Zelda BotW: Arriving in Kakariko Village
A while back, a certain Old Man advised me to seek out Impa in Kakariko Village. So, after I took some time among horses, I headed up that way. This was the first village I came across in the game.
I have to say that I really love the atmosphere of this place. It’s serene and peaceful, giving a good feeling of what life must have been like before the calamity struck. This is the settlement of the Sheikah, and most of them know what it means that Link comes riding in wearing the Slate.
It’s actually kinda nice that Link is already established as a knight and hero, especially to those who remember him. Instead of being some upstart no one knows about or some forseen prophecy coming true, Link really was already a part of this story 100 years ago.
Seeing the NPCs react to his return in various ways is interesting. And while amnesia is still a bit of a trope, the fact Link doesn’t remember allows the player to take on his role and learn the past through his discoveries. From a storytelling point of view, this works.
So there’s several things that happened in this village. Most of them are spoilers. You’ve been warned.
Most importantly, I met with Impa. And she knew exactly what was up.
This is where the game’s story starts to open up. She informs me that long ago, Zelda and Link fought against Ganon with the help of 4 Divine Beasts and their Champions. This has a sorta mecha-feel to it since these Divine Beasts are huge magic-technological structures in the shape of 4 animals, and the Champions remind me a lot of pilots.
These Divine Beasts were taken over and turned against Hyrule by Ganon, which was what led to the major defeat 100 years ago. Impa’s quest is, therefore, to find these Divine Beasts and release them from Ganon’s control. Having them on Link’s side is probably a very logical and good idea.
Anyhow, these beasts are scattered across the map. And for the first time, I took a good look at it and saw how large the world really is!
And that’s really that for what Impa said. I now have a quest to seek out these Divine Beasts, which will send me into contact with the other races/peoples of the world. Sounds cool.
The next thing I did was pick up a new set of armor. I got this neat hooded set, which was a big improvement over the basic shirt and pants I woke up with.
The village has several small quests for NPCs which I won’t go into, but suffice to say, I stuck around several in-game days to complete as many of these as I could find.
I also found the Shrine at the top of the hill where I had my first battle challenge. This one was meant to teach you about dodging, parry, and other attack techniques you can only do when locked in on an enemy. I did pass the challenge, but I’m still not very practiced in any of the things the game tried to teach me there.
At least I got this cool sword.
Travelling even further up the hill, I ran across this strange… flower structure. After paying it some gil, I found myself face to face with… uh…
Yeah… I’ll talk more about her later as I didn’t actually know what her purpose was until a few RL days after I found this place.
