Zelda: And all of a sudden I think I'm at endgame. I'll break this up into three "parts" given how you can do things in any order.
Hyrule Castle: Given how BOTW Hyrule Castle was probably the GOAT Zelda dungeon/area this was always going to be an impossible bar for TOTK to meet and yeah it's definitely not as good even though it's the same area. The boss cutscene was really cool though when Fake Zelda transformed the Sanctum and started warping around talking to Link. Missed opportunity to have the boss *be* Fake Zelda a la TP's Puppet Zelda fight. A bunch of Phantom Ganons was lame in comparison, but may have been more intimidating if I hadn't fought them (albeit 1v1) a bunch of times now. Ganondorf talking shit afterwards unearned tbqh, I won without taking any damage bro put some respect on my name. also how did the sages get here. outside tulon of course.
Spirit Temple (well mostly the leadup to it but easiest way to classify it): Returning to Purah and our next task is to find the fifth sage because apparently only Purah kept track of the fact that there were 6 and we've only accounted for 4 + Zelda because the other sages were shocked. She vaguely tells us to investigate ruins. Now since I know where the Spirit Temple is, know the Thunderstorm Islands, Tobio's Hollow, and Construct Factory have unique music which is a characteristic of temple stuff I "know" where we're going but I pretend I don't. Weirdly Yunobo point you towards Tarrey Town because he wants to make sure he has worst sage on lock. I humored him but I think it's a total dead end and no one there even acknowledges anything about this. So I head to Kakariko since apparently it took fighting Fake Zelda to get people to believe that she *was* a fake despite Link knowing damn well she was. And Paya trusts him implicitly and lifts the ban on the Ring Ruins so it's like we could have done this ages ago. This starts a kinda neat scavenger hunt in Faron that eventually dispels the thunderstorms around those last sky islands. I find the final shrine up there and eventually reach the end. LOOOOOL back during my big exploration I actually tried to fly into this area and stumbled upon the Shrine at the very end based only on radar pings but immediately bailed because visibility was basically zero. I was like 10 feet from Mineru. Though I dunno if I had the hearts to open the door at that time. Anyway this opens up a chasm to the Construct Factory and we put Mineru together. At one of the depots I think I couldn't figure out how you were supposed to get the part across the various lava portions but you can just send it most of the way with Ultrahand and then pick it up from the other side. I realize at the very end that the Construct Factory *is* the "Dungeon" and to my disappointment the Spirit Temple is literally just a boss arena. Mineru's power is interesting but Link is just a lot more effective on foot I think. Also I found it weird the Construct at the Construct Factory never reacted to any of this happening during or after.
Master Sword: Finally Link is told to go get it. Since I started the first part of this kinda on accident by saving the Deku Tree so I could access the Korok Forest I get to skip the beginning part of this but talking to Purah she just says "go see the Deku Tree" so I don't think I missed much. Seeing how I found out the Master Sword was on the Light Dragon a long time ago when I also learned you could land on the dragons now it was just a matter of opening the quest log to see where it currently was and dropping on to it. Huh, a Stamina check. Wasn't expecting that. Seemed like you needed 2 wheels too. Not sure you can cheat that with Bonus Stamina but that's actually a bit higher than I expected even if it's "only" 5 upgrades.
I return to Purah and the next item on the agenda is locating Ganondorf but again we've already solved this by doing the Josha quest about Kohga. So Purah then says all preparations are complete and the only thing left to do is defeat Ganondorf and I get a new main quest for just that. And seeing as how I've completed every quest I've been given with the exception of that new one and the original "Find Princess Zelda" (Haven't we done this technically? lol) I think it's endgame time next.
Probably tomorrow though.
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May you find your book in this place. Formerly known as xp1337.