After infiltrating the Yiga Clan hideout and retrieving the stolen Thunder Helm, we find ourselves at the final step of our Divine Beast journey – freeing the mechanical desert camel Vah Naboris.
By now, the routine is familiar: after fulfilling certain prerequisites, meet up with an escort from the tribe in question – in this case, the Gerudo – who helps Link to board the beast, then promptly pleads another appointment or a broken nail or fear of heights or similar, whereupon our hero is deserted just when the going gets tougher. The adventures surrounding the Divine Camel, Vah Naboris, will be no different, except this time the escort will not be a prince, a high-ranking soldier, or an eager youth; no, this time, Link will be helped aboard by none other than the leader of the Gerudo, Lady Riju.
After Link returns the Thunder Helm to the young chief, he meets her at a lookout post southeast of town. Take a sand seal to the lookout and practice your steering while you’re at it. (Fat lot of good it will do you, unfortunately.)
Lady Riju will give you 20 bomb arrows, as always a sign of things to come. Unless you took on this beast before any other – and who could manage the Yiga Clan prerequisite early in the game, we ask you? – you likely already have your own stash of the combustible shafts. Nevertheless. It’s comforting to have extra inventory, even if it carries with it the embarrassing assumption that one needs only 20 arrows to board Naboris.
“Let the bomb arrow counting begin,” cries Demelza, with a dropped handkerchief flourish!
“You can use that hanky to wipe your tears when I prove you wrong and don’t need all these bomb arrows,” retorts Itzal.
Your objective is to hit each of the camel’s hooves with bomb arrows until the beast is brought, if not to its knees, at least to its hooves. Aim for the purple part of the hoof. Now, you’ll be doing this while riding a sand seal, which Itzal helpfully points out steers like a pig, just like everything else in Hyrule. What’s more, OF COURSE the Divine Beast will try to electrocute you! “Merely” stay within Lady Riju’s protective circle until the lightning bolt has dissipated, then leave the safety perimeter to take your shot at the camel.
(Thirty-eight bomb arrows later, Itzal uses the hanky to dry his tears.)
Zelder Tip #1: Use a duplex bow or a Lynel bow; anything that shoots more than one arrow for the price of one.
With a cheery adieu, little Lady Riju leaves you to your own devices in the belly of the beast. Regrettably, the Guardian near the beast’s warp point will not do the same; take it out straightaway, and while you’re at it, shoot the Malice eyeball at the top of the ramp. Head to the other side of the room, where there’s another ramp to the right; take that one to find the dungeon’s map.
Map in hand – you’re a pro by now, right? – you know exactly where to find all the terminals in the beast as well as how to control it. Er, maybe… Just when you think you’ve figured out the beasts, here’s another variation: The camel’s “belly” is divided into three sections, or rings, that can be swirled around by 90 degrees. Thus, in your dungeon beast meanderings, you must choose both a ring and a number of degrees to rotate the ring, making for oh-so-many fun combinations to activate terminals and retrieve treasure chests. We won’t go into them all here; we wouldn’t dream of insulting our readers with step-by-step instructions.
We will, however, note one other detail particular to this beast. In keeping with Vah Naboris’s[1] electric theme, the beast’s three rings sport power cables, which at various times must be aligned so that electricity flows through them. Green means the power is flowing. There are also gears that must be rotated, which in turn rotate discs with electrodes, and – GAH. This all sounds very complicated, not to mention dangerous; what’s next, placing our finger in a socket while stepping on a third rail? Perhaps we should don our rubbers.
But, Lady Riju-like, we bid our readers adieu and good luck. You’re going to need it to keep track of the stupid beast’s discs, cables, electrodes, and rings.
Frustrated Zelder Tip #2: At least twice during the dungeon hoo-ha, you’re expected to drop from a hole in a spinning wheel (you can’t make this up) to a ledge protruding from another hole in the wheel directly below you. No, you can’t just step into the hole with the ledge when it passes by at street-level; that would be too easy. On the second such ledge-go-round, after landing on the platform, you’re expected to clamber up the side of the hole as the wheel turns, then pivot and paraglide over to another place to reach a terminal. If you attempt this a dozen or more times to no avail, forego the wheel, and, assuming you have it, deploy Revali’s Gale to get to the desired place. It’s much easier.
Skipping ahead to the Blight-flight
Is this a good time to opine that manipulating the Divine Beasts and activating the terminals is positively tedious, and honestly, we prefer the fight with the Ganon Blight, as it signals the end of such ridiculous maneuvering? Consider it opined.
Despite the name, Thunderblight Ganon doesn’t rely on scary thunder sounds to harm Link. Rather, it’s the lightning that precedes the thunder. Remember learning as a child that the time between seeing a lightning strike and hearing the thunder that follows provides an estimate as to how close the lightning is? Something about counting the number of seconds between bolt and boom, dividing by five… Whatever. Just know that Thunderblight Ganon is CLOSE, regardless of how many seconds pass between lightning balls.
Slightly Obvious Zelder Tip #3 Avoid the lightning. Unless you’re wearing your rubbers, being struck will cause you to drop your weapons. Avoid the blight, in particular, when he warps in your direction. He’s extremely fast, so spears and one-armed weapons (that’s the sound of Itzal chucking his claymore) are better than anything requiring two hands.
In the second phase of the battle, Thunderblight Ganon tosses metal pillars your way. In a dungeon filled with electric current – of course he does! Dodge the pillars until you can safely grab one with Magnesis (okay, that sounded funnier than it should be) and position the pillar next to the blight, who will then electrocute himself. When he’s hoisted with his own electric petard, bash away with your sword or spear.
Resigned Zelder Tip #4: The pillar section of the battle is no fun, such that you might be tempted to skip the pillars and try something else (we gave in to the temptation), but it was our experience that you must successfully use a pillar against Thunderblight Ganon at least once.
Er, have we mentioned the red lasers? Zelder Tip #5: Parry them back at the blight to deliver more damage.
When at last the Thunderblight gives up the ghost, you’ll earn a new heart container and Urbosa’s Fury, a gift that enables you to electrify enemies.
Meanwhile, back in Gerudo…you’ll have to put on your girl clothes again to enter the town. You’d think they’d throw a ticker tape parade, and let a champion wear his own trousers! But no. Slip into your harem pants and return to speak to Riju, who will add a Daybreaker Shield and Scimitar of the Seven to your collection of hero’s tools.
And what liquid refreshment have you earned for your labors? You might have tried an Electric Iced Tea earlier on, and it would be utterly appropriate today also; but given how hard we worked to get here (see: the despised Yiga Clan), we’re going with a Banana Daiquiri.
Oh. That reminds us. With the clan’s leader gone, the Yiga have abandoned the hideout and will now appear with annoying frequency throughout Hyrule. Not just the foot soldiers, the Blademasters as well. But here’s your chance to take them out the old-fashioned way, with a bow or sword; then enjoy the duplex bows or, more likely, the bananas they drop. And have another drink.
[1] According to Strunk and White, and dedicated grammarians everywhere, the possessive of a singular noun ending in the letter “s” is indicated by an apostrophe followed by “s,” not a naked apostrophe hanging out sans “s.” One would not properly write, for example, Las Vegas’ Strip but rather Las Vegas’s Strip. (And in fact the Strip is not actually in the city of Las Vegas, but rather in the county; still, we are going on quite a bit in this footnote so we’ll save that discussion for another day.) Returning to our subject: There is an exception to the possessive rule above for ancient proper names ending in “es” and “is,” such as Moses or Isis, and thus we are conflicted. How old is Vah Naboris, after all? Allegedly over 10,000 years, according to Impa. Then again, it’s a camel, right? Not exactly a giver of commandments or a deity, however divine. We fall on the side of apostrophe-s!