241 zelda breath of the wild - self-driving horses

Dear Readers,

Time for more horse-riding! This time I took a notion to visit Tarrey Town so I rode Spotty all the way there from Hateno Village.

I stopped at a stable along the way and they advised that the horse can steer by itself when its trotting along a road. Very nice to know! Self-driving horses!

I tried going to Zora's Domain but there was a road block and I couldn't go any further. I guess you're not supposed to take horses this way.

I did other random stuff too like taking shelter with some other road walkers when it rained. A Goron and a Gerudo. It was nice haha.

I made the mistake of going too near a Guardian and got zapped. Definitely not safe on horseback around there. Must avoid that road.

2 dark void zero - zapping around the second level

Dear Readers,

I jumped back in to Dark Void Zero. I had to start from the beginning so I did that and beat the first level 100%. I had a bit of practice from before so I beat it handily. This time I used the jetpack a lot.

I got to the second level and there were more weapons and enemies and obstacles to be found. There were these scientists I had to shoot as well. They were very defenceless but they were on the enemy side so it was part of the mission to shoot them.

So far my favourite weapons are the regular shot and the pulveriser, which is slower but is very powerful and can break cracked wall obstacles.

This second level seemed to be out on some kind of base I had to do the usual maze navigation and backtracking. The way forward eventually led to outside where I could fly among the stars with some pretty 8-bit background there.

I eventually beat this second level. The boss was very similar to the first boss but it had more minions and an extra weapon to destroy at the end. There was one scientist I missed out on zapping though. Ah well.

I made sure the save didn't disappear so I'll be able to resume on the third and final level next time.

240 zelda breath of the wild - fishing and upgrading my house

Dear Readers,

I fancied the idea of upgrading stuff in my house, while doing some fishing to earn the money for it. I had enough money for what I wanted at the time — a bed, a door, lighting — but I wanted to obtain the money for it as well.

In the stream and lakes around the area, I mostly found armored carp. I set the Sheikah Slate radar thingy to them, I fished for them, cooked them, and sold them at the general store here. At the lake with the boat I used it to go further out into the water. However, mostly I was gliding towards the fish from above so I could catch them more easily.

It is not easy to catch fish 'cos you have to catch with your bare hands and it's not the best spot to go either because the waters are fast moving and big.

I got what I wanted at least and now my house seems a bit more comfortable. I have another nice resting spot to replenish hearts as well. 

239 zelda breath of the wild - riding from riverside stable to hateno village

Dear Readers,

I decided to head to my house in Hateno Village. I took Spotty and we rode from the Riverside Stable all the way there. Some Bokoblins popped out from behind rocks but no one gave me any real trouble. I didn't even have to stop or fight or anything.

The world of Breath of the Wild is absorbing, at least it was this time after not playing it for so long. Travel by horseback was something I never did much either so it was pretty enjoyable to do here. I just stuck to the road to lead me all the way to the village.

When I got there, I saw my house had no bed and no door, so I wanted to change that.

1 dark void zero - 8 bit style shooting with jetpack flying around mazes

Dear Readers,

Deep in my 3DS backlog is this DSiWare title. I wanna play it before it gets disappeared forever somehow.

This was made when Dark Void was around. That was a big title that spawned this little retro inspired title. What happened then was this got a better reception than its big budget equivalent. This kind of thing happens a lot.

There's a fun little reference to blowing in a cartridge which is nice. I blew into the microphone. I don't know if that functionality was there or if it was just a fun reference. I had to press a button eventually anyway. (I later found that blowing makes no difference, it's all button pressing)

The story seems ok, survivors on earth fighting against some weird invasion taking over the Earth. You play as a guy named Rusty, who has the same name as the character from SteamWorld Dig, which is cool. No relation of course.

I played a big chunk of the game. Lovely NES style colours and the fictional NES lore was pretty well written too. The promo photo for Jimmy Fallon was pretty funny.

The game itself is pretty challenging. Platforming, shooting, flying around with a jetpack, tricky to avoid enemy fire... very tricky after a while. There was this big map on the spare screen and I had to explore each corner in order to get key cards to explore the other corners. I died a few times and got the top score on the high score table, which made think that this was a very short game with one level. However, after I beat the first level I found that there were two more levels.

That's how the game is it seems. Three nice bite-sized metroidvania-ish challenges.

I got a few game overs and found the game to be pretty challenging. There is a save feature, but it somehow got lost and the next time I play I'll have to start from the beginning again. Not sure why that's happening but I'm okay with it. Looking forward to playing more and getting this off my backlog!

238 zelda breath of the wild - playing for the first time since 2018

Dear Readers,

Playing Zelda Breath of the Wild for the first time in a long time! I want to do more than play Xenoblade and there's stuff I want to do in this game now after all these years.

I mostly want to play with the horses. I never did much of that and I want to do it now with my recent interest in virtual pet games and the fact that horses in this game transfer over to Tears of the Kingdom later on, which is pretty neat.

As a point of interest, my last save in this game is 26/08/2018 at 6:22AM. I'm writing this post on 1/1/2025 and publishing it as 2/10/2023 to fill a backlog. What an insane time jump...

I loaded my save at the Great Fairy Fountain near Kakariko. I wandered around a bit and left the village to look for a horse. I found one quite soon and tamed it. I rode it all the way to Lakeside Stable and registered it. I named it Spotty. I then rode it to Riverside Stable. I came across some enemies but I didn't bother with them much.

During this time, the batteries from the Joy-Cons and the Switch itself were screaming at me. I eventually switched from tabletop to handheld until the console ran out of battery completely. I managed to get in a trot along the road circling Whistling Hill before that happened. They're all charging now. Nice little excursion! I got the bond level with the horse to increase as well. I'll learn more as I go along.

There's no Pony Point system here like there is in the sequel. 

528 xenoblade - still can't beat mumkhar, currently level 51

Dear Readers,

I tried to face Mumkhar again to see how strong he was and he was plenty strong. We are at LV 51, all of us. I'm making note of this now so we can work from this as we get strong enough to beat him. This is going to be through quests or levelling. I haven't done much levelling before but I'm gonna start now.