Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Jim sings the praises of one of Tears of the Kingdom's later-game areas...
I will preface all of this with a thank you to every Zelda fan on social media. As I worked my way through The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's 'Regional Phenomena' quest, I had no idea where the game might take me next, nor that what would come would introduce me to one of my favourite new areas in this all-too-familiar Hyrule. This would have been an easy thing to spoil online, especially in the game's early weeks, so thank you, fellow Hylian explorers, for keeping it under your (Minish) caps.
With that in mind, let me stress the following: if you have not been told to visit the Thunderhead Isles, started the 'Secret of the Ring Ruins' quest, or battled your way through a heavy storm to find out what's inside that perilous-looking cloud that swirls over the Faron region, do not read on. The content of this questline is a real treat to experience first-hand, so take it on for yourself before reading the following article because, yes, there are spoilers ahead.
Now that is out of the way, I'll say it: the Thunderhead Isles are awesome. This late-game area — like most things in Tears of the Kingdom — is technically accessible from the second you touch down in Hyrule and get your Paraglider. But, if you play like me, then the intimidating swirl of clouds was enough to make you think "That looks cool, I bet I'm going to be told to head into it later on". I didn't want to spoil the surprise for myself and I am glad that I made this call.
Yes, the Isles are cool in and of themselves because of how they show just how much of the game you still have to go after the 'Regional Phenomena' quest — as confirmed by 'dehydrated' Phantom Ganondorf in Hyrule Castle — but they were cooler for me because they served as something of a victory lap to the game's main questline. This is continued into the ensuing Construct Factory and Spirit Temple, yes, but it's on the Thunderhead Isles that I really felt like the game was saying "Let's see what you have learned since the Great Sky Island, then".
I had a great time putting these skills to the test, and I don't reference the game's opening area by mere coincidence. Thunderhead Isles plays similarly to Link's Rauru-led tutorial, but with the difficulty dialled up a couple of notches. The Constructs are much stronger (assuming you have put in a good ~40 hours of playtime by this point), the puzzles to get from one island to the next don't hold your hand nearly as much as before, and all hopes of climbing any walls to bypass the Isle's challenges are made futile by a painfully inconvenient but beautifully atmospheric thunderstorm. Seems fitting, given the name, really.
The puzzles still have similar solutions to the Great Sky Island but there's an extra element of challenge brought on by the environment which serves to create a series of throwbacks to everything that you have had to work out up until this point. One section presents you with two identical railings, one of which has a ready-made 'cart' on it for you to use but the metal materials that it's made from mean that Link will be struck by lightning if he stands on it. So, what do you do? You copy the design with some nearby planks of wood and glide on by, unscathed. Sure, there's probably some way that you could Ascend through a nearby roof and render the puzzle irrelevant, but I wasn't about to walk past some glorious game design like that for the purposes of smugness now, was I?
The throwbacks are not limited only to earlier Tears of the Kingdom moments either. All of the switch flipping and wall breaking felt like a more traditional Zelda dungeon, where the solution was clear, but how to achieve it was a challenge. Sure, modern-era dungeons have a certain charm, but working out how to trigger a switch so that Link can use a nearby moving platform (or giant catapult-like device in this case) is a sure-fire way to hit this Zelda fan right in the feels.
And so I trekked on across the thundery islands, building a bridge here, triggering a switch there, all the while painfully aware that if I took a tumble off the edge, there was no way that I was going to be able to climb back up in all that rain. No, I didn't have the Froggy Armour by this point and yes, I too judge myself for it.
The Thunderhead Isles are punishing like this, but... in a good way? Even though it was here that the game's size really began to take its toll on my little old Switch — using Ultrahand in amongst that weather system leads to some pretty significant frame drops — I still found myself enjoying each and every little puzzle. Using Ascend and Ultrahand were hardly the most revolutionary solutions at this point in the game, but the fact that the environment made me rely on them so much brought a new-found love for some of TOTK's most basic features.
But all of this would be no more than a cool journey from point A to B was it not for the final (if you have done it the right way round) dive down to Dragonhead Island. If the jump point on the Great Sky Island was a way of dropping you into the true beginning of your Hylian adventure, the one at the end of the Thunderhead Isles is lining you up for its final chapter. Landing in the water below to realise that the storm had finally stopped was bliss — and don't even get me started on regaining the ability to climb for more than two seconds without slipping down the wall.
Part of me was surprised to see that Dragonhead Island was not the final dungeon itself — it had certainly been a Wind Temple-esque journey getting to that point — but as I picked up Mineru's Mask and began the glide down to the Construct Factory, my respect for the area that I had just explored grew even greater. It wasn't some dungeon, it was just a path; did it need to go that hard? No way, but I loved it all the same.
By calling back to everything that the game had taught me earlier on and dialling up the difficulty enough for me to think that I was doing something intelligent (I really wasn't), the Thunderhead Isles became a victory lap for TOTK's first ~40 hours in my mind. There are certainly more memorable moments on offer in this Hyrule, but few of them had me quite as nostalgic as one.
When did you first take on the Thunderhead Isles? Let us know in the following poll:
Did you enjoy the islands as much as Jim? Zap your thoughts in the comments below.
Comments 35
I randomly decided to get up there maybe halfway through. And then I stopped and went back to it later when the narrative told me I was supposed to be there. Just felt like I stumbled into something a bit too soon when I got to the dungeon. When I finally did do the dungeon though, I was feeling a bit burnt out of the game and sort of rushed through it. It was one of the easier dungeons, ironically enough.
I went there before completing Regional Phenomena, because WHY NOT, and battled through impenetrable fog to get to the end of it (even though it was quite obviously trying to tell me to go away and come back alter). And then, after all that difficulty, I had actually already stumbled across the Spirit Temple while mapping the Depths earlier. I spoiled TWO cool reveals for myself
Yeah... I went from a Skytower to the final, head Island on that quest and missed all the malarkey on the other islands.
It was only after I read that I'd missed a real challenge!
Sadly I'd already landed on Dragonhead pretty early in the game and accidentally fell right into the part where the shrine was. When I finally had to get there the 2nd time around I just warped there... so I didn't have this experience at all. It felt to me they had to make Dragonhead more clearly off limits so it's not spoiled early in the game. EDIT: LOL, seems like everyone had this experience. I think people are not expecting to have a fifth sage quest after the four regional phenomena (like in botw), so people try to discover everything before reaching up to this point
Which bit is the dungeon? Not meant sarcastically
I was convinced that the game would end with the creation of Skyloft and make the timeline cyclical.
This article made me realize I did this part entirely "wrong," by flying via device straight to the "mouth" of the isles, skipping out on a lot of content. Whoops! So it goes in TotK.
"Sadly", I launched myself from a stone falling after I used recall to send it back into the Sky.
I launched directly into the last Island and went directly to Mineru's Mask lol
Skipped the entire quest before that and the entire archipelago.
Went back to that later of course, but still...
I don’t get what was special about these islands … they were the same as any other ones but with a storm. 🤔
I got the Thunder Helm before I went to the islands so it was easy enough for me. Didn’t use the armor you were supposed to use at all
By the time I got there I was totally burned out on the game, so didn't experience the joy, just rushed through. As with too many parts of TOTK, ultrahand/autobuild/spamming stamina potions is by far the easiest solution to most of the puzzles, and I felt no inclination to do anything other than the quickest thing to progress to the end of the game. BOTW with its much more limited nature, brought out my creativity a lot more than TOTK did!
I plan to do a second playthrough where I get Mineru as soon as I can and play through the game with that ability
@GoldenSunRM Same. My Shrine Sensor went off while I was exploring on the surface, and a fallen piece of rubble was right there. I wasn't about to ignore my Sensor! And that took me straight to the end. I didn't even realize there was a whole archipelago up there for another hundred hours when I did the quest.
My curiosity got the better of me and I found this place way early (after one dungeon). Beat the game a short while ago. Had no clue you could clear the clouds away.
What did I miss? After dispersing the clouds, I flew right to the mask from popla tower
Even thou i like the freedom this game and its predecessor gave us, the obsessive compulsive in me wishes for the game to also gave us an option as to play it in a some kind of recommended order, i can't shake the feeling that im always missing something important. 🫤
I went there because I was curious and I don't regret it one bit. It was an amazing experience to discover a secret that is not the "intended" sequence of events and it feels so gratifying to go through so much trouble to have an amazing reveal at the end.
It's an experience I won't forget anytime soon.
I consiser it a design issue that there's a falling rock near a stable that takes you straight up to Dragonhead island in a single recall.
I shot up there with a quick recall on a falling piece of debris, I actually misunderstood a quest from one of the stable hands thinking they were asking me to investigate.
I landed straight on Dragonhead isle and within about 20 seconds of walking through the stormcloud I fell into the Shrine area with Mineru’s mask setting off that questline… (or rather realising I’d staggered into a lengthy quest at midpoint), oops.
This probably would have been served better if it was actually gatekeeped off until the end since it comes at the end of another quest… but I can’t deny that I really enjoyed myself, especially making waves to the construct dungeon which was super fun and ominous, and eventually the spirit temple boxing match.
Still, I won’t deny that having the 5th sage around with me early before I’d even got the others has been handy - because it really has 🙂 so I enjoyed this slightly earlier treat than usual all the same.
I didn’t hit this point until like 80 hours in, which is longer than I even played Breath of the Wild total, haha.
I think the riddles leading to the Thunderhead Isles began my favorite chunk of the game. The riddles, the islands, gliding down, rebuilding Mineru, straight through to the finale - all perfection.
I went through it with the fog still on, it was the most difficult challenge I ever imposed myself to do in a Zelda game, I really enjoyed it doing it that way. I already had the rest of the main temples completed, so I thought "Why not do it already?", and that's what I did.
Yeah I battled through the cloud, got lost and thought I must have to do this later. Then floated down and got killed by the gleok on the bridge.
I avoided hyrule castle for the longest time thinking it would end the game which made me do things like this too early.
Then I came back to it when the quests directed me to.
I did this area around 40 hours in. I’m 110 hours in now. I still haven’t even started any of the Gerudo Town, Gordon City or Zora’s Domain main quests yet, let alone even talking to those town’s inhabitants outside of getting gear like the fire breaker stuff.
I saw the thunder on those islands and thought hmm I wonder what’s going on there and made my way to them. Felt like I did this quest way earlier than I was supposed to and in a way I guess I did, but the fact that the game is so open to letting you do it whatever you like if you really want to is amazing. Incredible game.
This area and everything after it was so good (except the robot which was very disappointing) I wish I could experience the end for the first time again
@larryisaman haha wow you did it the very hard way
Got there by flying, battled through the clouds, did the shrine and then the temple.
@EriXz There IS an order, if you talk to the people you'll clearly notice it. First the rito, then the gorons, the zoras and finish with the gerudo. After all that comes next, you do this quest, then the memories, and the final battle.
I actually reached the Construct Factory while exploring the Depths many many many hours before I ever set foot on Dragonhead Island. The factory didn't activate and therefore nothing happened, so I didn't think much of the area and moved on. I was pretty amazed to return to the area once I started the entire Mineru questline and found out that this was actually a 5th temple.
I stumbled across this by accident while Shrine hunting. It clearly paid off because I left the whole place with a Sage and a quest to reclaim the Master Sword.
@the_beaver That’s one of this game’s little magic tricks. I did them in a totally different order - Rito, Gerudo, Zora, then I finished with the Gorons - but nothing about my order felt incorrect or weird.
And how haven't we expressed our love for the music on Thunderhead Isles yet!? Fully agree with this article. One of the most enjoyable experiences in the game for me.
The guy in one of the nearby stables mentioned the storm clouds so I assumed it was something I should investigate, and managed to get to a little spike sticking off the bottom of the biggest island by gliding off a time-reversed rock. From there Ascend into the shrine area and off to the main part of the quest. I had no idea what I was doing and didn't expect another Sage out of it. I spent hours investigating the jungle area with the snake/thunder statues, it was obvious something was there, but the game locks you out of it until the story advances. You can even enter the last alter room, but nothing you do has any effect without the rest of the items (and I didn't know about the zonai thing)
IMO this quest line the only part of TOTK that's slightly bad in terms of game flow. The way the game locks you out of the start of the quest in Kakariko village is suuuper clunky. Instead of "villagers say no" when you try to get to the ring, the game should allow you to get onto it if you are sufficiently sneaky. Besides, you'd still have to figure out what you need to do without the clue from the head research guy. If you manage to figure out that you need to take a photo of the tablet and show it to the researcher, he should say "fine, you weren't supposed to do that, but we should start investigating the next area" and head off to the tower in the south. That way the gating could be organic - you don't have the information to advance it - instead of the uniquely terrible way it's handled.
@imgrowinglegs And that's totally fine! But if you want some order in your head, if you don't like to have so much freedom, you can have it. It makes sense.
In my opinion, btw, the goron region should always be one of the first places to go. The skill you get there is probably the best, it makes way easier exploring the undergrounds (a vast part of the world)
I went to explore it after I had explored all the rest of the sky. I figured that I would find some way of clearing the clouds in there. After accidentally falling off a ledge I glided towards a shrine sensor and then cleared the unlockable quest. It was kind sad to have already completed it when the story naturally prompted it.
Lovely read.
I discovered Dragonhead Island and its shrine long before starting the quest line. But to be honest, at the time I didn't have the notion it would be important later on and thought it was just a bonus area for the more persistent players.
That's what so great about the game. You can experience the locations and events in random order, under different circumstances, and it still clicks.
Right now, I am on the next quest after this one. Still taking it slowly, finishing up some more side adventures first and hoping to find more shrines. My fear is that I'll lose interest once I finish the main quest.
BOTW was a game I admired more than I actually loved, but TOTK captures everything I want from a game. It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
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