darksnowman

Decent races tonight. Thanks for deputising, @BowserBasher. Could have done with you there!

Been on tenterhooks waiting for some instructions on tonight's proceedings.

Bunkum. Shrines have only been in one game and I bagsied it was LA.

I'll name one. Link's Awakening has the Dream Shrine and Face Shrine.

This is the kind of spoiler content I'm interested in. The practicalities. When you get more of it under your belt I'd be interested in a better overview. Same. The previews are all the same sugary gushing and as for the other speculative video examinations, I skip em as I want a game that's fun to play first and the hidden details can be discovered later. To be sure, it was intriguing setting out in BotW, down the slope to the Temple of Time, getting the slate powers, that iconic one time you chop down a tree to create a makeshift bridge... then you're off the plateau into the great nothingness. Funny in the TotK ask the developer interviews they allude to it as like reusing Wuhu Island and call it the Great Mundanity. They know. Wait til you see what's coming on the next page.

I get that. Based on my personal apathy towards BotW, seeing story revelations for TotK has been the least of my concerns but I wouldn't post any of it here. I've been more interested in getting a feel for if the objectives and general gameplay between story events is anything to write home about—which is no mean feat when the vast majority are people who lapped it up before and are automatically lapping it up again. It'll be fantastic if TotK's a game where the hours melt away as you delight in the fusing and collecting on your way to saving the land in a timely fashion, but from what I've seen and extrapolating from my taster, I'm apprehensive. I don't think the novelty will sustain it. I'll be listening to what people such as yourself and @drahkon have to say when you "dig" into it because trying to find any sense of balance in other previews/writeups/reviews is a fool's errand. I've actually been listening to some podcasts from around the Switch launch and thus BotW, and it's astonishing the childlike wonder that game inspires in people. It's infectious for a second until you remember these people are flapping their gums about rolling weightless boulders off hilltops, which got old fast. Reckon I'll be on MM 3DS before TotK rather than after. Fenyx... well... it'd be controversial to comment one way or the other...

It is people of culture like you I want to hear from. Your spoiler is promising. Perhaps I will end up having to reassess after all.

Right you are, thought there was maybe a typo in the URL or something. Just did a web search and got some snippets. Looks a bit of a lukewarm read.

"Something went wrong. Please refresh the page, or try again later." This just a problem for me?

(Don't think this image is a spoiler? It looked as good as any for what I want to comment on...) Forgot to mention in regards to War's Den that Ares has Sandslash for shoulder armour??! Can't not see it. Coming off the latest Splatfest and jumping back into this last night was a wee bit jarring. Near died from fall damage immediately as I needed a minute to adjust back to the buttons. Just want to draw attention again to how small the map is to traverse. It's great. The horse not being shy about galloping over rocky terrain or jumping off ledges makes getting around at pace oh so smooth. Didn't take too long to grab the three ambrosia I'd identified (limited myself to nabbing one chest, okay maybe two, along the way) then pointed the compass to N and got moving. Seconds later I pulled up at a place the narrators saw fit to chime in on. Worth checking the map to see where it was if it got their attention, I thought, in case it's worth revisiting later. Lo and behold, I was already up into the hitherto unmapped zone. Keep thinking it'll take a while to cross the map and it never does. Incredible. Uncovered the Forgelands map, marked a bunch of things to check, met Hephaistos and set off to sort out that armour I got for finishing the Ares stuff. Spent some time trying to get into the forge to no avail, so started with the Hephaistos tasks which have revealed a way to get the forge open for business. For some reason, there's something about these frozen robots that strikes me as sad when I stop to look at them.

Not sure if that's because of the device you're using. FWIW I pretty much agree with your assessment. I enjoyed the journey of Suzume but it lacked that extra something by the end, imo.

Sounds like you spent two weeks coming to terms with getting a lump in your throat over a three-legged stool and this is the best you could come up with.

I'll be taking advantage of that because the columns of light disappear when you close in them, so it can be easy to glide past the section you wanted to investigate. One time I replayed a vault for a chest I found tucked away in behind the goal area. I've checked back there every time since and it's been a more commonly used hiding place than I would have expected. Crafty.

Never crossed my mind to try. I've just been keeping en eye for the columns of light as chest indicators.

War's Den. Not the most hospitable what with it being a battlefield of giants, but I came to realise it's not the scorched hellscape I had it down as. That's because the first time I legged it through this area for the Phosphorus sidequest, I was under a wraith attack which was mayhem to experience in the early going with low health and low stamina. Then, this time, as soon as I crossed into the area, another wraith attack broke out and I figured I was going to be up against it for the duration. But it passed and a level of calm settled, and while I still don't find it the most inviting of zones, I was able to go about my business (with wraith attacks hitting at the usual inconvenient intervals). The comedy of the Ares situation (story stuff) provided a nice contrast. I grabbed a couple of ambrosia, the odd chest, a night chest (to complete a task of getting 5), transported an apple, and didn't do a great deal more. Took down two lieutenants! One was an oversized enemy beside a story quest zone and the other was the boss of the storyline here. Just the one more needed but I'm keen to put War's Den behind me so I doubt I'll mooch around for it. If I need to, I'd rather go for the remaining chests, vaults and whatnot in the other (green) areas before coming back here. To cap it off, I did a vault in a pot for Ares then took down a pair of enemies he marked on the map. Beating these pushovers yielded some armour that's the worse for wear, so I've been pointed to a forge in the (unexplored) north.

Pen and paper at the ready! @martinist finish that song on Theatrhythm and get Mario Kart on.

I thought you boys would have figured out a way to game the RNG by now.

Can we do a GP some week that's the Animal Crossing course in each of the four seasons?

At last. The world has been crying out for more Bakugan!

Information on a new mode coming next week where you can create your own stages. From 7:20. They are also changing the season pass to a "Fame Pass" which is basically cheaper and shorter to complete. Reckon I'll have a bash at making a level. Couldn't be much less chaotic than what's on offer already.

The very thing. If it's that hard with anti-flying stuff (and I don't have any...) then I'll spare it no further effort and press on.

I think the arrow challenges could do with something to draw your attention to the next hoop. Mostly it's predictable enough and fairly self-explanatory, but there are times the next one isn't in your field of view so it takes some trial and error to figure out the route. For example in a vault, it took me a while to finish an arrow section because the hoops were moving and I never knew which one/s I was missing. Perhaps a nitpick, but you'd think this stuff would be a bit more player-friendly in the modern era. At least the arrow challenges are accompanied by a nice little relaxing tune like you say. Sort of makes me fancy a bit of Pilotwings. I take some elaborate routes from distant flames for those bits you need to light torches with arrows. I've since got the statue ability so I can return to the vault I lugged in additional rocks and logs to access and actually progress inside it now. I thought I had all the abilities now yet last night I came across another vault it says I don't have the ability for. I've a small stash of coins of charon to splurge so I'll keep that in the back of my mind for another time. Yup, I've been using the bird companion a lot. It's a good help for normal enemy groups and bosses alike. Last night I pretty much depended on it against a medusa boss I came to as it kept teleporting out of my range. The fight was so long I ended up throwing caution to the wind and tried to parry back medusas laser attacks. Thankfully it worked. Happened upon another boss against which I glitched a win. I started whaling on it and for some reason it took off, slugging its way through shallow water so of course I pursued and kept up the slashing. The game told me to get back in the battle area and I obliged, but the boss did not. Eventually it warped back with full health to restart the encounter. Again it fled so I just stuck with it, hacking away and calling Phosphorous to divebomb it. It wasn't long until I tipped it into the deep water and I was teleported back to the encounter area for the victory scene. I'll take it. All this and more (chests, constellations, frescos, ambrosias I hadn't mapped) I did while going after three ambrosia in close proximity of each other that I'd marked. Thought I'd just grab those and move on but with things being so close I keep deciding there's no harm getting sidetracked for a minute... then there's a wraith attack and wherever I've fled to by the time that blows over there's always something I might as well grab when I'm there... and on it goes. Athena put a harpy on the map she wants me to go after. It wiped the floor with me in three or four swift hits so I left it there. Looks like something I'll have to come back to. Next stop is definitely the east side.

Think that's the starting zone 100% done now. Scans aren't turning up anything else, at least. Doubt I'll comb through the rest of the areas to completion so it's nice to have (potentially) mastered that one. Was surprised to learn that you have to memorise the lyre music—I thought it was just a matter of finding them then reporting back to the big one for some goodies. So, I'll probably skip on the rest of those unless I feel hard up for stuff further down the road. Second "story quest" done too. Athena. By the way it fills in on the menu, it looks like that should have been the third but since the other areas look more hostile, I went in this direction first. It's a smaller region with stuff packed in vertically and still plenty left to mop up. As I said before, I'll probably just home in on the ambrosia scans I have then head on. For some reason I still don't trust the game when it comes to quest zones for things like those galaxy orbs or searching out objects to put on the pressure pads, and every time it proves me wrong because what you need is always in the immediate vicinity and never too longwinded to sniff out. You just have to familiarise yourself with the nearby environs. In fact, the one time I brought in rocks and wood from further afield I ended up accessing a vault I couldn't proceed with anyway due to my limited abilities at that time. So that was me taught. (Could return to that now actually...) There's a task on my list to take down three lieutenants. Haven't got one yet, nor do I know what I'm meant to be on the lookout for. Curious to see what ends up feeding into that. Snow zone sighted but I'm going to keep it in reserve and head up the uninviting east side of the map next. Might just do the bare minimum there. See how it goes.

The Internet told me TotK is BotW DLC!

I thought that wasn't out for a few weeks yet. Pretty much mirrors my experience. Not that I can remember anything about a recipe for the bird children so either it was something optional that passed me by, or it was such a pain I've blocked it from memory. I think the only time I cooked (after initially trying it at the beginning of the game) was to reach the Gorons? Or, tbh, I might have just legged it to the marker from the nearest normal temperature angle and consumed uncooked food on the way to keep topping up my health. Yay, flexibility. I remember an NPC cooking (burning) food somewhere. Talking with them was probably my biggest interaction with cooking. The game sorely needed a cookbook section on the slate, or just no cooking whatsoever. Can't wait for the next Mario to have you rustling up leafy dishes with mushrooms and fire flowers.