Jeff's Gaming Blog

I returned to Hateno Village to complete some more side quests, including one where I had to sneak around to see where Cece (the fashion designer) would go late at night. Except that I went about it the wrong way, and she threw me out. 😆

My next attempt was successful, though. The side quest reminded me of some of the quests in Majora’s Mask, where you also had to follow people to see what they did at certain times. Anyway, I completed the steps required to begin the mayoral election between Cece and Reede. But thanks to Sophie’s help (and the snooping work I did already), they agreed to cancel the election and just work together.

Back in Kakariko Village, I told Paya the latest developments (regarding Zelda, not the Hateno electon), and she finally let me explore the floating Ring Ruin. I found a stone slab inside and took a photo, then I showed it to Paya and Tauro, who deciphered it. The carvings let me know where I need to look next for the other sage, in Faron.

But of course, I did more exploring first. While looking for more lightroots in the Depths, I was surprised to find a dragon down there! But I hitched a ride on it to quickly reach another lightroot.

I ran into a “researcher” who had an odd question for me.

It actually reminded me of Jingle from the early Animal Crossing games. 😆😆😆

But it wasn’t actually Jingle. In fact, it wasn’t even a researcher. It was a Yiga Clan warrior (of course), trying to kill me. After I (easily) defeated him, I found a schema stone nearby for a bridge! I can now build bridges with Autobuild now! That is so helpful! But because the bridge is so big, it is a bit unwieldy and tricky to move around if you’re not in a large open space.

Eventually, I made my way to the Faron region to advance the story. I spoke with Calip at the new base of operations, and he sent me off to inspect some nearby Zonai Ruins. With Tauro’s help, I learned I had to search near a dragon-shaped river for parts of a special outfit depicted on a mural. The outfit was a charged outfit, so apparently Link put them on his credit card. 😉

Once I completed my tasks there, a new chain of sky islands was revealed. I stormed my way up there and bolted from island to island. At the end, I found a relic that led me back to the surface, and then into the Depths. I don’t want to spoil too much, but I’ll just say that the missing sage Mineru communicated with me, and I had to assemble a construct by visiting four separate storehouses.

Once I completed the task, I was instructed to visit a site to the south. That site turned out to be the Spirit Temple, which I visited before (but couldn’t enter). Mineru’s presence unlocked the way, and I fought a boss there. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a proper temple like the other previous ones. But defeating the boss led to Mineru’s secret stone. Mineru gave me her power, so I can use her construct at any time! Mineru’s story break also confirmed what I thought happened to Zelda.

After seeing that I only needed one more geoglyph, I consulted my photo of the geoglyph locations from the Forgotten Temple. I saw that the missing one was near the Tabantha Frontier, so I headed there. But while chasing down a Korok (one that kept warping to new locations), I was lured into a fight with a Flame Gleeok!

Even though Mineru’s construct wasn’t as helpful as I hoped, I kept fighting and I ultimately defeated the Gleeok! It took me ten minutes, but I was glad to finally beat one of those things.

After that, I looked around and found the final geoglyph. Impa and Cado were there, and I activated the vision. After watching it, a dragon tear created a new vision, and I rushed to it. This final vision wrapped up the story and explained a lot of things…including the game’s subtitle. It’s sad, but I really have to say I like the plot of this game. It’s a lot more interesting than what we get in most Zelda games, in my opinion.

I next investigated reports of a psychic chicken, known as the All-Clucking Cucco.

He had two tests for me to perform. And once I was done, he revealed himself to be…well, a fraud. When I was done, uh, wrapping up the story, Penn dropped in. He told me this was the last story he needed my help with! It’s suddenly sinking in how far I’m progressing in the game, and it feels a bit sad to wrap up my side gig as a reporter. But of course, I know there’s still much more to be done in the game. And I also earned the remaining piece of the froggy suit to climb wet surfaces.

When I returned to Lookout Landing, Purah confirmed that I’m pretty much ready to fight the final battle. I need to look in the Depths to figure out my next steps. But of course, I’m not quite ready for that.

This seems like a good place to wrap up this entry. My play time is currently at 175 hours, and here are my latest stats:

My shrine count is up to 95 (from 87 last time), my lightroots are up to 65 (from 53), and my Korok seed count is 160 (up from 146). My Hyrule Compendium progress is as follows:

• Creatures: 78/92
• Monsters: 101/110 (up from 98 last time)
• Materials: 110/126 (up from 106)
• Equipment: 127/175 (up from 125)
• Treasure: 6/6

Until next time, I’ll leave you with the wise words of this insane traveler. 😛

Getting the Hero’s Path mode has really changed the way I’m playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It makes it easy to see places I haven’t been yet. To fill in one of those blank areas on my map, I crossed Floria Bridge and made my first visit to Lakeside Stable.

Near there, I met the new animal species called Dondons, who were supposedly discovered by Zelda herself! But then again, not everything you hear—or see—about Zelda is true, as you quickly discover in this game.

I made my way back up to Zora’s Domain, and I completed a few more side quests I missed earlier in the game. I also found the climbing boots while exploring, and I now have the full set of climbing gear. That’s one of the most helpful outfits in the game, at least when it comes to exploring. 🧗

And just because I thought this was funny, here’s a screenshot of a blue boss Bokoblin getting electrocuted. You love to see it. 😆

From there, I stopped by Tarrey Town and tried out a new driving race course! It was pretty fun!

My next destination was the Eldin region, mainly because Impa keeps mentioning the Eldin geoglyph every time I see her. I first made a stop in Goron City, because I never bought the whole flamebreaker suit when I was here earlier in the game (only the armor, not the boots or helmet). And I wanted the whole suit so I could explore some of those hot caves without needing to rely on fireproof elixirs.

While working on a side adventure in the area, someone commented on the absence of my Master Sword. It was a fair point.

I have not yet been to the Lost Woods in this game, but I decided to head there after I was done in the Eldin region. But first, I found myself at the Foothill Stable, where a woman said something very odd to me.

Apparently, a bunch of guys misheard something Zelda once said, and they thought they had to train for battle in their underpants?

I’m not sure I believe that story, but my task was to help them in battle. And of course, I had to strip to my underpants as well.

Zelda games can be weird sometimes. But I completed the task, got dressed, and continued on my journey. After completing a few shrines, I spotted the geoglyph in the area and viewed the intriguing memory it unlocked.

I then headed to the Lost Woods for the first time. I had avoided it for a while, because the journey into the fog in Breath of the Wild was so tedious and annoying. But I was hoping it would be better this time around. I soon learned that I couldn’t get into the Lost Woods the normal way; something was wrong and I had to take an indirect route to get to the root of the problem.

Once I made my way to the Korok Forest, I spoke with the Great Deku Tree. Unfortunately, the Master Sword was not here in the Lost Woods. However, he could sense its location, and he gave me an idea of where I could find it. After completing a few shrines in the woods, I chased the sword down. Fortunately, I had enough stamina to retrieve it!

I’m not going to spoil the storyline behind this, but if this means what I think it means, then WOW. The last memory I retrieved hinted at something, and it seems to have come true. It’s pretty shocking, if you ask me, although I still have some questions about how this all works. 😛 I imagine they’ll be answered later in the game, or in the ending.

I guess I’ve been lucky to avoid story spoilers myself, but this is getting interesting now! And most importantly, I finally have the Master Sword! 🙂

This seemed like a good spot to wrap up this entry. My play time is currently at 155 hours, and my stats are as follows:

My shrine count is up to 87 (from 73), my lightroots are up to 53 (from 40), and my Korok seed count is up to 146 (from 124). And here is my latest Hyrule Compendium progress:

• Creatures: 78/92 (up from 72)
• Monsters: 98/110 (up from 94)
• Materials: 106/126
• Equipment: 125/175 (up from 119)
• Treasure: 6/6

See you all next time!

I’ve been continuing to play a lot of Tears of the Kingdom lately! After finding a Korok seed on Satori Mountain, I enjoyed this beautiful sunrise.

When I returned to Lookout Landing, I spoke with Robbie and he thanked me for fixing his balloon (in the previous entry). He surprised me by telling me he could now return to his laboratory in Hateno Village! He told me to meet him there, and he could make improvements to my Purah Pad. I went there immediately, and he added the sensor.

Yes! I’ve been wanting this for a long time! It’ll help me find shrines, treasure chests, or any other items I’m looking for (assuming it’s something I have in my Hyrule Compendium). He added more features to the Purah Pad, and the most interesting one (other than the sensor) is the Hero’s path mode. It shows my path around Hyrule, and it will store up to 256 hours of gameplay worth! Very interesting to see which areas I haven’t touched yet.

In Breath of the Wild, this feature was included in the paid DLC (which I never bought)…so this was my first time experiencing it. You can even “play” your history in sequence…complete with Link’s yells for each death. It was funny seeing my 6-7 deaths in row on the map, from early in the game when I got stuck up on a sky island with no way down. 💀 This will be very helpful going forward.

One other interesting thing about Robbie’s Purah Pad upgrades is how low the requirements were for the extra features. One feature required five types of monsters added to my compendium…and I had at least 87 at this point. I feel like I must be late in getting these upgrades.

Once my Purah Pad was completely upgraded, I finally headed off to Hyrule Castle…not knowing if I was going into the “final” battle or not. When I arrived, I had to visit several areas around the castle. At each point, I was ambushed by groups of monsters.

Eventually, I reached a point where I fought a boss, of sorts. I try to avoid spoiling the plot too much in the blog, but I will say that it was not the final fight. I won the battle, and I was told to return to Lookout Landing.

On the way back, I used my sensing ability to seek out treasure chests. But some of them weren’t worth the effort, with as little as a single rupee inside! 😛

(Warning: Slight spoiler in this paragraph. Skip to the next paragraph to avoid it.) Back at the landing, Purah, the sages, and Link discussed what we should do next. It was determined that there should be another sage (besides Zelda) out there, that we haven’t met up with yet! So Purah told us to split up and look for clues. This basically gave me free rein to do what I’d been doing anyway: Exploring at my own pace. And I’m okay with that. I’m in no rush.

I decided to go back to where it all started: The Great Sky Island. But even though it was a nice trip down Memory Lane, I didn’t find much that was new or particularly helpful there, aside from a few treasure chests.

Back down on the surface, I spotted a rainbow in the distance from near Rassla Lake. I think it’s the first one I’ve seen in this game, although I know I’ve seen some in Breath of the Wild before.

I found a new geoglyph in the southeast region, and then I returned to Lurelin Village to complete a few side quests.

A short time later, a Korok that was separated from his friend gave me a reason to visit Eventide Island. In Breath of the Wild, Eventide Island provided a unique challenge, where you had tasks to complete without access to your normal clothes/armor or weapons. Honestly, it was rather tedious, and I wasn’t interested in doing that again. But fortunately, Eventide Island doesn’t operate the same way in this game. I was very relieved.

The island still has its challenges, but they don’t feel cheap like the BOTW ones. Although I had a problem defeating one group of monster forces, because one (or more) of the enemies kept disappearing and I couldn’t finish them off. But eventually, I completed the task (after dropping into the Depths for a bit).

I found a pretty cool helmet down there in the twilight, but I won’t spoil exactly what it was. 😉

I finished up what needed to be done on Eventide Island, and then I took a break. And this where I’ll wrap up this entry. Here are my latest stats:

My shrine count is now at 73 (up from 66 last time), my lightroot count is up by just one, and my Korok seed count has risen dramatically, from 95 to 124. Here is my Compendium progress:

• Creatures: 72/92 (up from 64)
• Monsters: 94/110 (up from 87)
• Materials: 106/126 (up from 97)
• Equipment: 119/175 (up from 106)
• Treasure: 6/6

There’s so much more I want to do! I’ve been in a groove lately where I don’t want to stop playing. 😆 I’ll see you all next time. 🙂