There’s a girl living at the farm in Hateno village where the cows, sheep, and doggos live, and the farmer hires me to go hunting in the woods. She tells me a band of bokoblins has been taking her sheep, and have a camp down by the beach nearby. There’s 7 of them, and she can’t fight them all by herself.
I want to help, but right now I’m focused on other things. I make my way up to the Hateno Ancient Science lab at the top of the hill, where I advance the main quest. I walk in and meet Purah, the head scientist. She is as old as Impa, but appears to be only 6 years old. She has an assistant working for her, and they tell me more about my Sheikah slate.
Basically, it’s a magic cell phone, and you can take photos with it, use Hyroogle Maps, teleport to shrines you’ve discovered, scan the area nearby for things you’ve taken pictures of, and control magnetism, ice, and make bombs.
The power levels of the Sheikah slate can be augmented. I was able to augment the sensor and now I can detect anything with it, not just shrines. This will make things a lot easier to find, if I start taking pictures of everything.
I’ve come to realize that not only will Link be hopelessly addicted to his cell phone, but he also has major ADD. I imagine the pitch meeting went something like this:
“So it’s a Zelda game…”
“Sold! When do you release?”
“No wait, we need to tell you about it before you decide.”
“Oh, fine. Tell me, does Link defeat Ganon in this one?”
“Look, do you want to be here forever, or do I get to do this pitch? I rehearsed it for weeks.”
“Very well then, fine. Proceed.”
“In this one, Link has been asleep for 100 years, and awakens with no memory. As he explores the world, he gradually learns who he is, his place in the world, and his destiny… to save Hyrule by defeating Calamity Ganon! Oh, wait, there’s an apple!”
“An… apple, you say?”
“YES! And mushrooms! Ohh there’s an acorn!”
“I don’t see how this is…”
“HOLY CATS, it’s a god damn FROG! YOU CATCH FROGS IN THIS GAME! Can you believe it!?”
“Frogs? What are they like some kind of humanoid frog monster that you.”
“No, just straight up frogs, and you catch them and then you can combine them with other stuff you find and make things out of it!”
“And then you defeat Ganon?”
“Eventually! But not until after you lift every rock, climb every tree and mountain, and perform everyone in the world’s errands. And fight enemies sometimes.”
“Fine. Whatever. I’m sure it will sell. Just make it good, dammit. I’m budgeting this for 20 BILLION YEN. And our entire reputation and fortunes will depend on it. Get to work.”
“HAI!”
Everyone you meet has something you can do for them, and the main quest people have a lot of things you need to do first to prove that you’re ready, or worthy, or to give them the power to help you in return. So, there’s a lot of that going on.
Purah wants me to go re-light the pilot fire on her science furnace so she can use it to fix and augment my cell phone. So I go do that, and it’s surprisingly easy. I caught a lucky break and it did not rain even once the entire time, which would have put out my torch. There’s a river to cross, but I figured out where to jump over it, and that was pretty easy too. It only took two tries.
Then Purah tells me to go back to see Impa, who will tell me more shit to do. And Purah’s assistant needs me to find him some mushrooms, and shows me how to use the Sheikah slate to scan for them. Nifty.
I head out looking for the mushrooms, and the scanner starts going off right away. On my HUD map, I see a blinking orange circle, which I mistake for being the location of the shroom, and I head off in that direction. In actuality, it’s Kakariko village, and I end up walking halfway there before I realize this. But along the way, I find two more korok seeds, the first one on the top of a strange little plateau that I land on, which has an archery game set up on it, and then nearby there, another raft, which I take across the water, where I explore a wooded area and fight a few bokoblins and get bombed from long distance by an octorock, then climb a nearby mountain for korok seed #2.
I walk about half way to Kakariko village along the road, fight another Yiga clan girl disguised, and spot the bokoblin camp on the other side of the river. This time, I decide to see if I can raid it, and I find a narrow part of the river that I can swim with my newly enlarged stamina meter. I could have used the ice power as well, but I find it a bit slow and tedious. I get over there, and these bokoblins are pushovers, I wipe them out easily, but break several weapons in the process, but it doesn’t matter much because they drop replacements for me, albeit shitty ones. I’m rewarded with an Opal, a number of arrows, which I badly needed, and a lot of bokoblin body parts, which I have an abundance of.
I decide while I’m over here that I should explore this bank of the river a bit, and I come to another Tower, which has thorns growing around it. I’m not sure if I see a clear path up the thorns, and I don’t attempt to do anything to destroy them, but I do find a path up to the top, and once I get there, I’m rewarded with a new map segment for the overworld, plus the tower is another teleportation destination. Towers are fantastic, because once you teleport them, you can glide a long way, and get to pretty much anywhere you want to go pretty quickly, or at least a good bit of the way there.
I scout around with my scope for a bit, and study the new map for a time.
Then I teleport to the shrine at Kakariko village, and see Impa, who tells me to do more shit for her, so now I pretty much have a list of shit to do that’s longer than my arm, and I’m having a hard time remembering all of it. The Sheikah slate has a todo app in it, though, so I can go look at it and it will help me remember. And the map provides a few cues as well.
I teleport back to Hateno village, and talk to Purah some more, and then decide that’s enough for one session, and call it a day.