I took the raft down river, and got ambushed by an octarock, who was lurking in the water, which I killed. Octarocks are super accurate with their fire, and are very dangerous unless you constantly change direction, as they can hit you on a dead run if you are moving in a straight line. I like the challenge when they’re in an open area where I can run well, but when they’re a distance away and you can’t get to them due to some obstacles between you and them, and they can shoot you, they can really ruin your day in a hurry.
I continued on down the river a ways, and then checked the map to see where I was going to. The river was bringing me back toward the Stables, which wasn’t terribly interesting, but OK. There’s two wooded foot bridges that cross the river in this area, and I hadn’t really explored much up in this area, so I decided to scout and screw around.
I found a wooded area where there is an abundance of wildlife and herbs and mushrooms. I tried to take down a bear, but I couldn’t kill it, despite trying several times. Arrows seem to do damage, but not enough to bring it down, and my best attempt I hit it a good 3 maybe 4 times and it still ran me down and killed me in one hit. Which, I guess is pretty much what bears do.
I found a kurok seed in a hollowed tree stump near there, and a secret cache of rupees, and down by the river near there, I kept getting signals from my Sheikah slate that a shrine was nearby, but I couldn’t find it. I crossed the river and climbed up the sheer cliff on the other bank, climbing as high as I could, and found another Kurok seed archery test, but I was low on arrows and wasn’t able to claim the seed. And then, a bit absentmindedly, I didn’t remember to mark the hill on the map, so now I will have to re-discover it.
On top of the hill, I saw a huge bull, and managed to take him down, and got a prime raw meat drop for my trouble. I explored along the ridge, and found some wood, and a kurok seed, and ran into a camp of two or three bokoblins and a moblin. I tried rolling bombs downhill into them to take them out, but it was slow going. They seemed to take very little damage from the bombs, and OK, I guess the game designers aren’t going to give you an unlimited bomb that is a super weapon, are they. It took forever, but I did manage to take them out, but then a Blood Moon occurred and brought them back to life about two minutes later.
Eventually it seemed like there wasn’t a whole lot left for me to discover up there, unless I wanted to go onward into a new unmapped zone, which I wasn’t exactly feeling ready for yet, so I glided back down to the wooded area, and called Horsier, then rode out to see if that weird guy with the maraccas was out near Kakariko village, but he wasn’t.
So I decided to climb the hills in this area, and found 3-4 more kurok seeds on some of the hilltops, a buried chest with more rupees, and then glided down into this lake where there was a small rock island, which I landed on, and found the last of the kurok seeds that I would discover in this session.
I couldn’t see a safe way to get off of this island, as it looked too far to swim. So I used the Sheikah slate to teleport to the shrine outside Kakariko, then went up to the fairy pond and captured 3 fairies, and had the fairy in the pond augment my head scarf, so now I can climb even faster than before, which I’m looking forward to trying out.
I walked out of Kakariko on the north road by accident, and found some more horses, so I grabbed one, and I think this one might be a little bit more spirited than Horsier, so I took him back to the stables and registered him as Horsiest. Poor Horsey, my first horse, I left back at Hateno village, and I feel bad about that, so I will go back there next and get him and bring him back to the stable to board. I also boarded Horsier too, so now I’ll have 3 horses all at the stable.
The horses are pretty fun and I enjoy them but they do seem to be pretty inconvenient when it comes to exploring and finding neat stuff, since you have to get off of them any time you want to grab anything, and they can’t climb anywhere. At least they’ll call from a reasonably long distance if you leave them somewhere and need them to come to you.
Fighting from horseback is a lot harder than fighting on foot, at least for now, and I’m pretty terrible at it either way. I don’t use my shield, I don’t dodge or counter attack or use the stealth attack, and the charge attack seems like a sucker move that leaves you open to the enemy hitting you first too easily, so I’m just awful at combat. If I have an OK weapon I can get through the easier fights without too much problem.
The game offers a huge amount of rewarding activities that don’t involve combat, and I really like climbing and exploring, and now that the shrines have gotten a bit more interesting I enjoy solving those puzzles, too. But at some point I’m going to have to settle in and practice the combat moves a lot more until I know the controls. Lately I’ve been running into stronger bokoblins and moblins who can all pretty much one-shot me if I make even one mistake I’m dead.
Battery was low by this point so I had to stop again. I guess tomorrow I will run out to Hateno village and pick up Horsey, board him, and then see if I can complete the bokoblin beach mission for the farm girl with the sheep, and hopefully I’ll handle the combat OK, or at least get some good practice at it.
After that, I guess it’ll be trying to find more shrines, kurok seeds, and rupees and wood so I can buy that house in Hateno and see what that does for me.