Boulder Dodging. A Lot of It.

Oh boy. This trial is...busy. As the monk Owa Daim welcomes me to his trial, I can see giant gears, spinning platforms, Indiana Jones-style boulders. Very…extra.

Stasis Trial

~Owa Daim Shrine~

I am Keeseman.

I head right over to the rune pedestal for my magical water tablet upgrade. Stasis, just as it sounds, is the power of stopping time. Not a power I would have guessed, but I probably wouldn’t have guessed Magnesis either though, so what do I know. Similarly to Magnesis, anything I am able to use Stasis on begins glowing yellow when the rune is switched on. Reminds me of detective mode in Batman: Arkham Asylum, actually. Which is probably a comparison that’s been made a million times by now.

My first obstacle is a previously mentioned giant gear attached to a rotating platform. Turning on stasis, the gear glows, and once the platform is horizontal enough for me to cross the gap on, I freeze it. The visual effects for this rune are spectacular – chains of light appear from nowhere and hold the gear in place while a timer ticks down. I scurry across before the gear starts moving again, the chains of light shattering when the timer runs out.

At least it’s not snakes?

Next up is a narrow hallway/ramp with a not-so-narrow boulder rolling down it periodically. About halfway up there’s a path to continue, though the ramp continues on further back. I wait with the rune for the boulder to be released and stop it cold once it’s in range. I run up the ramp as the timer ticks down and move out of the boulders path.

Before moving on, I wait until another boulder has passed and freeze it further down the path, allowing me to walk up the rest of the ramp safely. My exploration is rewarded at the top with a chest containing a Traveler’s Shield. But my inventory is full so the shield gets put back in the chest. I remember a similar problem in Twilight Princess: if your wallet was full, any rupees pulled out of a chest would be put right back in. In theory, great idea, you don’t waste money. But in practice, it lead to a lot of completionists like me having to leave the dungeon to blow some money, because leaving the chest icon on the map was just too annoying. Luckily in this game, all I have to do is drop one of my crappy shields and I can pick up the new one.

Up next is…another giant boulder. Boulder isn’t the right word, these are clearly man made, giant smooth stone orbs, but saying “stone orb” just sounds weird and vaguely sexual. It’s blocking my path. Between me and it, leaning against a wall, is an Iron Sledgehammer. I take a look at the Stasis description again, remembering that it mentioned kinetic energy. They really aren’t fucking around with the physics in this game. I freeze the boulder with stasis, and then start swinging my new sledgehammer. Each time I hit it, the color of boulder turns from yellow to red, and an arrow points in the opposite direction. Once the timer ends, it launches towards where the arrow was pointing. Wow.

And that’s it. I cross the chasm and proceed forward to the monk and my 3rd Spirit Orb. Thanks Owa Daim.

Sensing a pattern with chests outside the Shrines needing
the Rune inside to retrieve.

It’s night-time when I exit the shrine, and I am startled (only a little this time) by a group of skeletons just waiting for me to show up. I make quick work of them. To the left of the Shrine is a boulder (an actual boulder this time) on top of a chest. I uses Stasis and my sledgehammer again, and retrieve a Traveler’s Bow from the chest.

Only one more Ssrine to go. I climb back up the mountain and into the snow again, looking towards the direction of the last shrine. I can’t see it from here because of the big-ass mountain in the way. So I head off in that direction.

It’s a largely uneventful climb. Lots of snow, a few more skeleton attacks in the final hours of night. Not much in the way of animals, and even bokoblins must not like the cold much. As I get higher and closer to the mountain, I actually see what looks like an off-color bokoblin. His skin isn’t red, it’s black? Black-ish (which is a pretty good show actually). He’s asleep when I approach, but he wakes up with dawn before I’m close enough to get a sneak attack in.

You call it cheesing, I call it being conservative with ammo.

First thing I notice is that he’s stronger than other bokoblins – he can take a lot more hits than any of his red cousins. The second thing I notice is that when you knock these guys off a ledge, they aren’t very smart about getting back up to you. I finish him off with remote bombs, not wanting to waste the arrows trying to pick him off from up here. The chest he was asleep next to contained an Amber. Onward!

Mount Hylia

That is indeed a big ass mountain. I wander around the base for a little, inspecting the snow covered rampart walls, and picking up the occasional blue mushroom for some future cooking. I start climbing the peak, and as I get close to the top I can see a second path around the mountain, that must start from the base on the opposite side.

You’re not even pretending to be cold.
I hate you. You’re not my real dad

I also see a certain white bearded motherfucker who has no reasonable explanation for being up at the highest point of the plateau, possible the world.

I give up.

I can see the final shrine from here, fairly close. There’s also a strange rock formation that gives me another Amber when searched.

I climb back down, taking the other path and ending up on the other side of the mountain. Still largely empty, the only animals I see is the occasional flock of birds flying overhead. It’s pretty peaceful when monsters aren’t bursting from the ground to kill you. On the south side of the mountain I see a ring of stones, with one missing.

Korok puzzle.

Not far from the stone ring is a lone rock I can pick up – none of the stones in the ring are able to be lifted. I carry it back over to the gap and place it down in the space, which triggers the Korok trumpet. In a poof, the little leaf guy is there to give me another seed. How are you not cold?

There’s still a lot of mountain to explore, but large swaths of it are just...empty. I head towards the last shrine in the distance, sitting atop a small rocky hill. I can also make out a small bokoblin camp about halfway up the path to it. I’m not really seeing a back way up, so this may get messy.

WHERE DID YOU GET BOULDERS FROM?!

As I climb up the hill, I’m ambushed with a series of boulders being sent down over the cliffs edge. I run to the cliffside and start climbing up, letting all the boulders pass by me. I continue to climb the cliffside to bypass the bokoblins entirely, the Shrine name flashing on my screen once I am close enough. Before I enter, I use my bombs to cheese the bokoblins. Fuck them for pushing those boulders, even if it was a scripted event.

Ain’t got time for that nonsense.

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Heart Containers: 3
Koroks Found: 7
Shrines Completed: 3
Timelord Status: Achieved
Mountain: Climbed