From the tower shrine by the river, I continued to follow the north bank of the river eastward. My tablet started to indicate another shrine was near, but it seemed that it was up the cliff, and too hard to climb to. I tried walking to see if I could find a better way up, but then I came to a third shrine.
This one was in a shallow part of the water, and surrounded by wooden spikes that hurt me when I tried to climb over them. I figured out quickly that I could use my cryonis power to create an ice block to climb on, and then I could jump over the barrier and enter the shrine.
Inside the shrine, I found a chest with 50 rupees in it, after using my freezing ability to create steps on the wall, by spawning ice blocks out of a water fall running down the wall of the shrine to create platforms I could climb up to reach it.
I proceeded further, and observed a ball rolling down a ramp and falling into a bottomless pit, and then repeating.
I figured out after a few moments that I needed to divert the ball to get it to land in a hole, and this would be the challenge for this shrine.
It took me several attempts, but I solved the challenge using the cryonis ice blocks, placing them strategically to get the ball to roll along the path I needed it to. My reward was another spirit orb.
This shrine was right across the river from a little village where there were people. I walked over and talked to everyone, and learned about elixirs making, and about horses. I also learned that I could stay at the stables and replenish my health, for rupees, but I didn’t want to spend them.
I found a dog, and knelt down near it, and it came over and seemed to like me, but I couldn’t pet him or anything. He seemed to follow me a bit, but then lost interest in me. I tried to give him some raw meat by dropping it on the ground near him, but nothing happened.
I found more items, and a few guys who buy and sell stuff. I wasn’t interested in anything they had. I ventured out from the town and talked to another man on the road, who also wanted to sell me stuff. Not long after that, I saw some horses, and tried to get one.
I tried to get one a lot of times, but wasn’t successful at it, but eventually I chased it to where some more of those Guardians lie dormant, and it woke up and killed me before I could find cover.
I had spent about an hour chasing that damn horse, and along the way I’d run across a lot of small critters and plants that I’d grabbed, as well as a number of springs and screws from those dead Guardians, and I’m pretty sure I lost them when I died. But sometimes when you pick things up and die, they stay in your inventory, so I’m not sure how that works exactly.
I went back to trying to get a horse, and this time I got one. It turned out that I was using the wrong button to try to sooth the first horse, which is why it kept throwing me. This one that I got was spotted, and the guys at the stable said the spotted ones were easier to get, but weren’t as strong or fast.
As soon as this one calmed down, a nearby Guardian woke up and killed me. When I restarted, I respawned still sitting on the horse! It let me keep the horse, but it put me right back to where the Guardian was going to kill me again. Which it did, two or three more times. But finally, I figured out how to get the horse to move, and it was fast enough that I got away from the damn Guardian, and made it safely back to the stable, where I registered the horse. I had to name it, so I named it Horsey.
I took Horsey on a ride down the road, and met a weird creature who said he had his maracas stolen by some monsters, and he asked me to help him get them back. Not far down the road, there was a small bokoblin camp. I snuck up and threw bombs until the bokoblins were dead, but one of them was blown clear off the ledge they were camped on, and fell what must have been at least 200 feet down to the ground below.
The bomb blast AND fall didn’t kill him, however, and the encounter wouldn’t clear for me until I killed him, and I couldn’t get down there so the only thing I could do was try to drop bombs down to finish him off, which took forever.
I think this is lame; essentially the game *forces* you to kill all the bokoblins to be able to open the chest. You can skip the encounter if you wish, but if you want to complete it, you *have* to kill all the bokoblins. There’s no alternative path, of, say, stealthing in at night, and then stealing the chest. This is disappointing.
Also, I think enemies should take falling damage when appropriate. Blowing that bokoblin off the ledge should have killed him, and if it had, then it would have cleared the camp, and I wouldn’t have had to spend several minutes dropping bombs down to where he had landed, to try to finish him off.
Eventually, I did manage to kill the last bokoblin, though, but in so doing I discovered that bombs can knock down trees. I’d previously seen them blow up rocks, and also set things on fire. Now I worry that if I use bombs I’ll end up destroying some good loot drops, so I want to try to find other ways to kill enemies that isn’t so destructive, but also doesn’t use up my weapons.
One other thing about this encounter that was rather dissatisfying: I found that no matter how many bombs rolled down the hell to blow up the bokoblins, they NEVER decided to investigate where they were coming from. Instead, they were fascinated by the bombs, and actually went over to investigate them when I lobbed one into their midst, getting right up close to it for me to blow it up in their faces!
I can appreciate this reaction if it happens once, the first time, for a given group, but after these things explode, they don’t learn from it. They should quake in fear, run around in a panic, jump up and down, dive for cover, grab it and try to throw it back, go investigate to see where it came from, or something. Doing the same dumb thing every single time just doesn’t make a bit of sense, and frankly with all the attention Nintendo put into this game and creating a world full of realistic interaction, I expected more. (Edit: since writing this, I have seen bokoblins kick bombs away after looking at them for a few seconds. While I’m sure the delay is there to give the player time to blow the bomb up in their faces, really they ought to learn pretty quickly that the bombs are dangerous and either avoid them or kick them out of the way much faster.)
With all the bombs I had used, I had basically destroyed everything in the camp that might have been useful. The maracas were locked away in a chest, though, so were safe, and I retrieved them and whatever other surviving loot drops I could carry, and returned to the weird creature, who was happy until he discovered that the maracas had no seeds in them. So ow he wants me to find him a seed, and then he’ll do something good for me.
At this point, the battery was run down on the Switch, so I had to call it a night. Which is fine, because it’s already late. I want to go back and try to get another horse, because I think there’s better horses out there. But it’s fun to control the horse and I think they do a really nice job with making the horse seem like it has its own personality and that you don’t fully control it.