Adventures of a Shiekah Slate Shutterbug
Hi! I’m Chiko from the Treehouse. I am the product marketing lead for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
a.k.a. Chiko the Destroyer
I’m the middleman between the Zelda development team and various teams within Nintendo of America, and helped support internal and external teams to promote this game in the North American market.
So, did you see that funny Link selfie on our Twitter account? If not, you can check it out right here.
What do you think? Personally, I’m not really into real-life selfies, but as Link, I’m all about taking selfies everywhere in this game. There are multiple poses you can choose from, and they’re all really cute and funny!
The self-portrait function is one of many things you can do with the Sheikah Slate’s fifth Rune—the Camera.
Yup. You read that right. The Sheikah Slate has a Camera Rune that allows Link to take pictures of things during his adventure! Things…like the enemies, animals, and weapons you find along the way. Just snap a photo and you can register them in your Hyrule Compendium. For a crazy completionist/wannabe-photographer like me, this is both a dream and a nightmare at the same time! There are more than 380 things you can register in the Compendium. MORE THAN 380!!!! So whenever I find something new to register, I drop whatever I’m doing and take the best photo of it that I can.
Believe it or not, you could easily spend hundreds of hours just trying to complete your Compendium!
Animals and weapons are normally easier to photograph with your camera, but oh, boy, I don’t even know how many times I’ve gotten killed by enemies while trying to get close enough. I’m too busy trying to get their photos instead of trying to take them down… NOTE TO SELF: KILL THEM FIRST, THEN TAKE A PHOTO! Wait…no, it doesn’t work that way. I guess I do have to take their photo before killing them. Boo.
That reminds me… If you get killed before saving your game, all those glorious photos you so lovingly captured will NOT be saved in the Compendium. In other words, you’ll have to START OVER AGAIN. So be careful! (Good thing the game won’t track how many times I die taking photos of enemies…)
Oh, also, Nate over in Localization told me about a neat way to take photos. When he photographs a new weapon he’s found, he has Link hold it in his hands at the location he found it, and then takes a selfie. When you do that, your photo will be registered in the Compendium instead of just the weapon.
WHAT A BRILLIANT IDEA! Why didn’t I think of that?!
AAAAAAAND, last but not least, there’s an easy way to locate nearby items. You can set your Sheikah Sensor to locate any item registered in your Hyrule Compendium, and then search for that item! Do you even know what that means?! That means, if you’re craving a certain dish, but you’re out of a specific ingredient, you can set your sensor to that ingredient, and just run around the area. When it’s close by, the sensor will let you know by beeping, just like when you set your sensor to “Shrines” and walk within range of one. I’m mostly using this sensor functionality for one thing: I set it to “Bokoblin,” so I can make sure I won’t miss any of their camps. (Remember, Bokoblins are not human! It’s OKAY to jump on them while they’re peacefully enjoying their evenings around the camp fire, admiring their giant meat dinner. IT’S OKAY.) And thanks to this sensor, I’ll be able to find EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF THEIR DINNERS.
MMMMM, GIANT MEAT!!!! YUM!
A couple more tips for fellow completionists and photographers:
The Sheikah Slate’s Camera has a surprisingly good zoom-in function. It lets you take some pretty great close-up shots of flowers and bugs!
Ahh, the outdoors is so relaxing…
When you find a new stable, make sure to go inside, even if you don’t care to stay the night. Inside each stable you can find a poster showcasing a local dish and its recipe. But don’t worry—you don’t need to have all of the ingredients right away. Just take a photo of the recipe! It will be saved in your photo album (separate from the Hyrule Compendium) for you to use as your own recipe book!
Mmm… Crepes!
I hope you enjoy experimenting with the Camera Rune too!
—Chiko B.
Chiko is easily one of my favorite colleagues. She sits only 20 feet from me and is always cheerful and excited to talk about games and projects! So enjoy this fun entry in our blog. It’s funny...and has lots of protips!
