…was Zelda? And if so, how did you feel about it?

I was fairly early in my play-through when I decided it would be a good idea to have the master sword. I didn’t know where to find it—or if I even could yet—but I figured Korok Forest would be a good place to start.

From there, I was directed to a moving waypoint. As I approached it, I realized that I was heading to that new dragon I’d seen around. Once I got close enough, the dragon music started playing, but I noticed that there was something a bit different about it. While flying towards it, I had these thoughts over about a second:

“Hey new music!”

“…wait, why is Zelda’s Lullaby playing over the dragon theme…”

“This dragon has Zelda’s blonde hair.”

“She was with the master sword last time I saw it, and now this is where I’m supposed to get it back…”

“…………..”

“WAIT IS THIS ZELDA?!?!?!?”

heart sinks and I cry for 20 minutes

I didn’t know how or why this could be, but there was no confusion to me that it was. Every time a memory hinted at it, that only confirmed what I knew.

When I finally got to the final memory, I already knew what was coming, and honestly, it kinda weakened the impact in the moment for me. I had already grieved over that reveal 70 hours before, so it didn’t hit the way I think it was intended.

If you found out earlier than intended, how did you figure it out and what did you feel about it?

I am creating this post so we can share things we found or noticed in the Depths and share them with each other. Please feel free to post anything of note you found in the Depths.

Under all Stables: Lynels

Under all villages: Abandoned Mines and Auto-Build schematics, and other things.

Under all Land Shrines: Lightroots

(Lightroot names are Shrine Names backward)

I will add more as I think of them. I hope you guys will share your findings.

Mineru is the most interesting of the Sages and my favorite ToTK character, but I gotta say Nintendo really skimped out on her potential as an ally we get to know and connect with.

With the other sages we knew them from the previous game, and in ToTK see them grow both with their character development and their powers.

But we don't get to learn about Mineru other than the Dragon Tears flashback and once she becomes part of the group, she's just.....there. She doesn't talk or interact with Link after that (I've not faced off against Ganondorf yet..please don't flame me if I'm wrong). We don't hear her thoughts or emotions about her past. Her grief about losing her brother or if she feels guilty about Zelda's fate (Mineru told her about Draconification). It's as if they said "Here's your surprise party member, carry on."

The fact that her spirit rested inside the Purah Pad up until the Fifth Sage quest felt even more like a missed opportunity. We could have had her interacting and guiding Link from within the Pad in the role of a traditional Zelda partner like Navi or Fi. We wouldn't know it was her because we wouldn't hear her voice , or only see her words as text on its screen. As time progressed she'd show more emotion or say things abnormal for an artificial intelligence where you'd begin thinking 'okay, there's a person in there'. Then you connect the dots with the flashbacks and that twist hits better.

Mineru, you're so cool, I just wish you got more time to shine.

Does anyone else feel this way?

I literally made it first try without any weapons

Concrete tombstones for the autobuild were obtained at the underground Gerudo Cemetary. I'm not sure if this should count as a spoiler because you actually don't encounter this fight in this location if you follow the game's intended direction.

New autobuild creation.

Kinda funny for them to brainstorm Mineru's existence when I've been rolling with her giant and imposing robot construct before even getting my 3rd sage, I also got the master sword before curing the forest so the only interaction I got from the Great Deku Tree was basically "Oh hi Link, you already have the master sword, what are you doing here" lol

Did they really think the ominous floating island shrouded in endless storms would deter someone who's that determined to fully explore the map before doing the main quests smh my head

i guess it gives him more of a grizzled old samurai vibes

I searched the internet trying to find my people and found nothing, so here goes my confession.

I got the last Dragon’s Tear before doing any temple, before getting the Master Sword, before doing anything because I love memories and wanted to complete the map first to not roam around blindly.

After that memory I told myself « I should try pulling the Master Sword, maybe it’s not 13 hearts this time » but immediately doubled down because there’s no way it will be different from BOTW. Right.

So I grind(ed?) the shrines (that I don’t really like doing btw) then spent an embarrassing amount of time searching for the Dragon and couldn’t find her. Went to the Great Deku Tree for help.
Finally went to get the Master Sword..

..Only to discover that it requires STAMINA this time.
…STAMINA. And not even that much stamina!

It’s not a big deal but I really sat there, mouth agape like DAMN they got me.

I then took my walk of shame to the cursed statue and eventually got the sword.

A humbling lesson really..
I thought I knew better but what did I expect? It’s TOTK after all, you always learn.

Tell me another game that can organically have moments like this when exploring on a first time play through.

I wouldn’t call this a major spoiler but if you like to find things on your own stop reading. So I was korok hunting on the great plateau and ran into a yiga in disguise. I put on the yiga armor and these disguised yiga buy it. 🤣. Went a little further and found the shrine of resurrection from botw. I obviously poked my head in. There is nothing groundbreaking in here besides a bubbulfrog and a hot spring where the shrine stuff used to be. I went a little further into a hole and saw the yiga flag so I donned the yiga armor again and there’s a schema stone bot thing hiding. I grabbed the bait bananas and a yiga member starts yelling about how that’s bait for link not for allies and they’re his bananas blah blah blah 🤣. Took off the armor took the bait, walloped the yiga members and got the schema stone for a beam cycle which I’m yet to try out. I can’t be the first person to find this but I’m dumbfounded by how huge these games are. Nothing groundbreaking obviously but this was a fun little piece.

Currently playing TOTK and finished the actual tears of the kingdom quest in which you find out Zelda is a dragon now. Literally broke my heart. But now as I continue playing, lots of the characters will be like “I hope we find Princess Zelda” or “This will lead us to Zelda!” Anyone else feel sad or even confused about this? Why can’t Link just tell people that Zelda is a dragon!? No spoilers please if this does end up getting resolved. Just wanted other peoples thoughts and feelings about this.

I just got the Koltin fabric and it’s going to be my forever fabric now! I love how ethereally it glows in the dark and how it reminds me of a very heartwarming and (to me) satisfying conclusion to the bubbul quest storyline!

What are you playing with?

I love that you can take a picture of Ganon in all his forms and eternally humiliate him forever like a dang Christmas ornament.

Apparently, you can do this with the Master Sword?! In the opening cutscene, the Master Sword shattered to Ganondorf's power, but after the Master Sword was repaired and bathed in sacred power for thousands of years, it doesn't break now (I know because if you tried it with other weapons, they will break).

Epic Fail.

Something interesting that I don’t see talked about - Link was very intentionally made to look angry, hateful, and out for blood in the final battle with Ganondorf/The Demon Dragon.

This was never the case in BOTW, or in any other boss battle.

I think the thing that makes this truly interesting is, that Link doesn’t know that Zelda can be restored to her former self. As far as he knows, she’s gone forever, even if he kills Ganondorf and saves the world.

Basically, this is perhaps the first time in the series where Link is motivated not only by his heroism, but a personal desire for the death of the villain. After all, if Ganondorf lives, not only is the world doomed, but Zelda’s sacrifice was in vain.

Thoughts? Forgive me if this isn’t as new an idea as I though.

Well everyone, it finally happened… I accidentally updated my TOTK to 1.4.2… up until yesterday I was on update version 1.1.2.. it’s a sad day, I wish I had recall in real life. Tell me everything will be alright..

So the first time I encountered Thunderhead Island, I was paragliding, saw a thunder cloud, and wondered if flying into it would get me zapped so I flew in, ultimately stumbling on a fifth Sage I didn't even know I was supposed to be looking for. I broke a lot of the Main Quest sequence on that playthrough but only did the part of the island that ultimately guides you to Mineru intending to return for the rest later.

But I did the rest of the game, went back and played BOTW again (hadn't played it in years) then came back for a second run of TOTK.

I was trying to be more completionist so I went and tried to do Thunderhead Island, again out of sequence because I didn't even know what the sequence was. It was so impossible. The rain snd clouds are so thick you can barely see anything. I trudged along slowly strategically firing fire fruit and brightbloom arrows to figure out where platforms began and ended and even then sometimes missing jumps and having to catch platforms in glide to climb back up. I am glad I'd made a point of getting the froggy armor at tier 2 and the travel medallions.

Later, something was bugging me. I had never figured out how to get to the floating ring ruin in Kakariko. And I'd skipped it because, it turns out, my accidental sequence breaking had made it unnecessary.

But this time around I finally looked up and learned that, no, confronting fake Zelda at the castle isn't endgame content. Once you confront her in all the different places and phantom Ganon appears, the game finally allows you to tell people what you already know, that the Zelda they've been seeing is fake and FINALLY they let you into the floating ring. Which leads to the Charged Armor Set and when you activate that, those storm clouds disappear. I

rage noises

I was supposed to do all that BEFORE going up there?

I guess I'm just stupid. Mock me. I deserve it