weaponry, but THEN I'm really done with distractions for real, and will be aiming at one of the four regions where the story continues... Probably getting distracted on the way...

Progress:

• Shrines: 40
• Lightroots: 12
• Towers: 7
  
• Korok Seeds: 101
• Bubbul Gems: 18