The Hateno Ancient Tech Lab is at the top of a hill on the eastern outskirts of the village. As Link gets close, the signs take on a goofy tone. The sign outside warns about the flame in the furnace, except there’s no flame in the furnace right now. There are two people inside; Link first speaks to Purah, the girl closer to the entrance, who points him to Symin in the back when he asks about the director. Symin talks about their book collection before noticing the Sheikah Slate. He checks the runes, and goes through the ones Link got on the plateau, but there’s some missing. (He didn’t actually note the amiibo rune.) At this point, he realizes introductions are in order and identifies himself, and says he knows who Link is because Impa told them to expect him. (Probably during the hundred-year sleep, although I spent enough time mountain climbing she could have sent a message ahead of Link.) Oh, and Purah’s the director.
Purah asks if Link’s surprised she’s the director (not exactly, and if so, only because she lied when she said it was Symin; I didn’t notice how young she looks at first). We go through the “Link’s lost his memories, so no, he doesn’t remember you, sorry” bit again, and Purah is the one who took Link to the Shrine of Resurrection. Her childlike looks are the result of a failed experiment (or, as she says and her diary – which she asks Link not to read, only ensuring that he will – reveals, an anti-aging experiment that worked too well). She can fix the Slate, but needs Link to run an errand: relight the furnace outside from the one in town.
Link takes a torch to the town furnace, and there are a bunch of lanterns on the way back he can light. This is a very good thing, because guess what happened while I was running the torch. Guess how possible it is to keep a torch lit from one lantern to another when it’s raining. Guess who’s completely over this mechanic. *sigh* After it finally stopped, Link was able to relight the torch from a lantern and, this time, made it back to the lab and lit its furnace, activating the teleportation gate. More importantly, it activates the Guidance Stone inside, allowing Link to repair the Sheikah Slate, restoring the camera rune, a dozen pictures left on the Slate, and the Hyrule Compendium. To test out the camera, Purah has Link take a picture of her.
The Hyrule Compendium is a successor to Wind Waker’s Nintendo Gallery, minus several of the frustrations. There’s no figurines to make, no need to go to one out-of-the-way place to get them made, no real need to worry about camera storage space, and you can tell if the picture’s good enough before you take it. It collects Hyrule’s wildlife, cooking materials, monsters, weapons, and a few miscellaneous things (treasure chests and ore deposits). No need to go take pictures of every single NPC in each village. As for the pictures left behind, Purah thinks they’re Zelda’s, and Link was maybe with her when they were taken, so she suggests asking Impa if there’s anything that can be done with that. She also asks for some ancient parts, which can be used to upgrade three of the Sheikah Slate’s features: bombs get a bigger blast radius, stasis can be used on enemies, and the sensor can be calibrated to locate anything in the Compendium. (There’s a tutorial on the Compendium at this point, and Symin unlocks a free picture, and notes Link can come back and buy more for 100 rupees apiece.)
Back in Kakariko, Impa has heard from Purah, so apparently they do have a quick communications network. (I mean, Link has a smartphone.) She looks at one of Zelda’s pictures, suggests if Link visits the places in the pictures, he might remember things. Now that Link has a camera, he can help out with something in town as well. A painter, Pikango, wants to see the Fairy Fountain, but runs out of breath when he tries to get there himself, so Link brings back a picture. Pikango looks at one of Zelda’s pictures and identifies the location as a gate on the road beyond the fairy fountain, so Link makes the trek. It’s not an easy one; there’s a bridge held by a bunch of Bokoblins and a Moblin a little past there, but Link goes there and remembers with Zelda meeting with the four Champions by that gate. Zelda had apparently made a trip up Mount Lanayru to awaken her power, but it didn’t work. As Mipha starts to suggest something, the earth begins shaking, and Revali flies up to look at Hyrule Castle to confirm that Ganon has returned. The Champions prepare to man their Divine Beasts with Link leading the assault, and Zelda plans to help out as well.
Not far beyond the gate, there’s a Lynel. More than just the fire-breathing enemies from the 2D games, they’ve taken up weapons and are basically like Darknuts/Iron Knuckles [1]. I was distinctly not ready for this fight; my weapons were barely able to scratch it, and every time it hit Link, it knocked out all of Link’s hearts, requiring a fairy rez, and there’s only a finite number of those. After three or four times of the Lynel doing his centaur dance on Link’s head with minimal resistance, I abandoned this and returned to Impa. She gives him the tunic he was wearing in the memory, which is the best armor he has available and reveals enemies’ health, but it’s bright blue and can’t be dyed so I don’t use it.
Next: Ninja war.
[1] They still have fire breath weapon attacks, but it’s not their main weapon. And this visit, I didn’t survive long enough/do enough damage to see it. They also get down on all sixes for a bestial charge attack.
