158 pokémon picross - m01 first column, sixth row

Dear Readers,

This one was complex enough. It took a bit of time edging out the fills. There were a lot of fills and it ended up looking like some kind of hairy Pac-Man. That takes a bit of imagination to see but it's kind of funny.

157 pokémon picross - m01 seventh column, fifth row

Dear Readers,

Been ages since I did a mural slate and now all of a sudden I have three to do. With this one I had one column completely full and another completely empty. That helped with doing this puzzle which turned out to be mostly on the left side with some kind of crevice shape in it.

156 pokémon picross - s11-07 arbok

Dear Readers,

A weird thing happened with this one. I don't have a ground type yet so I didn't try to beat all the missions, instead using Zygarde and a Pokémon with hyper scan to just get through it and use what I needed to use.

I cleared the top left, top right and bottom left 5x5 squares but I got stuck on the last one! That was pretty weird but I did eventually find where to put an X and I was able to solve the whole thing. I didn't have to use hyper scan but for a moment it looked like it was gonna come in handy.

155 pokémon picross - s11-08 keldeo (resolute form)

Dear Readers,

A rare Pokémon! I had 30 minutes and I had to use a water type. I didn't have anything advanced enough to use scatter reveal on a 20x15, so I used one of the Zygardes and Manaphy.

I was doing very well until the end when I made a 1 pixel mistake. Normally I would despair and clear the whole thing, but this time I did some guess work to shift squares around. It paid off in the end and I was delighted when it was caught! I was able to beat it in time too! 

154 pokémon picross - s11-06 aegislash (shield forme)

Dear Readers,

It is so strange when Pokémon have different forms or formes or whatever. For this I set Zygarde and a fire type, even though the fire type wasn't advanced enough to use in a 15x15 puzzle.

I managed to get all the missions here on the first go, which was nice!

153 pokémon picross - s11-02 bagon

Dear Readers,

I got all the missions on the first go here, which was nice! Nice and generous 5 minute time goal as well. I made sure to only use time skills as well. I was just after a string of not doing well in missions so it was nice to do so well in this one.

152 pokémon picross - s11-03 scizor

Dear Readers,

I didn't have Heracross so I couldn't fulfill that particular mission. I used scatter reveal alright for another mission. I didn't bother trying to get under a minute. I know I'll have to come back.

151 pokémon picross - s11-01 spinarak

Dear Readers,

I had no idea who this was for most of it. I had to use at least 2 Pokémon and to only use diamond reveal. I got these missions but not the minute one. Maybe I'll catch a Pokémon that has a bigger diamond reveal in the future?

150 pokémon picross - daily grind in area 11

Dear Readers,

Feels good to go to a new area, a new change of scene. Makes the daily grind of work a bit more tolerable to have a new place to look forward to going after work.

298 zelda breath of the wild - obtaining the gerudo outfit!

Dear Readers,

I love mingling with the Gerudo. I love how tall and strong and confident they are. They can roam the world without any fear, apart from the monsters I suppose.

There was talk about a suspicious character roaming around the place. I didn't pay too much notice to it. I came across them by accident when I climbed to the roof of the inn.

This character was a very interesting character! They were very interested in me too, in particular about how I would look in the Gerudo outfit. I paid the money they asked for and they gave me the outfit. I changed into it right then and there.

What a dramatic change! I was now able to pass as a lady! I'll finally be able to enter Gerudo Town now! On top of that, this outfit provides natural protection against the daytime desert heat! Woo!

Mingling with the Gerudo is different now... they say different things, praising me for being a pretty little thing. Other characters treat me differently now too. It's going to be a lot of fun! I love the feeling of these big strong ladies praising me.

Of course, I'm gonna have to upgrade all this equipment too. Lots to do ahead!

297 zelda breath of the wild - sending a gerudo to tarrey town

Dear Readers,

I set out from Hateno with Spotty and rode all the way to Gerudo Canyon Stable. I boarded Spotty there and continued on foot.

When I got to Gerudo Desert I found that I was able to use my Rito suit during the cold night but I wasn't able to be comfortable during the hot day in the Goron suit! It can handle volcanic heat but not desert heat! Learning something new all the time!

I got as far as Kara Kara Bazaar and mingled around. I told the Gerudo whose name ended in "son" about Tarrey Town and she packed up and left, the scene playing that same sentimental sad music from before. I'll visit her there soon.

296 zelda breath of the wild - bringing daruk's sword home with me

Dear Readers,

On the way back home I decided to be a bit adventurous and take a shortcut through the Lanayru Wetlands. There isn't a set road and there are baddies, but they're no trouble at all if you keep riding through. It was nice to see a change of scene!

It proved to be a good shortcut back to Kakariko as well, although I miss out on a few apple picking spots. I have loads of apples anyway so that's okay.

I got home, picked loads of apples and displayed Daruk's weapon in my house, next to Mipha's and Revali's weapons too.

295 zelda breath of the wild - sending gorons to tarrey town

Dear Readers,

On the way back down from Goron City, I decided to stop at the southern mine and talk to the Gorons whose names ended in "son". I told them about Tarrey Town and they decided to pack up and leave. The same sad sentimental music played when they left. It is a good piece of music about life's changing phases, but it still feels very sad. I wonder if they'll miss each other.

I decided to visit Tarrey Town and when I got there I found that the little one opened up a shop selling gems. Hudson wanted more wood to build more houses so I chopped some for him. He told me about needing a tailor and asked me to look for a Gerudo whose name ended in "son". That's all ahead of me. Really looking forward to doing the Gerudo stuff!

149 pokémon picross - the grind feels more difficult today

Dear Readers,

Today's grinding set of puzzles felt longer and more difficult than usual. Yet, when I finished them all I got more or less the same time I usually get, which is a good 3 or 4 minutes. I even made mistakes in a couple of them. Thankfully, they're so small I can fix them easily.

148 pokémon picross - earning over 100 again

Dear Readers,

I earned over 100 Picrites again finally with the daily grind. I haven't tried to get the bonus since I hit the level cap. I'd rather do a little leisurely thing every day to earn my few Picrites. It's like I can enjoy it and no one can take that enjoyment away from me, so it's nice.

Looking to unlock the next area, which will take another good few days.

147 pokémon picross - s09-09 shaymin (sky forme)

Dear Readers,

This was a rare encounter and quite a nice and satisfying big puzzle. For missions I had to set 2 Pokémon, use skills 10 of fewer times and clear within 30 minutes. I used Manaphy and Zygarde 10%. I revealed the centre 5x5 squares and after a while I revealed the bottom left 5x5 square just to speed things up.

It was a pretty nice puzzle and picture. Shaymin has a big furry head with distinctive features. I got everything done, missions and all!

294 zelda breath of the wild - beating the heck out of fireblight ganon at vah rudania

Dear Readers,

I was now upgraded to the max and ready to take on the Goron divine beast, Vah Rudania! I hiked up Death Mountain as far as I could. I got to that point where I fired the last cannon, but from that point on was just a big climb. I decided to just warp back into the dungeon.

It was pretty crazy to observe the inside of this volcano. I found a bunch of treasure chests outside straight away. When I finally went inside, it was pitch dark and the temperature wasn't scorching anymore, which was weird.

I fumbled around in the dark, shooting out evil eyeballs and using torchlight to navigate. When I finally got the map, Vah Rudania opened all its panels/windows to let the light in. This time, I had the ability to rotate the creature 90 degrees and back.

The very most of the dungeon was sussing out where I could get to the terminals and using the rotation mechanic to access them and the treasures, both inside and outside the dungeon.

Everything was going well until I came across torch lighting puzzles and didn't know what to do. I then discovered that I could carry a blue flame outside and my torch wouldn't disintegrate in the heat as long as it was lit with the blue flame. It made absolutely no sense but at that point I didn't want to argue. I lit the blue lantern outside to get the ball rolling and put away my torch quickly.

The other lamp lighting puzzle I had to shoot with an arrow through a small hole in a door. There's no such thing as blue flame arrows, so I was stuck for ages trying to figure out what to do. I found from a guide on zeldadungeon dot net that I had to hold the arrow shooting button and walk up to a lit lamp to light the arrow on fire, then, continuing to hold the button, walk over to the hole and shoot at the lamp through it. It was such a simple thing, such a basic mechanic that it was annoying because I had never used it in the game until now. I don't remember using it anyway.

There was one treasure chest that was eluding me as well. I found from the comment section of that zeldadungeon dot net guide that I had to go outside and rotate the dungeon where the ladder was so I could go over the wall. I shot out an evil eyeball along the way. There was this tiny opening nearby that was hard to notice but I had to fall down through it to reach the treasure chest that I spent ages trying to find. Glad I got that over with!

Fireblight Ganon was another floating torso but with a big fiery sword this time. It was hard to hit him with the Master Sword because he always went out of reach. He shot big flaming fireballs as well which I had to avoid by taking cover behind walls. I was stuck on that part for ages until Daruk gently suggested that Fireblight Ganon had an appetite for bombs. I disarmed him with a bomb or two and continued trying to hit him with the Master Sword and arrows until he was finally defeated.

Just like with the other Divine Beasts, Daruk piloted Vah Rudania to the top of the mountain and shot a beam at Ganon in Hyrule Castle. Yunobo saw him for a brief moment and they both observed each other with joy. Daruk was wondering how the Gorons were doing now and when he saw Yunobo, he felt good.

Daruk also gave me his red shield ability thing, which should come in handy!

After all this, I went back to Goron City and chatted with the boss. He congratulated and thanked me lots and gave me Daruk's old heavy sword. I took it gladly. I'm going to display this in my house with the other champion weapons!

293 zelda breath of the wild - finally found the smotherwing butterflies

Dear Readers,

After ages of searching the path to Goron City I found the smotherwing butterflies! I had trouble spotting them and when I finally did, a lizalfos ate the one I was trying to photograph. I smacked the crap out of him.

After a while I found more and after a bit of trouble, finally got a photograph of it and a compendium entry! I set the radar to it and found a bunch more to collect for the heatproof suit upgrade.

Afterwards I headed back to the great fairy for the upgrade.

It seems with these smotherwing butterflies they come out during the day but I don't know for sure. They're fairly elusive.

292 zelda breath of the wild - escorting yunobo to knock vah rudania back into death mountain

Dear Readers,

I headed back to the leader, but he really wasn't able to help Yunobo and me. I would have to go in his stead.

At one point during all this, Yunobo's ancestor came up. He was Daruk, the champion I knew a hundred years ago. I didn't remember at first, but when his statue was shown to me, the memory flowed back very quickly and I got into a flashback, where Daruk was congratulating me on becoming the one to protect Princess Zelda. At one point some rocks fell down on us and he used the red shield thing to stop it. His descendant Yunobo has that power now.

With all that out of the way I headed up to the Eldin bridge and saved Yunobo from some moblins. After this, I used the nearby cannon to shoot him at the drawbridge, making it come down in front of us.

When we crossed, Vah Rudania released sentries that would set off an alarm and make it rain firebombs all over the place if they spotted us. I had to escort Yunobo from this point on.

We came up with a signal system where I would whistle to make him move and stop. We had to travel along a very narrow and treacherous trail, destroying sentries with bombs and using the cannons along the way to blast at Vah Rudania, making it crawl back into the mountain eventually. This all took quite a while and we had to fight very strong moblins on top of all that. 

Eventually, we succeeded. We stood on the top of Death Mountain, looking at Vah Rudania below in the deep crater, lying on its belly. I glided down to it while Yunobo stayed.

When I got there, I heard Daruk's voice, just like I did with Mipha and Revali. Just like them, he instructed me to find the mapping point first. He has a really good voice.

However, I wanted to leave and prepare more for this place!

291 zelda breath of the wild - can't find smotherwing butterflies, went to help yunobo instead

Dear Readers,

I hiked all the way back up to Goron City, but couldn't find any smotherwing butterflies. I don't even have them in the compendium yet. I decided to just go and look for Yunobo.

I was now able to hop across the islands in the lava on the way to him, because I had the full heatproof suit and the lizalfos mask. The area was crawling with them. There were loads of updraught points, so I didn't have much trouble with gliding or anything. There were points where there were cannons. I was able to use my sledgehammer to aim and my bombs for ammunition.

I eventually found Yunobo, but I had to blast him out of the mine with one of the cannons as there was a cave in. We met, had a chat about everything, and became friends. He has this ability where he can make a big red shield form around him, making him into an excellent makeshift cannonball. He's often used to keep the divine beast at bay, whose name is Vah Rudania. He made his way back to Goron City.

I must say I find it weird how the Gorons keep their supplies all the way out here across these islands, including the medicine the leader needed for his back.

290 zelda breath of the wild - beating up tons of moblins in akkala

Dear Readers,

I went looking for more Moblins in Akkala, which led me to the East Akkala Stable near the research lab. I detected some Moblins so I boarded Spotty at the stable and went hunting on foot.

What a find! There's a huge trail of Moblins all the way along Bloodleaf Lake, across the bridge and up around the mountain of Tumlea Heights. Just tons of them! I mostly used stealth, though the odd time I had to get in fights with the Moblins too. It continued into the night were I was able to sneakstrike them as they slept. The moblin mask came in very handy too.

Up at the top of Tumlea Heights was a blue flame statue thingy like back in Hateno Village. There are torches all over this area too. I don't remember but maybe there's a quest to light all the torches here too?

In any case, I had more than enough moblin guts now!

289 zelda breath of the wild - beating up moblins on the way to ritaag zumo shrine

Dear Readers,

I wanted moblin guts, so I set the radar to blue moblins. I figured I was bound to find them on Rist Peninsula, the curly spit of land in Malin Bay near where I went to the Great Fairy.

Sure enough I found them there, along with Bokoblins, Lizalfos, Octoroks and fire Keese. It was very difficult to use masks for anything out here. I picked them off gradually. One strategy I used was to leave metal objects on the ground while it was thundering. The lightning got them good and was very handy when fighting them!

Another thing I did was carry this orb that was in some ruins at the start of the peninsula. There was a shrine socket in the very centre and I had to carry it all the way, occasionally leaving it down to fight off baddies.

Eventually I got to the centre of the spiral with the orb and Ritaag Zumo Shrine appeared. It was one of those where I was immediately rewarded on entering, so that was nice.

I got quite a few moblin guts, but I need more. The hunt continues.

288 zelda breath of the wild - catching more fireproof lizards for second heat suit upgrade

Dear Readers,

Just when I thought I didn't need any more fireproof lizards, the Great Fairy needed 9 of them to upgrade my fireproof gear. I took Spotty back to Eldin and used the radar to catch more of them. There's loads of them so I found them in no time at all.

Afterwards we went back to the Great Fairy and upgraded everything. There was another upgrade, but I needed moblin guts and smotherwing butterflies, an insect I haven't added to the compendium yet. I know they're in Eldin, but they're kind of elusive.

Looking forward to beating up some moblins though! Stalmoblins won't do of course, because they don't have guts or any other fleshy organs.

287 zelda breath of the wild - upgrading the fireproof suit once

Dear Readers,

I decided to head to the great fairy in Akkala in order to upgrade my new fireproof equipment. I followed the mountain trail back down towards where I left Spotty.

Along the way I beat the Igneo Talus that was on the path. If I was to do it again I would extinguish the lava that makes up part of it.

I reached Spotty and rode all the way to Akkala, beating up the Guardian along the way.

When I got there, I upgraded my entire new fireproof suit once. One of the things the great fairy wanted for upgrading the second time was a bunch of fireproof lizards. I'll go back to Eldin and get more next time. I'm just glad it's close by.

146 pokémon picross - working and daydreaming of travelling to new areas

Dear Readers,

Jumped into the grind just past midnight. I don't really remember how long it took me to do the 5 puzzles but after the second one was done I was well over 3 and a half minutes. I wasn't hurrying this at all.

There was a rare sighting today but it's in an area I can't reach yet. It'll take about a week or so to get there. I can daydream about it until then, like I'm looking forward to a holiday or something haha.

286 zelda breath of the wild - falling slowly at daqa koh shrine

Dear Readers,

This shrine was very short and easy. I took all the treasure before taking on the major puzzle, a huge stone block that was trampolining against a switch that opened the way to the monk.

I got on the trampoline, which was more of a catapulting platform before bouncing up with the stone block. I parachuted, letting the block fall down before me so I could land on top of it. Then I used stasis on the block when it touched the mechanism that made it open the path to the monk. I then went straight to the monk. 

285 zelda breath of the wild - burning a path through shae mo'sah shrine

Dear Readers,

I took on this shrine, which seems to be the main shrine and warp point near Goron City. There were lots of doors to open with weighted switches. I had to burn obstacles that were keeping me from getting the heavy barrels I needed.

There was lots of treasure to find and little guardians to beat up too. One of the treasures was a stone smasher. Looking forward to using that thing soon!

I kept pressing ahead and burning what I needed to burn. I needed to guide a metal ball at some point to make a wheel spin too, which wasn't much trouble. One of the treasures was a key and eventually I reached the monk.

284 zelda breath of the wild - mining and saving up for the full heat proof suit

Dear Readers,

After talking to the boss of the Gorons, I set off looking for Yunobo, the one who was going to help me. I met happy and grumpy Gorons and asked them more about where he was. They eventually pointed out in the direction of a few islands out in a big lake of lava. I followed until I got to a point where I couldn't go any further with the heat, even with my armour. I only had one piece of the fireproof set, so I was going to have to save up to get the other two pieces. I wanted to save up 2,700 rupees.

I went exploring, continuing on paths I was able to go. I crossed a bridge that was above Goron City and I also met many bomb octoroks, fire keese and lizalfos. I kept my lizalfos mask on most of the time.

The path led to the lava before Death Mountain itself. I couldn't cross here yet either. After this I wandered around, finding lots of ore to mine with my sledgehammer. There was so much of it in the end that I had more than enough to raise money for the other pieces of the heat armour. I was finally all suited up! I'll upgrade it with the Great Fairies soon.

No apples grow around here unfortunately, so I couldn't continue my simmered fruit business, but mining the ore made up for it.

I also found the drillshaft, which a young Goron hid. I showed it to him and he let me have it during a side quest.

I found two shrines in the area too. I'll talk about them shortly.

145 pokémon picross - m01 seventh row, fifth column

Dear Readers,

When unlocking this I used Zygarde which made the process very quick and easy.

The tile itself was the easiest yet! I had a grand total of six squares to fill in on the top right! The rest of it was all X! Very fast and easy puzzle. Nice to get those now and again!

144 pokémon picross - m01 fifth row, sixth column

Dear Readers,

Unlocking this tile was annoying because I went to the trouble of using Mew, but I made a mistake and ended up having to rush to get within the 1 minute requirement. I made it thankfully.

Anyway, this tile was shaped like a cross with the top right chamber closing in a loop. It was slightly tricky but not too bad as there were a couple of big numbers. I felt I had to work from the inside out for the most part.

143 pokémon picross - m01 third row, seventh column

Dear Readers,

This tile had one full line and one completely empty line. The pattern it made was kind of like if you can imagine a bridge with a slope and supporting structure, though that kind of takes a bit of imagination. Time consuming but very doable.