I finally did it. I hit the point in my Naked and Afraid: Hats Only Master Mode challenge run of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild where I’m not getting absolutely destroyed with every single hit. I’m still getting absolutely wrecked, of course, but I can now survive a hit from most enemies thanks to having more than twenty hearts and a few hats with an armor bonus of twenty or more. Plus, I’ve shaken off all the rust and can now perfect dodge or shield parry most hits. These days, I only take hits against difficult foes (like Silver and Golden Lynels, where I REALLY need all those hearts and more armor) or when I’m messing around (like when this horse kicked me in the face because I forgot to properly line up my drop). Hubris is still my number one enemy, but I am now reminded of why that is. Turns out I’m pretty good at this game when I’ve gotten back in the swing of things. Between buffs, critical hits, and managing weapons, there is no foe outside my reach.

Since last week, I’ve finished all the Divine Beasts, collected all the memories, completed a stupid number of quests, got myself down to fewer than fifty Korok Seeds to reach my goal, and hit the triple digits for shrines completed. There’s plenty more to do still, enough that I’m not sure I’ll get it all done before Tears of the Kingdom Comes out. I’ve got sixteen shrines, the entire DLC adventure (which will make me fight the Divine Beast bosses all over again, but with much worse gear so I can’t just cakewalk through it with a food buff and the Master Sword), a bunch of Koroks (which will probably be the easy part since I will find most of them as I’m doing other things), and then an unknown number of quests. Once I finally defeat Ganon, I will know how many quests I’ve yet to find and complete, but the Trial of the Sword is still dangling over me. I plan to do it last, as I’ve said before, but I’m less certain than ever that I will succeed.

Not much else has changed. The same people still come to watch me stream, though it is fewer than that first week on average, and I’ve done a couple raids now. I’m only at seventy-three deaths, which feels weird to say since I was at seventy-one a week ago. Getting all these hearts and better armor has upped my survival rate to the point where I can just eat the food needed to be at full health again instead of dying outright, so my only deaths was a sort of plot-death in the Yiga Hideout (once you trip an alarm, a single hit from any member of the Yiga Clan kills you instantly) and a really dumb failed maneuver in a fight, following me forgetting to heal myself up. I’ve been struggling with lack of focus and exhaustion since I’ve been staying up too late reading after my streams, but it doesn’t seem to be impacting much beyond how frequently I spend my streaming sessions hunting for Koroks rather than doing anything particularly engaging.

That said, my core five watchers, most of whom are rarely active in my stream at the same time, don’t seem to mind. They mostly just enjoying hanging out and listening to me mutter to myself/my audience as I narrate whatever I’m doing. I remain somewhat skeptical that what I have to say is particularly interesting, but all I’m doing is letting the stuff that normally runs through my head come out of my mouth, so it’s not like this is anything new or interesting to me. I live with myself. I get to hear myself mutter about everything whenever I want, so it stands to reason that it wouldn’t be something I find novel. I appreciate how vocal they are, though, about enjoying listening to me stream. And how my sister always manages to catch a great clip of whatever dumb but funny thing I said and immediately forgot I said.

Anyway, I still think I can finish the challenge before Tears of the Kingdom comes out in a week and a half, but it’s really just a question of how much time I’ll need to spend on it next weekend. Maybe I’ll be able to relax and do some cleaning as I prepare for my upcoming trip, or maybe I’ll be going for personal records for hours streamed in a single day. This week is really going to decide my fate. If I can do ten Koroks and four shrines every day this week, I should be in a good spot. If I can do more than that, I’m definitely in a good spot. If I do less, well, it’ll be a rough weekend. Won’t have much time for Splatoon’s Legend of Zelda-Themed Splatfest if that’s the case. I might stream some of that, though. We’ll see. That’s a whole week away, yet.