CrichStand

Nice one man! Cheers for letting me know! 👍🏻

The Depths really are a stroke of genius. Once again been exploring down there and ended up completely disoriented. Then I realised.......if I can see Shrines in Hyrule from discovering Light Roots, then i must be able to see Light Roots from the Shrines or Pins on my Hyrule map. And of course, I can! I used a pin on my Hyrule map, to find a Light Root that was hidden out of view and thus unlock a whole area of the depths, allowing me to progress. The way these realms interact with one another through the Roots and Shrines is just pure class!

Every Light Root has a Shrine above it. The game tells you about that when you find the first Light Root. I didn’t use the Sensor in BOTW until the last few Shrines, only to discover that the Sensor didn’t work with them anyway. Best thing to do........ Look at the Depths map. Put the cursor over a Light Root. Switch to the Hyrule map. If there’s no Shrine marker then stamp a coloured pin on the map there. Bang the scope on in Hyrule and go to the pin. There will be a Shrine at that location but it might only be revealed by solving a puzzle or talking to a character, which is why the Sensor doesn’t work. 👍🏻

@Alan Stock Cheers for the heads up! Didn’t know that. Hopefully the Box Boss in the opening area doesn’t count as a specific enemy else I’m going to be pretty miffed! This game just keeps on giving! I’ve now burnt through all my bows and I’m bowless. Being forced to fight up close and it’s completely changed the game. Also, saw a chest floating down the river which was cool. Had to figure out how to get to it. Was able to throw some nearby planks in then jump across them whilst fighting and avoiding enemies in the water, all while sailing downstream. Crazy! Got 5 arrows for my troubles. Proper piss take, what with no longer having a bow! Edit - Found the coolest Shrine yet - Deep Force. Man, the Depths are just straight up quality. Once again found myself on just one heart, legging it away from a gang of enemies in the dark.......but the Light Root is soooooo close. Jump and glide towards it, “FUCK YEAH, I’ve made it”! But as I touch down in the inky blackness, there’s a loud splash. What I thought was solid ground is actually water. I panic, no idea which way to go as I can’t make anything out. My stamina’s draining fast. I realise I’m near what seems to be a wall. Maybe there’s shallow water too? I push to try and make it. Too late, I go under into the pitch black abyss. GAME OVER.

Explore the depths! Each Light Root is tied to a Shrine in Hyrule. In other words, once you’ve unlocked light roots, check the depths map against your Hyrule map and bish, bash, bosh - you can see where the Shrines are. 👍🏻

25yrs between Ocarina and this. Where does the time go?!?!? 😲 BOTW development started in 2011 so, technically, TOTK has taken 12yrs to make. You then realise how clever Nintendo have been designing the game in the way they have, and how it ties in with their whole ethos of modern game development, which they started with the Wii and continued with the Switch. All of this has paid off massively in the long run. Folk expecting them to just pop out another Zelda as good as this, in a totally different world, with brand new gameplay concepts and more complexity, on more powerful hardware (which will actually add major problems to the development of a game like this), are living on another planet!

A bloke and his Donkey was walking down a road towards me, so I hid behind one of those building stations out of sight and levitated a plank of wood across the road just to fuck with him. Didn’t expect him to let out a loud shriek and run for his life. 😂 All the little touches in this are just unbelievably good. I walked the entire coast on BOTW, just chilled out and soaked up the world and atmosphere. Think I might do the same on this soon. Should bag a fair bit of stuff for the compendium on my travels. Also started cooking and discovering recipes. Couldn’t stand that shit on BOTW, finding it strangely addictive on this though.

That’s basically the progression of the game - you love it, then you hate it, then you start blaming RNG or the stick controls, then you love it again. After a few cycles of that you start to realise it’s the best Golf game ever made! 😂 Its kind of like a Golf RPG. You need to upgrade your various stats and equipment and earn shot types and lvl them up. To do that you need to earn Reward Points and Level Up your Golfer by earning XP to gain Skill Points. You then build whatever golfer suits you and the way you like to play. As you go, you also improve and learn a ton of stuff. It’s one of the most rewarding games I’ve ever played. Think the best advice is to try all the different modes see what you like., as you’ll be earning XP no matter what you do. It’s just a matter of jumping in and enjoying the game. It can be frustrating at the start and its a pretty difficult game anyway imo, but the sense of progression and reward is absolutely amazing.

Soooooooo, hit a couple of levels, and I’ll be fucked if I can figure out how to get the Goldys. I’ve drafted folk in to have a go and none of them can figure it out either. We’ve all been stood around fucking disputing what to do, furiously pointing at the TV, trying to get the controller to have a go at stuff. There have been raised voices. 🤣 It almost seems like the levels are technically imposssible but obviously they’re not. Seem to have tried everything. Have figured some stuff out but it now just seems even more like it’s impossible. If the solutions end up being obvious and pretty straight forward, then this is one of the greatest puzzles games ever made!

Is exactly the kind of thing, you shouldn’t be asking folk on the Internet. 😂 Lighten up! We’ve got the greatest Zelda game you could possibly imagine. The best game ever made. It’s classic AAA Nintendo. Who gives a fuck what they’ll be bringing out in 6 or 7 years time? They might not top this for another 20yrs. They may never top this. It’s that good! Just fully savour the awesomeness and make the most of it while you can. 👍🏻

Proper front page level shit! “ SHOCKING REVELATIONS.....as Nintendo’s No.1 fanboy, claims best game ever made TOTK, is just a repackaged Skyward Sword”!!! “Also inside.......Nintendo’s No.1 fanboy wants the next Zelda to be more like an Xbox One game........only with JetSkis”. 🤣 Nintendo just called. You’re blacklisted from the fan club! 👍🏻😁

Yeah, definitely a Chu Chu Rocket influence but I’d say overall it’s more like a 3D Lemmings. Shame more people aren’t playing this as it’s absolutely fucking brilliant. I’m now spinning levels around before they begin and working out solutions and planning my moves. Feels incredibly satisfying. You also unlock the ability to pause time by holding L2 a few levels in which makes a big difference. Graphics are top notch, audio is great, even the music has grown on me as it’s developed into more melodic glitchy stuff.

“I’ve got a great idea for a new Zelda! Hyrule is a series of Islands set in the ocean and you have to sail around on a boat like Sea of Thieves. And you can dive down under the water and there are traditional Dungeons and......” Its almost like folk haven’t even played Wind Waker. 🤣

First it was folk complaining about the Glider. Then it was folk chatting shit about Pro Mode. Now folk are moaning about the depths! 🤣 The depths are possibly the most innovative, mind/game bending thing I’ve encountered in 40yrs of gaming! They completely screw with the player and what they expect from exploration, navigation and traversal of an environment. Its the most simple, yet groundbreaking concept I’ve encountered in a game for many years. What other game puts you into total darkness so that you don’t know where the floor is, or if there is one, or where the walls are, or where the ceiling is, or where enemies are, or what’s around you etc and then asks you to navigate the environment? It shouldn’t even work. But it does. It’s fucking genius!

Yeah, I’m loving how they’ve changed it up. Sim is just absolutely sublime now, although there doesn’t seem to be any ranking for it. Currently ranked 132 in the World overall. Hopefully should go top 100 when I finally get a decent spec upgrade for the irons.