Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Thread
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There are at least two gloom hands I know of against which you cannot cheese height, and have to fight head-on. Phase 2 of gloom hands fights is at least considerably easier, at least as long as you're good at parrying and dodging -- or have a good bow and lots of bomb flowers. But I would recommend not skipping gloom hands phase 2 fights, they're...pretty important for learning certain telegraphs and timing, and building muscle memory in preparation for fighting an unskippable boss later on.
By far the worst, is the one you have to fight in a small arena that's already covered in gloom. It's an unavoidable fight to complete the game, but there's a sequence break that requires a fair bit of prep work but also skips like 20% of the main quest:
Have the shrine at the Rist peninsula unlocked, two full stamina wheels, Tulin, and a rocket shield at the ready before finishing the Dragon's Tears quest. There's a final cutscene in the center of the peninsula, and Zelda force spawns right there at low altitude immediately after the cutscene. You can rocket up to her and nab the Master Sword without cleansing the Great Deku Tree. You'll still need to cleanse it for Hestu to show up, though.
Luckily, the gloom hands guarding the Hylian shield is not one of those two, and you can actually completely avoid that fight if you're fast. There's another sequence break I found that has some truly hilarious consequences:
From Popla Hills skyview tower you can paraglide almost due south straight to Dragonhead Island, with the glide suit and Tulin. If you already have ten hearts, you can unlock Mineru immediately, or at least unlock a shrine that lets you come back later. That lets you skip the ring ruins quest to dissipate the cyclone, effectively cutting your trek to the spirit temple by half.
It's absolutely freaking worth it. Mineru is a fuckin' beast.
It's absolutely freaking worth it. Mineru is a fuckin' beast.
Which, speaking of...energy cells are far more important later on than you're led to believe. A single battery is enough to get you around early game, and accomplish most early and mid game tasks with some savvy, but it won't last. Autobuild goes hand-in-hand with that. You don't need all sixteen batteries, but 5-8 is a comfortable margin for the endgame.
So, speaking to that, trading zonaite for crystallized charges is inefficient, and you'll want your large zonaite for armor upgrades. You need 4,500 crystallized charges to max your battery, it's ridiculous. Minibosses drop crystallized charges, and the depths temple boss fights spawn large crystallized charges the first time you beat each. Farming minibosses after each blood moon is way more efficient for increasing battery count, than trading zonaite.
Oh, and when you find it, you only get ONE Big Battery the entire game, as far as I know. It's a temple reward, they don't spawn, and you can't buy them in gumball machines. So, use it on an autobuild and save the schematic, rather than just use (and lose) it.
Also, it's been a week since it released, fuck it...the finale and ending, holy shit. The last game I played with a finale sequence that hype, was Mass Effect 2.
Dat Ganon dodge-flurry rush combo.
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Did actually play a bit on my nephews Switch while babysitting.
Built a hovercraft that shot flamethrowers downwards, amusing, not terribly practical or effective.
And crunched the game framerate down massively, and in a Nintendo first in my 30 years of experience with them, hard crashed the game.
(which is par for the course for that genre of game really. Trailmakers was more or less stable by being a very undetailed sandbox map and a very hard cap on complexity. While Scrap Mechanic (especially the survival mode) basically just surrendered to the "What is performance anywyas" mentality. And both those ran on drastically more powerful (Trailmakers is on the Xbox/PS but with reduced complexity limits, and Scrap Mechanic never even bothered trying outside of PC)
Built a hovercraft that shot flamethrowers downwards, amusing, not terribly practical or effective.
And crunched the game framerate down massively, and in a Nintendo first in my 30 years of experience with them, hard crashed the game.
(which is par for the course for that genre of game really. Trailmakers was more or less stable by being a very undetailed sandbox map and a very hard cap on complexity. While Scrap Mechanic (especially the survival mode) basically just surrendered to the "What is performance anywyas" mentality. And both those ran on drastically more powerful (Trailmakers is on the Xbox/PS but with reduced complexity limits, and Scrap Mechanic never even bothered trying outside of PC)
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It's rather amazing how different they managed to make an entire open world map feel despite most of it being the same from Breath of the Wild. If there was anything I was actually annoyed by, it's that the vehicles you make feel more like a nuisance than they should. A lot of times when I'm underground I just build a device to get me as high as possible so I can then ditch it and glide down towards my goal. Because the energy consumption for a fully functional vehicle that can get you places is REALLY high, and while the point is to have you really explore things, I'm worried that by the time I can really make a vehicle I want and that is worth the time to make, I won't have any use for it because I've already been everywhere.
But overall, I'm really enjoying myself. It's hard to stop and I've pushed my resources to the limit with all my map roving so I should probably start actually exploring areas in depth rather than the haphazard blitz I've been on. I only have one more tower to get to and then I'll figure out which place I want to really start on in earnest.
But overall, I'm really enjoying myself. It's hard to stop and I've pushed my resources to the limit with all my map roving so I should probably start actually exploring areas in depth rather than the haphazard blitz I've been on. I only have one more tower to get to and then I'll figure out which place I want to really start on in earnest.
Oh, also! I like how they retooled the monotonous and much derided "combat shrines" into tutorial shrines. Ultimately, teaching you how to make use of different mechanics is part of the point of the shrines to begin with, so it makes sense and makes them more than just annoying stat checks.
I just checked out that maze for the first time earlier this morning. And I defeated the gloom hands the same way I took them down earlier, and all with losing only 3 or 4 hearts and not using any weapons or resources of any kind. It seems to me that luring them out into daylight kills them instantly. At least it has worked for me twice now. I lost 4 hearts running through gloom on the way to the exit, the hands hot on my tail. I hit daylight and turned around just in time to watch them die at the mouth of maze.
Now most of the time, that won't work. Generally you won't encounter them anywhere you could get sunlight. When that happens I generally just climb out of reach, leap to solid ground, then teleport out, and come back more prepared to take them down the hard way.
I'm having a total blast with the building, fusing, and physics. I really love that it makes creating some kind of rocket machine, testing it, failing miserably, and watching Link ragdoll across the fields and into a mountain equally as fun as succeeding.
I've really liked the combat shrines that just put you up against a bunch of constructs... but strips you of all equipment going in. It really forces you to get creative. Ok, most of the solutions are pretty straightforward. But it did force me to fuse and construct with combinations I hadn't tried before going through the shrine.
Okay, I have a question. I've been trying to avoid hints or spoilers for the game but I have to ask since I keep picking up schematics and my ability wheel is missing something. Can someone give me a nudge in the right direction for getting the ability to generate prebuilt vehicles?
I thought it might have something to do with the labs but the inventors are just hanging out in central Hyrule and going to their labs got me nothing except an unexpected fight with the Banana Boys when I jumped out of the floor.
I thought it might have something to do with the labs but the inventors are just hanging out in central Hyrule and going to their labs got me nothing except an unexpected fight with the Banana Boys when I jumped out of the floor.
I haven't really even started critical path yet, so I don't know if that pushes you that direction. But I got it after getting curious about the fact that a structure in the sky was called the temple of time, but the temple of time is still on the great plateau. Hope that doesn't spoil and helps.
Oh, and edit. This took me a pretty lengthy game session to get through, but you get the ability fairly early into it... or at least I did.
Explore the depths, and keep an eye on the statues you sometimes see down there.
Once you've done the camera quest, talk to Josha. She gives you the quest for autobuild. As to where you have to go, the location is in the depths beneath the great plateau. Drop in the chasm at the northeast of the plateau (the same location where you get magnesis in BotW), and it's basically a short walk southwest. But, be ready for an easy boss fight.
Oh, tips: lightroots are directly underneath ground shrines. Place a marker on the surface map when you find a lightroot, and vice versa, to find their counterpart. Extremely handy for hard to find surface shrines. Also, the depths map is a mirror of the surface map: mountains are crevasses in the depths, ravines are cliff faces, and rivers/lakes are impassable cliff faces.
The drone shrine was more fun than it had any right being.
Also, for some reason it's hilarious to me the evil spirit armor (and late game, the radiant armor I guess) is the most powerful in the game with the right setup. And by "powerful", I mean "OHKO red lynels".
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So the Rito's certainly got a glow up this time around. In the first game they were easiest the weakest questline with their story pretty much being '''lol shoot down some practice targets and lets go to the dungeon!''. Teba was also noticeable impersonal compared to the other new champions. This time we've got a little prelude about looking for Tulin and teaching him to fight for his friends. I wonder if they ditched Teba for his kid as a recognition that he fell kinda flat, but I think its a good decision. Tulin's a nice character, very excitable and gushing about Link. Also Teba's new traits as a proud but critical father help expand on him a bit too.
I have to say that the shrines this time around are kinda piss easy. Not that they were brain busters in BotW, but now they're about as difficult as the korok puzzles used to be. Okay, maybe that's too harsh, it's just that due to the three powers you have now any shrine that has a platforming obstacle, which is most of them, is usually a non-issue.
Also, they're really adding some sexy threads for Link. I mean, exposed shoulders, open back, a horned head dress...
Also, they're really adding some sexy threads for Link. I mean, exposed shoulders, open back, a horned head dress...
If you're referring to the ember headgear, that piece is an absolute godsend for the fire temple. All the elemental sets are great for their respective locations, really....a horned head dress...
I know it's maybe too late, but following my advice here might have screwed you over. I got autobuild before getting the quest that would have sent you to go and get autobuild... and now it appears that prevents progress in that questline, which is necessary to get the sensor for the Purah Pad. I'm currently looking for a workaround, really sick of not being able to use the sensor while looking for items to upgrade armor. Nintendo just patched out a similar progress preventing bug in a questline, so here's hoping they fix this one as well or I find that workaround. If it's not too late, just make sure you finish "Camera work in the Depths" and then go back to Josha and get "A Mystery in the Depths" in your adventure log. Basically, I finished a mystery in the depths before it was assigned. And as a result Robbie won't leave Lookout Landing and go back to the Ancient Tech Lab, which is where he needs to be if you want to get the Purah Pad upgraded.
There actually is a workaround, but I'm looking for another one. I've been told that completing one of the main quests (generally the one in Rito Village first), will open up progress on the Josha questline. But that defeats the purpose and is really stupid if intended. I want the sensor so I can more easily upgrade the Snowquill set... BEFORE I take on that part of the main quest.
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I don't think you screwed me out of that because I think I'd done something that already locked me out of it. Before I even fought or got near "Banana King", I wasn't getting that Mystery quest, so it must be something else that does it. It could be something to do with exploring the depths too much before finishing the photography quest or something.
Either that or they really did intend for the player to do at least one of the main quests before starting that quest line, meaning you wouldn't have autobuild or the sensor.
Well I was able to get Autobuild and I haven't yet gone very far in any of the main quest lines other than the initial stage of Gerudo and Rito's so that much isn't gated.
Oh, also, I found a flashback with Ganondorf in it and.... Lotta ladies gonna be singing Daddy Daddy Doo.
I'm simply continuing on my sidequest sightseeing tour, taking the long road toward collecting enough random junk to upgrade the armor sets I'm finding. And its great, I keep finding some of the throwback stuff. Some of it is funny, but just more for the "I got it but will never use it" pile. Like the "awakening tunic." Funny, but yuck. Others I'm totally going to find the rest of and upgrade. Like the twilight set, which just looks classic. Or the Fierce Deity set which will probably be my everyday go-to. But today I ran across a real treat. The Biggoron Sword. Thaaat's going over the mantle. Well, as soon as I can afford to put another sword display room on the house. Zelda... oh yeah. Last game she had been imprisoned for over a century waiting for me. It's looking like she's been waiting much longer this time. She's patient. She'll still be there after I'm done screwing around.