For the Water Temple, I bought a Magic Rod with an Opal because I found that super handy in cleaning off areas so sludge. It helped a lot with the boss. And the Temple.
And since apparently everyone now knows the Dragons cycle to the Depths, riding the Dragons as they descend a Chasm is a handy way to get on them without expending Zonai parts,
They light up the Depths around them, so it's a good way to paraglide around there with no commitment, and mark out a bunch of Lightroots as you see them. Since your Stamina Meter resets every time you Glide around a Dragon, you're essentially perma-paragliding above or beside the Dragon and taking notes while you wait for their power to recover.
I do think that ultimately, flying around is how the devs want us to experience the Depths, buy it's a lot more forgiving and fun doing the first passes from the back of a Dragon.
For the Water Temple, I bought a Magic Rod with an Opal because I found that super handy in cleaning off areas so sludge. It helped a lot with the boss. And the Temple.
That's a better way that what I did. I just hopped a lot and used the arrow slow time ability to disrupt the boss.
Most of the boss fights seem to be set up so that you can cheese them if you are willing to do some preparation and expend some resources.
I’ve made some significant progress. I completed the third temple (water), and now I only have the desert left. I also got all the towers so I see the whole map, and then I went and got the last of the dragon tears, and the subsequent item from the end of that sidequest. So I’m in pretty good shape!
Next up is to finish taking pictures of all the ancient text, since I only have a few of them left. It’s funny, I’ve probably built more vehicles (usually involving fans, flame emitters, and balloons) for this sidequest than I have the rest of the game since some of these things are really high up. I’m only now stating to engage with getting specific drops from the zonai dispensers, and it’s a bit annoying that there are low chances for the stuff I want. Nintendo, we really don’t want gatcha in our games, even if this is sort of gatcha-lite.
I still feel like there’s a ton of meat on the bones when it comes to exploring; for a decent number of the regions, I’ve done little more than run to the tower and/or geoglyph. Once I’m through the main story enough to just have the final boss left, I’ll probably make a point to go look around more of the map before I’m done since exploring is most of the fun.
Speaking of fun, the Depths is usually just varying degrees of annoying, and is not fun to explore, it’s usually just rushing from lightroot to lightroot. I’ve seen the airbike in the thread and I’ll probably go make that if I ever decide to do more dedicated exploring. Exploring the sky is fine, but there’s so little of it and the stuff you do up there seems a bit recycled.
Man I wandered around under the castle for an hour or two today. Tons of stuff down there, including some giant skeleton boss fights, and a few unique armor sets. Had no idea...
I’ve made some significant progress. I completed the third temple (water), and now I only have the desert left. I also got all the towers so I see the whole map, and then I went and got the last of the dragon tears, and the subsequent item from the end of that sidequest. So I’m in pretty good shape!
Next up is to finish taking pictures of all the ancient text, since I only have a few of them left. It’s funny, I’ve probably built more vehicles (usually involving fans, flame emitters, and balloons) for this sidequest than I have the rest of the game since some of these things are really high up. I’m only now stating to engage with getting specific drops from the zonai dispensers, and it’s a bit annoying that there are low chances for the stuff I want. Nintendo, we really don’t want gatcha in our games, even if this is sort of gatcha-lite.
I still feel like there’s a ton of meat on the bones when it comes to exploring; for a decent number of the regions, I’ve done little more than run to the tower and/or geoglyph. Once I’m through the main story enough to just have the final boss left, I’ll probably make a point to go look around more of the map before I’m done since exploring is most of the fun.
Speaking of fun, the Depths is usually just varying degrees of annoying, and is not fun to explore, it’s usually just rushing from lightroot to lightroot. I’ve seen the airbike in the thread and I’ll probably go make that if I ever decide to do more dedicated exploring. Exploring the sky is fine, but there’s so little of it and the stuff you do up there seems a bit recycled.
I do think that that's an annoying way to experience the Depths. It is possible and "efficient" to rush from Lightroot to Lightroot, but then you never use Brightblooms, never use the Miner Outfit, nor the Climber Outfit, and never really engage with the terrain. It is possible to complete the Depths like that, but it feels like a waste of time for no real gain. There's no story down there and most of the stuff isn't actually visible nor exploitable from the air.
I do believe the Depths are supposed to be a place of horror and mystery, and it's best enjoyed by soaking in the uncertainty and the challenge of the dark. The Lightroot is supposed to be the end of a long, snaking, emergent story trek because it exposes everything and then you just "clean up." Going straight to the cleanup doesn't give you anything meaningful.
More than anything else, the Depths for me were a source of gear and combat power. The Pristine Weapons are powerful and durable. Even a Soldier's Broadsword from a Phantom Warrior is a great find, especially since you can just pick up a replacement every Bloodmoon Cycle. Zonaite is always valuable. Depths monsters also level up quite aggressively. I picked up a bunch of Black Bokoblin Horns there quite early and that plus Pristine Weapons served me for a long time.
On Vehicles:
Finally made the Airbike to map out the last of my Depths. It's handy and cheap but finicky. It's specifically made for solo airborne short hops. Fan-equipped vehicles are much more efficient when they're touching water, so as long as you're along a beach or river and can use that to advantage, you get farther with an Airboat of some variety (three or four fan). They're also more stable and more powerful as weapons platforms. For an Airboat, you want something that's easy to keep level, or naturally descends very slightly, so that it doesn't keep lifting itself out of the water. The Airbike isn't suitable for water hopping because it tips over very easily.
Yeah, well, I love the depths. Super creepy lighting things up as you go. I keep encountering interesting looking ruins to explore, and lots of "wtf is that sh*t luring in the darkness" moments. Is a shift up from running around so fast in the overworld and provides a really interesting change of pace. A big differentiator from BoTW.
Some of the biggest awe moments so far have been related to the depths. Falling down into the depths, seeing giant monsters (or monsters I thought I'd killed already), and following a dragon down a rift.
One thing about the depth is the enemies and bosses have gloom attacks. It makes fights much more tricky and fun cause you can't just spam food. I fully expect the master mode add on to bring that above ground.
I have most of this week off and nothing to do (house sitting). I'm hoping I can spend some time digging into the game. Wind and Water temples complete, it hasn't really sucked me in, but I have been bouncing from pile to pile when it comes to games (PC, PS5, Zelda) and have had a LOT of things going on in life that are distracting. So maybe this downtime will be just what I need.
My wife took the kids to her mom's for a few days. I'm making lots of progress.
so I went under the castle... like WAY under the castle... and reached a point with a boss that's effectively undamageable. Found out why today during a random exploration, found a whole other dungeon I didnt even know about.
Lets just say you need to keep going back to Purah. She was supposed to point me here, but I never go talk to her.
More detail in spoiler
Guarding the (probably) final confrontation is a huge robot, similar to Kogha's in the last fight with him in the Depths. There's a 5th sage and you need her help to do any damage to it. Ill be curious how speedrunners deal with it, because doing that dungeon before the final fight would be incredibly slow. They must have a workaround. Im not watching speedruns till I finish though.
Question about Khoga. After you beat him for the last time underground, it's implied you won't find him again in the depths. All the guides suggest that's all there is, but with that dangling hint, I wondered if he appears again anywhere above ground? Maybe just leaving the door open for a Yiga DLC?
After reading the chatter here, and watching my wife cheese the Fire Temple with stamina food and the gust booster, I decided I'd try and stick to the "intended path" to see what it was like. After farting around in there for a good long while riding rails and shooting switches, I think the intended path is cheesing it. I got to the 4th lock when I realized that a hydrant over a lava pool was giving me unlimited slabs with which to build a bridge. Getting past a closed door took less than a single wheel's worth of stamina to side-climb around the building. When I got underneath the 5th switch there was a rocket and a balloon just sitting on the floor there for me. It's like the designers themselves said "we couldn't be arsed to finish building this 'properly' and that's not the kind of game this is anyway; just go win the dungeon."
After reading the chatter here, and watching my wife cheese the Fire Temple with stamina food and the gust booster, I decided I'd try and stick to the "intended path" to see what it was like. After farting around in there for a good long while riding rails and shooting switches, I think the intended path is cheesing it. I got to the 4th lock when I realized that a hydrant over a lava pool was giving me unlimited slabs with which to build a bridge. Getting past a closed door took less than a single wheel's worth of stamina to side-climb around the building. When I got underneath the 5th switch there was a rocket and a balloon just sitting on the floor there for me. It's like the designers themselves said "we couldn't be arsed to finish building this 'properly' and that's not the kind of game this is anyway; just go win the dungeon."
I don’t think this is a spoiler so I won’t spoil it.
The unlimited slabs mean you can just create scaffolding that will allow you to Ascend to any level in virtually any location, at your discretion. You could use Stakes to anchor them, but you don’t really need to. The building itself is right there. This isn’t an unintended solution. The devs have a Temple dedicated to this idea, and there is a Yiga Schematic that details that very idea so you don’t even need to save the structure in your Favorites. You can just make one from thin air if you have enough Zonaite.
ToTK wants you to cheese it. It wants it hard.
I dont see it as cheesing it. I feel like nintendo has given players an unprecedented level of freedom to solve puzzles in their own way that players are unused to. We are all so used to puzzles having one solution and totk says “solve it your own way. Here are a bunch of tools to use to let you do that.” and they actually let you with no restrictions except for physics. Wanna climb it? Go for it. Want to build a scaffold that reaches the goal? Go build. Etc etc.
I am flip flopping between this and jedi survivor and I am constantly frustrated that I cant climb where ever I want. I think tears is the first game I have played where any frustration of actually playing a game has been removed.
and there is a Yiga Schematic that details that very idea so you don’t even need to save the structure in your Favorites.
Yeah when I found that schematic it was an epiphany. Basically build a capital I (not this font but the I with lines top and bottom) out of slabs, and you can get vertical anywhere.
Sundown wrote:Speaking of fun, the Depths is usually just varying degrees of annoying, and is not fun to explore, it’s usually just rushing from lightroot to lightroot. I’ve seen the airbike in the thread and I’ll probably go make that if I ever decide to do more dedicated exploring. Exploring the sky is fine, but there’s so little of it and the stuff you do up there seems a bit recycled.
I do think that that's an annoying way to experience the Depths. It is possible and "efficient" to rush from Lightroot to Lightroot, but then you never use Brightblooms, never use the Miner Outfit, nor the Climber Outfit, and never really engage with the terrain. It is possible to complete the Depths like that, but it feels like a waste of time for no real gain. There's no story down there and most of the stuff isn't actually visible nor exploitable from the air.
I do believe the Depths are supposed to be a place of horror and mystery, and it's best enjoyed by soaking in the uncertainty and the challenge of the dark. The Lightroot is supposed to be the end of a long, snaking, emergent story trek because it exposes everything and then you just "clean up." Going straight to the cleanup doesn't give you anything meaningful.
More than anything else, the Depths for me were a source of gear and combat power. The Pristine Weapons are powerful and durable. Even a Soldier's Broadsword from a Phantom Warrior is a great find, especially since you can just pick up a replacement every Bloodmoon Cycle. Zonaite is always valuable. Depths monsters also level up quite aggressively. I picked up a bunch of Black Bokoblin Horns there quite early and that plus Pristine Weapons served me for a long time.
It's not that I haven't done any of it, it's just not my favorite thing to do in the game. I've used a lot of the brightblooms for traveling, done a bit of zonaite farming, poked around and gotten equipment from a few of the old maps I’ve found in the sky, but otherwise the Depths are the least explored part of the map for me since I’m not really vibing with it like some others are. I hadn't thought of attaching the high level horns on pristine weapons, though. I'll have to go do that; I like creating elemental weapons using the lizafos horns, but for some reason it hadn't clicked to use the other horns that way. I'm clearly not fully taking advantage of all the systems, still.
I actually did knock out a couple of side quests in the Depths since my prior post; the first is the frequently referenced
Kogha
quest line, which was enough to get me two full new batteries between mission drops and just regular mining spots that I passed by. Then I did the one with the four eyes that can be started
with the goddess statue in the Temple of Time
.
That then made wrapping up the ancient text mission that much easier, since I could now actually reach more of the ancient texts without having to spend a lot of zonai cores to refill my batteries. That was kind of a fun mission to do from the characterization you get from it. So that's a few worldwide sidequests knocked out now.
Now it’s time to get to the desert temple, for real this time.
Finally freed the Deku Tree today and got that quest going.
Last time I tried it the gloom hands kicked my ass a bunch. But I stumbled into some more a few days ago over on a beach with more room and was able to take them down. With that renewed confidence I dove back in and finished the fight in one try today.
After the 30th time helping Addison with the signs.
Lots of progress this week. Got Master Sword. Got last dragon tear memory. 
Rode light dragon a bit, saw Goron City below and jumped down. Finally bought flame proof armor. Went back to the other Goron side quest I had stumbled onto 2 weeks ago but could not do because I was on fire and did that.
Oh also when I got that last dragon tear I fought the pirates at the beach village that everyone is talking about. Then I got sucked into rebuild the village quests.
Then back to Goron last night, and started the quests that I assume will lead to fire temple. Was on my way up the mountain when I had to stop last night. Maybe finally will finish a3rd temple this weekend.
I've made a good chunk of progress as well. I met the horse god, finally found Tarry Town, cleared out a bunch of pirates on ships, had a weather resistance challenge in the desert in a guy in his underwear, helped the Deku Tree, and just consistently messed up a bunch of Yiga clan guys. I like that they have some new dialogue that I
beat their leader
, but you'd think the word would get around to not mess with me at this point. I just go up and talk with random people out in the wild now since there's like an 80% chance it's them in disguise, and I like getting the easy money.
And I knocked out the 4th temple (thunder), as well. It was probably my favorite of the four, since it felt the most like an old school Zelda temple of the four with the interlocking rooms and hidden stuff. I think it was also my favorite of the bosses as well. Now it's back to Lookout Landing for the next main story beat. I'll probably try to mainline the story now (lol, no I won't) until I get closer to a final battle before I do my last burst of serious exploring the map before I wrap it up.
Oh yeah the horse god. I looked up horses and found the royal white one the other day. It feels like the best base horse, since it can tow and Epona can't. And it has one stat at 5 I think, while Epona is all 4s. Anyway I had some time so I grinded out some recipes and upgraded the royal horse to all 5s.
Even though I barely use horses in this one I wanted to have the best.
I am currently on my way to the thunder temple (I've done wind and fire so far). Gerudo town sure is a downer in this one!
I completed the last newspaper quest this morning, I think I have 85 shrines done, but I've barely explored the depths and my battery is only at 7. I've been forgetting to go back to the mines to get some minerals.
Yet, each time I read anything about this game, I learn of something I have not seen yet (horse god?), to the point where I'm starting to think I should just start a list of things to research.
Thought I put this here instead of another thread where immersive games genre popped up. Nice little video on and it and the fun Zelda has with it.
Is there any way to find out in-game what the recipes are? Right now my only source are posters and the Lurelin restaurant. I need it find out how to make Vegetable Cream Soup.
I think you get recipes from foods and elixers you've been given as quest rewards. That said, I don't think I've ever gotten soup from Addison and I don't know about any other regular sources of food rewards...
I'm sure there's some way in game but I just googled it when upgrading my horse
I rode a bear!
Did you try taking it to a stable? In BotW you could get some amusing dialog if you took various not-a-horse mounts to a stable and tried to register them.
No. I got booted off it by a gang of bokgoblins who decided I came to close. Now I want to try that.
Finished Fire Temple last night. Very fun. Found another monster crew to help fight. Cleared up some death mountain side quests.
Hit another shrine and got 21 hearts now plus max stamina. I think the load screen said 100 shrines now.
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