Last week I've been traveling (in real life), where I've only played a little bit each evening in handheld mode. And during this time I didn't want to go for anything major, so I focused once more on exploration and doing some things on the sidelines. A lot of my game time on the weekend, where I was back home, then went into scanning amiibo, to unlock all the exclusive fabrics...
After clearing (and cleaning) Zora's Domain, I went back to Lookout Landing to check out any new possibilities. This brought me back to Hyrule Castle for yet another treasure hunt, as well as to Hateno to upgrade my Purah Pad, where afterwards I've been exploring some more around the Necluda region, but also Mount Lanayru. This included some extensive tours through the Depths, where I have been facing a certain someone two more times.
Hidden Castle Treasures
Completing one of the dungeons in Tears of the Kingdom acts as a major milestone, not just for the player, but also for some event-based progression. That's somewhat of a difference from Breath of the Wild, where you could basically do everything without freeing the Divine Beasts. The only exception was the Champions' Ballad DLC, where you had to finish the four main dungeons first.
In Tears of the Kingdom, however, quite a few things only happen at Lookout Landing once you've investigated one of the "regional phenomena" and completed the corresponding dungeon, in my case the Water Temple. Karson, for example, will finally have finished that mini stable, so you can register, board, and take horses at Lookout Landing as well, which adds tremendously to its value as a base of operations.
Jerrin will also have swept a hole in the wall of the bunker, somehow, which gives you quick access to the Horned Statue as well, which has been moved all the way from Hateno, somehow. Like in Breath of the Wild, I don't think I will ever make use of it, because I simply stick to a plan, where I've just followed my best practices from the first title.
(To elaborate, I went for a single stamina upgrade early on, which is usually enough to get that bit of that extra boost you need. Then I put all my Lights of Blessing into Heart Containers until I got 13 total, which used to be the amount required for the Master Sword and generally gives you some leeway. And afterwards I've invested everything into Stamina Vessels, where by now I have the three full wheels... So, from now on it will just be Heart Containers.)
Anyway, you could theoretically get to the Horned Statue before this point in the game, because there is a huge underground cave system spanning all the way to Hyrule Castle, going beneath Hyrule Castle Town. When I last explored the castle and what's left of it on the ground, I simply missed the entrances to these tunnels, where you have to open some grates with the Ultrahand. But these entrances are not the only things that I didn't see before...
In the tunnels you can find all three pieces of the soldier set, but also the Royal Guard Boots. I had previously found the Royal Guard Uniform in the lower sections of the lifted castle, so I deduced that the Royal Guard Cap must be hidden somewhere in the uppermost parts. It simply made sense that way. Since the Champion's Leathers were already in the throne room, there was only one meaningful place left and that's truly where I found the cap... A bit to my embarrassment, I must admit, because I've explored this place before and simply missed the chest behind a corner.
Luckily, I didn't have the right idea right away, which led me to another big thing that I have missed on my previous tours through the castle dungeon. When I had first climbed to the very top I did so on the side that's still whole, but there is an alcove on the other side, inside the damaged roof. I thought that I might find the chest there, but I found something else instead:
The Twilight Bow, right there for the taking. It's actually called "Dusk Bow" now, where for some reason they have renamed all the amiibo weapons in the English version. It also functions differently, where it doesn't shoot Light Arrows any longer, since the game doesn't feature multiple arrow types, like before. Instead, it just shoots normal arrows and they will drop eventually, but the range is still very good and even better than the Phrenic Bow. So, it's probably still the preferred choice for aiming at the dragons. And it's nice that you don't have to play the amiibo lottery any longer to get it, because you can just pick up a new one right there whenever you need it.
For the usual convenience, I even placed my first Travel Medallion in the same spot as always, at the top of the castle... We'll get to the part where I've obtained this ability in a minute, because there is still more that I found, around the ground parts of the castle.
There were some areas that I hadn't explored in the castle, like the docks, the mine shafts (which still have the classic mine carts from Breath of the Wild), or the lockup. The Hylian Shield isn't in its old place, even though the stone slab for it can still be found and read, but there is the Royal Hyrulean Fabric there and the whole room acts as another Gloom Spawn trap. Well, it already triggered the Floormasters when I was investigating the cell from the outside, so no panic for me...
And you can still find the Hylian Shield, where it's actually much easier to obtain now than it was in Breath of the Wild. In fact, if you know where to look, you can just grab right after your tour to the first gatehouse at the beginning of the game. I still have one of those Royal Shields I got from Hyrule Castle as well, so getting the Hylian Shield so early will probably remove the need for any other shields, save for some of the Zonaite / Zonai stuff. Well, I left it in its chest (and loaded a save right before opening it), because I want to know if you can still get good modifiers on it later in the game.
Been There, Done That
The most important event that gets triggered at Lookout Landing after the first dungeon is that Josha can finally tell you more about the Depths. She has found out that the statues in the Depths are creating a trail, where one statue is pointing at the next, similar to the statues in the Gerudo Desert. Well, I already knew as much, but I didn't know that the basic ones are leading you to the central mine. It didn't really matter, of course, because I've already found the place following my own curiosity...
So, I could show the two Sheikah my Autobuild ability right away and finally get Robbie to move his butt back to the Hateno lab, which lets you obtain some more goodies for the Purah Pad. And here I had a very similar picture of overachieving...
Robbie: "Here is the Shrine Sensor, try it to find the shrine below the lab..."
Link: "..."
Robbie: "Oh, you had already found it, as expected from you! Never mind, but for the next upgrade you need to travel all the way to my old lab in Akkala and bring me the prototype of—"
Link: "You mean this thing?"
Robbie: "Oh, come on now...!"
This went on for pretty much everything, where I could get the sensor+, a second Travel Medallion, and the Hero's Path right away, because I already had all the necessary requirements. And I'm certain that many of you had a similar experience. It really seems like you are supposed to go for one of the dungeons as early as possible, so that the Hateno Lab creates some actual goals for you, but if you explore even a little bit then this will be a joke.
Only the third Travel Medallion is not available to me yet, because it requires you to have activated all Skyview Towers, but I'm already happy to have one more extra. In Breath of the Wild I made hardly use of the thing, because I've usually put it at the top of Hyrule Castle (as already mentioned) and just leave it there, since this is one of the most convenient locations for it. But with one extra I can finally utilize it in new ways, like creating return points whenever I'm in need of supplies.
As for the Hero's Path Mode, they seemed to have fixed it from how it worked before. In Breath of the Wild it came with this weird behavior, where it recorded absolutely everything, even when loading a previous save file. This was even a bit sneaky, where the path first is correct, and then it merges everything after loading once more. So, you load a previous save, because you've screwed up somehow or for whatever reason, and the Hero's Path picks up exactly where you left off in that save, as you would expect. But if you now save your game and load this save file, it will have also recorded everything you did before loading the older save, where it then displays you as teleporting.
It was a bit of a mess and created a variety of problems, because the path showed you going to places where you technically never been before. And it discouraged using any save file other than the most recent one after booting the game...
Tears of the Kingdom has fixed this and it now works exactly as you would expect. So, if you load a previous save, the Hero's Path picks up from there and that's it. It stays clean and only shows you where you have been for real. And this makes me happy – it's small improvements like this I've always wanted for Breath of the Wild. It's just too bad that it took an entire sequel for them to happen.
But that's it for the Purah Pad, eh, Robbie? No Master Cycle? No Bombs? No Cryonis? Can I have Stasis+ back, please? No...?
Up For Grabs
Since I was at Hateno, I decided to just go and explore from there. This led me to the circular road near Lake Jarrah, which sadly is another Gloom Spawn spawn point... It's a good thing that I've avoided this area when I first went to Hateno to check out the house or else I would probably have been a lot more afraid of it than I already was after my first encounter at the Great Plateau. But by now I have little reason to be afraid of it, where it was time for a good fight...
I'm otherwise still quite hesitant with battling big foes, however, because this game still has level scaling. By now Silver Bokoblins are popping up everywhere, who have this funny glowing bobbles for their horns, which makes them look like an anglerfish. And this spirals, where you keep fighting stronger enemies and this makes everything in the world stronger. This wouldn't be a problem in itself if it didn't cause things to forever disappear in Breath of the Wild, mostly some Lynel weapons and the Blue Lynels altogether in Master Mode. And I'm a bit worried that they have repeated the same mistake and I'm going to miss something somewhere, because I've taken one too many fights.
Bubbul Diet
My travels then went along the southern mountains of the Necluda regions, where ultimately I ran into Koltin's shop for the first time, at the Farosh Hills. His brother was certainly a bit smarter when it came to choosing his landing spots, but in the end Link will be their only customer anyway. Finally, I could trade all the Bubbul Gems that I've been collecting from caves, where it leaves a checkmark on the entrance on the map whenever you find it. And while this offers a certain satisfaction in itself, it's of course always better to get some rewards for such collectibles.
In this case you can obtain all the monster masks, which includes a new one for the Horriblins. And these masks might actually be useful again, depending on where you will find Majora's Mask. Ideally, it's one of the final rewards you get from Koltin or hidden in some dangerous place, because in Breath of the Wild you could just get it right after the Great Plateau and there was no point in purchasing any of the monster masks. It completely made them obsolete.
Well, here you have to get them at least once in any case, because Koltin only offers his rewards in a certain order, where you have to take what he offers next. There are some rare monster parts in between, which includes some stuff I haven't gotten before, but I already had enough Bubbel Gems to get the Lynel Mask.
It's funny how he says that he probably needs to eat lots of Bubbul Gems all at once to make his dream come true of becoming a Satori. But instead of asking for everything you got, he starts with two gems... And then asks for two more, where afterwards the amount slowly increases, like with Hestu and Korok Seeds. By all accounts, he is not the smartest tool in the shed, but as long as I get new armor pieces out of it, I'm fine.
There is even a completely new set to obtain here, the mystic set based on Satori, where I've gotten two of its pieces, the Mystic Robe and Trousers. They function like the Magic Armor from Twilight Princess, so when you take a hit, it will cost you Rupees instead of health. That's an interesting addition and a fitting ability, considering that the Blupees were all about Rupees, at least in Breath of the Wild.
It doesn't protect you from fall damage, environmental damage, or gloom, however, and I have yet to figure out why you would want to wear more than one piece at a time (other than the potential set bonus), but it's not like I will make good use of it anytime soon, because I'm always
short on Rupees and there is so much stuff to buy, like the housing
containers, other armor pieces, and armor upgrades...
You can say about the modern Zelda games what you want, where the open world direction is divisive among the fans, but one thing they've absolutely nailed is making Rupees useful, up to a point where I'm actually happy about finding some in a treasure chest.
Vehicular Messes
The whole idea of building vehicles is something I still haven't embraced all that much, because I usually end up being unsatisfied with the results. Also, whenever you find pieces to build something, it either seems too contrived, because it gives you exactly what you need, or it feels too inconvenient, because it's missing something crucial and then you need to use your capsules to complete things. Only the stashes in the Depths give you more options, but often I also end up desiring something there, usually the headlights... Why are there rarely ever headlights? It's pitch-black down there!
There are the exceptions where I build a vehicle that works and it takes me to where I want to go, but often I just crash my constructions in the nearest pond of gloom and I just leave it behind in frustration, going by foot again... Oh, how much I miss the Master Cycle Zero!
And for transporting Koroks it can be annoying when you find something, but not really what you might want. Well, it forces you to get creative, at least... Like, for example this improvised side car cycle:
There were two stone plates, two big wheels, and a steering wheel available. What to make out of it? A stone cycle, of course! I guess, I could have made something that drags the Korok to his destination, but this was way cooler.
Familiar Things
Near the Popla Foothills Tower you can find one of those Bokoblin forts, where I was not happy to discover that the entire thing is identical to the one to the east of Zora's Domain, including the underlying terrain. Well, copy pasted structures are not a new thing for Zelda games, so it's not just about that. The Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild both had plenty, but they usually were small and always distinct in a way, so it wasn't as bad. (Except for the reefs, the reefs were really bad.) Copying a whole fortress is a different story, however.
They've been quite lazy with this, where the Depths are filled with the ever-same buildings and giant plants, which gets very repetitive. And I've already talked about the identical sky islands that are seemingly everywhere... After five years of development and re-using the same overworld I expected a bit more here.
At least, I've been to one unique sky island this time, and that's the Zonaite Forge Island. I went there with a glider from the top of the Great Sky Islands, but I also could have used the Zora Armor to reach it, as I discovered afterwards. But this particular island already stands out from a distance, inviting you to explore it.
It's where you have to sky dive through the lasers, as seen in the final trailer, and at the bottom you can find the Zonaite Waistguard, a part of yet another new set, where in this case it improves the capacity of your Energy Cell, if I got this correctly. There is so much new armor to collect in this game, on top of what you've already had in Breath of the Wild, that I had to look up whether you even have enough space for it all in your inventory or not. But the new armor limit is apparently 150 and it is indeed enough, but not by much. (Breath of the Wild had 107 unique pieces in the end, but only space for 100, which was a bit of a problem... one that I keep mentioning again and again.)
The dangerous sky dive also leads you a Proving Grounds Shrine, where you have to fight in low gravity, which was a lot of fun and turned the whole island into a rich experience. I would have expected a Blessing Shrine here, where similar to Breath of the Wild it seems a bit random when you receive one. Well, in Breath of the Wild the problem usually was that it didn't make sense from a story perspective, but you still had to undergo some sort of Shrine Quest to get a Blessing.
Here this is often the case as well and the Shrine Quests are usually coming from the shrines directly, like with the crystals, where it makes absolute sense to receive a Blessing. But then there are Shrines inside caves, where you have to do nothing other than just finding them, and you still get a Blessing, just like that, like the Susub Shrine near Deya Village, or the Jogou Shrine at Mount Lanayru.
The Zakusu Shrine, also at Mount Lanayru, on the other hand requires you to solve a Shrine Quest, "The High Spring and the Light Rings", where you have snowboard through some rings in time, like in one of Revali's trials during the Champions' Ballad. It's the exact same thing, really, only in green. And you would expect a Blessing, but instead it asks you to survive another Proving Grounds afterwards...
Why didn't they swap the two shrines here? What is the meaning of all this? And why can't I put down that hoodie...? At least for the last question I finally found the answer...
The Secret of the Hood
I've previously assumed that there might be another variant of the Hylian Hood, where it's put down, maybe even the one that Zelda wore in the beginning of the game... It's a bit simpler, but also a lot less convenient. You have to talk to Cece in Hateno while wearing the Hylian Hood and she will put it down for you... (I guess, this will only work after completing the mayoral election side adventures.)
Talk to her again and she will put it on your head again. Apparently, Link is a small child unable to alter his clothing himself. He probably also needs Cece to tie his shoelaces for him... Why in the world didn't Nintendo just make this an entry in the inventory menu? What if a player wants to put the hoodie up or down depending on the situation, e.g. the weather? You have to go to Hateno and talk to a character every time you want to change this... It couldn't possibly be any less convenient.
So, my idea was to buy a second Hylian Hood, where I keep the other variant, similar to how you might want the same piece in different colors. But you can't do this either, because Cece will then change both hoods at once...
Ugh!! I'm... seeing... red... Well, I suppose I will just keep it as it was. It's nice that you can change the Hylian Hood now, but with how they've implemented it there is no way that I'm going to make proper use of it. Just the usual Nintendo things.
Update: it turned out that you can still get two different Hylian Hoods by buying a second one. You need to first put down your current hood before the purchase, then buy the second one, which will be put up by default. (Thanks to CheenoJones for pointing this out!) So, now you can switch between the two states as you please:
However, you will have to invest the resources and Rupees to upgrade the second one. And you will have to be really careful when talking to Cece afterwards, where you either need to deny her request to change the hood or simply don't wear it in her shop, because otherwise she will synchronize both Hylian Hoods and it was all for naught... So, this is still just a workaround for something that shouldn't be as complicated to begin with.
amiibo Ambitions
Talking about awkward Nintendo things, there are also amiibo to ruin your day. Well, they've made the truly good change that you can now find all the armor pieces and weapons, which were previously exclusive to amiibo in Breath of the Wild, like the Dusk Bow mentioned above. You can even purchase more of them at the giant Poe statue. So, that's all fantastic and leaves the amiibo as a cheat for obtaining these items early and for free, which in theory is totally fine with me and something I prefer over how Breath of the Wild has handled things.
But there are still amiibo-exclusive items with the Paraglider fabrics, where by now almost every Legend of Zelda amiibo offers one. I wouldn't mind if the fabric was the first thing you get from scanning, but it's not and they seem to be awfully rare. Yes, this was not my initial impression, where the last time I got eight of the fabrics just from giving all my amiibo a try. I only save-scummed a bit to confirm that it still can be done... But either I was very lucky at the time or the probabilities change after some point, e.g. after having finished one of the dungeons, because it took me over three hours to get the other fourteen fabrics...
They are even rarer than the other special items, very much so. I got over a dozen "Dusk Claymores" from Ganondorf before the Demon King Fabric, for example. It was absolutely infuriating and I don't know how long it would take to get everything without save-scumming. But I only really wanted the fabrics and nothing else, because you can find everything else in the game and using the amiibo feels too much like cheating now, so this is why I kept saving and reloading until I got what I wanted.
At least I got a preview of the new Awakening set, which is hilarious. I've already seen it in the artbook, so this didn't come as a surprise, but I can't wait to find the whole thing for real. This is the silliest look and will make for some goofy scenes. The amiibo doesn't seem to come with a special weapon, though, at least I didn't get any. But the Egg Fabric became my new favorite:
As you may know, Link's Awakening was my first Zelda game and the remake is still among my top 3 Zelda games, so I love this design very much and it will accompany me for a while, where this alone was worth all the trouble.
Some of the amiibo are treated as identical by the game, so you can use them at once to try to obtain the same fabric. They are the following:
- Smash Link and Twilight Princess Link
- Smash Toon Link and Wind Waker Link
- Smash Young Link and Ocarina of Time Link
Only the last couple is new, where previously the Young Link amiibo dropped fish and a chest with weapon stuff, but no special items. It's a shame that they didn't bother with adding something here, e.g. the Kokiri Sword and Deku Shield... But at least it's one less fabric you need to grind.
Wolf Link also doesn't seem to do anything this time, it only drops meat. I think that the ingame Wolf Link simply didn't make the cut, because it interfered with the new partner system. But maybe they will patch it back in, once Twilight Princess HD becomes available for the Nintendo Switch and more people will have the opportunity to prep the amiibo.
So, if you want the Mirror of Twilight Fabric, the Wolf Link amiibo won't do you any good, so you will have to scan either the Link from Super Smash Bros. 4 or Twilight Princess. And this may create a bit of a problem:
Using any of these amiibo for the first time will spawn Epona. Since I've still had one from Breath of the Wild, I ended up with another... And even though I brought that one to the stable as well, where now I have two Eponas, the amiibo kept spawning more Eponas every now and then... Which is either different from Breath of the Wild, where you only could get one from the same amiibo, or some bug.
The solution to this problem is quite simple, however, because Epona now won't spawn in places where you can't take here to a stable. So, simply scan your amiibo on a sky island and you won't get any unwanted legendary horses...
Update: You can also get the Mirror of Twilight Fabric from the Wolf Link amiibo, in fact, which occasionally drops a chest instead of just meat. (Thanks to Speckmantelmade for the info!)
Now, after all these efforts, here is the complete list of all 22 fabrics that I got from scanning all the amiibo over and over again:
Well, I'm done with amiibo for now, until they release more of them...
Follow the Glory
Josha mentions that there is another set of statues, which leads away from the giant temple in the center of the Depths to somewhere else. This one looked like it could be Sonia or Hylia or simply a Hylian woman, so I've decided to follow it in the hopes of finding maybe something about Zelda's whereabouts.
But these statues are probably meant to resemble the Seven / Eight Heroines and to represent the Gerudo, where they lead below the Gerudo Desert, past by the South Lomei Depth Labyrinth. In the trailers it looked like the Lomei Labyrinths got lifted into the sky somehow, like Hyrule Castle, but this isn't the case. Instead, there (always) have been three labyrinths in the same spot: one on the ground, one in the skies, and one in the Depths. Only the former was accessible and visible in Breath of the Wild, where I'm looking forward to how this will all play out now. But in this case I couldn't do anything, where it looks like you have to access the lower labyrinth from the one above.
Back to following the heroine statues, they will lead you to the Gerudo Abandoned Mine. And this is where you will meet this guy again:
He didn't fall for the disguise, though... And I would suspect that Josha is secretly working for the Yiga by luring you to these places if Kohga didn't already tell me that he would go to there. He also announces his next destination with the Lanayru Mine, where I've already been there, so it's another thing where I'm a bit ahead. Josha also tells you to investigate the Zora statues in the area, but I've already found the mine from a cave under Zora's Domain... Which was a bit disappointing at the time, because there was nothing much there, so the whole discovery felt completely meaningless.
But this was before you can participate in boat battles! I just love how each time you face Kohga you get something completely different. At the Gerudo Mine he attacks you from a glider with cannons, which was a bit more challening than the boats, but I appreciate the diversity.
His last stop is beneath the Hebra Mountains and he can count himself lucky that I haven't been there yet or else we would be fighting again already. I'm going to investigate this once I go for the Rito, but Death Mountain will come first. Until then, there is still some glory left to Master Kohga!
Progress:
- Sage's Vows: 1
- Sage's Wills: 4
- Memories: 7/18
- Towers: 11
- Shrines: 74
- Lightroots: 40
- Korok Seeds: 222
