It's been over nine months since Tears of the Kingdom was released and I'm still trying to complete it, where my motivation isn't the highest, but I play from time to time, and I avoid to start any other games. Maybe I can reach the 100% before the game grows one year old...? Let's see.
In any case, I've made some good progress during the remainder of February, where I was able to locate and check off all the missing side quests, finally completing the Adventure Log on the Purah Pad. And then it was time to do the same for Hyrule Compendium, where overall I've been running around with the Camera a lot, and therefore have truly evolved into a tourist in Hyrule.
Ring Records
Last time I left off with the mystery of having a lot of unknown side quests, where I really had no clue where to look, at first. I noticed that there is no "Rito Fabric", however, while you have a Zora, Goron, Gerudo, Sheikah, and even a Yiga Fabric available. So, I went back to Rito Village to see if I can find anything missing, which wasn't the case.
Well, I suppose that a "Rito Fabric" would be a bit redundant, because the two default Paraglider fabrics – the Ordinary and the Nostalgic Fabric – already use the Rito emblem on them, which is probably why Nintendo didn't bother. But with all the amiibo stuff, where you have something like the "Goron-Champion Fabric" in addition, I don't think this would have been a real issue.
Anyway, during my search I had also played Kaneli's gliding challenge again to set full records for both difficulties, just in case you get some unique reward there, but it was all just Rupees. I don't really mind, because it's okay when mini-games are just there for fun and you're not compelled to master them for something that you cannot obtain otherwise. It's not even that I fully expected to get something out of this. I just gave it a try and then was motivated to go for the highscore.
With the other mini-games I probably won't bother as much, however. I liked the three skydive ceremonies, where I've went to the best possible rewards with each of them, just for fun. I've also cleared the sand seal plushy collecting game in all locations.
But otherwise I didn't get fully invested, at least not that I remember. I haven't even cleared the new transport game at the Highland Stable, because that was no fun at all and it seems like you only get Pony Points from it. Speaking of stables...
Stable Pictures
As for the 14 side quests that were still missing in my Adventure Log, I did receive the hint that I might want to have another look at the stables again. And since there are 13 normal stables in the game, this added up quite nicely, so I followed that advice.
Turned out that the Gerudo Canyon Stable isn't the only one that you can decorate it with your pictures. It's a much more prominent feature in that particular stable, because it's the only real thing to do there (after cleaning up) and the stable owner is literally just staring at the walls. But each stable does have a picture frame like that, I just never noticed them before...
My attention usually went to the other things on the walls, like the recipes. I even cooked everything advertised in the stables, where now it turned out that I could have saved myself the trouble, because you will get the corresponding food items as rewards from doing all the "A Picture for XYZ Stable" quests, alongside lots of Pony Points, which I also didn't need any longer. But at least I found the huge gap in my Adventure Log and was able to finally fill it.
And this is quite an enjoyable line of side quests. It adds something unique to each stable, something of your own making, where revisiting them later really gives you the feeling that you've contributed to this place. I even wish that I would have found out about this much earlier in the game.
In addition, it gives you a variety of interesting photo targets, where each stable owner has a different motive in mind. The Woodland Stable guy essentially wants some Goron soft porn, for example. The funniest was Lakeside Stable, where the owner is asking for clear day view of the Floria Falls. You can actually see these falls right from the stable, but I suppose nice weather is such a rare thing in this area that he wanted the rare occurrence to be eternalized.
For the Snowfield Stable you have to take a picture of the giant bird in the Hebra Mountains, which was part of a Shrine Quest in Breath of the Wild, where it's nice that they've made use of such things again, because otherwise they would feel a bit random in the game. And I have even learned something that I didn't know before with the Octorok Lake, which is a new location in Tears of the Kingdom, where the water will take the shape of an Octorok during rain. That's really cool.
Curiously, I felt like the weather engine was playing really nice during these quests, but this just could have been coincidence (and I did have to skip time a bit for the sun to appear in the Hebra Mountains, but it lasted for quite a while).
Overall, they really give you a lot to do at each stable in Tears of the Kingdom. They all have a well, there's a Side Adventure with Penn at almost all of them, many of them have one or two additional side quests, and then there are these picture quests for all of them. They have become big points of interest in this game, making up for the fact that you may not have as much need for horses any longer (which is a nice way of saying that they are basically obsolete with all the Zonai stuff).
Missing Merchant
Now, with putting up nice pictures in all the stables, I was able to complete 13 of the 14 missing side quests, bringing me down to one. And if you're down to one of anything in this game, you're then looking for a needle in a haystack, as long as you don't want to look things up in a guide.
Luckily, I was able to find the last one by design. Last time I had discovered that Kiana will give you a new recipe every once in a while, making Lurelin Village a regular stop for me. But one time my inventory for meals was full, so I went to the merchant at the docks to sell some of them... Only to realize that there isn't one there yet.
I guess that I was just so used to the fact that there is a merchant at the docks in Breath of the Wild that I never really bothered to check, because they never had anything interesting to sell there. But of course the merchant lady (Mubs) moved to Lookout Landing, while her husband (Garini) is now looking for a boat to continue the business.
You can find boats at Tenoko Island and have to drive one from there to Lurelin, making this one of the more engaging side quests and a beautiful finish. The new "Merchant Boat General Store" will also give you any of their catches for free, where you can buy everything for 0 Rupees. And this makes me feel somewhat bad each time I make use of this, like I'm exploiting their generosity, all while I have over 6000 Rupees in my pockets. But it's just a game, so I probably shouldn't care...
Missing Monster
By now, I'm down to the last three points from my 100% checklist in entry 26: complete Hyrule Compendium, fill the recipe book, and collect all Korok Seeds. I have taken a break from the latter, after spending so much time searching all over Hyrule, and I'm only making slow progress with the food stuff, so my focus is currently on Hyrule Compendium.
So far, I only had the treasure section completed, which is quite trivial, and I wanted to do the monsters next. For the most part I was just missing different variants of the usual suspects, e.g. a Black Bokoblin, a Blue Moblin, or a Stalizalfos. So, it was time to take out that good old Majora's Mask and get friendly.
Since you can find them pretty much everywhere, I wasn't really concerned with taking pictures of them, unlike all the different bosses and more dangerous foes. I didn't have the basic Stone Talus in my compendium, however, where I had to search a while to find one on the surface, because most ones got upgraded to Battle Taluses. But I ultimately found one at Tabantha Frontier, next to Nero Hill.
At the end I was missing one entry, number 159, between the Captain Construct IV and the Flux Construct. But this wasn't a mystery to me, where I had been warned about this missable entry back in June, but it was already too late at the time and not worth starting over...
It's the Training Construct. I don't think I had the Camera when I did most of these tutorial shrines and back then I didn't even realize that this Construct was somehow special. The one combat tutorial shrine in Breath of the Wild, "Ta'loh Naeg's Teaching" in Kakariko, used a Guardian Scout II for the job and I had assumed that this was just a Captain Construct I. But this Training Construct doesn't have a horn, probably because it's not supposed to drop one, so it makes sense that this is different somehow...
This is still a shame, though, because this seems to be the only thing where I wasn't able to take my own picture and won't be able to going forward. So, I will be one short of a fully custom Hyrule Compendium, which is also something that I never managed to achieve in Breath of the Wild. It bugs me, but as I already said, it wasn't worth starting over.
After all, I'm on my first playthrough still and going fully blind, so I couldn't be sure that I wasn't going to miss anything else. But the fact that I almost did it is a testament to the thoroughness of Tears of the Kingdom in this area. Other than the Training Construct, I think there are only three bosses where you can miss their pictures: Moragia, the Sludge Like, and (once again) Master Kohga. And the latter now offers multiple opportunities.
Everything else should still be around by the end of the game, which is a significant improvement over Breath of the Wild, where multiple entities can go extinct over the course of the game and sneakily so. Most of the problems were caused by nearly all Lynels upgrading to the highest tier, which isn't the case any longer. From what I can tell, you can still find all variants of all four Lynel tiers somewhere in the world, which is good.
Filling Out the Compendium
Surprisingly, purchasing a single picture from Robbie already clears the "Filling Out the Compendium" Side Adventure. I always had assumed that this meant filling out the entire compendium, which is why I had one Side Adventure left open this entire time...
But this wasn't case, all you have to do is buy one picture, where this is – like many things – the opposite to what you had to do in Breath of the Wild, with the "Sunshroom Sensing" side quest. At least this way you can still overwrite things in case you want a fully custom compendium at the end, while it technically was never possible to get a complete default compendium in Breath of the Wild.
However, I was curious what would have happened if I didn't miss the Training Construct and I took all pictures myself at the end. Well, according to Gendolkari_82 on reddit, in that case it will play out the way I thought it would, meaning that you also complete the Side Adventure when there's nothing left to buy and the entire compendium got filled already.
There's also the question how Robbie managed to get all those pictures himself. I mean, there are all the variants of the final boss in there and other monstrosities... I can already see how he went down Gloom's Lair and secretly took pictures of Ganondorf. A good explanation would be that he had invented some sort of drone doing this stuff, which was even something considered for the original Sheikah Slate drafts.
Weathered Weapons
Next part was all the equipment, which is the largest category in the compendium, but the one where I had the least amount of missing entries. Overall, I've been quite lazy with taking pictures over the course of the game, but I did make a conscious effort of cataloguing new weapons whenever I found them... At least for the most part.
You're never truly done with the Depths, I suppose, because I still had to obtain pristine versions of the Feathered Edge and the Feathered Spear, where first I had to track down the decayed counterparts, because it turned out that I never used them before. I was even surprised to find out that they now create a gust, which they didn't in Breath of the Wild.
Otherwise, I was mainly missing bows, where the biggest challenge was tracking down a Zora Bow. In Breath of the Wild this was quite straight-forward, because you could find all Zora equipment in and around Zora's Domain. This isn't the case any longer and in the end I became so desperate that I went back into caves, hoping to get a Zora Bow from a Like Like. And I got lucky there...
The Knight's Bow was also a bit tricky, because usually enemy archers are either Bokoblins or Lizalfos, who have their own bows. So, you have to find a Moblin archer, which seem a bit rarer in Tears of the Kingdom, but I managed to track one down with a Knight's Bow on the Akkala Span, where you have a monster horde battle. (Update: you can also find a Knight's Bow at Gerudo Town.)
Quite the effort for one bow, but the worst deal was fighting a Gloom Spawn over a Rusty Broadsword. I was searching for the different rusty weapons, where it made the most sense to look for them at the ruins around Hyrule Field. And the Gatepost Town Ruins seem to have everything available, except for the Rusty Broadsword, but there is one in the proximity at the Kolomo Garrison Ruins. But that's also a Gloom Spawn spawn... Of course you can just camp it out on the ruin walls, but it's not like these things still pose a threat.
When it comes to taking the pictures, I've already complained a couple of times how the Camera rune works like a secret Song of Storms. It's blue sky and perfect lighting to take a picture of your weapon? Well, better pull the trigger real fast, because this is going to change in 3... 2... 1...
The next 3D Zelda game better have some weather controls, and not just something to make it rain, but also something to make it sunny again. (I'd also love a 3D Zelda game where you can change the seasons, but that's a topic of its own.) The weather in the two latest Zelda games always seems quite volatile and even if you use the weather forecast (which is only available on the normal HUD for some reason), it doesn't seem to be all too realiable, because the sun may shine only for a few seconds. But you want the sun to shine for the best looking pictures.
Sky Studio
At least on the sky islands you will have reliable weather, which you can use to your advantage for taking nice shots. I've mainly used the area in front of the Temple of Time to create bright pictures of all the Zonaite equipment and the Construct horns.
Materials are the second biggest section in Hyrule Compendium and here's where I still have the most work to do, mainly because I still have to capture all the horns on camera. And it seems somewhat redundant, because you can just scan for the monsters to find their horns.
But it did help me with tracking down some monsters, where I didn't have their pictures yet, but their horns in my inventory. So, you can just take the horn out of your inventory, put it into the compendium, and then use the Sensor+ to find the respective monster. Still, it's a lot of busywork to capture all the horns, because most monsters have them and the Lynels have even two.
Overall, you can spend a lot of time on just taking nice pictures of everything, which is part of the reason why this is taking so long for me, because I can be a bit of a perfectionist. It's also the reason why I went with purchasing all compendium entries in my last two Breath of the Wild playthroughs, just to get away from this. But it's either all or nothing for me, so those 100 Rupees spent on the Training Construct will (hopefully) be the last.
Progress:
Side Adventures: 60/60(+1)Side Quests: 139/139(+14)- Korok Seeds: 982/1000 (+6)
- Recipes: 132/228 (+6)
- Map Completion: 99.31%
Compendium Completion:
- Creatures: 79/92 (+6)
Monsters: 110/110(+20)- Materials: 52/126 (+12)
Equipment: 175/175(+15)
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