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.

Breath of the Wild first playthrough log part 17

First playthrough commentary: Part 17

This is the high session where I completed the last divine beast, cleared up a few other things, and then beat the game a 2nd time to see the good ending.

I'm sick of having to gimp myself in thunderstorms... I need to get that Thunder Helm.

I like this Gerudo Town sidequest where you need to track down the source of the litter coming from the waterway ontop of the buildings... A gerudo is sitting up there munching on fruits and throwing her disgusting slobber-filled waste into the town's drinking water.

Damn I have no idea where Barta went... somewhere near the Fairy Fountain, near a Molduga, I think? Oh wait, she's right there near a shrine that I passed by before... I must have just missed her.

Thunder Helm get.

Now it's time to finally knock out this last divine beast quest... I talked to everyone in Goron City... went to the North Mine to search for Yunobo... Had to do some platforming across a lava section, with a bunch of annoying archer Lizalfos shooting at me. I'm seeing all these red rocks that I can't break with bombs or anything... and Yunobo is stuck behind one of them... hmm...

Oh, I bet I have to go back and get the boss's permission to use the cannons... er, no, it's just that it wasn't obvious how to use them.

I swear these Lizalfos found a way to respawn without the blood moon... Or maybe it's because I'm not killing them when I make them fall in the lava? Yeah that's gotta be it.

Yunobo's voice sounds really stupid. This little wimp is the descendant of Daruk, and uses the shield ability whenever he gets scared. The elder uses the cannons to shoot Yunobo at Vah Rudania with his shield ability to keep him away from Goron City.

I did this weird sidequest where I had to go down a hill to get a rock roast for a hungry goron, and then there are moblins and falling rocks getting in my way as I climbed back up the hill while carrying the rock roast.

Found my 100th shrine, near the Bridge of Eldin (lol why is this dinky little drawbridge named after that huge epic bridge from TP?)

The Bridge of Eldin, the only way to get up to the Death Mountain Summit, was raised in order to keep Vah Rudania out of Goron City. Yunobo helps Link get across. This is the hottest part of Death Mountain, where you need all 3 pieces of the flameproof armor to survive... the visual effect of the heat here is intense...

Breath of the Wild first playthrough log part 16

Explored the bell tower above the sanctum, found all the koroks I could, and then went into the Sanctum to fight Ganon.

Went and killed Fireblight Ganon, and then fought the true Calamity Ganon. Fireblight was kinda tricky, until I realized you could use bombs to knock him out when he charges a giant fireball... He can also be defeated really quickly if you don't care about using up bomb arrows.

Calamity Ganon was a pretty decent boss fight. He shoots guardian lasers at you, and only becomes vulnerable when you deflect them back at him.

Then when that boss fight is over, you're back outside the castle, in Hyrule Field... and Calamity Ganon manages to return to his beast form, and then Link gets on his horse, and picks up the Bow of Light sent down from the sky by Zelda... She seems to have full control over her Hylia powers now... She talks to Link throughout the fight and points out Ganon's weak points that you have to shoot. The Bow of Light shoots farther than any other bow, and has unlimited arrows.

Ganon barely does anything except stand there and shoot a giant explosive beam out of his mouth every once in a while. He turns toward you at a snail's pace... I did have a bit of trouble hitting his last weak point, until Zelda pointed out that I should use the updraft from Ganon's attack to get a clearer shot... That part was really cool, but the rest of it was way too easy. It's a real shame, this beast form seems so intimidating and powerful, but defeating him is stupidly easy. I wonder if trying to beat this without using the horse would be much harder.

There we go, I got the "You don't remember me, do you?" ending.

The peak of the Bell Tower above the sanctum is probably the most epic vista in the whole game. I just had to go back up there again and jump off, gliding towards the south... I landed back near south Hyrule Field... Hyrule Field is so peaceful now after I cleared out nearly all the enemies.

Breath of the Wild first playthrough log part 15

I'm now at 90 shrines and 180 korok seeds.

I guess I'll go and beat Ganon next... I wanna see if there's a different ending from beating him before doing all the divine beasts, and getting all the memories.
Impa has updated dialog depending on how many of the divine beasts you've completed, and after certain other main quest stuff.

Woah... I defeated a Stalnox and got the Gale Boomerang, an item from TP...

Explored around the ruined Hyrule Castle Town after taking out all the guardians roaming around there... got the memory where Zelda is appointing Link as her knight... and I found a few more shrines and a bunch more korok seeds around here... and at the prison area to the west of the castle.

Then I took a ract and found an opening that leads into the bottom floor of the castle dungeon... defeated a Stalnox in a dead end room, and got the Hylian Shield... Went back outside and found another bottom entrance from the moat, which leads into the docks... Found a shrine inside the castle by lighting some torches... classic Zelda vibes right there...

Then I found the library.
Royal Recipe #1: Fruitcake, 2 fruits, Tabantha wheat, and sugar
Royal Recipe #2: Monster Cake. Tabantha wheat, sugar, butter, and monster parts.
Cool, these are the recipes I needed for a couple of sidequests.

The atmosphere in this castle is amazing... it feels more like a real, actual lived-in castle than any other version of Hyrule Castle in the Zelda series.

Found the dining hall and some more royal weapons...
Then I found the observation deck, which overlooks Castle Town and Hyrule Field... of course everything looks bleak and depressing in its current state.

Went around more of the outside of the castle, to another lower door, that looks like it's been dug out of the wall... Basically I'm just entering every single door I can find, going in order from the bottom up.
Oh shit, it's the East Passage that I heard about... there's a Talus, a mine cart you can ride with stasis, and another way into the library...

Kept exploring some more, destroying every enemy so I could explore in peace... Found the guards' chamber on the mid level... Got lost on the outside again... entered a random tower and it locked me in with a white Lynel battle, in a very small space... AND there's a Ganon sludge enemy generator spawning a bunch of those little floating stal head enemies... I also encountered another tower just like this, with a blue Lynel inside... both rewarded you with a chest for clearing them out.

Breath of the Wild first playthrough log part 14

Currently at 102 hours played.

Now I'm finding a bunch more koroks in the Faron Woods/Lake Floria area that I haven't found yet... this place is so dense and confusing compared to the other areas. Also I'm going crazy trying to find this one shrine... then I see an orange glow on the reflection of the water... AHA! It's behind the waterfall!

Now exploring more of East Necluda... got 3 balls from 3 sleeping Hinox enemies and put them in the 3 glowing pedestals to make a shrine appear.
.. Found a broken heart-shaped pond...

Found Kass with another riddle at Hateno Beach...

At 17 of 24, this rock will point toward its retrieval.

At first I was like, "wtf this makes no sense", but then I thought about it some more... lol it's another shadow pointing somewhere at a certain time of day puzzle.

Decided to go back to Gerudo and get the snow boots back before exploring Lanayru Mountain... but now the guy with the snow shoes wants me to get him a picture of the Eighth Heroine's sword in exchange for both pairs of shoes... I came across that before, but forgot where it was... It's up in the really low visibility part of the Gerudo Highlands somewhere... didn't take me too long to find it again.

Then I explored West Gerudo Ruins in a sandstorm... the sandstorm removes all your minimap/map access and makes you feel completely lost... found the shrine that the 7 heroine statues scattered around the desert are all pointing towards... and found a few more shrines and the 4th Great Fairy... as well as the Leviathan bones in the desert.

Just realized... I like how certain NPCs talk about interesting locations in a way that subtly guides you to where shrines are. It kinda reminds me of the old man hints in LoZ.

Woah... east of the Great Fairy is a location named "Arbiter's Grounds"... or at least what's left of it... I think the desert sand must've risen above nearly the whole thing at this point, cuz you can only see the top tips of the structure coming out of the sand.

Okay now I'll go to Mount Lanayru... I haven't really explored this area at all, except for that one time I ran through it on my way to Hateno.
Got to the top... found the ice dragon Naydra, trapped on the mountain by Ganon sludge.

I guess Naydra is supposed to be your introduction to the dragon spirits... This is a whole event sequence where you have to shoot the Ganon sludge off of Naydra while it's flying around, and then it teaches you how to get scales from it.

Breath of the Wild first playthrough log part 13

This high session was really amazing...
Short summary:
Started off by exploring the Forgotten Temple in that canyon in west Hyrule. Then I beat the Gerudo dungeon, then explored the desert and did a few of the post-dungeon sidequests, and the Gerudo Heroine statues puzzle... then I did the Rito dungeon, this was way easier and shorter than Gerudo.

Long summary:

Wow... wtf at this shrine sensor on the north-most part of the Tabantha gorge... the shrine is like invisible or something...
ohhh... I went back south and fell further down into the pit, and then turned around and found the entrance to the Forgotten Temple... It's this huge indoor area with a unique aesthetic... There's a ton of stationary guardians here. If you go through it slowly you can safely deflect their lasers one at a time and get through it safely... but you can also just run through and try to dodge all the constant barrage of guardian lasers.

At first I thought this might be the secret underground entrance to Hyrule Castle that I heard about... that would be really cool. But then I got to the end, and it's a dead end with a huge goddess statue, very similar to the one from the Temple of Hylia in Skyward Sword... I wonder if this is the same place as that.

Back to Gerudo Town... I brought the Thunder Helm back to Riju, and she says to go meet her out by the lookout area near the sandstorm, and bring a sand seal. She's bringing her own sand seal, Patricia.
Riju is getting all mystical here, like she's summoning the strength of all her Gerudo heroine ancestors...
This section is very similar to the Vah Ruta battle scene, but you're riding a sandseal and following behind Riju, and trying to stay in her thunder-proof forcefield to protect against Vah Rudania's attacks as you shoot each of its feet.

Wow this dungeon has a really neat aesthetic... And the big central room can be rotated around vertically in multiple separate parts... this is like the Stone Tower Temple gimmick except more complex, and you can actually move around and stuff while the room is rotating around. Also there's some stuff involving electrical circuits that you have to connect together, like in some of the shrines found around here...

It's a bit confusing to find all the terminals... I really like this kind of difficulty. It's way better than the elephant dungeon.

Breath of the Wild first playthrough log part 12

I got reminded about the Spring of Power from North Akalla Stable... found it easily, but it's patrolled by some guardian drones... Offerring Dinraal's scale to the spring makes a shrine appear, with a flame weapon inside. And also found the memory there, where Zelda is frustrated because her spiritual training isn't going anywhere.

Hudson was one of the construction workers in Hateno Village... after buying that house, Hudson came to Akalla to try and build a new town. He's on this high, mini plateau in the middle of Lake Akalla. He's decided to call this place Tarrey Town, and he says he needs help finding some people to help build and populate the town... and due to the regulations of the company he works for, he can only employ people whose name ends in "son"... This seems like a really long quest where you need to find a certain character from each town and bring them here.

Spent a bit more time in/around Hateno, getting to know the characters better... I also found this weird horse target range area that I don't know what to do with yet.

Next I explored the 4 islands named after the Tingle characters from Wind Waker... This is a really confusing set of bridge paths connecting all the islands... some bridges go to lower sections and some go to higher sections of the same island... There's a bunch of enemies here that would be hard if I wasn't so stacked up with crazy good gear at this point... and not much else but tons of ore and koroks to find... and a few flying guardians that aren't even worth destroying because all their loot just falls down way below into the ocean.

Next, I went back to Foothill Stable and finally decided to start scaling Death Mountain for real.

Breath of the Wild first playthrough log part 11

Wow, I'm totally lost trying to find the Hebra tower... Also a lot of shrines seem to be hidden underground, like there's some cave entrance I need to find that the shrine sensor doesn't help me with... This is a pretty tough region to explore. There's a lot of good shield surfing spots here though.

Found some shrines and a snowball bowling minigame where you can win rupees... Finally found the tower a bit later.

North Lomei Labyrinth... wow the shrine in this place was really cleverly hidden... found a ton of good loot too.

Next I explored the outside of Death Mountain... Found Dinraal, the fire dragon, and got his scale. Found one of the Leviathan skeletons, and found a Goron climbing challenge where a goron blocks a shrine until you complete the easy version of the challenge at least once... it's just a climbing challenge where you have to collect as many rupees as you can.

Next I went to the other Labyrinth I saw off the north coast of Akalla... it's like a big isolated maze island out in the ocean, similar to in Zelda 2. This labyrinth is patrolled by flying guardian drones, making it much harder to explore the top of it. And there's even a walking guardian inside the bottom of the maze, in an open space that branches out into a bunch of other maze paths. By now I've gotten a good feel for how to deflect the guardian's lasers... but I find the drone guardians are still really hard to deflect.

After finding the shrine in this labyrinth, there was an open hole with wind coming out of it... I fell down through the hole and came into this huge open underground area filled with dead guardians... after opening a chest, some of the dead guardians came back to life... They're easy to deflect when there's just one of them, but fighting like 3 at once is an ordeal... some of them even started doing combo chain attacks... and then others came back to life as I came close to them and try to collect the materials...

Akalla definitely seems to be one of the more guardian-infested areas.

I got an anti-guardian accessory from the chest here... and also all 3 of these labyrinth shrines had attack-up clothing, and I now have the whole set... wow, I feel way stronger at this point. I could probably knock out all 3 of the remaining divine beasts and beat the game at this point. I guess what I'll do next is go to Death Mountain and see what's up with that divine beast quest, and then after I pull out the Master Sword, I'll do each of those beast quests all in a row.