401 zelda breath of the wild - beating up the three hinox brothers

Dear Readers,

Up until now I had barely explored the mountains south of Dueling Peaks Stable. While searching for that shrine next to the river I got a taste of it and wanted to continue.

I started from the hot spring and continued roaming the mountains. I found lots of ponds, trees and hillsides that felt new and unspoiled by road construction or warp points. I kept an eye out for any new shrines and eventually I found a pedestal!

When I got closer, it turned out to be three pedestals! There was a stone plaque that told me about the three Hinox brothers that lived in the surrounding areas. Each one of them had an orb and I had to go to each area and beat them all up. It's a good thing I didn't have to take them all on at once.

They were all nearby. The first one I fought was at the Rabella Wetlands and he was surrounded by Bokoblins, many of whom just seemed to be chilling out. I haven't really seen them be chill like this before. Maybe it was because they lived so remotely. I beat some of them up before I took on the big guy. I managed to keep him on the mound he was sleeping on with lots of attacks and arrows to the eye. I defeated him handily.

I used a different strategy with the other two brothers. They were both at a much lower elevation than the area with the pedestals. They were both sleeping under giant skeleton rib cages so I just stood on top of the ribs while I rained bombs and arrows down on them. I beat them all handily. These other brothers didn't have any Bokoblins around them.

I gathered all the orbs, placed them in the pedestals and Tawa Jinn Shrine burst from the ground. No further trial inside — just a blessing.

400 zelda breath of the wild - tilting controls at toto sah shrine

Dear Readers,

I get the feeling this shrine was meant to be found earlier in the game but I find it now about 400 blog posts in with postgame experience and strength.

It was all about tilting the controller to make staircases line up with the path. Very straightforward really and it felt like an early game novelty. It also retained that sense of fun that an early novelty has.

I made my path, grabbed the treasure chests while I was here and got the blessing.

399 zelda breath of the wild - the hidden shrine in hickaly woods

Dear Readers,

I went to the Dueling Peaks Stable and took on the quest that two guys had, but they wouldn't give it to me unless I paid them 100 rupees for information. For a second I felt like Tingle from Rosy Rupeeland. 

I got their information and headed to Hickaly Woods nearby. It was where I came across my first sighting of a bear in the game. I also came across a Stalnox and picked a fight with it, knocking its eye out of its socket as much as I could. To recover from the fight I climbed a cliff to the east and made my way to the hot spring I spotted on the map. I took a nice long dip! I also dived into the ring of flowers for a Korok seed.

What I really needed to do in this area was follow the smaller stream and up its waterfall and gather the treasures from the cave at the top of it. There were some nice minerals and weapons here. The guys were pretty mad when I told them I had found it. At least I get to gloat.

While I was in this area, my shrine radar went off. I explored the mountains to the south to see if I could find it. I got a bit off course and ended up fighting a Guardian Stalker. I really didn't need to be up there though, as the shrine was right next to the tiny river I had to follow earlier. I didn't notice the rocks covering the cave it was in at first. I blew them up and went into Toto Sah Shrine.

398 zelda breath of the wild - conquering south lomei labyrinth

Dear Readers,

I decided to go and conquer South Lomei Labyrinth. I warped nearby and glided all the way in.

On the map it looked like it was just squares within squares, but it didn't show any gaps in walls and it didn't show any levels the gaps were at either.

The only enemies I found here were Bokoblins and Stalkoblins. All of the Bokoblins were on top of the walls of the maze, patrolling around for some reason. I wondered why they were doing that. There was no stopping anyone at the entrance.

I also came across the evil goop but I didn't find any eyeball to shoot.

I explored the maze until I got all the treasure chests. Some had weapons and some had rupees, which was nice.

I felt this was a bit easier than the other mazes I took on, but it seemed pretty mysterious. Navigating the passageways and gaps in the wall was challenging, even though it looks fairly unassuming on the map. I eventually got to the shrine at the centre of the maze and obtained the blessing.

397 zelda breath of the wild - the girl who fell in love with an orb

Dear Readers,

I recall meeting someone who was clinging onto an ancient glowing orb when I was exploring the coastline and I said I'd come back to them another time. I decided to go back to her now.

Her name was Loone and she was hugging and doting on a glowing orb that she named "Roscoe". The altar that housed the orb was nearby.

I was thinking maybe the tough times in this post apocalyptic world were too much for her and she took solace in this glowing thing. The poor girl.

I talked to her for a bit and she said what she really wanted was to see a small Guardian, a walking Guardian and a flying Guardian. If she saw those then she would forget all about Roscoe and daydream about Guardians.

She seemed hardy and hopeful after all, yet still quite a bit silly. I decided to indulge her request. I wasn't able to show her the entries in the Compendium though. I had to have pictures of these Guardians in my album.

I warped to the shrine outside Hyrule Castle and found the flying and walking Guardians pretty quickly, but it wasn't as straightforward with the little one. I tried taking a picture of a Guardian Scout III, but it wasn't what she wanted. I warped to the very first shrine I did, the Magnesis trial on the Great Plateau. Inside I took a picture of a Guardian Scout I and that did the trick!

I brought all three photos back to her and it made her extremely happy. She said she burned the images of the Guardians into her imagination and decided to daydream about them instead of Roscoe. I'm glad she acknowledged the fact that Guardians are too dangerous to approach casually. I'm sure she'll be ok! Maybe it's good to just daydream about certain things! That's food for thought!

With Roscoe freed, I brought it do the altar. Shoqa Tatone Shrine burst out of the ground and I went inside. It was a modest test of strength and I smashed up the Guardian to gain access to the monk's blessing.

396 zelda breath of the wild - solving the secret of the snowy peaks

Dear Readers,

I decided to explore this mountain that was between Faron and Gerudo Desert. It was called Mount Granajh. I was well able to climb it with my maxed out stamina and explore it with my Rito gear. It was very interesting to be in an area with temperature extremes so close together.

I kept climbing and exploring until I found a pedestal on the side of a cliff. Nearby was the remains of a hut with a diary lying around. The one who wrote it spent many many days trying to figure out the puzzle of the place and they were running out of supplies. The poor thing must've had an awful difficult time.

They left a very big clue to the pedestal and it was something about casting a cold shadow on it. Initially I thought it was about throwing the big snowballs that were lying around the place at it, but it turns out I had to hold one and cast its shadow at a certain time of the day when it was glowing. After a short time I eventually found that it was sometime in the evening before sunset. I held a snowball over my head and got into position that made the sun cast the snowball's shadow onto the centre of the pedestal. When that happened, Suma Sahma Shrine burst out of the ground! Hooray!

Inside the shrine was a blessing. That was a pretty satisfying puzzle to solve!

395 zelda breath of the wild - placing the laser in ishto soh shrine

Dear Readers,

This shrine had a very simple puzzle. There was a moving platform and a laser shooter I could carry around. All I had to do was put the laser on this platform and point it towards a direction where it would shoot the switch every time it passed it. This made the platforms shift up and down by themselves and I was able to access treasures and the monk easily. Nice little shrine.