Now that Tears of the Kingdom has been blessing our lives for roughly a month, I thought I’d return with another post to talk about my experiences with this truly massive game.  In that time, I’ve made a whole lot of progress, and so I’ll only be able to discuss the highlights of my adventure, if only to prevent this post from dragging out to ten pages or more!  Like last time, there will be some minor spoilers, namely concerning the first portion of our mission in the Gerudo Desert…

Last time, we left off with my visit to the peaceful farming community of Hateno Village, where I was hoping to get Link some nicer clothes.  Because that was apparently far more important to me back then than locating Princess Zelda or helping people with their various, life-threatening problems.  Finding no clothes to be currently on sale (until after you finish the side quest involving the mayoral election), I headed south to the fishing community of Lurelin Village.  Along the way, I was graced by the presence of the dragon Neydra as it flew close by me along Hyrule’s eastern coast.  (I managed to spot and photograph every dragon within a pretty short span of time, even spying a new, fourth dragon called the Light Dragon soaring far overhead.)

Well, after finding that Lurelin Village had quite the pirate problem, I decided to move on to other endeavors, as I still wasn’t strong enough to face so many fiends just yet.  It was now that my mind turned to yet another unimportant use of my time, cooking.  And the last major ingredient that I was really struggling to find was Tabantha Wheat.

I was informed online that the best way to buy wheat is to visit Gerudo Town.  And so, with a new destination in mind, I headed southwest, though once I reached the Kara Kara Bazaar, I learned that a sand shroud was lowering the visibility beyond this point to next to nothing.  Plus, Link was not exactly prepared to handle hot weather.  But dang it, I had some very important cooking to do, and wheat was essential!  Seeing as I had sufficient clothes for the desert’s cold nights, I sat by a campfire until darkness fell, and then I delved bravely, or foolishly, into the sand shroud.

What I found soon after passing through the wall of thick, whirling sand chilled me.  Though they looked different, I still recognized those tall, gangly silhouettes.  No, they were not my mortal enemy, the Redead, but just as bad.  Gibdos.  The desert was infested with them, and though they retained their weakness to fire, I steered clear, just in case they also kept their penchant for screaming and freezing anyone they saw in their tracks.  (Well, it turns out that, no, they don’t do either of those things anymore.  But they can crawl on their bellies at a pace much faster than their walking speed, which may be just as horrible!)

The sand shroud ended up giving me minimal trouble, and I managed to find Gerudo Town after a brief trek.  Unfortunately, the town was in pretty rough shape, and all the Gerudo had been forced to retreat to an underground shelter because of the Gibdos roaming the streets!  And you know what’s worse?  No wheat!  I came all this way, and no one was selling any of my precious wheat!  How was I supposed to make Link a delicious cheese pizza now!

Well, seeing as I don’t want to spoil more of the gam’s story, I’ll just stop there.  But let me tell you, Gerudo Town and the ensuing mission to save the place from the sand shroud and the Gibdos was probably my favorite part of the game!  But I digress.  Ahem, since I have so much to cover, I shall now revert to highlighting the rest of my adventures with a semi-succinct bulleted list:

• In addition to Blueberry and, um…Diaper Butt (see my previous post for more details), I have since gotten many new horses.  Coco (like Cocoa) is a chocolate-colored “rescue horse”, as I call them, that I liberated from Bokoblins.  I freed another reddish-brown horse from these fiends, as well, which I wanted to name Honey.  Unfortunately, it and the wagon it was pulling (which couldn’t be removed) got stuck behind a statue in the Typhlo Ruins, and I wasn’t able to free it.
• Once I had more stamina, I also tamed the Giant White Horse with ease and named it Marshmallow (or Marshmlow, due to the limited characters) because of its white coat.  Then I tamed a solid black horse with a white mane that I named Licorice.  Aside from low strength, all other stats on this horse were quite good.  I eventually got Zelda’s golden horse, as well, which I named Honeybun.  And last of all, during the Spotting Spot side quest, I was able to keep Lester’s beige horse with black spots, which I renamed Dottie.
• I’m really enjoying my return to Hyrule and now have two favorite spots.  One is the farm higher up in Hateno Village, with the pond with the tree in the middle.  I also love the shady and peaceful Batrea Lake, a small, shallow lake surrounded by thick woodland.
• I caught a couple of shooting stars midair after being launched from a tower!
• I learned that you’re actually able to ride on all four of the dragons!  I have no idea if you could do this in the last game, but it’s a super cool experience to get so close to these beautiful creatures!  They’re actually quite peaceful.  Just don’t paraglide too close to their heads if you don’t want to be hit by wayward bits of ice, fire, or electricity!
• On a creepier note, I’ve already delved into the massive chasm beneath Hyrule Castle.  I didn’t find much down here, but I have good reason to believe something very important will be down here eventually.  I also found a chasm in one of the eyes of Skull Lake.  After jumping in, I found myself in the “House of Bones”, where I was surrounded by a whole bunch of skeletons, including a massive Stalnox!  Nope, no thanks, I’m outta here!  I also attempted to navigate the Lost Woods, but this ended up proving impossible when every direction led to the screen fading out and returning me to the entrance.  It turns out that you’ll need to be a bit more clever if you want to reach Korok Forest at the center.  Perhaps try reaching it via one of the other layers on the map…
• I have finally gotten to ride a bear.  Which was surprisingly easy.
• To my great delight, you can now get a bunch of classic outfits from past games.  So far, I haven’t finished any full sets for Link’s classic clothes, forcing me to mix and match Link’s Wind Waker hat with his Twilight Princess tunic and pants.  Which is quite upsetting because the shades of green are ever so slightly off!  One of my very favorite sets that I have completed is the Fierce Deity clothes from Majora’s Mask, complete with the rather impractical, twisty sword!  There’s also some less cool clothes resembling a certain man in green who loves fairies…
• Equally as awesome is the dream house that Link can eventually build overlooking Tarrey Town!  Admittedly, it’s a bit hard to get some of these rooms to fit together just right (especially that weird, little Study), and the choice to forgo windows is a very odd one indeed.  Nevertheless, with some creativity, I managed to make a pretty cozy home for our dear hero.  Oh, and here’s a Pro Tip: You can use the paddocks, pond, or garden as “walls” to give your house the illusion of windows!
• Link has since grown to be very strong, and I’ve found myself taking down some pretty tough enemies with relative ease, including the terrifying Flame Gleeok blocking the bridge over Lake Hylia!  I’m not sure if Link is tougher in this game or what, as I certainly don’t remember being this powerful in Breath of the Wild.  Though I do think being able to fuse items to both your weapons and arrows might play a major contributing factor in making Link a truly formidable force to be reckoned with…

In other news, Lurelin Village has since been liberated from pirates.  I have completed all of the story aside from defeating Ganondorf.  I have found all the Dragon Tears (which, in the process, confirmed a theory I had as to Zelda’s whereabouts).  I have even mapped out all of the Depths, which I’ll admit started to get just a bit tedious after a while.  And now I’m revisiting the various towns in the hunt for any last-minute side quests.  My last task before the inevitable end will be to visit all the remaining sky islands and complete all the shrines so that Link is as prepared for the final battle as possible.  I’ve been having an amazing time with this game, and as sad as I’ll be to see it end, part of me also looks forward to finally finishing a game that I’ve now sunk more than 100 hours into.  A full review is coming up in the future, folks, but for now, I’ve got a lot more signs to prop up and wayward Koroks to drag the last mile to their waiting friends.  Until next time, soar long!

Lede image taken from IGDB.com presskit for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (© Nintendo).