Welcome to Part 2 of my extensive series writing up my many thoughts on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. A game so vast it filled my head with so many thoughts that one blog ain't enough, and two is too low, so three is...also too low.
Listen, I'm going to be real here. I think I'm a pretty okay writer, but I'm not a great editor. I usually find most of the typos, and I'll re-write sentences and paragraphs to make sure they sound as good as I can get them, but I'm bad at cutting. As such, Part 2 here got way too long, I couldn't cover everything I wanted to in it, thus this is now a four part series. No, this is not an intentional bit where I keep increasing the number of parts as I publish each one. I would've started saying it was a two part series if I had thought of that to begin with.
Believe me when I say I tried my best to keep this to three parts, especially after I thought of that Three Blog joke. Which I couldn't even cut that after this turned into Four Blog!
Anyway, here's a Linkto Part 1, in which I described a story of one (mis)adventure I had that encapsulates the overall feelings of adventure, and nostalgia that Tears gave me. Part 3 is currently planned to be some thoughts on the game's overall difficulty, how its Temples compare to the Divine Beasts of Breath of the Wild, and even includes a bonus story about some vehicular hijinks I originally wrote for this part. Part 4 will be when I finally cover the story, and get out my ~Queer Thoughts~ about the game's fashion, how it handles things like a society of all women, and maybe even some musings on why Sidon suddenly has a fiance who was never mentioned in BotW.
So, Part 2 is sort of a comparison of the opening areas of BotW and Tears, my initial idea being to compare and contrast how the two handle their more focused segments. Really it turned into a very deep dive on the new abilities, so buckle up.
Famously, BotW opens the same way as DOOM 2016, with Link's awakening from a long slumber to rejuvenate after a war a century before, and the game gets immediately into the action. Rather than slaying demons, Link goes exploring about a big open area, but that's what the core of BotW is. After talking with an bushy bearded older gentleman, and climbing a tower to reveal the map, Link is free to explore the Great Plateau and complete the shrines to unlock the Sheikah Slate abilities in any order.
Tears, by comparison, opens with a very linear, slow paced sequence of Link and Zelda delving into what lies beneath Hyrule Castle. A very different style of opening from the zero context get straight to it-ness of BotW, but one that does a great job setting the mood, and tone of the main story. It sees the duo uncovering information long since buried, and hidden from the world about what happened millennia ago. About The Imprisoning War, that I think no one in world actually stopped to think about what might have been imprisoned in said war. Of course what they find deep down doesn't end well for Link or Zelda, and Link has another awakening a while later, with some odd changes.
Namely his rad, messed up new arm with the ghost of a goat man living inside it. Here is now the true beginning of Tears, rather than the story prologue that preceded it. With nothing but this new arm, an even more messed up Master Sword, a newly flowing mane of hair, and a skort with some sandals (a look I wish I could pull off), Link leaps from a skyland through the late title card, and the tutorial begins as he descends to the Great Sky Island.
Here's one of the first major differences between these games: Tears is a more focused, “authored” experience, or at least it has more in the way of sequences that are tighter and more focused. The Great Plateau in BotW was pretty wide, and open, as a way of showing players that things don't need to be done in a set order. Of course most people's inclination would be to go to the closest one first, but they don't have to.
And for what BotW is, I think showing that freedom in the order things can be tackled was absolutely the right move. The only downside being it means the Great Plateau isn't designed to make players show they've really learned what the abilities can do, at least outside the shrines themselves. Given the relative simplicity of BotW's abilities (aside from Stasis), but the wild difference in core game design from previous games (especially Skyward Sword), I think the Great Plateau is the tutorial area that game needed.
I wouldn't doubt that there's a way to do Tears' tutorial shrines out of the intended order, but the whole of the Great Sky Island has a much more obvious, and harder to deviate from main path. It leads Link along a path that is much narrower than the Great Plateau, but crucially is wide enough to still keep that sense of exploration, and experimentation along the way.
It also allows for more time to put players in situations where they need to learn how to use the abilities to progress. Given what they are, and the true breadth of what one in particular can do, I think that Great Sky Island being a more focused tutorial was the right move for this game. I don't know how anyone could get to those other shrines without Ultra Hand, for example. I'm sure someone managed it, but I feel like doing so would require such a mastery of the game's other mechanics that it'd likely be on a subsequent playthrough. Just trying to do it for the sake of doing it.
The Great Sky Island doesn't immediately present Link with Ultra Hand, it introduces other things, like the basics of combat, and some other traversal related things before the ghost goat man (Rauru) living in Link's new arm tells him to go complete the shrines, in order to open up the Temple of Time. But as it is the first new ability, it is kind of the most important new thing in the game.
Ultra-Hand (named after one of those odd gadgets Nintendo used to make before they got into video games) is not only the star of the show, it's my new favorite ability across the whole of the franchise. Almost certainly the most versatile, and the one that has the biggest impact on the fundamentals of what this game is in relation to BotW. I already covered it a bit in Part 1, but building ramps and gluing rockets to platforms is barely scratching the surface of what's possible. Ramps/bridges to cross gaps are literally the thing the shrine teaches first, and it's so straightforward the initial “puzzle solved” chime almost feels like an intentional joke.
Tears slowly, but smartly builds up what it expects players to do with Ultra-Hand. Next it's attaching a hook to a platform, and using that to slide along a rail, and then combining logs with a sail to make a rudimentary boat. Now, if stuff like this was the extent of what Ultra-Hand could do, that probably would have been good enough. Maybe not a complete game changer, but still cool. Even just being able to lift and move any non-living/undead thing was a big improvement of BotW's Magnesis, which could only move metal objects.
Instead, some brave soul at Nintendo decided that Tears had to also be Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts (a game I sadly still haven't played, but want to now). Along with basic objects like hunks of wood, metal, and rocks, Ultra-Hand crucially works with Zonai Devices. What are Zonai Devices? Everything ranging from multiple sizes of wheels, to fans, mirrors, gliders, rockets, even autonomous machines whose functionality is affected by what other devices are attached to them.
I didn't count them myself, but The Internet says there's twenty-eight different types of Zonai Devices, and I would've guessed about thirty, so that sounds right. They can be found all across Hyrule, also above and below it, and even come in handy capsules that Link can keep in his inventory. Think the Capsule Corp. tech from Dragonball Z, except orb shaped, and they spew forth from gatcha machines. Literally, they're giant capsule machines that give a random assortment, and each machine only has a small portion of the Zonai Devices, to limit what people have access to. I think doling them out in such a silly fashion is an extremely Nintendo thing to do, particularly with the fun animation, and the huge quantity of capsules that comes spilling out if Link spends the right resource.
In the Great Sky Island, Zonai Devices are introduced alongside a battery pack attached to Link's belt. At first only one of eight visible slots is filled, but it turns out it actually has capacity for sixteen full batteries. Zonai Devices can't run on thin air, and the more in use at once, the faster the drain. They don't all individually drain at the same rate (ie, an auto-cannon uses more juice than a fan), but a lot of fans at once will run that starting battery dry in no time. But again, for the first time Link has to use them, it's just attaching a fan to a log boat to cross a lake. Simple, but effective at teaching the point.
So, assuming Link's battery is upgraded sufficiently, the only real limit to building is the player themselves, and it honestly feels like just about anything is possible. Planes that soar the skies, or mechs covered in cannons and lasers laying waste before them. Rugged vehicles that can cover almost any terrain, or elaborate contraptions designed to keep enemies at bay while Link watches the carnage from the sideline. They don't even need to accomplish any of the goals the game has set before the player, they can just be cute, or fun for the sake of being cute and fun.
Within days of the games release, I saw multiple videos of functionally different contraptions that served the same purpose: Petting the dogs! Nintendo may not have built that into the game, so the engineers out there took it upon themselves to do it on their own, and I salute them for it. Rewatching one of those videos, and it goes to show the ingenuity of it. It's an incredibly simple design, but one that still requires creative use of a big wheel in a way that isn't its primary intended function.
Part of the beauty of the building in Tears is that it is as simple or as complex as each player wants it to be. A basic car requires nothing more than a base to stand on, some wheels, and something to drive it forward. Zonai wheels will even do that on their own, but wooden wagon wheels just roll wherever they're inclined to roll. Of course having a steering stick to give Link control beyond smacking the thing to turn it on and off is handy, but not necessary if it only needs to go in a straight line.
Some of the controls for Ultra-Hand can be a little wonky (I had to invert the horizontal rotation to stop myself from rotating the wrong way every time), and it'd be nice if there was a way for things to be suspended in air while tinkering on them. As is, it can be cumbersome to position something in exactly the right way to attach something else to it, and easy to accidentally have wheels roll down a hill because I carelessly put them to the side while working. That, and while the disconnect functionality being wiggling the stick is undeniably fun, I do think also having a button to do that would have been nice. Faster, if nothing else.
I'll be honest and say that even the wildest stuff I built, or attempted to build didn't come close to a fraction of what other people have. My biggest swing was the time I accidentally built an autonomous, amphibious walking mech. That's wildly outselling what it was, haha, but sometimes I gotta hype myself up a little.
It started with the idea to build a paddle boat, or in other words a boat propelled by big spinning paddles in the water instead of a fan. I can't say exactly why, but I was fascinated with the idea, and actually attempted it a handful of times across the game (including in one shrine where I feel like that was intended, but I can't say for sure). I got the paddles working well enough, even after they desynced, and with a stabilizer the main platform stayed upright in the water (it's easy to guess what happened on previous attempts without it). It was slow, but it worked, and I cracked up when it reached land and the paddles now worked as legs. Though... it may have walked into an explosive barrel. And half of it may have blown off, including Link... But this beautiful creation, it continued to waddle along on its own! Only one leg left, it kept going without me, out into the sea, until it eventually went beyond the range of my battery.
Even if I'm not enough of a robotics engineer to have built my own (Solid Snake voice) Metal Tear, just seeing that other people had was enough to excite me. I was still seeing videos this year of people doing things in BotW that I didn't know were possible, so I can't even imagine what lies in store for the future of Tears. In these first couple of months alone, the sheer breadth of what people have built is astounding. Honestly, just as fun I think are seeing videos of people's attempts at building stuff that failed comically. Whether that's because something physically broke (like they used too powerful a weapon to turn on their flimsy wooden kart), something went wildly out of control (that's happened to me!), or just something in the world happened that they couldn't predict, even failing is almost always fun.
Which goes back to something I said in Part 1 of this series, about the playful nature of all this. No, Tears isn't the first game to have building, and it's far from the deepest or more complex system for it out there. But what it does bring to the table that a lot of other games don't (Nuts & Bolts excluded) is being playful with it. One Zonai Device in particular is this big roomba-looking thing on treads, which goes after and attacks enemies. Not super useful without offensive Devices attached, but even without them it can do a decent job at being a distraction from Link. That's all irrelevant though, as the reason I bring this up now: It has a little tail at its back, and it wags. Like a happy little doggy. But the tail goes straight when it detects enemies, because then it's serious time.
I know the teams at Nintendo have effectively infinite resources and time to build its flagship games, and that's how they can afford to make a game so massive, yet also maintain such playful little details like that. But it really does go such a long way to fill the game with personality on top of the fantastic game design.
For the most part, Tears doesn't actually require using Ultra-Hand that much. It's entirely possible to spend the bulk of the game traveling on foot, and that in fact is how I spent the majority of my time. But, there are two repeated activities across Hyrule in particular that are tailor built for it, and I think both embody the playful spirit of this game super well. Those are helping Addison hold his increasingly lopsided signs for Hudson Construction steady, and helping tired Koroks with very big backpacks catch up with their friends. A lot of Korok activities use Ultra-Hand (like removing those rocks from the holes that had Koroks pop out in BotW, and putting them on little trees now), but aiding the backpackers is easily my favorite.
Both of these are inherently silly. Addison works for a construction company, yet can't figure out that he needs to support the base of the sign before raising the whole thing. And the visual of these little plant buddies wiggling while wearing backpacks several times their size is just adorable. They also both do a great job of testing players' use of Ultra-Hand, and how to best use the environment around them. Figuring out how to use the objects at (ultra) hand to hold those signs up was always fun, and I got significantly better at it the more I did. It's as simple as learning how physics work!
And for the Koroks, well I took it upon myself to deliver each one to their friend as safely and comfortably as I could. Yes, some mishaps happened along the way a few times. For example, the very last one I did before finishing the game...I somehow managed to fall off the glider midway into the journey. I'm still not sure how. Maybe it was poor rocket placement? Anyway, the glider managed to land almost exactly where I wanted it to, and the Korok got to their friend completely fine. I just took an extra minute to catch up.
Which is more than I can say for a lot of the Koroks out on the internet. Truly the most disappointing thing associated with this game is how many people wanted to hurt and torment these fun little forest friends. I genuinely don't understand why anyone would take pleasure in harming a defenseless being like that. Especially when the Koroks can be ignored if people don't like them. Just keep walking! I still think it's a little heartless to not help someone in need, but at least it isn't actively cruel like gluing them to the front of a wheel. It makes me sad just thinking about it.
Anyway, that is an exhaustive look at Ultra-Hand, yet still there's somehow so much more to it, not even taking into account Auto-Build! For the sake of not making this solely about Ultra-Hand, I'll say it's very useful, because as the name implies, it can automatically build things. Saved favorites, a recent history of anything built, and even schematics found across the game. Plenty of things I might not have thought of are already there, and are really handy. The one that's three springs attached to a stake (to keep the whole thing in one spot) was great for getting up places quickly. There's another that's two cannons on another stake, which saved me a lot of time and resources by blasting my way through those really thick patches of tough rocks underground. Some are silly, like a handful of bombs glued together, but there's also a variety of vehicles ready to go.
Unlike the other abilities, Auto-Build is optional, and I could very easily see a decent number of people missing it. I won't spoil where it's at, but I will say one of the main quests does point toward it, so just keep an eye out. I happened upon it fairly early on, and it became a vital part of my tool set for the rest of the game.
Not content to only let Link build things in the environment, Nintendo also decided to let players Fuse things to weapons and shields, as that's what the second main ability is. Fuse. And arrows too, though not the bows themselves, for whatever reason. A lot of the weapon Fusing just buffs damage, but it can have more fundamental changes. A sword can become a hammer with a blunt object Fused on (for smashing rocks and armor), and a blunt stick can become a blade when Fused with a sharp object. Or it can shoot out fireballs with a ruby attached, a freezing sword with an ice Lizalfos horn, a whip with a tail attached, it can even shoot cannonballs with the right Zonai Device.
Shields too. Need to get up high? Try attaching a rocket, or even a spring, and combine that with a shield “surf.” A mirror on the shield will reflect light and blind enemies, and an elemental gem will use whatever element as a counter-attack when struck. Though, if I'm being honest, I didn't Fuse things to shields as often as I probably should have, because I care too much about aesthetics, and having all this stuff jutting out on a shield on Link's back looked silly. I appreciate it, but when the bulk of my time is still spent slowly traversing and exploring the world, where I'm looking at the back of whatever shield I have equipped, it can be a little distracting when there's an electric unicorn head staring back at me.
Fusing is usually pretty good for increasing the durability of things, but not always. Zonai Devices Fused to shields tend to drain the durability much faster than usual, but that's the tradeoff for having something powerful attached to a shield. I can see why using an active flamethrower while blocking against enemy damage is the sort of thing that could get over-powered quickly, so it needs to be balanced some way. But it led to me not Fusing things to shields very often. Weapons though, I always Fused, particularly the Zonai weapons, which get an extra boost when Fused with Zonai Construct horns.
In BotW, learning the right rhythm of how to use the weapons, and take weapons from enemies was really important, especially early on. If Link's weapon was about to break, throwing it at an enemy to make them drop theirs, and taking it before they could recover was key. That's all still here, but now enemies all have a horn (or more for the toughest ones) that drops on death, and that adds an extra layer to the combat. Most weapons dropped by enemies are pretty weak on their own, even when they're from higher tier, stronger foes. But those foes always have better horns than their weaker counterparts, and sometimes that extra damage buff mid-fight is exactly what's needed to swing the tide. Of course, enemies tend to drop a bunch of other stuff as well, and when the good horn is buried under a pile of giant toenails and meat, there isn't always time to actually Fuse the right thing on, because the enemies aren't going to wait!
There is also another layer to this, as the horns have different lengths, and ranges, which don't always work well with each weapon type. A short horn might be fine on a one handed sword or the tip of a spear, but I found it made two handed heavy greatswords all but unusable when their range was reduced to that of a dagger, even if the damage went way up. The greatsword is my least favorite of the three broad weapon types (and to be frank I wish they had added more), even if the damage output was really high. The big spin is fun, especially after Link has the stamina to keep it going, but I just found the regular swords and spears to be more versatile.
Something I really appreciate about the weapon Fusing is how varied it is in terms of aesthetics. When Fusing enemy horns to weapons, it replaces the blade (or equivalent surface for blunt weapons) with the horn in a way that looks very clean, and intentionally designed. Conversely, weapons can be Fused to other weapons, and then that's just a sword glued to the end of another sword. Game play wise, that's pretty useful, because it can drastically extend a weapon's range. Two spears Fused together creates a ton of space between Link and the enemies. But it still looks very silly. At least it's in a way that I typically enjoyed. A little less so when they clip through the ground, while on Link's back, but I've accepted at this point that's an issue games can never truly solve. Alas.
Again, in terms of game balance, weapons can only have one thing Fused at a time, but at least they can be un-Fused in the menu (thus destroying whatever was Fused on, even if it's another weapon). There is an NPC that will safely dismantle Fused weapons/shields, but I never found much need of that. Weapons were disposable in BotW, and I figured the Fused on items were supposed to be here too. But I wouldn't blame anyone who didn't want to lose their hard earned Silver Maned Lynel horn, when that buff is massive. Though I kind of feel like it's not worth the resources required to actually take down the strongest of the Lynels, when my battles typically resulted in multiple broken weapons and shields. Worth it for the thrill of the fight, of course.
By now I've more or less lost track of where I was at in relation to this ostensibly being me describing the Great Sky Island as a tutorial. Fuse is great, and the thing that differentiates Tears' combat and resource management from BotW's, but the majority of the tutorial is more about learning how to properly use Ultra-Hand to navigate places. At least up until the cold zone, where the game teaches the importance of eating spicy food to stay warm.
At some point along the way was one of my favorite examples of the game throwing a wrench at me, to make me use some creative thinking to get through. First it introduced minecarts and the rails they can traverse. Naturally on their own they're at the whim of gravity, and physics, but with a fan attached, upward inclines aren't a problem any more. What is a problem though, is when one of the rails is just completely broken. Particularly when I didn't notice until I was already on my way up, only to have the cart fall, and well things didn't go much better for Link.
In retrospect, the answer I came to was fairly simple (using a big hook with the cart suspended below), but so early in the game, I had to do some tinkering to get there. It didn't help that part of me wanted to attempt something comically over-designed before going for the simple solution. And speaking of those minecarts, I didn't realize this until later, but a minecart Fused onto a shield effectively turns the shield into a skateboard, and they lock right onto the rails, which is rad. I don't know how useful it is, because again, I doubt it maintains enough momentum to go uphill indefinitely, but downhill? It's RAD.
At some point along the way, I encountered my first bomb flowers, which finally drove home that the remote bombs from BotW were not returning. At first I was disappointed, and in all honesty part of me does miss the hijinks that were possible with remotely detonating bombs. But when I first tried throwing a bomb to fight a Like-Like, and blew myself up in the process, I had a feeling that the flowers were actually an upgrade, at least in terms of damage. Plus, even if they are technically limited (though I usually had around fifty or sixty, despite using them frequently), not having to wait for a cooldown means a lot more frequent explosions.
Being able to Fuse them to arrows was the most use I got out of them. Yes, I did eventually figure out the range on throwing them, so I wasn't blowing myself up...as often, but shooting a bomb arrow into a distant group of enemies was the ideal tactic. The only issue being the interface for Fusing to arrows is...awkward at best, and frustratingly slow at worst. Holding up on the d-pad to bring up the menu is fine, the issue is that all Fusable objects are listed in a single row, which can only be navigated in linear order.
Thankfully there is at least an option to sort, and eventually the “most used” option filtered the, well, things I most used to the front. Lightbloom seeds, fire fruit, bombs, etc. But it wasn't really useful when I found myself in need of something I hadn't used yet, and had to scroll through dozens of items to get there. It's one of those things where on principle, I appreciate that I can Fuse a full bottle of milk to an arrow, but in practice, I don't understand why I would ever want to do that, and wish there was a better way to handle this menu. I know food can be used to distract enemies, but I'm not using milk for that.
Do separate rows. Have one for the elemental items, one for enemy horns, one for foods, etc. Or let me set my favorites, because I dunno where the homing eyes would fit into any of that, and those were very useful against flying enemies. I used a lot of them battling Gleeoks late in the game.
And while I'm griping about this, the controls for throwing are just...odd? It's still R to throw weapons, like in BotW, but throwing things from the inventory (like an ice fruit to freeze water, or fire fruit to light a campfire) isn't so simple. First Link needs to enter the throwing stance by holding R. Then to access the menu, hold up on the d-pad to select the item to throw (using the same cumbersome menu). Finally after finding the right item, release up to exit the menu, and release R to throw.
I got used to all that after a while, the thing that gets me is that despite the fact that I can hold up anywhere to bring up that same menu, and I can drop things from my inventory there, I can't then hold R to enter the throwing stance. I need to ready my weapon to throw first, even though I think it'd make more sense to select the item from the inventory first. At the very least I feel like it should be doable from either order, but again, I got used to it. Eventually.
Anyway, the next ability, and simplest one, is Ascend. It allows Link to jump and swim up through just about any ceiling, so long as it's relatively flat-ish on the top and bottom, and within range. The ceiling can be extremely thick, just not too high relative to Link's position. Simple though it may be, in terms of number of times I used it, it might actually be the ability I used the most across the game. Of course I'd have to consider situations in which I used Ultra-Hand like fifty times in the process of building one thing as “one” instance of using Ultra-Hand, but that's just nitpicking.
Ascend is obviously useful for getting out of places like caves quickly, but it's also great for getting into places without any other obvious entrance. Whether it's being used to take very clearly intended shortcuts up places, or finding little gaps where it works that I'm sure the devs did know about, but it still feels like getting one over on the level design, it's just extremely useful across the whole game.
Whenever an ability can fundamentally change how I perceive spaces and places in games, I think that's super cool. Now instead of looking for a flat cliff face to climb, or a series of places to stop to regain stamina along a climb, trying to find a little alcove that has enough room to Ascend is sometimes the fastest way to get up somewhere high. Or, if there aren't any built into the environment, combining Ascend with Ultra Hand or Auto-Build could help Link get up part of the way. A big board of wood attached to a stake stuck into a cliff face is a perfect surface to Ascend through. One of the Auto-Build schematics I found is just a series of stone blocks positioned to serve as a stable, very tall platform to Ascend up, and that's something the devs included, not even a cheese strat. All it takes is either going to the right place to get the schematic, or having the ingenuity to build it from scratch.
In the Great Sky Island, after attaining Ascend is where it introduces two new concepts: The glider Zonai Device, and pants. In all seriousness, I do think it's funny that it's not until this point there's pants, and even then they're hidden enough that I know at least one person who missed them. Anyway, the only thing I have to say about the gliders is that, across the whole of the game, it is a little frustrating that they eventually time out and just disintegrate. Meaning they can't be used to fly across the whole of Hyrule, which I get.
Early on, they don't want people to fly over everything. And I agree, people shouldn't just skip the bulk of the game, at least on a first playthrough. I love watching speedruns, and I haven't seen any for Tears yet, so I can only imagine what they do. But after spending literal hundreds of hours traversing Hyrule, I wish there was a way to just make the gliders last. Without them I needed to resort to using other things to make my long lasting flying machines, which meant they didn't really control as well. No real control over elevation, they would just constantly go up. Useful for when I want to do that, but a bit annoying otherwise.
Anyway, there's one last ability, and that's Recall. One of the most interesting, but underutilized in the game, Recall sends objects back in time, moving along whatever path they had taken. On paper it's super cool, but in practice, outside of specific puzzles designed around it, most of my Recall use came from recovering after making mistakes. Something rolled down a hill, fell off a cliff, or otherwise went flying off somewhere I didn't want it to, Recall would bring it right back. Thankfully it pauses time while aiming, because sometimes I was scrambling to recall it in time, and even with that, only just barely managed. But outside of that, there weren't many uses I had for it. It's also useful for finding things that flew out of sight, as sometimes the arrow showing its path will extend into view, even if the object is out somewhere beyond that.
If I have any complaints about these abilities broadly, it's that I wish they were more useful in combat. Aside from Fuse, obviously. I wish I could use Ultra-Hand to rip weapons out of enemy hands, or tear the Yiga clan vehicles to pieces. Recall can be used to send objects flying back at enemies, but even an explosive barreling back to a Big Boss Bokoblin never did as much damage as I felt like it should. At least sending boulders flying back at the Talus mini-bosses would stun them long enough to climb on them and hit their weak spot.
There's one mini-boss type, the Flux Construct, that's made out of a bunch of cubes that shift into different arrangements with different attacks. My favorite tactic for fighting them is to use Ultra Hand and pull out the core, thus destabilizing the whole thing. Or, if the core is hard to get at, because it shifts around, just keep pulling out other cubes until the core is reachable, or the whole thing falls apart. They're super cool, maybe my new favorite enemy across the whole game. But as far as I know, they're also the only one where Ultra Hand is useful when fighting.
In terms of the Great Sky Island, this is the part where Link leaps off, falling to the mainland below, without a paraglider yet, and into...an adventure too great for me to detail here.
This part went on kinda long, and I don't really know if anyone actually likes reading my long explanations of game mechanics, so for anyone who read this far without just skimming to the end, thank you. I write these blogs because otherwise all the words clog up my head, and I've got no other way to drain them out, but if people like reading them, then I'm glad. Until next time, have a good day!
Log in to comment