TotK #16 – Frustrating Fossil Glitch

Time for another update in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. As you may know, I’ve already defeated Ganondorf (and saw the “good” ending), but I’m still playing to complete more side quests, shrines, and other goals in the game.

Up on a sky island, I was fighting a Flux Construct with a treasure chest attached to its body. But after I defeated it, I couldn’t find the treasure anywhere! Assuming it fell off the island, I sailed down to the surface (using my sensor to seek for treasure chests), but I still couldn’t find it anywhere! It completely vanished from existence! 😛

Fortunately, returning to that island later resulted in the treasure chest re-spawning (but not the Construct, thankfully). It contained a Sage’s Will, and I then had the four I needed to strengthen my bond with Riju.

Elsewhere in Hyrule, I made my way up to the Zonaite Forge Island. It was a longggg way up, so it was quite a trek to get there. It felt like one of the highest sky islands in the game, but looking at this screenshot, it’s apparently not. 😛

Using a balloon to fly to the top of Zonaite Forge Island in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (TOTK).

I found a shrine, some armor, and some Korok seeds up there.

I’ve also been going back to previous locations to get things I’ve missed before. At the Ancient Zora Waterworks, I finally found the Zora Greaves from earlier in the game. I also opened one other treasure chest that I didn’t get previously; it was covered in thorns that I couldn’t burn away because it was wet/raining down there (and I couldn’t start a fire). But this time, I found a way to dry it out first. ðŸ”Ĩ

I also returned to Gerudo Canyon to complete another side quest that I hadn’t finished in many months. There’s one where you have to find the three missing people in the canyon, and I had only found two of them. But now, I finally found the last one hiding in a cave with “big lizards” (Lizalfos). It’s satisfying to knock these quests off my list. ðŸĶŽ

Botrick, raising one arm: Wow, you're strong!
Is he trying to high-five me? I’m not that tall, dude. I’m an elf.

Another one that’s been on my list was for Eldin’s Colossal Fossil. So I headed there and spoke with Loone. Wait, Loone? She’s that crazy girl from Breath of the Wild that was in love with an ancient orb, which she stroked and named Roscoe. ðŸĪŠ

But in this game, she wants to see cute dead dinosaurs (totally not crazy at all). 😆 So she asked me to reassemble their missing (or misplaced) parts. I fixed up the one in Eldin, and then another one in the Hebra region. You may remember me mentioning this fossil in entry 10. When I moved the bone to the correct position, it snapped into place and it played the “puzzle solved” jingle. No problem, right? But then Loone mentioned one last fossil in the Gerudo region. This is where my problems began.

This final fossil involved a small baby leviathan. The skull was right there, and I had to find the other two missing parts. That part wasn’t hard. But assembling them just right? It seemed impossible! I lined them up, attached them with Ultrahand, but nothing. There was no snapping into place, and no approval from Loone.

Loone: I bet if you connected them to the skull, the fossil would look a lot more like its baby leviathan self!
It is connected, you loon!

I tried again and again, trying slight variations in case I was doing something wrong. I tried placing each part at slightly different angles, upside down, or attaching it to a different spot. No luck. I re-examined the larger fossil for comparison purposes, but I simply could not see what the problem was, no matter what I did! So I took a break…

The next day, I gave it another try. Again, I assembled and re-assembled the parts into the shape of the baby leviathan. Nothing was working, and I had spent over an hour (in total) on this baby fossil. It was starting to drive me crazy! So I did something I hate doing: I googled it.

As it turns out, the game has a glitch where it doesn’t recognize that the fossil is assembled correctly! The good news was that I just had to exit out to the title screen and then reload the game to try again (during my overnight break, I only left the Switch in sleep mode). I had to put the bones together again, but that’s okay…because this time, Loone recognized that it was complete. Whew!

Loone: It's so darling, I can hardly stand it! Here! Take this reward before I lose my mind!
It’s too late, for both of us. ðŸĪŠ

That was honestly my most frustrating part of the game so far, and all for a glitch that honestly should have been patched by now. The game has been out for over a year now, after all. But I’m just relieved to have this side quest completed now.

While I was in the desert, I defeated the last Molduga that I hadn’t killed yet. When I returned to Gralens at Lookout Landing, he gave me a Molduga Monster Medal for defeating all of the Moldugas in the game. I don’t think it really does anything, but I suppose it’s a nice achievement.

Earning the Molduga Monster Medal.
This medal was made by 3M.
Three Ms, get it? 😛

Unfortunately, there are still 59 Taluses remaining, as well as 43 Hinox, 17 Flux Constructs, 34 Froxes, and nine Gleeoks. Tracking down every one of those enemies is not something that sounds fun to me, so there’s a good chance I may not earn any other monster medals.

One other random note: I found just one new Yiga schematic in the Depths this time. It was for a flamethrower balloon. ðŸ”Ĩ

My map completion is now up to 64.80%, and here’s my adventure log progress:

  • Main Quests: 21/23 (really 23/23)
  • Side Adventures: 54/60 (up from 53)
  • Shrine Quests: 26/31 (up from 23)
  • Side Quests: 79/139 (up from 67!)
  • Memories: 18/18

And you can see my other stats in this image:

My Zelda TOTK stats as of June 27, 2024.

My shrine count is at 134 (up from 127 last time), my lightroots are up to 134 (from 111), and my Korok seed count is 264 (up from 227). Here is my Hyrule Compendium progress:

  • Creatures: 81/92
  • Monsters: 108/110
  • Materials: 119/126
  • Equipment: 148/175
  • Treasure: 6/6

I’ll be posting another video soon, TotK Moments #2! So keep an eye out for that! 🙂

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