Today I didn’t do a whole lot, but at the same time, I did? First let me say that I appreciate how the Switch is set up. Since I never really have to turn it off, whenever I start it up, it’s right where I left it. I suppose that’s technically true of any console, but with the Switch, I can still turn the screen off and dock it. There’s a sense of finality that isn’t there with other consoles you leave running.
Next up, I got a new sidequest that took me right out of the game. It’s a crossover of sorts with Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and it’s CALLED Xenoblade Chronicles 2. That’s dumb. I appreciate the sidequest doesn’t seem to involve Xenoblade characters appearing or anything, but they could’ve made the title a little more vague.
One final thing and then I’ll get into the narrative portion: I have learned you can travel to a shrine mid-fall to prevent yourself from dying. This is very useful, although I don’t utilize it as often as I should.
Ok, so I finished exploring the final section of the Great Plateau, and it turns out the only thing up there was the plank I’d already found. So I moved it and got a Korok for my troubles. It was finally time to get off the Plateau and explore the rest of Hyrule. So I jumped off, and I was gliding down, I noticed two lights fluttering around the same general spot. I directed myself toward them, thinking they were fairies or something, but I quickly realized they were electric keese and I didn’t want to be anywhere near them. So I changed direction and landed on a nearby tableland, where I was quickly greeted by a gang of skeleton bokoblins. I defeated them, but then I was hit by an electric keese, which sent my club and shield flying. Before I could pick them up, I was hit again and died. That’s a common theme of tonight, so I won’t mention it every time.
The next time I went down, I stayed close to the Plateau wall, and I was greeted by skeleton bokoblins once again...or so I thought. It was actually a skeleton moblin, which are much bigger and scarier and harder to kill. But I killed it.
Once the rain subsided, I found myself in a canyon area that was pretty neat. There was a grove of baobab - excuse me; Taobab - trees, which had several new kinds of wildlife nearby. There were some wolves, some herons, and a herd of horses led by a giant horse that looks exactly like the one Ganondorf rides. You can kill any animals to get meat. I also discovered some new kinds of goodies including sunshrooms and quick violets.
In this area was a puzzle with a metal box that I knew would lead to a Korok and I completed it quite by accident. I knew I had to put the box somewhere specific, but I didn’t know where. I tried a couple different places with Magnesis and had no luck. Then I picked it up with my hands, dropped it, and it kind of stumbled into where it needed to be and then locked into place. Once I knew the solution I could see what I should’ve been looking for, but it was completely by chance that I solved it.
One more thing I found in the Taobab Grove: tiny Stone Taluses that I can pick up like a little baby! More like Stone Smaluses, amirite?
I explored the canyon area a little more as I made my way to a beacon I had planted to denote a shrine. As it turned out, the beacon was in the wrong place and denoted nothing. So I went back to the Plateau Tower to find what I had been aiming for, and it turns out that o was aiming for the last shrine on the Plateau I had trouble finding. I had trouble finding it because I put the pin in the completely wrong spot.
Towers are how you fill in your map and I wanted my map filled in, so I looked for a nearby tower and headed toward it. Along the way, I discovered Lizalfos, which are really cool in this game because they look like chameleons. They usually don’t have that much personality. They also have a bunch of cool weapons you can steal, including a Lizal Boomerang, which is a curved knife you can throw like a boomerang.
I also discovered I should save more, but I’m still getting used to that.
Around this time, a new function of the game appeared: the blood moon. The blood moon happens every so often and resets all the enemies you’ve vanquished and items you’ve gotten. Basically it’s the game’s way of making sure you always have something to do. However, it’s accompanied by a creepy cinematic of bokoblins digging themselves out of the ground poofing back into existence (it's so creepy that I misremembered what happened), along with a blood red moon for the whole night.
After an awful lot of dying, I finally made it to the Lake Tower and filled in the southern part of the map, which is three or four times the size of the Great Plateau, and there are still almost ten more sections of the map to fill in. This game is gigantic.
Also at the Lake Tower, I received my final(?) Shiekah Slate power, the Shiekah Sensor, which tells me when there are shrines nearby. After pinning some other towers I could see so I can make my way to them, I was going to call it quits for the night, but then I noticed a shrine that was very close by, so I figured I might as well.
The trial at the Shrine was called something like “Metal Doors Open The Way”, and it was both easy and tricky, but pretty clever. The gist of it is that you have to figure out how to detach a metal door from the wall so you can use it as a bridge. What I liked about it was the lack of a definite solution to the puzzles. You could bomb the door or stasis it to get it off (both worked), and likewise, there’s a chest you can get either through Magnesis or Stasis. I really dig it when games give you multiple maths to the same point. For one thing, it makes things less frustrating. Instead of A being the only solution, A is now the best solution, and if you can’t figure it out, you might think of B, C, or D instead.
I missed a chest in this shrine and I’m pretty sure that’s true of another shrine too, so tomorrow I’ll remedy that and then set out to explore the Faron province in more detail.
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