Tears of the Kingdom: Inescapable Gloom

[aubergion]

Ok, the Deeps aren't quite like the Darkest Dungeon caves. For one, you can actually exit the caves.

Not that you can't technically exit the Deeps, but you have to fast travel to do so, which feels like a bit of a copout after BotW where you could definitively go from one end of Hyrule to the other on foot and horse power. I've tried numerous things - climbing (no dice), Ascend (can't get close enough to the ceiling), hot air balloon (ran out of battery power), hot air balloon + fan + wing glider (same), gliding on the draconic winds of Naydra (apparently not a thing in the Deeps?). No dice.

Alright, I should back up a second. Why was I even in the Deeps? Why was Naydra there?

Last time we left off, I was in Kakariko Village, catching a star fragment in midair. When I landed, I discovered that Paya was the new leader of Kakariko village! The hat is a bit ridiculous on her, but I love the new confidence (even if it's not complete). Baby steps, Paya. Baby steps. I also discovered that apparently Zelda was in Kakariko village? Damn, now I really wish I'd come here first. Way more diegetic to have discovered that organically, and probably stumbled on to a Skyview tower in the generically vague knowledge that "hey, tall places are useful and I have a wing glider to theoretically get me out of bad situations" before being directed back to Purah to actually use the darn things.

In any case, Zelda gave an edict that no one was to visit One Very Specific Ring Ruin and then poofed. In-ter-est-ting. In accordance with her order, the researcher dude from the Hateno Forest starts yelling if I set one foot too close to the ring ruin. This appears to apply in every situation - walking past him, climbing a ladder, paragliding from above....

Ok. I get it. I'm not allowed to touch the ring ruin until later.

I did find several tablets, which seem like they hold some kind of plot. The sages mentioned on the tablets feel like something that will help later. Weren't there sages in Ocarina of Time? No way to act on them though, and even when I read the notebooks, it doesn't seem to count for the sidequest for reading the runes, so I'm a bit stumped. Clearly at some point I need to find a way to read ancient Hyrulean, but as is, I feel like I'm sequence breaking a bit by being here. Everything in Kakariko Village feels a little higher level tbh. No inn (until you fetch the innkeeper), expensive armor (pending my ability to find a damn grain of rice, I have tons of sundelions but no rice), no clear direction on how I'm supposed to circumvent professor whatshisface....

Also there's a giant pit where the Great Fairy Cotera used to be. I hope she's alright. It was while I was exploring that pit thatI saw Naydra flying overhead in Kakariko Village - and straight into the Deeps. I went after it for a scale, which I got, and ended up in the Deeps below Kakariko Village.

I was determined to keep exploring for a while, as long as I could see lightroots, and discovered that a) Master Kohga was alive, and b) the Yiga in the Deeps were using Zonai devices to further his scheme. Well I guess I did already drop him into a bottomless pit. If there's anywhere he'd still be alive, it's... down in a bottomless pit. Maybe he can't get out either. Also the Yiga have taken over the East Akkala Tech Lab. So that's a note to file away for later. And they have trucks. Which is also a note for me. I can't help but feel like the ROI is a bit meh given that all the Ultrahand stuff you build shatters the moment you get one step too far away, but it's cool that it's possible.

Anyways, many Stalfos, a Yiga, and sprinting madly away from a black boss bokoblin later, I made it all the way to a new hole what I think is somewhere near Hateno Village, where there was a tall vining structure that I would have sworn I could use to ascend out, or climb, or balloon from, or *something*. No dice. I spent over an hour of gameplay trying to get out of the hole before, reluctantly, fast traveling back to the hole near Hyrule field. From Nisoij Lightroot to Jiosin Shrine. From.... Nisoij to Jiosin? 

Goddamn it, Nintendo.

Comments

[canadian_jay]

... oh my god 😅 Nisoij. Jiosin. I'm gonna have to look for that, now.

I think it should be possible to Contraption your way up, with significantly more battery power or just... using a non-battery powered form of fuel, but haven't tried myself. Hope your next adventures were less frustrating!

(I also went to Kakariko with about as much done as you have--and then all the way to Hateno for rice, based off of BotW memories--and found the Unanswerable Mysteries / quest contents intriguing! ... Def also tried getting to that ruin a bunch of ways. Rude man.)