Impa told me that in order to regain my memories, I should try visiting the 12 locations shown in the photos stored on Zelda’s smartphone. So it looks like I’m going to have to do a lot of traveling and exploration. Well, duh. I’ve only been to, what, 3 zones on the world map, and there’s a huge amount of unexplored world out there.
I don’t feel I’ve quite explored the regions I’ve already been to enough just yet, so I spent a few hours wandering around to do that.
I didn’t particularly have any agenda, just headed out in a direction and spotted something interesting, and headed towards it. No matter where you are in this world, there’s always something that looks pretty interesting. A tree, a hill, a rock formation, a ruin. Mostly, I try to climb to the top of things. There’s usually something good at the top of anything climbable, and whether there is or not, it’s good to take a look around from up there, and you can see a long way, especially with your Sheikah scope, and see other things to check out, and then you can usually glide there.
Near Hateno village, I captured a new horse in the highlands, and decided to keep him, so I needed to ride back to the stable between Hateno and Kakariko. This horse was more spirited and difficult to control, but I worked with him for a long time and he became calmer. Up in the highlands, there were a lot of bokoblins around, and a few of them even came on horseback. These guys were challenging to fight, because I was trying to ride my untamed horse, and fighting from it was not something I am used to. I wanted to do more exploring around there, but the enemies appearing and harassing me got annoying and persuaded me to take my new horse to the stables before I lost him.
It was a longer ride than I remembered, but we got there, and I got him registered, naming him Horsier, since his stats are higher than Horsey’s stats.
Next, I decided to try to climb the Dueling Peaks, and see what I might have overlooked there. It turns out there were (at least) three shrines up there that I hadn’t found on my first pass through, and probably due to the difficulty of the climbs I doubt that I could have reached them the first time. As well, I revisited one of the two shrines that I had cleared before, and figured out how to get to the treasure chest that I couldn’t figure out how to reach on my first visit. In it, I found a headscarf that, when I wear it, gives me a boost to my climbing speed, which means I can go higher before my stamina meter runs out. This is so useful, I’m very glad I returned to that shrine and figured out how to get it. I wonder if the fairy near Kakariko village is able to augment this one?
Two of the shrines were connected to each other, in that the solution to each of them was contained within the layout of the other. I was able to solve this easily by using the Sheikah camera to take a picture of the floor of each one, and then look at it in the other, to solve the puzzle. This was a fun and unique challenge.
I also found a few more Korok seeds, and discovered another Stone Talus, which I defeated pretty easily.
I don’t know if I found everything there is to find in this area, probably not, but I felt like I had done quite a lot here, and wanted to get back to the main quest. So I glided back down to the stable area and got on Horsier, and we rode back toward Hateno village. Near the ruined fortress wall, I remembered there were many broken down Guardians, and remembering that Purah can augment my Sheikah slate further if I bring her parts from them, I spent some time searching, and found some more screws, springs, and gears.
There were a lot of bokoblins around this area, too, and they were better armed than most, wielding big bats and claymore swords. I cleared out a camp of them and got some nice weapon drops and an opal.
Further to the south, along the wall, I discovered another raft, dragged ashore at the bank of a river. I decided that this would be the next thing I should check out, but the battery was running low again, so I called Horsier over, saved, and put it back on the dock to charge.