We left Link on the edge of the desert, looking for a stable. My belief was that if I found the stable, and helped Penn (my Rito journalist buddy) resolve the story there, I would be on step closer to having Professor Calip let me investigate the final Ring Ruin. After a brief trip through some rather dishevelled land, and a trip up some rapids, I found the stable, which was largely abandoned. No horses would navigate the treacherous landscape, so the owner was ready to pack it all up. Before he could, there was the small matter of the investigation into Zelda, and it was so unmemorable that I have forgotten, completely and utterly, what that mission was.

What stuck in the memory was the ‘fight monsters in your underpants’ mission that featured at another stable. A matter of miscommunication led several researchers to run around in their pants, and before I could earn their trust, I had to fight a bunch of monsters in a similar state of undress. It took a bit of careful work, for moblins in particular don’t go down easy if you are armed with only sticks, but sure enough, I got it done.

Eventually, every newspaper mission was done, and my reward was a lot of spending money, and a three-piece suit that could help me grip to slippery walls. However, upon returning to Kakariko, I learned I had misread the earlier clue! It turned out that I would have to deal with the regional chaos gripping the Gerudo, so I returned to the desert. I’d put it off, because I didn’t want to the game to end, so to speak.

The first step towards helping Riju and her people was to defend the bazar from the gibdos, that were basically mummies. Conventional attacks barely hurt them, but fiery or electrical attacks could one-shot them. However, they kept spawning from weird, large, mushroom-like things, and it took use of Riju’s electrical discharge attack to destroy their mushrooms. Once this was done, the whole process had to be completed again, over at Gerudo Town.

With all of that done, I was told of a legend involving beams of light, and three pillars. To resolve this particular mystery, I spied in the swirling sands a tower, and upon arrival, noted this tower had a mirror. After some jiggery-pokery, I got a beam of light going from there, and then headed to the next tower, where I had to repair a handle to adjust the mirror. The final tower required raising from the ground, via means of another winch, and this created a triangle of light. The light led to the Lightning Temple, which rose from the ground, along with more gibdo towers, and one large, very ugly Queen Gibdo. Together, Riju and I drove the queen off, but she settled atop the temple, so we headed inside to go about reaching the top.

This temple evoked memories of the Indiana Jones movies. Giant flaming balls, fire-spraying traps, passages hidden behind statues, more mirrors… I dare say this temple has proven to be my favourite one of the game, and in fact, my favourite of both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. With a bit of effort and some creative thought, I reached the top, battled Queen Gibdo again, and retrieved the Tear for Riju. Lookout Landing beckoned, but not before I did another shrine, and tried to activate another Sky Tower, but I cocked that up.

At Lookout Landing, a brief conversation with, um, Purah (I am so bad at the names) led to a blood moon, and we noticed Princess Zelda standing within the uplifted Hyrule Castle. I will confess, I knew of this element, and I knew what was coming, only I didn’t quite know. I raced to the castle, and Zelda called me to find her. Upon doing so, she trapped me with a horde of monsters. With the spirits of all four sages fighting alongside me, each set of monsters (including a hinox in the library, how rude!) was dispatched without too much difficulty, and Zelda called me to the castle’s central chamber.

Here, six years ago, Zelda’s century-long effort to contain the Calamity Ganon faltered, and I did battle with an unhinged creation. That was Ganon in a pure, rageful form. This time, the entity we’d faced down in the catacombs revealed itself once more, and whatever this was – Ganon or Demise – it was cold, calculating and evil. Not for the first time, I squared off against Phantom Ganon, but this time, multiple phantoms. With the spirits of the sages at my side, they were dealt with, even after they began to spread the life-sucking gloom all around the chamber. With the phantoms defeated, the Demon King questioned how I was able to resist his power, but assured me it had been a one-off. He attempted to destroy Link once more, but the Sages showed up, blocking his attack.

The Demon King confirmed he was indeed Ganondorf, and he recounted a memory of his ascension to power in the past. He warned that he would soon achieve full power, and that there was nothing we could do. With that, he vanished.

After all of that, and the certain revelation of two Zeldas being undeniable, I returned to Kakariko, where I could finally access the final Ring Ruin. This spoke of a key of some kind, hidden in the south-eastern region of Faron. I was in no rush to head there, for I wanted to enjoy the adventure, so I decided instead to see what lay within the raging storm clouds in the region.

Maybe it was instinct, maybe it was a secret desire on my part to further the story, but after managing to land on the island within the storm, and finding a shrine within a hidden chamber on the island, I ‘jumped ahead’, and found something that could only be described as ‘significant’. An ancient Zonai secret, the pathway to a fifth Sage, lay before me. I figured I should have headed to Faron first, but oh well, I was here now, and I had unlocked this particular secret. A helm of sorts steered me to a Construct Factory in the Depths, where I was tasked with assembling a body for the Sage.

So, how would the assembly proceed? What would I get up to next? Tune in next time!

On to Part 11

Back to Tears of the Kingdom