Breath of the Wild first playthrough log part 18

Found Ganondorf's giant horse in Taobab Grassland... It's not really THAT big, of course, you can still climb on it. This horse is pretty slow, but it has unlimited stamina.

Next I tried horseback archery again, and got 20 points for the Knight's Bridle.

Went to Typhlo Ruins... a completely pitch dark maze where a shrine is hidden somewhere... It's similar to the pitch darkness from the beginning of the Vah Rudania dungeon, but it's much harder to find your way around, even with a torch. The shrine is up on a raised platform, and its orange glow is obscured by the walls of the ruins so that it's not easy to find.

Then I finally started exploring more of the Hebra region... there was still quite a few shrines here that I was missing. Some of them were inside a mountain cave where you have to roll a snowball down a hill so that the snowball grows big enough to bust the cave's door open. Also one of these caves had the Hebra Leviathan bones inside.

Found a shield-surfing obstacle course... wow this is fun... it's about as long as TP's snowboarding course. Hebra is definitely the best place for shield surfing, since the snowy surface doesn't degrade your shield. I also found a few hot springs in this mountain region... They're named after certain characters, but I can't find those characters anywhere, I dunno if they even exist anywhere in the game.

I had to look up a guide to find this "electric dorner" insect that I needed for a quest... I've NEVER found one of these before in my entire playthrough... I found out they hang out in the area behind Hyrule Castle... but even then it was really tough to find some of them.

7 shrines remaining... I know one of them is on Eventide Island which i haven't done yet... It's getting very close to the point where I'm tempted to use a guide more and more.

This shrine quest in Rito Village has me stumped...

The pride of the rito, pillar in the sky, its heart lights up when the sun is high. The heart shines upon a path not whole, but a warming flame can stir its soul.

Found another rito shrine quest, where I had to gather all the loli birds together to get them to sing at Warbler's Nest... Oh wow, this sidequest is actually really fun despite it being a big fetch quest, following hints from each of the characters to find where the next one is, and getting something for them from the rito shops... One of the sisters was hanging out way up on a ledge above the elder's home.

After you complete this quest, all 5 of the sisters are together in the village with their dad, Kass, and they're all singing along to Kass's accordion playing... OMG I love this... I will never let anyone try to convince me that this game doesn't have great music.

Later at night, Kass is there playing the accordion on his own... and he tells the story of his poetry teacher who was close to the royal family... His teacher was a shiekah who fled to Kakariko after the calamity happened... on the way, he witnessed Link sacrifice himself to save the princess... Because of this, Kass went off to find the ancient songs of the hero in order to try and help out any way he could. This is some really neat lore. I wonder if the story DLC will take place in the past and expand on this stuff further.

I climbed up to where the divine beast Vah Medoh is, and from there I saw an orange plate way down below... still no idea what this heart quest is about...
OH!! Just then, I looked down toward the shadow that was cast by the divine beast, and there was a small hole in the middle of the shadow in the shape of a heart, and it was quickly moving toward the glowing pedestal. I went down to the pedestal, shot a fire arrow up throw the bird's heart... bam, shrine get.

Another shrine quest that I missed somehow... a kid in Rito Village hints towards a strange place in Hebra Mountains... It turns out I already found the shrine for this quest, and the shrine quest auto-completed.

Next I started exploring Gerudo Canyon some more... I didn't really explore hear much beyond the first time I came to the desert. Those NPCs that got left behind in the canyon by some coward... they were up on the scaffolding walkways, being attacked by Bokoblins. Fighting enemies on these narrow walkways feels really dangerous and epic.

Found a bunch of Gorons randomly hanging out ontop of the Gerudo Canyon... They have a dumb little game where you have to try and withstand heat for a few minutes without wearing any clothing... Potions are allowed, making this stupidly easy... and for some reason, completing their minigame makes a shrine appear out of the ground. What?

Next I went to Satori Mountain at night, and finally completed the Lord of the Mountain quest... I wasn't expecting a bunch of those blupee creatures to show up here... the Lord of the Mountain has that same creepy face that the blupees have... he's really hard to sneak up on. If you manage to tame him, you get to ride him around for a while with really creepy background music... and if you try to take him to a stable, the NPCs freak out and say that you've angered the gods and cursed everyone by bringing this creature here... The mountain lord disappeared before I was able to try killing it.

Now I'm exploring more of the border between the canyon and the desert... it's interesting seeing what the likely intended paths are... There's an obvious intended walking path from Gerudo Stable to Wasteland Tower... and there's a whole linear walking path along the upper part of the canyon that goes from Wasteland Tower and eventually leads across to where the Gerudo Tower is.

Next I found a random NPC in west Hyrule near Upland Lindor, who challenges Link to a footrace. This is obviously a reference to OoT's running man race. The only thing you get for this is rupees. The race itself is a little more interesting than you'd think. It's full of a bunch of scripted events where trees get knocked over, and boulders fall toward you as you're running up the hillside and stuff...

I also fully explored the bottom of that gorge, and found the golfing minigame that requires you to launch a ball with stasis... because of course there wouldn't be any other tools to play golf with besides the Shiekah Slate... I suck at this minigame.

Next I did the Floria Lakeside Stable sidequest, where I had to figure out what was causing the frequent lightning storms. Originally I thought it had to do with all the metal balls that were in the water at the tops of all the waterfalls... so I went around removing all the metal balls from the water, thinking that them being in the water was what was attracting the lightning... but that didn't do anything, and the game doesn't remember that you moved the balls anyway... then as I glided back down towards the stable, I saw a metal axe sitting ontop of the stable building... I grabbed that, and it turns out THAT is what was causing the lightning.

Then I went to do Eventide Island, and it was really easy this time when I used the intended strategy of stealing the ball from the sleeping Hinox without fighting it... After that, I noticed a Rito hanging around on the island, and he has a really fun gliding minigame where you have to go through as many rings as possible... There are a bunch of wind gusts to help you stay up in the air, and the path of rings branches off into multiple paths, so that it's really really hard to get all of them.