I felt like the 2nd half didn't quite match the 1st half in terms of quality. Still fun mind you, but levels kind of dragged during the latter portions of the game. Xen wasn't as bad as I'd heard people say in the past, though it could've been better.

I actually had to look how to perform a long jump.

...

Welp, I suppose that's the end of that. Obtained 100% completion, all that was left to do was the arena, some minigames, and grinding the rest of the gotcha, which wasn't nearly as daunting as I thought it was going to be. Found out after there were some secret rooms and HAL rooms I didn't find, but I'm not going bother. Afterall, what's the worth in uncovering a secret that's already been discovered.

Really enjoyed my time with Forgotten Land, while it might've been too easy for the bulk of it's playtime, and even the latter challenges can be trivalised with Morpho Knight, it kept me entertained.

With nothing much left to beside the Troupe and Godhome, I figured it best to "finish" the game. My strength + quick slash charm loadout made fast work of the Hollow Knight, however, Radiance proved far tougher.
Took around 5-6 tries, I ended getting lucky with both where she spawned and the attack used, letting me safely hit her from under in the 3rd phase. Finally rid the infection from Hallownest, shame I couldn't save Myla and Cloth, but I suppose no cost is too great for saving the land. My in-game completion is timed at 33 hours, less then what I've recorded, perhaps time in menu's isn't counted for leniency while speedrunning.

Did Grimm's fetch quest with new born son, annoying you always have to spend two charm notches on them when challenging Grimm. I managed to beat his 1st form on the 3rd attempt by playing it safe; which I can already tell from my first try at NIGHTMARE KING GRIMM isn't going to work out. Maybe if I equip the shape of unn and heal during the bat phase.

After some cooking preparations, I was off to defeat Ganondorf. Since I had made the trip down earlier in my playthrough by accident, I had no qualms about skipping most of with flying vehicles. The final dive down to the boss arena set the mood quite nicely.

Before facing off with Ganondorf, we must deal with his army. The sages entrances were pretty cheesy but nonetheless I enjoyed seeing them come in. The hardest part of the gauntlet was actually being able to see things through all the sages running around in front of the camera. The lock-on here was especially annoying and caused me to take several hits.

The showdown with Ganondorf was great, and I prefer this over the Calamity Ganon boss from BoTW. Didn't expect him to perfect dodge my attacks, and I had to pay attention to how he was going to swing his sword. The 2nd phase is where really starts though, loved how the health bar just kept going. The fact he can break break your hearts really adds tension, there's some OoT technique incorporated into the fight with you being to deflect the dark energy orbs he shoots out back with the master sword. Genuinely regret that I was so overprepared because it robbed me of having a challenging and satisfying fight.

The dragon fight was likewise, an improvement over the beast from BoTW, though this was more focused on spectacle then being a proper fight. I had some trouble with Zelda not getting into the right position. Overall, an excellent final boss.

Now...that ending. I don't agree with the decision to bring Zelda back as it underscores the sacrifice she made to revitalise the master sword. Doesn't help matters that the means in which the game achieves this happy resolution feels pulled out of nowhere. Spirits have been a confusing facet of both titles, how does one become a spirit? and why do some persist longer than others? King Rhoam could assume a tangible physical form that could interact with the environment, can the other spirits do that? But relevant to the ending, how does Rauru return after supposedly dying at the beginning of the game? Was his essence residing in the arm? More importantly where on Hyrule did Sonia come from? This all feels improvised by the writers just so that they could parallel the scene where Link fails to reach Zelda, and sure; this is a powerful moment. However, having to break it's own rules to create moment just wasn't worth it. I didn't feel anything for either Rauru or Sonia's "Death", mainly because I didn't really know much about them, but also because they've already killed Rauru off twice before.

All that aside, I did enjoy my time with Tears of the Kingdom, despite my many annoyances with certain design decisions and disappointments in regards to other aspects. I've completed the majority of side adventures, but I still have over half the side quest left to do. Though, I've racked up 150 hours or so, feeling rather burnt out. I might return when I'm more keen, but for now this is where I'm getting off the Zelda train.

Beat all the ultimate challenges and obtained 100% completion. Now I can finally say I've thoroughly played this game start to finish at least once, justifying a 5+ year purchase.

UC-1 and UC-4 weren't anywhere as difficult as UC-2, the toad escort level took awhile but it was a breeze mostly. UC-4 needed one retry but otherwise relatively easy.

UC-2 is what took a bit time, something would always go wrong during the last wave. To mitigate the issue with enemies piling up to fast, I got a sentry stuck on the top platform so it would denotate as soon as the first wave spawned. This made it drastically easier to kill them all before the final two waves. Even kept everyone alive so I'm happy with the end result.

Don't think I'll bother with the co-op levels. Prefer to get on with Sparks of Hope.

---------------------[Playing on 'Normal Mode']--------------------

Wrapped up the remainder of items; the last missile expansion I was missing turned out to be the most obvious one "hidden" under the bridge in Transport Tunnel B. I've probably walked across that bridge almost a dozen times during my playthrough yet I never thought to check under it. But with that I'd collected 100% of items and was prepared for the final confrontation(s).

Meta Ridley was visually cool and I liked how he flew around the arena and swooped in to bombard you with missiles. However, the way the boss is paced felt unbalanced with the last 10% of his HP taking up the back 2/3s of the fight. I get it's supposed to be a "You think this is over? The REAL fight starts now" kind of thing but Ripley only has 3 different attacks and once you've got the telegraphs down it quickly becomes monotonous as you follow the procedure of: [stun -> shoot -> repeat]. It's possible to hit their weak point with a super missile but the timing is very tight and I'd already exhausted my supplies earlier in the fight so I was stuck using regular missiles which took SO long. Overall, kind of lacklustre for all the build up it received throughout the game.

The area leading up to the battle with Metroid Prime seemed unnecessary to me. It wasn't long enough for the atmosphere to sink in (the constant swarm of Metroids don't help either) and at the same time it just interrupted the pacing to have me do some basic platforming.

As for Metroid Prime themselves I'll say the boss suffers from a lack of phases to spice things up much like the other bosses in this game. It was nice how the 1st form made use of the morph ball and that you had to keep switching visors during its 2nd to keep track of it. Though despite being one of the better bosses of Prime it still felt underwhelming.

This marks the end of my 1st playthrough of this game; if I do return to Prime I'll most certainly be playing on hard. I died a total of 6 times with half of those attributed to getting stuck in a hazardous substance and just dying to reset. I had to rely on an online guide for a few of the items I was missing but otherwise this was entirely blind.

Route C is split between two characters - A2 and 9S - switching back and forth at the end of each chapter.

While A2's playstyle shares many similarities with 2B's; they do have a few distinct differences that separate them. Firstly the self-destruct is replaced with 'berserk mode' which enhances A2's combat abilities in exchange for gradual HP loss while berserk mode is active. The other notable difference is that A2 (seemingly) lacks the fast charge attacks that required held inputs; instead holding down square initiates a taunt increasing the strength of both herself and her enemies. Otherwise, besides these key changes A2 and 2B function nearly identically with being able to wield two weapons and have the same combo strings.

Playing XC2 + Torna shortly beforehand without any break period was a mistake. I'm still feeling the burnout from those games, time will tell if I end up shelving this temporarily.

Despite that, I'll continue to soldier onward. The opening cinematics reek of polish and that additional Dev time really shines through. Not sure if the production quality will remain consistent throughout but nonetheless excited to see what's in store for the next entry.

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