What Did We Play Yesterday?

I gave Yoku's Island Express another go. On paper, this pinball metroidvania should be up my alley, but I've bounced off it twice now. There's nothing wrong with it except some minor control issues, but it fails to capture my interest again. Maybe next time it will stick.

I got my kid Cat Quest III. We played the first and second games together (the first they watched me play, the second they were old enough to play along with me in co-op). This time, they wanted to play on their own.

I liked Cat Quest II but felt it overstayed its welcome. The difficulty scaling wasn't good, and the level of grinding to 100% too much. The cat puns grated after a while. Cat Quest III is shaping up to be a really nice sequel. Firing canons from the pirate ship is fun. There are lots of small improvements, and the simple premise (You're a pirate! Yaaar!) is welcome. My kid beat it after several days, and per HowLongToBeat this one is on par with the original for length.

I don't think I've ever actually seen a satori, but I got the chance when I made an offering at a cherry blossom tree. I also unlocked the fourth fairy, and traveled up Mount Doom to get the fire armor. Unfortunately, I kind of hate the Eldin Canyon region for reasons I can't entirely articulate, but the Mount Doom areas are consistently my least favorite to explore. In this game, the roast-obsessed Gorons freak me out, and the landscape tends to be pretty desolate and unfun to traverse. It's just a big blugh all around.

I also made an armor upgrade ingredient list csv and it is quite awful. I think it encapsulates one of the problems I have with both TOTK and BOTW, which is that there is Simply Too Much Stuff. Nintendo designed a 200+ hour game and I'm not a 200+ hour game guy at all. I never have been, but my willingness to pour hours into these types of games has decreased as I get older.

Thus, my fire for Zelda wanes. According to Backloggd I've been playing about 5 weeks, and I consistently get Zelda fatigue after about a month or so, so this is more or less on schedule. I'm not sure exactly how long I played, since Nintendo refuses to be forthcoming about such things, but it's 60+ hours which tends to be the upper limit of what I'm willing to spend on an open world game. In the past, I've had difficulty returning to these games without starting fresh, but I'm hoping this here blog slaps hood will make it easier to jump back in if and when I return to it.

It's tough for me to gauge exactly how much I've accomplished, but my loading screen lists 52/152 shrines, 91/1000 koroks found, and I've got 14/40 hearts and nearly a second stamina wheel, and completed 2/4 (I think?) temples. So I've completed somewhere between a third and half of the game, which is much farther than my other playthrough. I think blogging helped me play as long as I did, because it was easier to remember where I'd been and what I'd seen.

I definitely enjoyed it more this time, but modern Zelda games are still a very mixed bag for me.

Crushed koroks: 4

I've mostly been running around taking care of business southerly as I worked my way toward Faron to complete the last Great Fairy quest. I've reached the point where I can't upgrade any of my armors (booo) so I need to get more diligent about collecting things and killing things. I want a big ole list of ingredients I need, but I don't want spoilers like armor names. Fortunately a kind Redditor has made such a list.

I'm in the process of smooshing everything together but frankly? This list is extremely rude. On the one hand, it justifies my pathological insistence on grabbing up every flint and random mushroom I see. On the other hand, how dare they. I had this idea I'd collect all the armors and upgrade them "for fun" but 665 amber total? That's a lot of rock busting. I'm just sayin.

Don't mind me, just screencapping every dialogue that confirms Sidon and Link are secretly married.

I found the greaves back at the waterworks. There's so much back and forth in this area. Evidently you can't get the greaves the first time you're in the waterworks, you have to wait until you've completed the water temple.

In any case, having secured a full set of Zora armor and Sidon's undying love, it is time to move on for now. Link's lookin' good in his new duds and can swim 3 times as fast, as well as perform other aquatic operations.

I didn't have much time to play yesterday, but I managed to squeeze in a few minutes. Ending the sludge frees the Zora up to give Link quests, and I have snatched all those up, but my primary goal is completing the Zora armor. The Zora helm is hidden back at the Sky Fish, in an interior room you can't easily see unless you're bouncing around on floating rocks trying to figure out where a helm might be hidden.

Yona, kind soul that she is, is trying to give Link the armor as a gift but can't find the last part, the greaves. Link is directed to the waterworks, which is where the boss battle took place in the previous game. You're supposed to build a boat here, but I found the swim boost granted by the helm and the chest was enough to get me across the reservoir and into a cave helpfully pointed out to me by a Zora who says he found glowing blue stones there.

I was very eager to explore this cave, but my kid, who was supposed to be getting ready for bed, was understandably distracted by my adventures so I turned the game off for now. Very looking forward to exploring this area over the weekend.

The boss of the water temple, the Muckterror, is a terrorist. An absolute little shit. It was one of the most annoying boss fights I've ever dealt with in recent memory. This little bastard shoots slime all over the place, and flips and flops everywhere, and belongs in jail. I initially put a hydrant on a homing device so it would clean things up for me, but it was far more effective to strap a hydrant to my shield and charge the damn thing. I'm torn between despising what I was put through and appreciating that they did something radically different for this boss.

Liberating the water temple earns us Sidon's water bubble power, as well as his undying devotion, which I'm pretty sure Link already had... 👀

Back when BOTW came out, I heard people shipped Link/Sidon and I was like, "Ok, you kids have fun." Now, as I explore the Zora's domain in TOTK, I increasingly 👀 have Thoughts.

1. Sidon is HUGE. The size difference is sending me.
2. Sidon is objectively hot, not up for debate.
3. Link evidently has a special relationship and history with the Zora. Multiple characters have commented on knowing him as a child, or giving him childhood nicknames and so forth.
4. Sidon's sister Mipha was in love with Link, and unless I completely misunderstood this is explicitly canon. (Whereas Link being romantically in love with anyone is nebulous by design and you could see it different ways).
5. Everyone, including Sidon, refers to Link as the Prince's very best friend, and so on.
6. Evidently Sidon will not shut the fuck up about Link.
7. There's a statue of Link riding Sidon's back in the town square, essentially, and the thought of them posing for this statue is sending me again.

When you initially arrive at the domain and talk to Yona, she's like, "Surprise, I'm your best friend's fiance!" and -- knowing very little about any of this -- I truly had a moment, because there's so much you can do with a setup like that.

Anyway, my point is I get it now. The youth were correct, as usual.

Turns out the Zora water dungeon is very fun. Unfortunately, Sidon scampers off early on, but the gravity change and water bubble navigation keep things interesting. Clearing out sludge is satisfying, as is swimming up waterfalls. Considering how epic the arc was, I expect there to be something equally epic when Sidon and I rejoin forces. Hopefully I will remember to take screenshots that next time.

Crushed koroks: 2.

After some much needed armor blessings I got into the Zora sky dungeon. There is a lot of back and forth at the beginning as Link ping-pongs between various NPCs, doing whatever needs to be done to unlock access, and the dialogue is fairly tedious, as has been typical with this game. But from the start this temple is already different (there is a gravity change, and you use water bubbles to navigate between platforms), and I'm hoping fighting alongside Sidon, the Zora prince who is evidently Link's Official BFF, will help pick up the pace.

Yesterday I ventured into South Tabantha seeking the next member of the musician troupe, so I can entice yet another great fairy out of her bud. Getting this guy out of a pit is always a hot mess, but I managed it. I figured out you can cut the grasses here to find wheat (and lots of hot-footed frogs). I don't think I explored this area very thoroughly the last time I played, which is a shame, because the landscape is cool.

I farted around a bit with that giant labyrinth outside the snowfields and concluded I need to be stronger. While I was in the area, I hit up the Sky Tower at Thyphlo Ruins. I think I've had my fill of wandering and exploring for now.

I've actually really enjoyed having the little bird dude's spirit alongside me. I think he scares away bugs sometimes (?), but it's good to have a friend. Zelda games can be a little lonely. Next on the agenda is to head back to Zora territory to see if I can help with the sludge crisis, so I can have a second friend.

A while back I set up a poor man's arcade with RetroAchievements for the family. My kid is currently interested in speed running SMB, so we fired it up for the evening. The achievements were a fun addition. I played this game a lot back in the 80s, but I haven't played it recently and I was impressed by my memory was for little details. I accidentally grabbed the second level warp in 4-2, thinking the vine led to a cloud level, and my Mario World tour ended shortly after that at 8-2, where I died repeatedly. I don't remember if I ever actually beat this one (probably not) but I may explore it a bit more. Truly wonderful level design.