Better late than never... In this entry we'll pay Dampé a visit and explore the topic of Automatons. This feature unlocks after the game's mid point at Hyrule Castle, but I hadn't made use of it right away, because I thought that I was still missing a monster...
Well, I wasn't missing anything. I simply misunderstood what he wanted with something that uses smoke to propel itself for the Techtite... Since Nintendo had showcased the automatons quite a bit, I knew how the mechanical version of the Tektite looked like, and I thought I needed a monster that shoots itself in the air on a pillar of smoke like that, where it made sense that I have yet to encounter it at Eldin. But then I just blindly tried a variety of monsters and it turned out that he meant a Mothula, because of one of their attacks, which I completely forgot they had this...
Figuring out the rest was much easier, because you always need one of the very basic enemies, like an Octorok, and then one of the trade items that you can collect everywhere in the world, like the katana from the dojo. I like how these trade items stay in your menu, by the way, but get greyed out once you've used them. This creates a better overview of what you've already achieved in the game.
Speaking of the menu, to charge the automatons you receive the Clockwork Key, which is quite literally a key item, just like the Lockup Key that you get for the Deku prison. When I saw the three gaps in the menu next to the Tri Rod, I was expecting something more important, but it's technically on the same level as the Tri Rod, since the automatons are an alternative to the echoes and go on the opposite end of the D-pad.
I personally doubt that they will become an actual alternative, however, because they don't seem very practical. With echoes you can just keep respawning them if they are in a bad spot or get killed. If an automaton breaks, you won't be able to use it anymore and have to bring it back to Dampé first. And it also takes quite long to use the Clockwork Key... Their effects may be powerful, but I don't see how this makes up for the disadvantages.
A broken automaton can be repaired, but you need to go back to Dampé for this and pay a certain amount of Rupees (depending on the automaton) or two Monster Stones, where this is what you're collecting them for... But this seems very expensive on the long run. You can also trade five Monster Stones for the Clockwork Bangle accessory, which increases your winding speed. But that's only useful if you're going to use them in the first place. To me this looks like an underdeveloped gimmick, where this can't compare to Dampé's role in Link's Awakening.
But there is one advantage automatons have over echoes: there's only six of them, so selecting the right one is quick. While the sorting options of the echoes are quite helpful, the quick select menu becomes so long that it can interrupt the game for too long. I often rely on "Last Used", but then you may need an echo that you haven't used in a while... Good luck finding that.
These selection menus, which are also utilized by Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, have the main flaw that everything is organized horizontally. It would already help a lot if objects and monsters were on different vertical layers. That change alone would make a tremendous difference for me personally, and you could probably split up the monsters in some way as well.
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