Checked my current playtime before shutting down my Wii U last night. 198:36 over 36 times loaded/played.
Currently at:
74 Shrines
410 Korok Seeds
2 Divine Beasts defeated
Almost at the halfway mark of Korok seeds. I just need 2 more shield inventory slots and then I'll have maxed all my weapon inventory slots.
Awhile back, I posted a map of my progress in searching for Korok seeds and covering the land of Hyrule. Here's an update on how that is going. Warning: Potential spoilers on location for things but considering that most people are finishing the game and I seem to be further behind, I doubt I have huge spoilers at this point.
http://i.imgur.com/VbMRpdS.jpgThe red areas indicate places I feel I have thoroughly searched through. The yellow area is one that I had marked as red on my previous map but it was a mistake. Don't know what I was thinking when I colored it in as red. It's been searched now since that first map but just wanted to be fully honest about it because I know the trust you all have in me and readily believe everything I post. The pink areas are spots I covered early on in my first few days and week playing the game but have since come up with better Korok search methods and understanding of where to look for them so I'm thinking I may have to retrace those areas like I did the Great Plateau. I've already found one Korok I missed in Hateno Village after my Great Plateau double check.
When I look at the map, it does seem like I've searched about half of Hyrule at this point. There's a chunk of the top cut off because the whole map can't fit on one Miiverse screenshot. So, I'm feeling good about my Korok count. It seems to be close to the area covered. That said, I still have this fear that I'm going to have searched the whole map and end up with something like 892 or 893. Or even worse 899. Then I'll be wondering what I missed and where. The scariest type of Korok I've found is the one that only appears when you climb up to a certain spot. Potential Korok spoilers ahead.
It's something I really noticed when I was searching and conquering all of Hyrule Castle. Basically, you almost had to climb every tall spire to see if the mysterious ball of swirling green leaves and glitter would appear. You couldn't zoom in on any of them to see if a Korok was there. Only be actually reaching the top would you find out if one was there or not when it suddenly appeared. Later on, in paranoia of missing one, I would climb trees even if there was no rock in them or little acorn thing to shoot just in case the mystery ball would suddenly appear. And sure enough, sometimes they did appear. As much as we sometimes say the game wants us to search under every rock, it almost seems to want us to climb every tree as well. Now, it just seems that this only happens with a single tree all alone by itself in an area or a tree at the top of a height of some sort so it is still a landmark sort of feature but the fear is still there that by not climbing everything I might miss one. It's just like some of the rocks on the side of a mountain. The searching up and down of vertical heights also adds to my Korok paranoia to make sure I don't miss one a tiny ledge because I was at a lower height or didn't look down from a higher height.At the moment, I've been exploring the Faron region to connect the two large areas I've explored in Gerudo land with those of the Necluda/Lanayru/Zora's Domain region. There's just a small chunk left from the roadway to Dueling Peaks from the Great Plateau straight south that I want to finish exploring to connect that all up. Once that is done, my plan is to then double check my work on Tuft Mountain between Lurelin Village and Faron jungle. Another double check on Eventide and that will take care of much of the southern part of Hyrule. I'll just work my way on the eastern edge of what I haven't explored from the south on up to the north in Akkala. Really curious to see what the Tingle Islands might be like.
Exploring the Faron region though has shown me that I've kind of gone about it the wrong way. After reaching Hateno village and then Eventide Island in my first few days playing, I then went East to West to find towers to fill my map in. This took me to Lurelin Village and then into the Faron jungle where I saw my first dragon and then eventually to Lake Hylia. Yet, I notice with the NPC's I meet, their dialogue gives the impression that the game seems to expect you to head West to East from the road on Lake Hylia to Lurelin village as the true way to experience the region. I also ran into Kass and he played me a song for a shrine. However, after he was done singing, he said I had already found it and it was like I could see the future. The quest was for the Shrine of Courage which I had gleaned from another NPC awhile ago was most likely in the Faron region based on the dragon's home there. Thus, I just searched around on my own and came across it because it was an interesting looking area on the map. It was neat and disappointing at the same time. I've got no Shrine quests currently open so I was excited to look for something new and disappointed it didn't happen but glad that the game still let me encounter Kass and learn about the quest in the first place.
Even my side quests are pretty much depleted. I've got 3 open ones and two are mainly because I haven't gone into the Eldin/Goron City region yet. At this point, pretty sure that I need to go to Goron city to advance the TarreyTown sidequest since every other town I've now met people with "son" at the end of their name all looking for and wishing to find something to fulfill their potential. Most likely the Gorons I need to advance this sidequest are there also. I'll get there and get it down eventually.
I did manage to finish off the Weapon Connoisseur side quest though. I had been stuck waiting to find a frostspear. As mentioned before in a previous update post, I bought all the pictures I could to fill in my compendium (and was disappointed to find out I'd be stuck with some of the crappy pictures I took in comparison to the game's pristine pics I could have had). I decided to look for the Frostspear in the weapons portion to see what it looked like and where it could be found. It listed Hebra mountains/region as a local which annoyed me because I didn't want to go there yet to keep some areas of Hyrule still fresh. However, it also listed Hyrule Field as another location. Since you can select anything in your compendium to your sensor, I decided to change it from shrines to seeking a Frostspear since I went by Hyrule Field on occasion and I seemed to find and come across any shrine just fine in my thorough search of the land.
Despite that change, I hadn't encountered any signal for it in my last 3 or so play sessions. I remembered Evan_B mentioning how it could be in a shrine and I may have already acquired it at some point and lost it. Thus, last night, I took a look at some of the shrines I beat and went to a couple that didn't have a chest next to their name indicating a treasure was still there to be found in the shrine. I don't know how I missed some of those chests the first time but after 3 tries no such luck. At this point, it was night time in the game and there was an area I had encountered in Faron with Stalnox bones so I hurried off to that spot to fight it. As I was gliding to the area, my sensor suddenly went off which surprised me since I hadn't heard that beep in some time having turned it off from shrine searching. As it got more frequent as I got closer to the Stalnox, I immediately realized it must be that the Frostspear is one of the weapons this Stalnox must have embedded in it. Sure enough, after the battle, I finally had that needed Frostspear. I met up with the kid, got 300 rupees and then he requested
an Ancient Sword which I gathered came from the Akkala Tech Lab based on the picture and compendium. Off to the Tech Lab to buy it for 1,000 rupees. Went back to see the kid and show him. That got me a diamond (worth 500) and the end of the side quest. So, the darn kid put me out 200 rupees in the end. I was surprised I was so close to the end of that sidequest. I thought he might want to see some Lynel gear and other stuff before the end. Here I was saving it for nothing. Now I can go back to using my weapons willy-nilly and not have to worry about possibly needing to save one to show that kid.
I also ended the Mei side quest.
I went back to Lake Hylia because I was bugged about how there was a section of the lake where I hadn't found a single Korok and it just felt weird to me. Sure enough, I found a Korok (further adding to my paranoia that I'll still have missed a few in the end despite my best efforts). Then I just did a double check on treasure chests (and found another one I either missed or didn't have room for the first time I was there). However, I also suddenly came upon Mei which absolutely stunned me because she was pretty much close to the very first place I checked when I first started this side quest. After all, Fronk says she could have ended up in Lake Hylia with it being in red letters so I figured this was the spot to just go to. I don't know I didn't see her or missed her before. Does her position change on the time of day? Did I get my timeline of when I did first search this area and learn about the Mei sidequest mixed up? And then I found a second Korok seed I missed in the Lake Hylia region but wanted to double check based on how I read my map for potential Korok locations now so this game is really making me question my sanity.With the dearth of ongoing sidequests and shrine quests, I decided to take a break from all this exploring to get on with my main quest and went to the Rito Village to finally meet up with the Rito and get new sidequests, a new ability and take down another Divine Beast for a break. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of sidequests. I've already got two solved and just have one other one open. Maybe more will come when I conquer Vah Medoh or whatever it is called.
One final other thing that just occurred to me. I've typed this much so why stop now? I've encountered a few horse minigames which I though was neat because there haven't been that many minigames I've encountered in this game. I know there was a pointless one in Lurelin village of choosing treasure chests but otherwise when I think of a game I think more of some of the Korok challenges like shooting moving targets or racing to get to a spot before time runs out. Yet, since I haven't used a horse much this game, I found the minigames soon wore out their welcome. The first had me jumping over 10 gates within a certain period of time over a course to win some saddle gear. That was frustrating. Took me 25 - 30 tries to get that one done. There were a couple times I could have beat it earlier but choked and made a dumb mistake at the last gate or racing back to the start so that my time was over the requirement. The other game was an archery game. You have to ride your horse out along a path and shoot at 20 balloons in a certain amount of time. I don't know what the prize is because I haven't completed it yet. I've done about 6 tries and the best I may have got to was 8 balloons. It turns out I'm terrible at archery while riding a horse. But the unforgiveable part of this minigame is that you don't have unlimited arrows. The arrows come out of your own stock. So, you could potentially use up all your arrows in this game and have nothing left at the end. It's hard enough without depleting your own stock. Can't say I like that decision. Went from probably 240 down to 160 and decided I'd better walk away. Guess I'll have to save up and hoard on arrows and try it again another time. So much for the fun of finding minigames.
Topic: Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch/Wii U) (Read 366825 times)
