Yoshi's Island high playthrough log part 1

I've seen a bunch of speedruns of this game and playthroughs of the various Yoshi's Island hacks, but it's been so long since I actually played the original Yoshi's Island myself.

Got really high today and started replaying the GBA version of this.

I kinda like the look of the GBA version more honestly... this style of thick lines and bright colors seems to suit the small screen format better... and the sound quality is fine despite it being on inferior hardware. Some of it is actually improved, like the laggy cave entrance/exit noise doesn't sound as bad on this version for sure...

so far, I'm getting 100% on every level on the first try without any problem.
damn, I broke my perfect streak at 1-6... saw a weird 1up balloon thing after the end goal, and then a shyguy popped out of it and made me lose some stars.

I'm having such an easier time finding everything now compared to the last time I played this... after playing Wooly World and all the other Mario games, I have a much better understanding of how Nintendo designs their levels now, so I intuitively know where to go to look for hidden stuff.

Yooka Laylee playthrough log part 2

- Glitterglaze Glacier 1 -

This place is also very confusing, like the 1st level.. except this level has several doorways that lead through some cave to an upper section of the level.. It feels very big and intimidating at first, but it's actually not that hard to find my way around once I spent a couple hours here... I can find the squid girl and trowzers very easily since they are at the bottom sections where the big lake is, and from there I can easily get to each of the upper sections and the various caves.

Found a minecart character named Kartos.. played his minigame for a pagie.. it's basically just a sidescrolling minecart section where you have to collect a certain number of gems and avoid enemies. you can also shoot bullets out of the cart.. the controls for this feel kinda sloppy and nowhere near as good as the DKC games. at least the music is good.

I got the spring jump move and a move that lets you slurp certain items to gain an elemental status.. so for example this one cold area, I needed to slurp some fire to become warm to get through it, and then light all the torches with my fire status to make the place warm. In the upper section after this part, I found that british skeleton girl and her boiling pot friend again.. and fought some more enemies to get a pagie from her.

The squid girl here transforms you into a snow plough once you find this level's mollycool. This form is only used to destroy certain piles of snow that have hat items underneath them, and they need to be returned to the various snowman characters around the level that are missing their hats. I managed to find and return all the hats to all the snowmen I could find, but didn't get anything for it.. I'm guessing there will be more of them in the expanded version.

Found an underwater cave that leads to a dark platforming section. you can use the glowy plants to make yourself glow for some extra visibility, but it's not really required. I found this section pretty easy, it's all about learning to control your speed in rolling mode so that you have enough precision to not fall off but also don't go slow enough to run out of energy.

Yooka Laylee playthrough log part 1

Played for 3 hours so far... Went through some of the first level and some of the hub world, I got 11 pagies and 115 quills. I was kinda taking my time at first, just enjoying the music and getting used to the controls. I didn't bother expanding the 1st world yet. I'd rather come back to the expanded version of each world later after I've been to every world once.

General non-spoiler thoughts:
The first level of the game already feels more confusing than the early levels of Banjo-Tooie were. I'm finding it kinda hard to recognize where I've been in the level cuz there's not many unique landmarks to go off of.
Other than that, I really like the controls. I like how easy it is to control your speed while rolling, even though the physics of it don't make much sense. You can even stop while rolling up a slope.
The music and writing are great, just as good as Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie in those aspects. Maybe even better.
The graphics look really nice. Playing the superior PC version of course and turned the settings to max, and still getting super smooth framerate. The hub world looks really cool and I like all the little details in the environments, like the glass tubes with pieces of paper getting sucked in through them.

The hub world is fairly simple so far. I've found 3 of the ...10 pagies there are to find in the hub world just by exploring everywhere I can get to at this point.
Unlike in BK, it seems most of the pagies make you solve a puzzle or do a fetch quest in order to collect them. There aren't many that are just sitting out in the open.
Also unlike in BT, the worlds and hub don't have any warp pads. but I guess it doesn't matter much since your character moves a lot faster in this. Going from one side of the first world to the other doesn't take much time at all.
It seems at first like there's no fall damage in this game.. it's weird.. maybe there is but it's a lot more lenient with how much distance you can fall before you take damage.

Recap of my playthrough:

- Hivory Tower 1 -
I wandered around a bit before going to the snake character that teaches you the basic attack move. I was surprised that there's only one move to learn in the first area of the game. Normally in the Banjo games, the first area of the game is a big optional tutorial where you learn several moves and get to practice using them. This game's first area, there's nothing to do except get the attack move from Trowsers and then open the chests that are scattered around and grab a few quills, to open the way into Hivory Tower, where the magic book flew off to. It seems like there's probably more things to do in this first area later on, but I dunno.

Metroid Zero Mission high playthrough log part 1

- Brinstar 1 -
jeez this map system is way too informative, it's like easy mode metroid.
standing chozo show a dot on the map to where your next objective (the next standing chozo) is, very similar to how Fusion's handholdy map consoles worked. except here you need to go to a separate map room to get the map.
oh and I guess some of the standing chozo statues don't give you more map, but all of them point you to where you'll want to go next.
it's also as gated as Fusion's map was, at least early on... after getting the long beam from the midleft of the 1st column, you can go down to the bottom of the 2nd column and get a missile pack, but you can't go past there without the bombs.. can only go through the missile door from the midright of the 2nd column...
oh and this game's version of the metroid 1 enemies are easier than the original.. on normal mode they take way fewer hits to kill and don't do as much damage etc... but there are new enemies exclusive to this game...
after getting the first missile pak there was a giant worm battle, I didn't have enough missiles to kill it and it just ran away.
there's also tiny unkillable things that swarm you and slowly drain your health.. and enemies that infinitely respawn until you kill their spawning point..
after you get the bombs, this is where it actually opens up a little bit.. you can go to Norfair where the next objective marker is, or you can go down near the beginning to the Kraid elevator (just based on recollection)

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse playthrough log part 3/3

The last dungeon has Risky's Cannon. it lets you quadruple jump... This is the big endgame item right here. Now I'll be able to go through each island again and try to collect everything.

After I gained the map to the pirate master's island, Grave Island, I went there immediately, and I think I missed out on some extra dialog in scuttle town because of this...

Risky got captured by the pirate master (her old boss, who got revived thanks to Shantae losing her magic, or something).. and now when I go back to scuttle town, it is completely taken over. Everything is all dark, and nobody is in town except for the shops and Sky.

The palace is also completely different now. It's an actual dungeon. I used my new ability to go up through the palace, and it had a bunch of long platforming gauntlet rooms that made use of all my abilities and had a lot of 1 hit semi-kill spikes and shit...

At the end is the pirate master boss.. beat him and you get the bad ending.

Total Play Time: 09:02:50
Heart Squids Collected: 25/32
Dark Magic Collected: 17/20

In order to get the good ending, you have to collect all the dark magic and go back to Grave Island.

I didn't feel like just backtracking to every room I've been in, so I used a guide to find the rest of the stuff I was missing...

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse playthrough log part 2/3

That 4th island was great... Shantae got captured by the people in the pyramid who thought they were her princess.. and apparently they also captured Risky, Sky, and Rottytops too.. Shantae's cell is the only one that has an escape route. you have to do some easy stealth bits to get passed the guards, and then explore the pyramid to look for keys and rescue the other girls... The actual structure of this area is huge, I got lost in it for like a couple hours... Then finally after rescuing all of the captured girls, the real princess shows up, back from shopping, and we're let go.

The 5th island, Mud Bog... here's where we're getting a lot more lore. Apparently in the 2nd game when Risky took Shantae's magic and converted it into dark magic, and she thought she had destroyed it at the end, that dark magic actually just got scattered about... and now the pirate master is using this dark magic to control Risky's crew, cuz they are like genies now... something like that.

EarthBound high playthrough log part 7

Reading the guide for the Summers/Dalaam section now... it seems that I'm not yet finished the "6th melody" chapter of the game. I stopped at getting the rabbit key. I recall the enemies in the game are getting much harder now, and it expects you to use your teleport ability often in order to stock up on items from all the different shops.
Stopped at page 79 in the guide for now and resume playing

- Dalaam part 2 -

Now at level 51, 42, 42, and 36
Actually the enemies in this Dalaam cave aren't hard at all.. the franklin badge helps a lot, but even without that, the amount of healing capabilities that Ness and Poo have now, and the sheer power that my party has overall, makes these enemies a joke. I explored the whole cave, falling down all the holes...

6th sanctuary boss is quite appropriate... thunder and storm.. two demons interlocked in a yin yang. It was actually kinda tough.. but I managed to beat it in one try with everyone alive, by using good strategy. PSI Freeze is legit.

Sanctuary 6 is on a cloud, hanging on the edge of the floating island...
Ness had a short vision of seeing his mother when she was young. Ness's sound stone recorded the melody of the Pink Cloud.

I just intuitively guessed that the next place you're supposed to go from here is across the ocean, from the port town Toto.. an NPC in Summers earlier said:

Are you from Eagleland? If you like adventure, this isn't your kind of place. You should travel across the sea to Scaraba from Toto, the port town.

This one npc in Toto is acting like he's discovered the big revelation that "dinosaurs existed"...

This sprite zoom out is unexpected. I love this sailing music...

The captain gets seasick for a bit.. is

Breath of the Wild first playthrough log part 19 (Final)

First playthrough commentary: Part 19 (final)

Now at 165 hours played, 53.10% map completion... only a couple shrines left... Maybe I can find them all without a guide after all...

I will probably need a guide for some of these last few sidequests though.

Next I went to do some more Zora's Domain quests... This one where you have to find all the Zora lore writings... I'm actually very interested to see if I can do this one on my own. It seems like all of these monuments are located in places that don't require any climbing, so going with that assumption (which turned out to be correct, sort of), this sidequest becomes very doable. I just had to walk through the Zora's River path again, and explore all of the side paths until I can't go any further without climbing, then go back to where I was and continue... I also had to do this at the areas that the 2 other bridges from Zora's Domain go to.

#5: The sage Ruto
#4: The Lightscale Trident, Mipha's gift
#1: The creation of Zora's Domain 10,000 years ago.
#3: The queen created the white scale, used to create the royal weapons, it reflects sunbeams.
#2: Lanayru rainfall every 10 years, the creation of the reservoir.
#6: Vah Ruta
Addendum #1: Dorephan threw a guardian into the ravine
#7: Zora helm, from the hylian's fight with a Lynel, hidden north of --- in the ruins near ---- Lake

For the last one, I went to talk to Jiahto and he gave me a hint that there's one I haven't found at the southeast cliff of Upland Zorana. This one was pretty tricky... just to the right, passed the west bridge at Zora's Domain, but you do have to climb a bit to get to it unlike the other ones. This last one was the words of the person who carved the monuments.

It turns out I didn't need to memorize any of the info on these monuments. I thought I was gonna be quizzed or something...

I used elimination to find the Zora Helm in a chest in Toto Lake, right at the top of the giant waterfall behind the domain. I finally have the full set of Zora armor, and can now swim a bit faster... but still not nearly as fast as when you go up waterfalls for some reason.

Now I've caught up with everything in my Adventure Log... but according to the totals numbers (which I think only appear after you beat the game), I'm still missing 4 sidequests, and 3 shrine quests. There's also all the compendium stuff to fill out (I'm mostly missing a bunch of identical looking birds and insects and stuff), and whatever pieces of armor and upgrades I'm still missing... and besides that, there will pretty much always be more koroks and treasure chests I have yet to find.

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse playthrough log part 1/3

Story: Scuttle Town's mayor sells the town for chocolates, and the new owner starts tearing everything down and turning it into a cannon/weapon factory... Shantae is just a normal human now, and isn't sure what's going on.. but then Risky shows up, and she tries to get Shantae to help gather what she needs to fight the Pirate Master.

The first part of the game is similar to the usual Shantae overworld, starts out at Shantae's house, then there's Scuttle Town, then the scarecrow fields, then the woods, and after that there's the palace. The palace area has an underground section with some easy enemies... There's a bunch of sidequests you can do here on Scuttle Island, but at first you can't do anything, you have to come back here after each new ability you obtain and there's different NPC dialog/events and you can get further into the sidequest progress and also buy more upgrades from the shop.

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.