Jeff's Gaming Blog

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. 🙂

After a 3-month hiatus from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, I continued my game earlier this month at the Lightning Temple. I had to move some mirrors around to reflect beams of light to different parts of the dungeon. It reminded me of the Spirit Temple in Ocarina of Time, although I think some other Zelda games have used a similar mechanic as well.

With Riju’s help, I had to charge four batteries to proceed through the dungeon. There were a variety of puzzles and traps throughout the temple, but the last battery I found was actually the easiest of them all. I don’t know how I missed it. 😛

I fought another battle with the Queen Gibdo (the flying mummy bug), and I ran out of arrows halfway through. Because of how Riju’s power works, I thought I needed arrows to continue. But I decided to press on, and with the help of my other companions, I beat the boss on the first try…even if it took longer than I’d hoped. With the boss defeated, Riju officially gave me her power, and I was advised to head back to Lookout Landing.

But, of course, I was in no rush. I decided to make my way to the Gerudo Canyon Skyview Tower. I had been there before, but wasn’t sure how to activate the tower. But this time, I approached it from a different angle (literally) and I finally figured it out.

It was well worth the weight (pun intended), and I have now activated all of the towers on the surface.

After some exploring, I tried to see if I was able to beat a Lynel or a Gleeok yet. I failed on both counts. 😛 As I continued my way (on foot) in the general direction of Lookout Landing, I spotted a chasm that I hadn’t investigated yet. So I dropped down into it…and boy, am I glad I did. After activating a lightroot, I found an abandoned mine…where I learned the Autobuild ability!!

It allows me to automatically build things that I’ve built before with Ultrahand (as long as the materials are nearby). It remembers my previous creations, so this is going to be incredibly helpful!

Unfortunately, some members of the Yiga Clan were spying on me, so they learned it too? Even though they don’t have my magic monster hand or legendary hero/Triforce powers or whatever? I mean, seriously, how can they use it too? They can’t even open shrines or, you know, simple treasure chests without my magic fingerprints! So how they can use the most powerful ability in the game? 😛

But after they performed a little dance number, I had to fight Mr. Moneybags here.

After defeating him, he headed off to another mine, while I acquired some schematics for an existing vehicle (a fanplane).

I returned to Lookout Landing, and Josha gave me a schema stone that lets me autobuild a hot-air balloon. She told me to try it out on Robbie’s broken balloon, and I fixed it instantly.

Anyway, I told Purah the other news: That I’ve fully investigated all four of the regional phenomena. With the help of her telescope, we saw Princess Zelda at Hyrule Castle! It’s my job to check that out, of course, but I wasn’t ready for that just yet. 😛

There was a lot I want to do first! So I stocked up on arrows, I did some cooking, I completed a few side quests, and then I sought out the 4th great fairy. If I’m going into battle at the castle soon, I want to enhance my armor as much as I possibly can.

Once I figured out where the remaining fairy was, I had to help out the Stable Trotters again by fixing their wagon. Apparently, they refused to travel uncovered in the snow, so I simply put a roof on it. They’re still completely exposed to the snow and bitter cold, but they’re okay with it just because a plank of wood is over their head now. 😛

I towed them to the Great Fairy Mija, and they performed a song to wake her up. They announced they’re changing their group name from the Stable Trotters to the Stable Heroes, in honor of me. (Because I “saved” them by helping out, not because I saved the world or anything.) 😛

Anyway, I can now enhance my clothes to the maximum. And I did enhance a lot of it, but I still need many more materials to enhance everything.

While exploring the Hebra Mountains, I encountered a giant skeleton of some huge creature! I used Ultrahand to put two bones back in place, and I heard the classic “puzzle solved” jingle…but then nothing happened. This must be for a side quest that I haven’t been asked to complete yet. No bones about it.

At this point, I think I’ll wrap up this entry with a status update. Unfortunately, I haven’t unlocked my map completion percentage or side quest counter yet, but here’s my other info. I’ve played about 115 hours to this point.

My shrine count is up to 66 (from 61 last time), lightroots up to 39 (from 37), and Korok seeds up to 95 (from 67). I’m low on bells rupees though, since I spent a lot upgrading my gear with the Great Fairy. Here’s my Hyrule Compendium progress:

• Creatures: 64/92 (up from 61)
• Monsters: 87/110 (up from 83)
• Materials: 97/126 (up from 96)
• Equipment: 106/175 (up from 102)
• Treasure: 6/6

I’ll definitely head to Hyrule Castle next time! And plenty of other places, too. See you again soon, most likely! 🙂