Great Deku Tree 2-in-1 LEGO Announced

 

Remember the Zelda LEGO leak from early 2023? As with the Nintendo Switch OLED Tears of the Kingdom Edition, which also got leaked around that time, this was the real deal and we finally have an official announcement now. There is going to be a LEGO set of the Great Deku Tree from both Ocarina of Time and Breath of the Wild.

Unlike the Super Mario stuff, which was made for toddlers, this is a lot more advanced and something for serious collectors and builders. But using The Legend of Zelda was without a doubt right choice to level up Nintendo's partnership with LEGO.

There are so many fantastic details with this. You have the Master Sword, Hylian Shield, Deku Shield and Ocarina of Time as items. You have figurines of the Hero of Time (adult and child), Champion Link, and the Zelda from Breath of the Wild. And there is a Sheikah Slate slate.

In the Ocarina of Time version you get Deku Babas, the Sprout of the Deku Tree, a Gossip Stone, and a part of the "Inside the Deku Tree" dungeon with a Skulltula and a treasure chest on the backside. There also seems to be a mechanic, which lets you drop the Skulltula on a rope. The Breath of the Wild version on the other hand has Hestu and many small Koroks, as well as Walton's spot on top of the tree, the Spore Store on the backside, and a terminal for placing the Sheikah Slate.

This is a 2-in-1 set, meaning that you can't build both simultaneously, it's either one or the other. So, if you want the other at some point, you will have to dismantle it all and then start building from scratch.

The Ocarina of Time version does have Link's house from the Kokiri Forest in addition, however, essentially as this small separate set, where I'm hoping that you can build this in any case. Because then you would have at least something to display the Ocarina of Time figurines and items, even if you have the Breath of the Wild Deku Tree assembled. But I'm not sure about that.

Well, I loved LEGO as a child, but unlike my love for Nintendo this didn't transition into adulthood and I haven't played with LEGOs for over 25 years. Basically, LEGO became uninteresting once I got my Game Boy and Nintendo 64 in the late 90s. But this really has me excited, I totally want this, where this will make three different periods of my life come together in one big nostalgia package.

You can find and preorder this set on the LEGO website. It's 2500 pieces and costs 299€, which is utterly insane. You can get a Nintendo Switch for that money... But if you're buying big, valuable figurines you will end up in this price category as well and this LEGO set is also something that you can put in a display cabinet once you're done.

It's an unreasonable purchase nevertheless, but at least I'm able to afford it, which would have never been the case back when Ocarina of Time was a thing. And from the looks of it, you're able to get these LEGO sets much cheaper from other stores and retailers, so it might be a good idea to wait a little while.

What I'm not going to do is buy two, where I had considered that after the leak, because then you can display both variants right next to each other. But certainly not for that price... And then you have a reason to rebuild it from time to time, which is part of the fun.

They know their target audience for this, though, which has certainly added to the price, alongside the license. It's people who grew up with both LEGO and Zelda, who are now "responsible adults" with more money than time, unable to resist such a blast from the past.

Tears of the Kingdom Adventure Log, Entry 36

All good things must come to end and so does my journey through this iteration of Hyrule, after over a year. As my last steps towards completion, I've filled out the recipe book and finally found that last Korok, who had escaped me for way too long. But I've also went back to my house to come up with something more satisfying, so that Link will have a nice place for his well-earned retirement.

The Last Drop

There were four more recipes for me to learn and this was meant to be straight-forward: I search for that 1000th Korok Seed and meanwhile Kiana will cook whatever I'm missing. Easy peasy palm fruit squeezy, right?

First thing was the Copious Mushroom Skewers, which is something that I would have found out myself if it weren't for its placement in the list. It's number 20, while the Copious Meat and Seafood Skewers are #7 and #8 respectively. Why it's not directly before those, I don't know, but this is what prevented from even bothering.

Next I got the Pepper Steak (#37), from which I could derive the Pepper Seafood (#38). Those are two more recipes that I probably could have found out myself much earlier, because they are as simple as it gets, but it didn't really matter at this point...

Problem then was that Kiana gave me some Simmered Fruit next, which indicated that she was out of new things to come up for me. But there was one last recipe that I was missing, number 119, and I only knew that it was some sweet dish, between the Honeyed Apple and the Fried Bananas. And this now gave me a riddle.

So, I thought that maybe this is another special recipe, where there is potentially another unlisted side quest for me to find, similar how you can learn the Creamy Heart Soup from Calyban. (You also are taught this recipe in Breath of the Wild in Gerudo Town, by the way, but since there was no recipe book in that game, I never cared and therefore didn't remember.)

The best lead I had was Amali, Kass's wife, who unlike her husband can still be found, at the Hebra Trailhead Lodge. She talks about how she's going to cook her children's favorite dishes once she finished up cleaning there. But she never finishes... I tried taking all the things or to clean the place Gust-Bellows-style, but nothing happens.

I believe the whole reason why the game keeps her there is because it gives an explanation why the supplies keep respawning. Free oil jars for the win. Though, this is a pretty terrible way to use this character, especially since there are other Rito women who could have done this job.

Another possibility for a "hidden" recipe was Cottla at Kakariko Village, where you can learn the Hot-Buttered Apple and Honeyed Apple from her mother's hidden diary, but this also really didn't lead to anything. Though, it was nice to actually follow her into the well once. I don't think I had done this before... Or it's been so long that I forgot about it.

So, in the end I was just experimenting with Courser Bee Honey in order to see if I may discover some other combination. And that's when I noticed that I had never tried honey on its own... I expected this to result in dubious food, but it was worth a shot.

Oh, okay... there is candy?! I didn't know that. The worst part is that this super simple recipe existed in both Breath of the Wild and Age of Calamity already, I just never knew or cared. This just shows how much of an impact the recipe book had on me, where it's an excellent addition. (I don't want to get too much into the rumored Breath of the Wild remaster already, but this is one thing it needs.)

As for why Kiana couldn't just teach me this, I don't know... Maybe it's because this isn't really a dish, where it could be that she also doesn't cover other simple recipes like this. Or maybe she just doesn't like candy.

Home for a Hero

All for me left to do in order to finally complete this game was to fly over Hyrule and search, search, search for that last Korok. But somewhere in between I needed a distraction, something else to do, so I decided to return to my house and really make it my "Dream Home", as far as that is even possible with the limitations at hand.

I wasn't really satisfied with my previous designs, so I wanted to change this before I shelve this game. Of course I won't make much use of it then, but it's not like the house is really an important location throughout the game. It's mostly just a good place to take photos, because it never rains there.

Anyway, my first house grew too long because of all the rooms with stands that I have. I use three weapon stand rooms for the amiibo and Champion weapons, as well as a stand room for bows and shields, so that's five rooms in total already, a third of what's allowed. And even with a second floor the house turned so long that it barely even fit within the boundaries.

My solution then was to create more of a tower, with three stories, but this one looked like a giant, ugly block. And it also wasn't very accessible, while there wasn't even space for all the rooms with special features, because you need at least two sets of stairs.

So, I've went back to a design with only two floors and this time created an L-shaped in relation to the entrance. This made it all more compact and fit together perfectly. Another key difference is that I'm now using the garden pond as a roof terrace pool, which also allowed me to move the paddock right next to the entrance.

When you enter you will get a cozy kitchen area to the left, where I'm quite happy how this has turned out. So far the furnished square room was always just there, because I kept the kitchen upstairs, where it's quicker (for me) to access. But this way everything is coming together more nicely, especially with the small stove in the corner (though its chimney leads directly into my bedroom).

You also get all the amiibo weapons down here, separated between two-handed and one-handed, ordered by appearance in the series, as well as the special shields. And yes, I've never touched that Hylian Shield, even though by now I have more than enough money to afford replacements.

The weapon gallery continues upstairs with the Champion weapons and the special bows. With this arrangement I even get the weapons of all four Champions right next to each other, which is nice. And the Scimitar of the Seven also sits right above the Daybreaker, though you can't see them together, but you can't have it all, I guess.

Finally, there is the bedroom and the gallery with an opening between, where you can find the "pool" and the flower bed acting as some sort of balcony. There you get a nice view of Death Mountain and Akkala Citadel in the background, while you take a bath.

It's the first time that I actually had space for a gallery and the best thing I still had on my Purah Pad was a map of Hyrule, hand-drawn by my old Yiga buddies. The only other unit with actual utility that I haven't included is the blessing room with the Goddess Statue, but I have no use for that any longer anyway. If I still was earlier in the game, I probably would swap the gallery for it, though.

So, that's it, that's my final house. I know that this isn't all too impressive and that you can do all sorts of crazy designs, even make it fly in the sky, because you can involve Zonai devices and other materials in the building process, but I wanted to keep it simple and basic. As already said, I'm not really using the house as much anyway, since this isn't Animal Crossing (and even there I don't really use my house), but I didn't want to leave it as it was and I'm satisfied with this last outcome. Now Link can live a good life... Once he finds one more piece of poop.

The Last Yihaha

After obtaining the vast majority of Korok Seeds, progress had slowed down on that front significantly. Still, I was able to make steady progress nevertheless, finding one more Korok every other day. So, I didn't really expect that it would take another two weeks to find the last one, but the last one is always the most difficult, at least when you're trying not to use guide maps (and even with those it can be a pain if you're stuck at 999).

What makes it so difficult is simply a bad completion system, where I've complained about this time and time again, already in Breath of the Wild. Most 3D Zelda games in the past gave you some sort of help to narrow down your search for the last of something. If you include remakes and remasters, then pretty much all of them did, like with the Poe Soul counters in Twilight Princess HD.

But the two biggest Zelda games refuse to do it for some reason. It's not that Nintendo doesn't want you to complete them, because then there shouldn't be percentages and rewards in the first place. And there will always be people like me, who will want to complete them, no matter what. So, when Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom get remastered, Nintendo really needs to make the map completion info more regional. Have it for each tower area, in the least.

In Tears of the Kingdom it would already help quite a bit if the Depths and the skies had their own completion rate. Then I could have been sure that there aren't any Koroks left in the sky, for example. But the game doesn't do any of that. It leaves it completely open and you're faced with the search for one specific needle in a gigantic haystack, which is filled with hundreds of other needles.

Of course I could have just looked it up and be done with it. But I was so close to finishing it all on my own that it would have felt like giving up. And it would cheat me out of the joy of finally finding it, where this little dopamine rush whenever the Korok Mask reacts to something after hours of searching is just priceless. If you look it up, it's just a matter of going to a place and cross it off from your checklist. It doesn't come with the same sense of satisfaction when you've finally done it. That's why I kept going...

Still, it felt like I was going against a wall most of the time, because I had ran out of places to investigate. My Hero's Path looks like I have spun a thick web all over Hyrule and there weren't any suspicious spots left to check. I've been everywhere trice and I had no clue where to look.

So, I ultimately I succumbed to the temptation and used the Zelda Dungeon map to narrow it down, to be certain that I've got everything in certain areas, so I don't ever have to search through them again, like Hyrule Castle, Hebra, or the sky islands. But there was always the risk that I just plain-right see where it's hidden and spoil it for me while doing that...

Well, to make a long story short, here's where that intractable, little Korok was hiding during all this time, evading me for over a year:

It was on a steep cliff wall on the edge of the Faron jungle area to the Keeley Plain. I kept thinking that it either had to be a trail flower, an acorn, or one of those Koroks hiding under a single rock in some offshoot corner, because those can be the hardest to spot and most of the other Korok puzzles are big enough that you already see them from a distance.

Well, it wasn't any of those, it was technically another stone formation, but a unique one, where it's actually quite close to those single stone puzzles. While it's probably not the hardest to find, it wasn't as obvious and embarrassing as the others that came before.

So, how did I miss this one? Well, I had searched this area quite a bit to find a cave entrance / treasure chest, but I didn't wear the Korok mask at the time. Still, my Hero's Path made it look like I had "scanned" the bottom of this cliff. And on the map this cliff wall doesn't look like it has anything outstanding to it, so the only way for me to find it was to eventually fly around there again with the Korok Mask equipped.

During all this time I've also stacked up plenty of materials since I had enhanced all my armor, where by now I've got more 30 Star Fragments again and tons of ore, which shows how long I've been flying all over Hyrule to search for Koroks. But I've also used up more than half of my Zonaite to build all those hover bikes.

Dance Dance Hestulution

Time to reap the final reward for all this work... Of course you're just getting Hestu's Gift again, I wasn't expecting anything else. But the actual reward is doing the dance party whenever you want, where I was looking forward to this, because I really like the new stash dance in Tears of the Kingdom and it's been a while since I've heard it the last time.

And there was a small surprise for me that he also offers you to do the classic dance from Breath of the Wild, not that I needed that. Would have been funny if this were exclusive to those who had collected all 900 Korok Seeds before. But I would have liked at least some sort of remark from him about that, something like "Wait? You did it again?", even though Hestu's memory seems pretty bad.

Anyway, here is the magic pile of golden poop in the inventory, where this time it's not right next to the other Korok Seeds when sorted, but in front of the medals, but that does make sense. Sadly, this seems to be it, so when you do everything in the game the horse gear doesn't get aligned as nicely as it could be, with all bridles and saddles right above each other. A solution for that would have been some new item that let's you teleport your horses to you, like the Ancient Saddle did.

And the last Korok Seed also lead to 100.00% on my map, so together with the filled recipe book, the completed Hyrule Compendium, all armor found and enhanced to four stars, and all Paraglider fabrics collected, I'm now officially done with the game. There is nothing left to achieve.

Final Path

In entry 29 I had posted my Hero's Path, before it had started to dissolve, so here's my update of how it looks after all that searching. I was mostly done with the sky at that point, so I will leave that out, but the real interesting part is the surface world anyway, where I've spent most of the time since then:

The difference between the Depths and the surface is quite staggering. This is how much the Koroks amp up exploration and the Depths really would have needed something similar, where the Poe Souls could have filled that role...

 

Some Stats

To finish things off, let me share some numbers about this playthrough. As you can see, I've wrote a total of 36 journal entries, which is the same number as in my original Adventure Log for Breath of the Wild. I've played Tears of the Kingdom for a little over 600 hours, which is a lot, but about the same as my first playthrough of Breath of the Wild.

And I took a total of 1840 screenshots during my journey, way more than any other Nintendo Switch game, but this game can be really beautiful... as long as it's not raining.

 

The End

As I'm writing this, I'm almost feeling nostalgic and I'm feeling like there's now an empty spot in my heart, because Tears of the Kingdom has accompanied for such a long time now, longer than any other singleplayer game that isn't open-ended. It was a bit of a bumpy ride and I wasn't always happy, but it's been a massive experience nonetheless and there is a lot to look back to.

If you really want, you can complete this game within a month or maybe even less, so to say that I've taken my sweet time with this is an understatement. But I think that this was the intent, looking at the current situation of the Nintendo Switch: to give the Zelda fans a game that will keep them busy for a long time. Well, I got my money's worth out of this title, that's for sure, but I'm also ready for the next Nintendo Direct and something... smaller.

For now, I have no plans of replaying Tears of the Kingdom. I doubt I will ever do it until there's a remaster of some sorts, unless they still release the much-requested Master Mode, but that's very doubtful. And as it is right now I have played it enough, where I'd rather revisit Breath of the Wild once more.

Still, I might play Tears of the Kingdom from time to time, because there is one aspect that I haven't really embraced all that much and that is the Ultrahand with the Zonai devices. For the most part I was just throwing out my hover bikes and that got the job done, but there is so much crazy stuff that you can do with this feature, which really defines the game and makes it stand out in the series. So, I might just go and build some tanks, giant flying machines, or other absurd things for the fun of it, but nothing that will warrant a continuation of this blog series.

Thank you for reading! See you with the next Zelda game!

Progress:

• Korok Seeds: 1000/1000 (+1)
• Recipes: 228/228 (+4)
  
• Map Completion: 100%

Tears of the Kingdom Adventure Log, Entry 35

Today is May 12th, 2024. One year has passed since the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for the Nintendo Switch. And I'm still here playing this game, trying to achieve a mostly-blind 100%, but at least I've gotten very close to this goal. By now I have become a master chef in Hyrule, with a well-fed Malanya as my reference, and I'm only one Korok short of the 100% on my map.

Secret Side Quest

While I had completed all side quests listed in the compendium a while ago, it doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't any people left in Hyrule who still may want something. At least, I've found one more person: Calyban in Gerudo Town, who was still busy throwing her bottled messages into the sewers.

Originally, I assumed that this was just to show you the way into the shelter when you first arrive at Gerudo Town. But she keeps doing this, even after the Sand Shroud has disappeared and everyone else returned to the surface. This has me wondering if you're supposed to do something here after all...

And there is this intricate section down there, which connects to the waterfall next to the Sand Seal rental shop, where you have an elevated crack in the wall. If I remember correctly, you even had to dig your way there... for seemingly no reward. And since there was so much to process at the time, I didn't really give it more thought before now.

Well, you can use the crack to lift up the bottle from below. Then you need to get above and use Recall on the bottle to grab it from the surface. That's one complicated puzzle for something that doesn't even get you a registered side quest. Maybe there's an easier way to get the bottle aboveground, but this is how I did.

Then I thought I had to give the bottle to Bozai, who coincidentally was right up there, on top of the secret club, but he doesn't react to it at all, other than the usual Ultrahand-induced panic. This would have been his chance to finally score with the Gerudo, but it's his loss...

Anyway, you can just become Calyban's chosen voe yourself and get a Hearty Cream Soup as a reward, as a token of her love. Since I was still in the middle of collecting recipes, this was the best possible outcome... This seems to be a special recipe, even, similar to the Noble Pursuit, where I don't think you will be able to obtain it from Kiana. And that out of all the Gerudo they would pick the polluter as a love interest for Link, that's rich.

Gourmet Guesser

As for filling out the rest of the recipe book, I'm now down to four missing meals. I've made such good progress, because I was able to identify a big chunk of the recipes  myself after all, so I didn't have to solely rely on Kiana.

There was the Fruitcake, for example, which is something that you learn in Breath of the Wild for a side quest, but I forgot and this had me confused for a while. It's right between the Nutcake and the Cheesecake, where I thought that those use the same base ingredients as the different pies: wheat, sugar and butter. But you don't actually need the butter in some cases... Anyway, you can also make Fruit Pies and Apple Pies, but the Fruitcake – where you have to combine apples or wildberries with some other fruit – eluded me in this list, until I finally remembered it from Breath of the Wild.

Then there were all the different copious meals, which is usually a lot of the same, e.g. five mushrooms for a Copious Mushroom Skewer. But you can't just use the cheapest ingredients, especially with the meat. I'm not even sure you can learn them from Kiana, because she might be too stingy.

Speaking of meat, in some cases you also have three different variants with the prime and gourmet meats, where you may be able to fill the gaps accordingly. It's the same for poultry. In one case I essentially good three new meals at once from Kiana, when she presented me with a Gourmet Poultry Pilaf, from which I could derive the Poultry Pilaf and Prime Poultry Pilaf.

The one thing I wanted the most was the base recipe for the omelet, however, where eventually she proffered me a Mushroom Omelet, which was the key to unlocking the Vegetable Omelets, finally. Now, hindsight bias is questioning me how I wasn't able to find those out on my own, because the base recipe is simply egg, butter, and salt. It's essentially what I would use to make an omelet in real life... Not that the other recipes are equally realistic.

Malanya Munch

Finally, I could get rid of those three apple pies that I've kept in my inventory since October. Those are required for the final speed buff and I had made them before I realized that I didn't know how to make Vegetable Omelets. How hard could it be, right...? I didn't want to eat or sell the pies, because they don't spoil anyway and it was only a matter of time until I find out how to properly make all types of omelets. Oh well... but Malanya sure was enjoying those six month old pies.

With all the culinary knowledge that I've acquired since then, it was easy enough to boost that golden horse into what it should have been from the get-go: a perfect five-star being. Well, it could be slightly more convenient. There is a cooking pot nearby Malanya's spring and it even has a roof, so that's great, but it's still a bit of a walk...

So, I wanted my golden horse to speed things up, but it usually refuses to go on the first wooden bridge that leads to Malanya when it's too fast. One time it even ended up in the pond, unable to get out, so I had to resist my urge to build a hoverbike and instead go back to the East Akkala Stable to save it from its misery. Wouldn't have happened with the Ancient Saddle, I'm just saying.

And even with all those quintuple stars to its name, I doubt that I will use Hypona that much going forward, because horses are no match for the convenience that is Autobuild in this game. I've took it for a ride all over Hyrule Field and it was fun to experience a horse will speed and stamina, but the hoverbike is still faster and doesn't have the same limitations as a horse.

For example, I was thinking of extending my ride towards Faron, but then I would have needed to cross the Great Bridge of Hylia, where you have to get past by a Flame Gleeok without your horse getting charred. Not a great plan.

With that in mind, I doubt that I will bother with upgrading any other of the horses. I might do it for the royal white horse, because it's the only other special horse that can be enhanced. But it's not worth the effort (which includes getting enough ingredients, because Malanya always wants three of everything) for any of the normal horses. And I do like the idea that the golden horse is this special horse with the best possible stats.

Cargo Carriage

You may even want to keep some horses with different stats around anyway, because faster and stronger isn't always better... Well, it isn't in case of the box transport mini-game at the Highland Stable, where I gave it another try with my golden god horse... Which didn't work out.

However, since Blynne keeps telling that this game isn't about speed, I gave it another try with the slowest horse that I still had: Spot. I've only enhanced its pull stat once, so it was mostly three stars. But this did the trick and I was able to solve this parcours for the first time... And score three Pony Points as a reward, greaaaaat! Well, you're told what you will get here in advance and I'm fully okay with mini-games being optional, especially when they are annoying as this one, because then you can just ignore them. At least I have now managed to beat every mini-game in the game, so that's something.

The Last of the Koroks, Part II

While waiting for Kiana to come up with another meal, I was mainly busy searching for the missing Koroks. And with "searching" I mean flying over the world with the hoverbike and the Korok Mask to see if something comes up. At this point I had no real clue where I should be looking, so I simply flew around aimlessly.

Gaps in my Hero's Path all just led to empty places and I also couldn't rely on the Hero's Path to begin with, because I may have passed a Korok without noticing, either because I wasn't wearing the Korok Mask at the time or because there was too much vertical distance. And this even turned out to be true for most of my latest additions.

After collecting all Korok Seeds in Breath of the Wild thrice and having found over 990 Korok Seeds in this game, I really expected the last ones to be devilishly hidden in the most obscure places. But this wasn't case, quite the opposite. We're talking about the 101 of Korok puzzles here, giving witness to how lacklusterly I must have been exploring this re-used world in the beginning. Still, spoiler warning for incoming Korok locations! Skip this section if you're still hunting yourself.

Well, of course one Korok was waiting around Hebra. There just had to be, where this never has been my favorite area. But I usually struggle with all the verticality, while this one was close to the flat area, at the east edge of Kopeeki Drifts. This was actually stone circle, which you can all spot on the map. To be fair, it was a very small stone circle, but I probably should have found this one months ago...

Another obvious candidate is the above fellow found on the big stalagmite in the middle of the Skull Lake. This practically reeks of Korok and I'm surprised that there wasn't already one there in Breath of the Wild.

I've said it multiple times that there is a Korok under almost every bridge now, but yet they still manage to hide from me under bridges, in this case the Great Zora Bridge. Well, it's so far below that the Korok Mask won't react when you cross said bridge, but this was a treasure chest spot before. Okay, there were a ton of treasure chests to find in Breath of the Wild, so this doesn't necessarily mean anything, but this little river bank certainly sticks out.

The most embarrassing entry in this Hall of Korok Shame was waiting on the Nephra Hill, north of the Gerudo Canyon. It's so embarrassing, because this is area with absolutely nothing there, except for one rock that sticks out like a sore thumb. And I have flown over this area multiple times, where my Hero's Path even came very close to it... I probably didn't wear the Korok Mask at the time, but I should have seen this from miles away nevertheless.

At least this gave me the confidence that finding all Koroks without using a guide map on the internet is absolutely doable. I've always had the feeling that the Koroks are a bit easier to spot than they were in Breath of the Wild. Well, there are still exceptions, but for the most part you don't even need the Korok Mask.

But this also meant that I had to consider that I'm dealing with some personal blind spots in case of the last three Korok Seeds. So, there might be places with a Korok where I've already been close and for some reason decided that I have no reason to ever look there again. And when I study the map, I usually dismiss places that already have something there, like a shrine or another Korok. But there is no rule that prevents the game from having two Koroks right next to each other or a Korok next to a shrine...

You can imagine how I must have felt when I discovered that there was one last backpack Korok waiting for me, right next to the Siwakama Shrine, at the east edge of the Gerudo Desert. I honestly thought that the one in Akkala (see entry 33) was the last of its kind. But here we are, one last ride to re-unite two friends.

It was even one of the more challenging rides, because the area is patrolled by a Molduga and then you have to cross a lot of sinkholes. I could have just used the hoverbike, but one last time I wanted to do it with the given means. Yihaha!

And to find a double at this stage was hitting the Korok Seed jackpot. But my joy didn't last all too long, because I realized that the double Koroks still only give you 0.04% of map completion... Which put me before a new problem.

The Missing .04%

There are topics all over the internet of people who have found all Korok Seeds, but ended up with 99 point something percent of map completion. This is what can happen if you simply follow a guide map. This even happened to me at the end of my Master Mode playthrough of Breath of the Wild. But I was convinced that this isn't going to happen to me this time, that I'm not going to be one of those people. If you search everywhere with no clue where to look for things, then you will very likely activate all location names and such things.

And it would have added up perfectly if it weren't for this one double Korok that I had just found. Now I was at 99.91% with only one more Korok Seed to find, which meant that I was missing something else somewhere. With the last Korok I'm at least sure that it won't be in the Depths and very sure that it's not in some cave (despite the exceptions). But this one last missing thing on the map could have been anywhere...

At first I was considering that I could be missing a Device Dispenser somewhere, which do count for the 100%.  I even went back to the Fire Temple and the Construct Factory, just to see if there might be a second one at those locations. And I looked into all the orb-shaped sky islands again, because the bigger ones have a dispenser inside them, so maybe one of the smaller ones has one as well. But this wasn't the case. Then there are all the Forge Constructs, small mines and groves in the Depths, where it's easy to miss one, but I seemed to have all of those as well.

And while I'm still determined to find that last Korok Seed on my own, no matter how long it takes, this mystery was so baffling that I decided to use a guide after all, just to find whatever I'm missing. Specifically, I was using the one on gamewith.net.

The very helpful part here were the list of caves with multiple exits, where each exits counts as an individual entry. I was very thorough with exploring all the caves, so I didn't think that this was it, but I had to double-check anyway. And indeed there was one very sneaky cave exit, where I've never went through it, because I hadn't realized that it acted as one.

I'm talking about the Lake Ferona Cave, where you had this little quest with the moon shining through the round entrance... Except that it wasn't the entrance, but a separate hole above, which also counts as its own way in and out of the cave. It makes sense, but from my memory I thought that there was just one way into the cave and that this was where the moon shined through...

But now the last Korok Seed should bring me to 100%, once I manage to find it. I can take my sweet time with it, though, because I'm also still missing four more meals and Kiana is a slow poke. But in the race of what I'm going to finish first, the recipe book or the Korok Seeds, the latter is definitely leading. 

Well, this means that there will be one last entry coming to this blog series to tell you where the very last Korok was hiding and to wrap it all up. So, stay tuned!

Progress:

• Korok Seeds: 999/1000 (+6)
• Recipes: 224/228 (+32)
  
• Map Completion: 99.95%