Jeff's Gaming Blog

It’s been a few months since the last entry, as I took a break from the game…and even then played intermittently.

But I decided to finally tackle something I’ve been putting off for a long time: the labyrinths. Honestly, they were kind of a pain in Breath of the Wild, so I haven’t exactly been eager to return. I guess that’s one of the down sides of returning to the same world in a sequel.

I first went to Lomei Labyrinth Island in the Akkala Sea region. While it’s (obviously) still a maze, it’s not filled with enemies…so navigating it isn’t as tedious as it could’ve been. I made my way to the gate without too much trouble, and it directed me to the labyrinth of the sky.

When I arrived at the sky labyrinth, I had to find and activate four terminals. That reminded me of a temple or dungeon, but it was (surprisingly) much easier. In fact, it was a breeze. 😉

Next, it led me into the Depths. Once I was done there, I received some new armor.

In the Hebra region, I returned to a sky island that had a King Gleeok I previously couldn’t beat. This time, I defeated it and earned another Sage’s Will. I had four of them again, so I enhanced my bond with Mineru…the last sage left on my list. So I think that means I’ve found all of the Sage’s Wills now. 💪

Up on some sky islands, I got my camera out and took a photo of this smiley face. 😜

I then went on to the other labyrinths: the North Lomei Labyrinth in the Hebra region, and then the South Lomei Labyrinth in the Gerudo Highlands. They all operate pretty much the same, so they weren’t hard to complete in this game. They can still be time-consuming if you hunt for all the treasure chests, but it wasn’t too bad.

The shrine at one of them threw me for a loop, though. It looks like just a regular “Rauru’s Blessing” shrine, until you walk up the final steps. The platform splits and rises up into the air, revealing a new segment. It didn’t take me long to figure out what I had to do, but it was a pleasant surprise to see such a twist after seeing wayyyy too many of these boring “Rauru’s Blessing” shrines lately. 👍

Over near Lookout Landing, I exchanged some crystallized charges for some energy wells…and I exceeded what appeared to be the maximum. I still have eight of the battery container things, but some have turned blue to indicate they’ve filled up again. So apparently you can double-up the juice. 🔋

I just hate that your Ultrahand creations sometimes blink and “die” before you even use up all the battery power! What good is all that power if your devices can’t even handle it? That can be so annoying.

While exploring the Depths, I’ve found a new more Yiga schematics; I can now build an instant scaffold, a fanboat, and a fishing trawler with Autobuild. I’m not sure that I will build them, but at least I can. 😆

I went searching for the remaining lightroots, and the last two were giving me some trouble. But I did eventually track them down, so I have now dispelled all of the darkness from the Depths. I earned a medal for the accomplishment, although I don’t think it actually does anything.

Status Update: My map completion is now at 67.81%, and my adventure log progress is as follows:

• Main Quests: 21/23 (really 23/23) ✅
• Side Adventures: 55/60 (up from 54)
• Shrine Quests: 29/31 (up from 26)
• Side Quests: 86/139 (up from 79)
• Memories: 18/18 ✅

You can see my other stats here:

My shrine count up to 145 (from 134 last time), my lightroots are maxed out, and my Korok seed count is 292 (up from 264). Here is my Hyrule Compendium progress:

• Creatures: 84/92
• Monsters: 109/110
• Materials: 120/126
• Equipment: 152/175
• Treasure: 6/6 ✅

I only have seven more shrines left to go! But on the other hand, I still have over 50 side quests remaining somehow! I don’t even know how that’s possible, since I only have 10 unfilled ones on my list. Either there are a lot of characters I haven’t met yet, or lots of those side quests have follow-ups.

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The next Zelda game, Echoes of Wisdom, is just a couple weeks away! I plan on buying it either at launch, or shortly after. I’ll probably post some blog entries of it too, and likely before my next TotK entry. (I’m still not done with Tears of the Kingdom yet, though.)

Anyway, if you missed my video from July, here is TotK Moments #2:

See you next time!

Time for another update in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. As you may know, I’ve already defeated Ganondorf (and saw the “good” ending), but I’m still playing to complete more side quests, shrines, and other goals in the game.

Up on a sky island, I was fighting a Flux Construct with a treasure chest attached to its body. But after I defeated it, I couldn’t find the treasure anywhere! Assuming it fell off the island, I sailed down to the surface (using my sensor to seek for treasure chests), but I still couldn’t find it anywhere! It completely vanished from existence! 😛

Fortunately, returning to that island later resulted in the treasure chest re-spawning (but not the Construct, thankfully). It contained a Sage’s Will, and I then had the four I needed to strengthen my bond with Riju.

Elsewhere in Hyrule, I made my way up to the Zonaite Forge Island. It was a longggg way up, so it was quite a trek to get there. It felt like one of the highest sky islands in the game, but looking at this screenshot, it’s apparently not. 😛

I found a shrine, some armor, and some Korok seeds up there.

I’ve also been going back to previous locations to get things I’ve missed before. At the Ancient Zora Waterworks, I finally found the Zora Greaves from earlier in the game. I also opened one other treasure chest that I didn’t get previously; it was covered in thorns that I couldn’t burn away because it was wet/raining down there (and I couldn’t start a fire). But this time, I found a way to dry it out first. 🔥

I also returned to Gerudo Canyon to complete another side quest that I hadn’t finished in many months. There’s one where you have to find the three missing people in the canyon, and I had only found two of them. But now, I finally found the last one hiding in a cave with “big lizards” (Lizalfos). It’s satisfying to knock these quests off my list. 🦎

Another one that’s been on my list was for Eldin’s Colossal Fossil. So I headed there and spoke with Loone. Wait, Loone? She’s that crazy girl from Breath of the Wild that was in love with an ancient orb, which she stroked and named Roscoe. 🤪

But in this game, she wants to see cute dead dinosaurs (totally not crazy at all). 😆 So she asked me to reassemble their missing (or misplaced) parts. I fixed up the one in Eldin, and then another one in the Hebra region. You may remember me mentioning this fossil in entry 10. When I moved the bone to the correct position, it snapped into place and it played the “puzzle solved” jingle. No problem, right? But then Loone mentioned one last fossil in the Gerudo region. This is where my problems began.

This final fossil involved a small baby leviathan. The skull was right there, and I had to find the other two missing parts. That part wasn’t hard. But assembling them just right? It seemed impossible! I lined them up, attached them with Ultrahand, but nothing. There was no snapping into place, and no approval from Loone.

I tried again and again, trying slight variations in case I was doing something wrong. I tried placing each part at slightly different angles, upside down, or attaching it to a different spot. No luck. I re-examined the larger fossil for comparison purposes, but I simply could not see what the problem was, no matter what I did! So I took a break…

The next day, I gave it another try. Again, I assembled and re-assembled the parts into the shape of the baby leviathan. Nothing was working, and I had spent over an hour (in total) on this baby fossil. It was starting to drive me crazy! So I did something I hate doing: I googled it.

As it turns out, the game has a glitch where it doesn’t recognize that the fossil is assembled correctly! The good news was that I just had to exit out to the title screen and then reload the game to try again (during my overnight break, I only left the Switch in sleep mode). I had to put the bones together again, but that’s okay…because this time, Loone recognized that it was complete. Whew!

That was honestly my most frustrating part of the game so far, and all for a glitch that honestly should have been patched by now. The game has been out for over a year now, after all. But I’m just relieved to have this side quest completed now.

While I was in the desert, I defeated the last Molduga that I hadn’t killed yet. When I returned to Gralens at Lookout Landing, he gave me a Molduga Monster Medal for defeating all of the Moldugas in the game. I don’t think it really does anything, but I suppose it’s a nice achievement.

Unfortunately, there are still 59 Taluses remaining, as well as 43 Hinox, 17 Flux Constructs, 34 Froxes, and nine Gleeoks. Tracking down every one of those enemies is not something that sounds fun to me, so there’s a good chance I may not earn any other monster medals.

One other random note: I found just one new Yiga schematic in the Depths this time. It was for a flamethrower balloon. 🔥

My map completion is now up to 64.80%, and here’s my adventure log progress:

• Main Quests: 21/23 (really 23/23)
• Side Adventures: 54/60 (up from 53)
• Shrine Quests: 26/31 (up from 23)
• Side Quests: 79/139 (up from 67!)
• Memories: 18/18

And you can see my other stats in this image:

My shrine count is at 134 (up from 127 last time), my lightroots are up to 134 (from 111), and my Korok seed count is 264 (up from 227). Here is my Hyrule Compendium progress:

• Creatures: 81/92
• Monsters: 108/110
• Materials: 119/126
• Equipment: 148/175
• Treasure: 6/6

I’ll be posting another video soon, TotK Moments #2! So keep an eye out for that! 🙂

Now that Ganondorf has been defeated, I’m now able to explore Hyrule more freely (even though I basically did that anyway). I started out by exploring sky islands I hadn’t been to yet.

Of course the Hero’s Path mode helps me find areas where I haven’t explored yet. But another thing that helps a ton is to look at the map, and then alternate between the surface and the Depths levels. The shrines on the surface and the lightroots in the Depths are usually (if not always) in pretty much the same spot. So that should help me find both.

Speaking of the Depths, I ran into something I found amusing down there: A Yiga Clan base where Yiga soldiers were riding on carts that endlessly went around a small track. It was like a little train ride at a kiddie park! I thought it was funny to see these determined fighters looping around on a ride that looks like it was designed for 6-year-olds! 😆

I’ve also obtained some additional Yiga schematics while exploring the Depths further. That includes an assault cart, a “charged charger,” a raiding plane, and a three wheeler. Cool stuff.

I had enough Sage’s Wills to make my bond stronger with another sage, so I enhanced Sidon’s power this time. It seems that you can only enhance each sage’s power once though, because Yunobo and Tulin were no longer options.

When I ran into Koltin again, I continued to trade Bubbul gems for treasure…until he ran out of treasure to trade!

Of course, he still wants me to give him every Bubbul gem in existence! He told me there are still 96 left for me to find! That will probably take quite a while. There are so many things to collect in this game, I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to them all. It does seem a bit more doable than collecting all of the Korok seeds, though. 😛

I’ve also been working on some old side quests that have been on my list forever. This guy has wanted to see a skeletal horse, and I originally thought I only needed a photo of one. But that never worked, so I tracked down a real one and rode it back to him. Giddyup.

By consulting the map, I found all of the stone tablets for the “Messages from an Ancient Era” side adventure. They’re easy to spot because they’re all on tiny star-shaped sky islands.

I returned to Wortsworth in Kakariko Village and showed him the photos of all the tablets. My reward wasn’t particularly exciting, but it feels good to have completed one of the bigger side adventures in the game.

While exploring in the Hebra Mountains, I found a cave that led me to the ultimate mushroom haven! (I found it before the mushroom hunter sisters, Nat and Meghyn.) There were glowing crystals everywhere, and of course, a wide variety of mushrooms. It was beautiful!

But I plucked it clean of mushrooms and went on my way. 😆

In the Necluda Sky, I beat my first King Gleeok. I’ve faced at least one of them before, but I previously couldn’t figure out how to beat its final attack, the lightning bolt barrage stage. But I finally found a strategy that worked, and I’ve obtained another Sage’s Will. I currently have three, so I’ll still need one more to enhance another sage’s power.

I also took a photo of that King Gleeok, so I headed back to Tarrey Town to show it to Kilton. Hudson built a model of it, and I placed it on the stage (but not without some difficulty, since the stage is kinda full now).

That completed the “A Monstrous Collection” side adventure, and I’m glad to clear another big project off my to-do list.

This seems like a good place to wrap up this entry and take a look at my progress. My map completion percentage is up to 61.23%, and here is my adventure log progress:

• Main Quests: 21/23 (really 23/23)
• Side Adventures: 53/60
• Shrine Quests: 23/31
• Side Quests: 67/139
• Memories: 18/18

My others stats can be seen here. I’ve now completed my third/final stamina wheel, so I’ll just be adding more heart containers from now on.

My shrine count is at 127 (up from 113 last time), my lightroots are up to 111 (from 94), and my Korok seed count is 227 (up from 207). Here is my Hyrule Compendium progress:

• Creatures: 81/92
• Monsters: 107/110
• Materials: 118/126
• Equipment: 142/175
• Treasure: 6/6

I’m still playing the game regularly, so I don’t think I’ll be dragging this out for five years like I did with Breath of the Wild. I’ll see you next time, but for now, check out my latest video showing many of the vehicles in the game: