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I played an extended session and ran the battery down to 15%, and made some good progress.

I tried fighting the Guardians in the ruins area again, but they keep killing me. I don’t have any weapon that can hurt them, it seems. I tried explosive arrows, even they were no use.

I found a mud bog, which if I step into it, I die instantly. There’s two treasure chests on a platform in the middle of it, which I don’t know how to get to. I tried magnetism, but nothing nearby responded to it.

I managed to kill another boar, took its meat, and went to the old man’s house, cooked it up for him right there with the fish and the spicy pepper, and he liked it. He gave me his warm doublet as a reward, and I’m glad I was able to figure out the solution from the clues the game gave me.

As a result, I didn’t need to use any of the concoctions I had made that resist cold temporarily, so I can continue hoarding those as long as I like.

It took me for frickin ever to find the old man’s house again, because I forgot where it was, and had to wander all over the damn place for like 3 hours or so, until I found it again. But because of this, I am pretty well stocked on ingredients for stuff.

Once I got the warm doublet, I put it on and went up into the cold area above the second shrine, and explored. I ran into some new creatures, an Ice Kees, some icy version of the blob things like the ones I encountered at lower latitude, except these guys freeze you with their attack, and explode doing cold damage when they die, which will hurt you if you’re too close. I figured out how to deal with them, though — wait until they launch their cold attack, dodge it successfully, and while they’re recharging, they can’t cold-splode when they die, so you can safely run up and kill them.

Then I came to a river with a fast current and what looked like very cold water, and it looked too dangerous to try to swim across. You can’t swim very well at all in this game, and I kindof figured the cold water would put me into cold-damage territory again, and might just kill me outright.

There was a dock, with a raft on it, and the dock was partially destroyed, making it impossible to get to the raft. But there were some trees nearby. And like a not-too-subtle hint, there was a Woodcutter’s Axe embedded in one of the trees. I still had my Woodcutter’s Axe in my inventory, and used it to cut down one of the trees, and it fell into the river, floated, and went downstream and got stuck on the pylons of the ruined dock, making a bridge to get over the damaged portion. It didn’t quite look like enough though, so I cut down two more trees, which helped, but in the process of so doing, I broke my Woodcutter’s axe. But that was perfect, because I just picked up the new one that was there.

I got on to the raft, and used the Korok leaf to generate wind to propel the raft across the river, and got to the other side.

Somewhere over there, I found a sword, which is the best sword I’ve found so far. I had found a rusted bronze sword earlier, and ended up breaking it in one of the fights, so it was good timing to pick up this one. I decided to keep it in reserve in case I ran into something particularly dangerous, and not waste it on easy enemies.

I wandered down the bank of the river, and came to a partially destroyed bridge, which I could use to cross the river half way, and I recognized the area on the opposite side, the bokoblin tree house I had cleared earlier. So I didn’t need to cross, and went back the other way and continued exploring up the mountain.

I ran into some bokoblins, and, not wanting to waste a lot of time and weapons on them, I figured out how to use nearby boulders to crush them, which worked pretty great. I found another group of them, but left them alone and kept climbing higher, and discovered the third shrine. I know they can be handled in any order, but this is the third one I found, so I’m calling it the third shrine.

I completed it pretty easily, and got the cryonis power and the spirit sphere, and then left. There was a treasure chest nearby floating in an icy pond that was too cold to go into, but using the newly-acquired cryonis power, I was able to retrieve it, and got an opal.

On my way down from the shrine, I killed the bokoblins that I had ignored previously, in one shot using a bomb arrow, from a safe distance above them, as there were no boulders nearby that I could roll at them. After looting their camp, as i walked down the mountain, three huge snowballs rolled down, sneakily from behind, but I was lucky and they missed me. I wonder if the explosive arrow I had used triggered an avalanche?

I noted on the map that the peak of Mount Hyrule was nearby, and decided to see if I could climb to the top of it, because surely there must be something good up there. I get up there, and the Old Man is waiting for me, and tells me this is a great spot for sight seeing.

He tells me again to use my scope, and I don’t have any idea what he’s talking about, so I decide to cheat a little bit and look it up, and find out that there’s a function of the tablet that turns it into a telescope, which use can use to mark far-away landmarks, which transfers the mark onto the map, so you can more easily navigate to the thing that you marked.

This makes things considerably easier, but it pisses me off that the game tells you ONE TIME, when you get to the top of the tower for the first time, how to activate and use this ability, in a dialog that doesn’t repeat ever, and if you do try to talk to the Old Man again so he’ll tell you how to activate it, he acts like you’re wasting his time and won’t tell you. That right there is the single worst bit of game design that I’ve come across in the game so far. Sure, it was my fault for not reading clearly the first time when the Old Man told me what to do, but fuck, I just cleared what he said too quickly for me to register what I had read, there was no way to go back, AND no way to get him to repeat it after he said it ONCE. Fuck that.

I went back to the partially destroyed bridge, and used Cryonis power to make ice pillars that I could use to hop across the gap. Then I noticed an iron door laying on the ground, and used my magnetism power to move it, and laid it on top of the bridge pylons to create a more permanent makeshift bridge there. That was cool; there was actually multiple ways to access the cold region, and several solutions to the obstacle of the river.

I wonder if that good sword I found will work on those Guardians.

I still have one more shrine to find on the plateau, and then I get my hang glider. I bet there’s a ton of other secrets I haven’t found yet on the plateau, but I figure I’ve gotten a lot out of this area already.

I wonder if the cryonis power will work on that mud bog to get me access to those chests…

I’ll have to try more when the battery recharges.

I defeated Stone Talus. I couldn’t time-stop his boulders in midair and knock them back at him, which I thought would be fun. But the way to beat him is a lot easier than that. Just run up to him, climb up onto his back, and slam him in the weak spot with a heavy weapon. The sledge hammer was good for this purpose, and it only took a few hits. I also discovered that holding down the attack button for a few seconds will charge up a higher energy attack, which takes longer to recover from but does a lot more damage if you can land it, and uses your stamina meter.

Stone Talus dropped a bunch of gems.

I also figured out that you can use the Woodsman’s Axe to chop grass and bushes, which yields tree branches, but also uncovers various small creatures that you can capture for use as ingredients. I’ve captured butterflies, fireflies, a frog, some lizards, a shit ton of crickets, but I keep missing birds that sometimes fly by. I also managed to catch some more bass. I need to get more meat, because I think the Old Man’s favorite recipe involves meat and fish cooked together, probably with hot peppers. If that’s right, and if I can make it, then I will be able to get his warm doublet and explore the winter lands without concern about time limit.

I’ve crafted a few meals and made some that were pretty useful, but I haven’t used any yet. I’m a power-up hoarder, and hate using them unless absolutely necessary, or unless I know where I can farm them later. I get the sense that BOTW is very anti this play style, since everything seems to be designed to break, wear out, or get used up. So I should just get used to it, but my only real alternative is to use save points to restore back if I try something and end up wasting some elixir or food that I didn’t know what I was doing with, or screwed up, and I’d rather not do save-restore a lot, because it’s lame to play videogames that way.

I tried taking on the Guardians in the ruined building, but they still kick my ass. There is ONE boulder in the area that I can timestop, but I haven’t been able to deal any damage to them that way, and my regular weapon is just too weak to do anything to them. I did shoot it with arrows, and found that this disrupts their attack charge-up, which is useful, but I’m going to have to find a serious weapon before I can try to take these guys on.

Wandered around the Great Plateau a bit more. Hiked around the perimeter of the plateau, and found a ruined wall that reminded me a bit of the Great Wall of China, in that it was wide enough to walk on top of. I discovered a chest hidden up there, which contained an opal. I’ve found some amber elsewhere in other chests. So far no clue what to do with it.

In a high altitude area of the plateau, there’s a couple of bokoblins living in a treehouse. I couldn’t figure out how to get up there at first, so I just killed them at range with arrows, then looted their little camp area, and picked up a lot of ingredients. I went back there again today, and noticed what looked like a draw bridge tied up to a tree branch. I shot the ropes with my bow, and it fell down, and then I could get up there, and finish clearing out the area.

I managed to catch a butterfly, and killed a boar that I ran into at night in a wooded area.

I went back to the old man’s house, and it was a different time of day, I saw him walking home for the evening, talked to him a bit. That’s really cool to realize that depending on what time of day it is, that there might be different things going on in a particular place, or with a particular character. 

Another time, I ran into him and he was chopping trees, and invited me to help. I cut a tree down and it fell across a ravine, creating a bridge. I walked across and encountered some more bokoblins, killed them, and found more ingredients foraging. I chopped tall grass down with my woodcutter’s axe and it seemed like it uncovered something that I could pick up, but I don’t know what it was, and it seemingly disappeared.

At one bokoblin camp, when they spotted me, they lit their weapons on fire and ran after me. So it seems that they get tougher as you get experience fighting them, which I like. I still took them out easily.

I continued exploring the area, and tried climbing further up the mountain, discovered a series of ledges, picked up some mountain mushrooms, and got up to the top, where I found my second shrine.

Clearing the shrine was disappointingly easy. The setup for these makes them seem like they’re very special, and they should be more challenging than they are.

I walked in, the shrine gave my tablet-thinger a new power. I didn’t have to do ANYTHING to earn the power, just walked up to the tablet kiosk by the entrance and it added the power for me, like I was withdrawing money from an ATM. Then there was a “challenge”, which required using the new ability that I had just obtained, which I did with ease. These were “puzzles” but the challenge level was 0. It’s really just a tutorial level, to teach you a new mechanic, not a challenge. I gather the challenges will be to come, but dang, they could make this a bit more interesting to start off.

I do like the dudes you encounter at the end of these shrines, they remind me of the self-mummified buddhist monks that I’ve read about, who die while meditating and somehow don’t decay. Google that if you haven’t heard of it before.

The new power is a time-stopper, which freezes an object, and allows my to impart kinetic energy into it, which will apply all at once when the time-freeze expires, launching the object in the direction I imparted the kinetic energy with.

It’s cool, and seems like it has potential to be pretty fun. After clearing three very easy, basic “challenges”, I was awarded another Spirit Orb, and then I left.

Outside the shrine, there was a large boulder that I had noticed before, but couldn’t move. Of course, now I can. I time-froze it with my tablet, slammed it with my newly-obtained sledge hammer, and launched it like a golf-ball off the mountain. I hope I find where it landed later, and see a path of destruction that it wrought. Under the boulder was a chest.

I decided I should try climbing up even higher up the mountain, and was rewarded by finding a ledge with another chest, where I found a spare sledge hammer.

Oh, I now think I have a way to defeat that Stone Talus monster I woke up in the wooded glen. That’s going to be a fun fight, I can tell. I might be able to take out those Guardians in the ruins, too.

I climbed still higher, reached the top of the mountain, but it’s snowy, too cold up there for me, so I couldn’t stay up there very long. I can tell there’s more to explore in these cold regions, and I have some clues about how I can do that. I’ve crafted some foods that give me cold resistance for a limited time, which I can use. The old man told me he would give me a warm doublet if I figured out how to cook a dish he can’t remember how to make. So if I keep experimenting with cooking and give it to him, that will be my best bet, I guess.

I still only have 3 heart containers, and haven’t seen any way to increase that so far.

I played a little more Zelda BOTW tonight. I don’t really understand what I’m supposed to do next. The old man told me there’s these shrines where I’m supposed to find more stuff, and then he’ll let me have his glider so I can get off the plateau, but I still don’t know where any of the shrines are. I’ve looked on the map for likely spots, and haven’t turned up anything yet.

So, instead, I’m just wandering about the map semi-aimlessly. I keep finding stuff to pick up for my inventory, but most of it I don’t really know what to do with. Lots of different plants and such that I can cook and heal myself with and do other things. I’ve found a few fires, and a few cooking spots where there’s a bowl that I can throw ingredients into. I have made a few things, but I don’t really know what I’m doing, it’s all just guesswork.

I have encountered several bokoblin camps, and cleared them out. They’re pretty poor at combat, so it’s not hard. I don’t need to use my shield to beat them without getting hurt, which means I’m not learning how to use my shield. I’m also not learning how to target an enemy with focus, and at this point I’ve forgotten how to even do it. I just run up and button mash, and run away while they attack, and their attacks are ridiculously telegraphed, and their aim is terrible, so it’s easy.

I also figured out that they go to sleep at night, so you can sneak up and kill them with one hit before they wake up. Which, I’ll be honest, it’s cool and all, but it feels seriously evil to do it. These guys are ugly and hostile, but they’re so inept, they don’t really deserve to be murdered like this.

In my wanderings, I’ve found a few things of interest:

There are a couple of free standing pillars. I climbed one, and found a treasure chest on the top of it. I climbed another, same deal. So that’s a thing.

I’ve climbed trees and found eggs, apples, and honey. I found honey that was protected by bees, but I ran by a fire with my club out, my club caught on fire, an the fire scared the bees away, and then I could get the honey. That was pretty cool, and I discovered it pretty much accidentally.

I climbed up as high as I could, and it started to get cold, and I got warned that if it gets much colder, I’ll take damage.

I found a treasure chest sunk in a small pond, and figured out how to use my magnetism gizmo to get it out. At first I tried to swim to it, but I can’t figure out how to dive underwater, and I didn’t think I could lift it and swim with it anyway. I wondered if there was some way to drain the pool, but then I remembered my magnet thinger, used it, and it worked. All I got was some arrows, or a piece of amber, I forget which.

I don’t like the bow very much, because the aim is extremely finnicky, and I can’t make fine adjustments. The slightest nudge on the analog stick does nothing, and then a slightly more slight nudge suddenly throws me way off. I feel like the stick should be better calibrated than that, and I’m annoyed that it’s not.

Since archery is a major thing in Zelda games, I have a feeling I’m going to get really frustrated when it comes to doing things with the bow.  (Note:  I figured out later that there’s a setting in the game options that turns off aiming the bow with motion control, which helps considerably to making it easier to aim.)

I found a throwing spear, and so far it’s my favorite weapon. I don’t throw it, but it works really good for stabbing, is quick, decent damage, and good reach. I’m sure it will break and then I will be sad.

I found a wooded area where there’s this boar that I keep trying to hunt, but it takes more damage than I can deal with one arrow hit, and as soon as I hit it once, the fucker runs off, and I can’t keep up with him, and he ends up getting away. This has happened 3-4 times now.

Nearby the boar woods, I encountered a big stone guy who woke up, and killed me.

I also encountered a few of those “guardian” robot thingers among some ruined buildings. I’m too afraid to go near them for now.

I found the Temple of Time, in ruins, and found a statue, prayed at it, and it told me to come back when I found these orbs that I’m supposed to be collecting from the shrines. I’m like, “I know, I need to get the orbs. Maybe put up some signage so it’s easier to find the damn shrines?” The gods do not listen.

I found this little house that the old man apparently lives in, but he wasn’t there. I read his diary and stole all his food, and broke his pots looking for more loot. I feel like an asshole, not a hero. But it gave me a few clues about cooking. I feel Link should learn how to make friends with the bokoblins, who love cooking, and teach him how to cook. They’re only hostile until you bring them something to eat, then they like you and think you’re ok, and you can trade with them instead of killing them. That would be way more fun and awesome than killing them and looting things from their camps.  Maybe someone of them would be hostile, and maybe you’d have to fight some of them, but it would be so much better if you could have more options on how you want to interact with them. 

Like, I remember in the first Legend of Zelda, you’d occasionally meet a moblin who’d give you coins, telling you “It’s a secret to everybody” and there was that one Goriya who you had to offer monster bait to in order to get past him, instead of fighting him.  So, in the same way, you could meet some bokoblins who are maybe suspicious of you at first, and will try to run you off, and you could react to that by fighting them if that’s how your instincts told you to act, but you could “arm” yourself with a piece of food, and wave it at them instead of waving a weapon, and they’d see it, and their facial expressions would change, they’d look curious and maybe a little hungry, and lower their weapons, and begin to approach you tentatively, and if you gave one a piece of your food, it would eat it and then he’d become your friend.  And if you had enough for everyone, they’d all like you.  And then you could talk to them.  And you could keep being friends with them as long as you brought them some food each time you encountered them, but then if you didn’t have food for some reason, then they’d turn hostile.  And maybe some of them just couldn’t be trusted, and would try to stab you in the back when you thought you were friends.  That would give the game so much greater depth and sophistication, having encounters with characters who could become friends or enemies, and having a relationship with them that could dynamically change over a series of encounters.

You could still kill the undead skeletal ones that rise up at night, the true monsters in the game. If they want the bokoblins to be evil, they should actually be evil. All I see them do is dance around their campfires and go to sleep, and mind their own business. They’re actually kindof cute.

Once or twice I’ve seen small animals like squirrels, birds, a skunk (I think) and a small lizard. It seems like I should be able to do something with them, but I haven’t figured it out quite yet. I want to try to pick them up, once one got close to me and it seemed like I might be able to, but I wasn’t successful.

I played Breath of the Wild again for maybe an hour. I found the first shrine, and passed the test. It was very easy, and I felt like it wasn’t challenging or long enough to feel like I accomplished something significant.

After that, the old man told me to meet him at the tower thing that I caused to appear. There, he told me that there were four such shrines on the plateau, which I needed to find, bring him their treasures, and then I could get his glider so I could leave the shrine.

He told me how to use my magic tablet to find them, but I didn’t understand, and now he won’t repeat the instructions, so I’m stuck.

I tried looking from the tower and spotted a column of smoke not far away, so I decided to check it out. I ran into the same old man there, he was hunting. I saw a boar and tried to kill it with my bow, but I only wounded it, and it ran away.

I tried to follow it, but I lost sight of it trying to sneak, but then I encountered a bokoblin camp. So I decided to raid it, and got killed about 4-5 times before I succeeded in defeating the three of them. I got some loot, but all it does is make me wonder what to do with it.

I found another two bokoblins nearby and killed them at long distance with my bow, but used up most of my arrows. I am not good at aiming because the R-stick is too sensitive. But I learned at distance you have to account for drop, by holding over the target, which is really cool. I also scored a few head shots for extra damage, which is also cool.

Since I can’t figure out how to use my tablet to find the shrines on the plateau, if I’m going to get anywhere in the game I’m going to need to read cheat guides, which feels like giving up, and I am not ready for that yet. But I already feel like there’s a lot of controls to remember, like how to quickly switch shields and stuff, and it’s hard to remember it all. “Back in my day, all we had was an A button, a B button, Select, Start, and a D-bad, and we liked it!” 

Also, I find the camera to be very awkward, and it almost never does what I want it to. Changing camera angles is a little slow for when I’m in an urgent situation, like in a combat.  A very slight speed increase, maybe just 10% could make a big difference here.  Left trigger is supposed to cause Link to focus on his enemy, but if there’s multiple enemies nearby, how it selects the one to focus on is unclear, and often not the one I wanted.  Left-trigger also brings up your shield, if you’re using a shield, so it seems more important to focus on the right enemy so that you can bring the shield up to block incoming attacks from it. 

Beyond that, if I’m next to a wall or other object, the camera zooms in to show me what the view through Link’s eyes would be, rather than a 3rd-person view, which is a good idea, but then it seems to get confused.  If I’m up in a treetop, I get a nice close up view of the leaves blocking my view of Link and whatever he might be looking at, which makes climbing trees for a better view pretty much useless.  I feel the game engine should make non-solid objects between Link and the camera semi-transparent, or even not draw them, so that you can get a clear view of what’s going on.

So far I’m not really as impressed as I thought I was going to be.

I started playing Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild today.

The last Zelda game I played for the first time was Ocarina of Time on the N64, basically 25 years ago.

In BotW, Link wakes up after 100 years of sleep, remembering nothing.

This is pretty much how I feel too.

So far, I don’t want to do the main quest at all, I just want to wander around and interact with things and discover things on my own. Still, I’m basically following the game’s directions prompting me to go here, do this, do that. But mainly I just want to walk around slowly, taking in the sights, and observe the environment changing over time as the weather changes, time passes, etc.

I have avoided reading spoilers and instructions for the most part, but of course I have read/watched some reviews, and have a spotty understanding of what to expect.

I know that I’m confined to an area of the world called the Great Plateau at first, so I haven’t tried to climb down off of it. I’ve run around the plateau and tried to find things. One of the first things I did after leaving the cave where Link wakes up is meet an old man who was sitting by a fire. He is friendly and gave me some information about things that I can do in the world. I can sit by the fire to pass time, and I can cook things in the fire — I cooked an apple.

I have rudimentary clothing from the place where I woke up, and all I have for a weapon is a tree branch. I feel like if I get into anything with this armament that I will be in trouble, so I’m avoiding fights with random monsters for now. I hope I can explore a bit and discover a better weapon, or some armor, or at least some items that can heal me before I get into any big fights.