Ocarina of Time: 3D Update

After playing the Link’s Awakening remake, I figured I should move on to the other updated editions of the games: Ocarina of Time 3D, Majora’s Mask 3D, The Wind Waker HD, and Twilight Princess HD. (I’ve covered the other two, the A Link to the Past of A Link to the Past and Four Swords and Four Swords Anniversary Edition.) I’m starting with the 3DS games now that I’ve finished the DS games, and will do the Wii U games after I wrap Skyward Sword. For the record, I have a 2DS, so I can’t play in 3D, so I have no idea what 3D adds to the game, if anything. There certainly was never a time when I felt I needed 3D for the game to work, although of course it’s a game that was originally designed for 2D.

Ocarina of Time 3D is largely a direct port of the Nintendo 64 version to the 3DS. (The changes made for later N64 printings of the game – Fire Temple chanting, Gerudo symbol on blocks and the Mirror Shield – are kept.) The graphics are touched up, going from early 3D blockiness [1] to actually looking pretty good. Sheikah Stones were added near Link’s home in Kokiri Forest and in the Temple of Time to give hints to stuck players. The interface has been redesigned nicely for the 3DS – the touchscreen has two item slots, plus a permanent one for the ocarina.

The highlight of the remake is the rework of the Water Temple. It’s just an inventory change (Iron Boots are now an item, so they can be put on and taken off with the press of a button), highlighting where Link can change the water levels, and the cutscene where Link first raises water to the intermediate level highlighting that there’s something to explore underneath a block that raises up, but these touches make it so much better. (The Tektites respawning and falling on Link’s head in the large central room are still there, sadly.) I still got stuck because I missed the time block behind the Longshot chest, but oh well.

As for the rest of things I wasn’t looking forward to in the remake… All the things that require Epona and are more complicated than “jump over the gap in the bridge” were still hard, whether it was racing Ingo to secure her freedom, racing the clock to get a cow sent to Link’s home, chasing down Poes in Hyrule Field, or the Gerudo archery game. The other things – not so much. I found I was much better at archery than I remembered as long as I wasn’t doing it from horseback, got through the Dampé race for the heart piece on the third or fourth try, and got the hammer fairly quickly too. So, horse controls still not great, everything else better.

I did the few things I skipped/missed in the first game. I raced the man who teleports from the entrance to Gerudo Valley to the bridge in the Lost Woods one second slower than it takes Link to run it a couple times. At the fishing hole, I found a sinking lure and used it to catch a Hyrule Loach… and also stole the fishing hole guy’s hat and dragged it through the pond before finally letting it go. (Poor guy.)

On my first run of the game, I could understand why Navi wasn’t popular, but I only remember being annoyed one time, when a tutorial popup that no one needs (“Don’t fall in the lava!”) interrupted a lined-up jump onto a moving platform. That changed this time. Her reminders of what the next quest objective should be seemed to pop up too often, and the game apparently has no way of knowing if what Link’s doing is working to that objective, so she’ll remind him he’s supposed to be going to the forest to find the sage as he’s trying to sneak past the Moblins. Navi now has two new things to tell the player – that they’ve been playing for a while and should take a break, and that they seem to be having trouble with a dungeon and should check a Sheikah Stone for a hint. I guess it’s the authentic Ocarina of Time experience, but yeesh.

In Link’s home, he can use the bed to revisit old boss fights. He only gets a limited set of items for each fight – usually only the ones needed to win, plus a potion for the later bosses – and only three hearts for Gohma, increasing by one for each boss up to ten for Twinrova. It took me several tries to get past Bongo Bongo [2], until I refined the strategy that worked for me earlier. After winning rematches with all eight bosses, a final mode is unlocked to face them sequentially, starting with five hearts. After each boss, Link gets to choose between two chests, which have random items – including extra heart containers, useful items (including the Longshot, so with bad luck he may have to fight Morpha with just the short Hookshot), stuff that may be useful later (he can get an empty bottle early, which gives him a chance to get potions later), or useless junk like Deku Seeds and Nuts. I didn’t much like this addition, particular with the fluky random items.

Overall, I quite enjoyed revisiting Ocarina of Time, and I think when I replay the game, this is the version I’ll come back to. (Until the next remake comes along.) I think the next time I do, I’ll try the Master Quest…

[1] Because I basically missed this generation of games, I have zero nostalgia for this look.
[2] I also needed a fairy-rez to beat it in the dungeon.

Ocarina of Time: Ganon's Castle

The central tower of Ganon’s Castle is protected by six barriers, one tied to each sage’s element. There are six halls off the central room, all based on things Link has seen before: lighting torches and fan puzzles (Saria/forests), platforming over lava (Darunia/fire), blue fire and sliding blocks over ice (Ruto/water), hidden platforms and Lens of Truth puzzles (Impa/shadow), lighting a sun face and another bombchu puzzle (Nabooru/spirit), and more Lens of Truth tricks and rolling boulders (Rauru/light). The shadow hallway also has one last treasure for Link to find, the golden gauntlets. Now he can lift truly massive pillars, although he can’t hold them very long.

The barriers are dispelled, but before going up, there’s one last thing Link needs. Outside, on the castle grounds, behind a pillar he can now lift with the golden gauntlets, is a cave where the sixth and final great fairy lives. This one is the Great Fairy of Courage, and grants Link enhanced defensive capabilities, which will make the last fight against Ganon much easier. Also, in the central room of Ganon’s Castle, there’s a hidden room with some business scrubs that will sell Link useful items at a reasonable price and a bunch of fairies so Link can heal up and fill bottles before the final charge.

The first batch of enemies to attack Link as he ascends are fire keese, which is just mean. Then it’s pairs of dinolfos, stalfos, and iron knuckles. Fortunately, the iron knuckles can be singly activated rather than having to fight both at the same time; I would expect they’re like the dinalfos and would both attack Link at the same time, which would complicate things. After the iron knuckles comes the boss room. The first room is mostly empty with a giant pillar in the middle and some jars hidden around. On the other side of this room is a long stairway with organ music pouring in as Link heads to the top.

When Link arrives in the top room, he discovers that it’s Ganon playing the organ, and I finally realize the music is a version of Agahnim’s theme from A Link to the Past. Given the connection, that’s appropriate. The fight against Ganondorf [1], Great King of Evil, is quite reminiscent of Phantom Ganon from the Forest Temple. The biggest difference is that the timing of the sword swings doesn’t need to be as exact as it did there, and I wonder if the reason I was having so much trouble getting Phantom Ganon’s attacks to reflect at just the right angle is because I kept him Z-locked, and Navi can’t get close so that doesn’t work here. Between the new ease of reflecting attacks and Biggoron’s Sword’s extra damage, Ganon goes down fairly quickly.

With Ganon defeated, Zelda is freed from her crystal. There’s no time to celebrate just yet, because the tower begins crumbling. Zelda leads the way down the stairs, and her running animation looks a bit goofy. It’s mostly a straight shot down the tower; the stalfos from earlier have come back, and Zelda’s surrounded by fire until Link can deal with them. On a bridge just before the last hallway out, there’s a ReDead just waiting to stun Link with its scream. As Link and Zelda get out of the castle, Link stops to watch as the tower, and then the whole castle, collapses.

Just when it looks like Hyrule is safe, Ganon rises from the rubble in his more familiar pig demon form. He creates a ring of fire around himself and Link and kicks the Master Sword to the outside. I haven’t used the Master Sword since I got Biggoron’s Sword, so no big loss except I have to go back to the inventory to re-equip it for some reason. This is a fairly simple battle in theory, but working it out while dodging Ganon’s attacks is pretty rough. Anyway, the pattern is to stun him with a light arrow, then whack his tail. About halfway through the fight, he gets distracted enough for Link to take up the Master Sword. Eventually, I ran out of magic, even with him spilling decanters when he destroyed some of the last remnants of the tower, and had to resort to running behind him and hitting his tail before he could turn around. Another bunch of hits later and Zelda holds him with her magic, allowing Link to put him down for good.

Or not; as it turns out, Ganon’s still not dead. But he is beaten enough that the sages can banish him to the sacred realm and seal him there, at least for a time. And then Zelda sends Link back to being a kid, and then the sages continue their duty of maintaining the seal. With Ganon gone and peace restored to Hyrule, everybody gathers at Lon Lon Ranch for a celebration, even the Kokiri, who apparently can leave the forest, at least for a short while, perhaps only now with Ganon gone. In the past Temple of Time, Navi leaves Link as he goes to meet with Princess Zelda, which is where the game ends. I’m left wondering a few things (How far back did Link go? How are he and Zelda going to stop Ganon from taking over? Why did Navi leave? Assuming the third timeline came about on an alternate version of the game where Ganon defeated Link and got the full Triforce, how did the Imprisoning War come about?) that I suppose my best bet for finding answers to is to read Hyrule Historia, and I’m not ready for that yet.

Ocarina of Time is a really good game; I don’t know if I’d say it’s better than A Link to the Past, but it did successfully make the jump from 2D to 3D, so just for that it deserves praise. It also continued the trend from Link’s Awakening of deeper stories and characters (also humor, but more natural), which makes writing about it easier. There were maybe a few too many minigames (bombchu bowling?), but overall it deserves its status as a classic.

[1] Up till now, I’ve used the name Ganon to refer to both Ganondorf the Gerudo and Ganon the pig demon. I don’t know how much I’ll change this going forward.

Ocarina of Time: Training Grounds and Spirit Temple

Before Adult Link heads back to the Spirit Temple with the Silver Gauntlets, there are some other things to wrap up. First, in the corner of Zora’s Fountain, there’s a silver rock hiding a hole. Going down the hole leads to a bunch of big skulltulas, and at the end, a gold skulltula. That brings Link’s total to 97, with the last three being in and around the Spirit Temple. Also, with the silver gauntlets, Link has all the items he needs to take on the Gerudo Training Grounds. This is a mini-dungeon full of puzzles that test just about everything Link’s learned up to this point, and requires items from all five adult dungeons, plus the Iron Boots and Lens of Truth, to get all the keys. The reward for completing all these challenges is a bit underwhelming: ice arrows, which I’m pretty sure I never used. On the other hand, my completionist soul can rest easy knowing I got them, so there’s that.

Now it’s time to go back to the Desert Colossus. The magic bean has matured into an elevator plant that will deliver Link to the last heart piece and a skulltula. This portion of the dungeon is mostly puzzles, including a lot of tricks reflecting light onto sun faces. The adult treasure, guarded by another iron knuckle that’s considerably easier with Link’s big boy sword (still hits hard, though), is the mirror shield, which plays a key role in some of the puzzles, including melting the temple’s central statue’s face and allowing Link to progress to fight the boss.

The witches Link saw earlier acknowledge his presence upon his entry into their lair, but before they fight him, they sic their loyal minion on him. The loyal minion is a super iron knuckle; after it’s defeated, it’s revealed to be what’s become of Nabooru. Being beaten clears her mind, but the witches send her off to be brainwashed again after they deal with Link. In the cutscene before the boss battle, Koume displays her fiery powers, and Kotake her icy powers. Together, they’re the sorceress sisters, Twinrova. Kaepora Gaebora’s hint was fairly useful, but between the obvious fire/ice dynamic and mirror shield, what to do here is quite obvious. Z-targeting makes it easy for Link to reflect one sister’s attack to hit the other, and eventually the two combine into one big witch. This segment of the fight is a little different: the mirror shield absorbs the power from the attacks, and after absorbing three of the same element, gives off a beam that can be used against Twinrova. Then they’re down and Link beats on them with his sword. And then I totally forgot that Biggoron’s sword has to be put away before a shield can be properly used again, so getting another attack on Twinrova took a while, but that put them down. As the sisters prepare for the next round, they notice that they’re dead. They poof off to the afterlife with some amusing banter, and the final temple is cleared.

The Sage of Spirit is, of course, Nabooru, who is happy to fight back against Ganon as a sage after what Twinrova did to her. Then Rauru shows up and tells Link someone’s waiting for him at the Temple of Time, but there’s one last errand to run before that meeting. At the skulltula house in Kakariko Village, the father’s curse has been broken, and he rewards Link with a huge rupee worth 200 rupees. Now, that may seem almost pointless given how little there is to actually buy in this game, but he’ll repeat the reward endlessly, which can help Link stock and restock potions if he has trouble with the final dungeon. There are other ways, of course, but this is about as quick and painless as they come.

Anyway, off to the Temple of Time, where Sheik explains what’s happened. When Ganon claimed the Triforce, his heart was imbalanced, so he only got the Triforce of Power. The Triforce of Courage went to Link, and the Triforce of Wisdom went to the seventh sage… Sheik’s true self… Princess Zelda. She teaches Link to shoot Light Arrows which will harm Ganon, and then prepares for a final confrontation where Ganon will be sealed in the Sacred Realm. Except Ganon has still been watching Link all this time, hoping he’d lead him to Zelda, and now he has. He traps Zelda in a crystal and drags her off, taunting Link to come rescue her if he can.

So, I have two questions about this sequence. First, the Triforce of Wisdom went to the person whose reckless planning let Ganon get his hands on the Triforce in the first place? Is it mocking her? [1] Second, if Ganon could kidnap Zelda from afar like he did, why couldn’t he do the same to Link? He’s been so smart so far, letting Link and Zelda do all the work and then sweeping in to snatch victory away from them at the last minute, so what was he thinking here? Well, whatever, Link’s not a prisoner, and the sages make a bridge so he can cross the lava lake to Ganon’s Castle.

Next: The final confrontation.

[1] To be fair, she was a kid, and as Gandalf said, “Even the very wise cannot see all ends.” I just wish I had a good counterexample to show that she should be the bearer of the Triforce of Wisdom, especially when two of Ganon’s – the guy who was unworthy of it – biggest moments are outsmarting her.

Ocarina of Time: The Desert

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – The Desert

Before starting to cross the desert to the Spirit Temple, there are some goodies to round up in the Gerudo Fortress. There’s a heart piece and skulltula on the fortress itself, and then there’s a minigame: horseback archery. A skulltula hides on one of the targets at night, but during the day Link and Epona get to compete against Gerudo records. Epona’s on rails for the game, so it’s not as frustrating as riding down the poes was, but it requires a pretty good degree of mastery to get both rewards. The first reward is another heart piece – just one to go now – and then for 1500 points, the second quiver upgrade. There’s also a mini-dungeon here, but completing it requires an item Link will get in the next dungeon, so let’s put it aside for now.

The Gerudo woman at the gate deeper into the desert says that there are two trials to the crossing. First up is the River of Sand, a huge quicksand bed. She said Link couldn’t walk across it, but she probably didn’t know about the hover boots, which let him do exactly that. After that is a bunch of signposts leading to an outpost. Before Link gets there, there’s a man on a flying carpet selling something that I didn’t actually buy because I’m pretty sure from his description they were bombchus which Link already has plenty of, especially since there hasn’t been a need for them. Anyway, the outpost has a skulltula for Link to collect, and then on the roof, there’s a poe he can find with the Lens of Truth. The poe offers to lead Link the rest of the way through the desert, but he doesn’t take a straight route, and Link is constantly attacked by leevers as he follows.

There’s not much to do at the Spirit Temple right now. The path to the east is blocked by a block too heavy for Link to move, and the path to the west is blocked by a crawlspace that adult Link can’t fit through. Signs inside explain what to do: explore the western part as a child, then return with a treasure he’ll find in that part of the dungeon that’ll let him move the heavy block. Getting through the desert as a child would be a challenge, so Sheik’s there to teach Link the final ocarina song to teleport back to the Desert Colossus. Kaepora Gaebora’s there to observe this exchange, and flies off as Sheik disappears into a sandstorm. Before Link teleports to the Temple of Time for one last childhood adventure, there’s a skulltula hiding in a tree to knock free and a Great Fairy to visit who’ll teach him the third spell, Nayru’s love.

Spirit Temple, Part 1

The area around the Haunted Colossus has a magic bean planting ground, so the familiar game of luring out the skulltula then planting the last magic bean plays out, and then it’s time for young Link to enter the Spirit Temple. There’s a Gerudo woman blocking the crawlspace. She turns out to be the mysterious Nabooru, and she wants Link to get the silver gauntlets so that she can kick Ganon and his followers out of the temple. Link agrees to help her, but we all know who’s going to end up using the gauntlets.

The Spirit Temple features a new enemy called Anubis, who mirror Link’s movements and are only vulnerable to fire. There’s a crystal switch in the room that activates a fire trap, so the idea is to maneuver the Anubis onto the spot where the fire ignites and shoot the switch. Alternately, Link can just get close to it and kill it with Din’s fire. The other new feature this dungeon has is an actual use for bombchus, which are needed to reach an explodable crack in a wall to light up a sun face and open the way forward. There are also three skulltulas in the parts young Link explores.

Child Link only gets a miniboss, but what a miniboss it is: the return of iron knuckles to the series. This guy hits like a truck and takes a bunch of hits to kill. It’s fairly easy to get the rhythm of jump back, wait for him to start swinging, jumping attack, but oh, does he make Link pay for every mistake. Once the iron knuckle’s down, Link walks to an outside ledge. Kaepora Gaebora’s there to greet him, giving one last bit of advice: the boss is a pair of twin witches, and their powers can be turned against them. When Link finds the silver gauntlets, the item description text says he promised to give them to Nabooru.

Well, just then, Nabooru gets grabbed by the witches, who send her off to an unknown fate, yelling for Link to escape. So, that issue’s settled. Link heads back to the Temple of Time and takes up the Master Sword one last time.

Next: The last sage reveals herself [1].

[1] I already used a “Fire and Ice” joke, dammit.

Ocarina of Time: Shadow Temple

The wall that blocked the way into the Shadow Temple turns out to be fake, just like in the well. The first puzzle is a maze of fake walls, which hint that the Shadow Temple is a symbol of Hyrule’s dark past. It’s not clear what it was used for historically, but given the location and the decor and the number of undead enemies throughout and the fact that it’s walled off from the rest of the cemetery, it probably wasn’t anything good. There’s another dead hand miniboss here, still creepy but easier to kill with Biggoron's Sword. It was guarding the dungeon’s treasure: hover boots, which allow Link to walk on air for a short time. Walking while wearing them is like walking on ice, but while they don’t have limitless range, they let Link go far enough to cross some gaps too far to jump across when there’s nothing for the hookshot to latch onto.

In sharp contrast to the Water Temple, the Shadow Temple is mostly a straight path through. There’s one potential shortcut, a false floor that drops Link down a few floors; doing that means missing out on skulltulas and seeing the dungeon, of course. The tricks are mostly reserved for puzzles and Lens of Truth tricks, and sometimes both at once (having to figure out to equip hover boots and let a giant fan blow Link through a false wall). The most memorable part of the dungeon is a giant boat that Link can activate with Zelda’s Lullaby. During the short ride, a couple stalfos drop on to fight him, then the boat reaches its destination and begins falling and Link has to jump off before going down with the boat.

The boss is the phantom shadow beast that escaped from the well, and it bears the unfortunately silly-sounding name Bongo Bongo. It’s a little less silly in context, because it’s fought on a giant drumhead, which its two disembodied hands tap constantly throughout the battle. The beats send Link flying into the air as the hands strike at him, so Link has to stun the hands to get the main body to fly over the drum and become vulnerable to having its eye poked. I got a good rhythm going with dodging the hands’ attack, hitting the hand that didn’t attack (not counting the clap attack, obviously), then the other hand when it got back in place, and hitting the eye with the hookshot. I even managed to hit the eye with a desperation shot when I didn’t have time to turn on the Lens of Truth. Then I noticed the battle was taking an inordinately long time, and I remembered bosses aren’t just hit the weak point, they’re hit the weak point to stun them and then whale on them with the sword. Silly name or no, Bongo Bongo is probably my favorite Zelda boss to date, so I don’t mind that the battle lasted far longer than it should have; it’s too much fun to wrap up too quickly.

Link is transported to the Chamber of Sages, where he meets with Impa. Impa expresses admiration for the hero that Link has grown into and reassures him that Princess Zelda is safe and that they’ll meet again soon enough. She gives him her medallion, and now there’s only one sage left to find, the one in the desert temple.

Gerudo Valley

The situation in Gerudo Valley is more or less the same as when Link and Epona hopped over and got Biggoron’s Sword: the bridge is out and the head carpenter can’t fix it by himself so he asks Link for help. The Gerudo aren’t really any more welcoming of Link as an adult: as soon as he’s spotted, he’s thrown in their prison. They leave him his longshot, however, so he sneaks out of the cell and then around the Gerudo Fortress, stunning the guards with the longshot and rescuing the carpenters. This means the bridge will get fixed, not that it being broken was a significant obstacle. Anyway, after the last carpenter is safe, a Gerudo woman comes to Link and congratulates him on the skill he displayed and makes him a member of the tribe, saying that Nabooru has gone on to the Spirit Temple.

Next: Crossing the desert.

Ocarina of Time: The Well

There’s not just a whole lot to do right now, nor a whole lot of guidance about where to go next. Navi suggests finding someone who knows about the Sages, which turns out to mean “go back to Kakariko Village.” Link arrives to find the village on fire, and Sheik fighting some invisible force from the well. He doesn’t have any luck, so Link steps up, and quickly gets knocked out. When he comes to, Sheik tells him that Impa had sealed an evil spirit at the bottom of the well, but it’s broken free. Impa, the next of the sages, has gone to the Shadow Temple in the Kakariko Graveyard. Sheik teaches Link the Nocturne of Shadow that will teleport him to the dungeon entrance, then leaves to deal with the village.

At the entrance to the Shadow Temple are a bunch of torches. Link can light them all by standing in the middle and casting Din’s fire. He enters the Shadow Temple, only there’s not a whole lot there. A message on a wall, or possibly a disembodied voice, mentions the eye of truth in Kakariko Village. That sounds like the thing the one guy was talking about, so Link heads back to the village to check out the well. In the present, the bottom of the well is blocked off, so it’s time for Link to go back to the past to become the ocarina kid who annoyed the organ guy in the windmill, play the Song of Storms, and drain the well.

The Bottom of the Well is a mini-dungeon that can be quick and easy. There are a lot of false walls that can be tricky to find, and false floors that are sometimes too easy to find, but if all Link wants is the eye of truth and knows where to go, it’s a short run and a tough fight against a thing that should not exist, then out. I’m not even sure how to begin to describe Dead Hand, the miniboss. It’s some kind of undead abomination that burrows underground and slithers when it surfaces and controls a bunch of disembodied hands that poke up from the ground and grab Link. I didn’t really understand this fight, just kind of hacked my way through it and lost a bunch of health in the process. The reward for beating it is satisfaction that there’s one less of these things in the world. Oh, and the Lens of Truth, which will let Link see through illusions and invisibility.

Exploring the rest of the well isn’t strictly necessary, but there are three skulltulas hidden throughout, and some chests if you care to get them. Otherwise, Link's ready to go back to the Spirit Temple. I’ll save the temple for the next post, and fill the rest of this one with musings/questions about sages.

• Impa being a sage kills the theory of the sages being named for the Zelda II towns. It wasn’t a bad guess, even with the Mido red herring, and there might still be a Nabooru or Kasuto in the Desert Temple. I can only guess that the ones that are missing were earlier sages, perhaps from the group that included Rauru.
• What exactly does becoming a sage mean? Ruto seems to indicate that becoming a sage means she can’t marry Link, and Saria apparently can’t go back to the forest. Darunia, before becoming a sage, was last seen going after Volvagia on his own. He doesn’t seem the type to retreat from that battle, especially with the fate of his people in the balance. And yet he’s not in the room when Link makes his own charge; it’s not a stretch to think he died fighting Volvagia and being a sage is some kind of afterlife.
• Are these sages supposed to be the wise men from the backstory of A Link to the Past? They clearly seem inspired by that group, but there are some glaring differences. First of all, there were seven wise men, but only six sages, although given that the maidens of A Link to the Past were descended from the wise men, there might be a sage among the Hyrule royal bloodline, which would likely be Zelda. Speaking of the maidens, not only would their existence mean being a sage isn’t an afterlife [1], but they all looked human, and while a Kokiri girl could pass as human, there are no gorons or zoras among them.

Next: Down in the dark where the dead men go.

[1] Darunia has a son, but Ruto almost certainly doesn’t have children. I’m less sure about Impa, but given that she was said to be the last of the Sheikah (before Sheik showed up), probably not.

Ocarina of Time: Water Temple

The Water Temple is more or less exactly what I expected: a giant drum filled with water that can be raised or lowered to explore the various rooms with and without water filling them. Unfortunately, the designer made some questionable, at best, design decisions that make the whole dungeon a frustrating experience:

• Let’s start with the mechanism for changing the water level. Something sensible, like the Swamp Palace in A Link to the Past where it’s regulated with gates and drains? No, of course not. It’s magic, and can only be changed in specific locations that are not always easy to find and/or get to, which makes changing the water level – the dungeon’s signature mechanic – a chore.
• The iron boots get used a lot here to walk around on underwater floors, and it quickly becomes tedious having to go to the menu, put on the iron boots, wait to sink to the floor, take the ten steps to get to the area where the boots come off and Link returns to the surface, go back to the menu, take the boots off, and wait for Link to rise again.
• The large main chamber’s central column has a couple tektites on the uppermost walkway, only they don’t stay there. Even when Link’s on the bottom of the chamber, it’s just a matter of time before they come raining down on his head. The enemies respawning in dungeons every time Link leaves a room is an odd decision, and here it becomes really unfortunate.

Now, while I didn’t like this dungeon overall very much and I think it shows, I have to praise one specific room: the miniboss fight. In the middle of the dungeon is a room with water seeming to stretch off endlessly in every direction, with a small island in the middle. And on the island, the miniboss: Dark Link [1]. He can match Link move for move, and I didn’t have much hope of the fight not lasting an hour while I was Z-targeting him. Once I turned that off, it was a much easier fight; Dark Link didn’t run all over Hyrule delivering MacGuffins in order to get Biggoron to make him a greatsword, which gives Link a range and damage per hit advantage.

Once Dark Link’s down, Link can claim the dungeon’s treasure: the longshot, an extra-long hookshot. And this feels like a letdown. Don’t get me wrong, the extra range is tremendously useful; even if it weren’t certain to be required going forward, there have been lots of times I could just barely reach something with the regular hookshot already. But it seems like a strange item to throw out there now.

The end boss is Morpha, giant aquatic amoeba, and it’s definitely less memorable than Dark Link. Morpha attacks by forming tentacles that grab at Link and try to crush him to death if they catch him, and Link fights back by pulling Morpha’s nucleus out of its water shell and hacking the hell out of it while it’s vulnerable. The death animation is pretty cool, as the evil water in the boss room dries up.

Ruto has grown up in the seven years since Link saw her last, and tries to be much more helpful during her short appearance in the dungeon before she disappears. She still remembers the marriage promise, and brings it up when Link runs across her, but after it comes time for her to step up as a sage, she does her duty, while assuring Link that Zelda is alive. I have more to say on sages, but my next post is going to be on the short side, so I’ll bring it up then.

Link returns to Lake Hylia, where he meets with Sheik on an island. Sheik talks about how Link’s efforts have brought Lake Hylia back to its natural state before slipping off while Link’s distracted, no Deku nut needed this time. A plaque on the island reads, “When water fills the lake, shoot for the morning light.” Reading the plaque gives Link a lovely view of the sunrise, so it’s plain he needs to fire an arrow in that direction as dawn breaks. The arrow catches fire, and on a nearby island, Link… I’m not sure of the in-universe mechanics here, because firing special arrows needs magic, but Link gains the ability to shoot fire arrows. Back on the first island, there’s a skulltula atop the tree at night, which in addition to the five in the Water Temple have the quest over 75% complete.

Sorry to be so negative this time, but at least that’s behind me.

Next: There’s a fire, so we go back in time and make sure the well’s empty. Makes sense.

[1] I named my character Link, so I didn’t get to find out if Navi calls him Dark Hero or Dark Zelda or Dark Gumball or Dark THIEF or whatever.

Ocarina of Time: Ice Cavern

Going by the order of the temples Sheik mentioned, the Water Temple in Lake Hylia is next, and Navi now talks about a cold wind blowing from Zora’s Domain, so that’s the next destination. The cucco Link used to help jump over the river is gone, but he can make the jump by himself as an adult. Alternately, the magic bean has sprouted into an elevator plant that’ll carry him most of the way upriver. There are two new skulltulas available en route, and a fairy pond by one of the skulltulas, although Link’s going to need empty bottles very soon, so there’s no point in catching them.

Zora’s Domain is completely frozen over, and the zoras are nowhere to be seen. The shop is encased in red ice, as is the king. Fortunately, he’s not blocking the way into the fountain; as long as he took to move over when he wasn’t frozen, I’d hate to see how much worse they could make it. He won’t be helping Link get Biggoron’s eye drops until he can get out of the ice, though, so onward to find a way to save him. There’s a skulltula to get here, near the diving waterfall, and then it’s time to see how time’s treated Lord Jabu-Jabu. As it turns out, it can’t be good. Jabu-Jabu is missing from Zora’s Fountain, but the Fountain is just colder than it was with some ice floating on the top. There’s a heart piece to be grabbed here, and then it’s time to visit a cavern along the wall, the first mini-dungeon and the key to rescuing King Zora.

The Ice Cavern is, as one might expect, filled with ice-themed enemies. The keese turn into ice keese that freeze Link on contact. There are freezards, evil blocks of ice that try to freeze Link with their cold breath. And the end boss of the dungeon is a white wolfos variant. There are also traps and hazards. The most common of these are frozen stalactites that try to fall on Link’s head; distractingly, the sound they make as they’re about to fall sounds a lot like the gold skulltula proximity scratching, so I’d stop when I hear it and look around only to have Link take a stalactite to the head for being diligent. And there are three skulltulas in the place, so it’s not like I can just ignore the sound.

The Ice Cavern features torches of blue fire, which can be scooped into a bottle and used to melt red ice. Fairies don’t like sharing bottles with blue fire, though, so Link has to let them go before he can start grabbing fires. Filling all the bottles with blue fire isn’t necessary, but any that doesn’t get used can be sold to the guy who buys bottle contents in the village, so may as well. After defeating the white wolfos that serves as the final boss, Link gets a pair of boots that limit his running speed but stabilize him on underwater surfaces, which he gets a chance to use leaving the cavern.

Sheik shows up when Link gets the iron boots, and confirms that the Water Temple is the source of the zoras’ misfortune and that it should be Link’s next destination. Ruto, whom he rescued from the ice, has already headed there to break the curse, and so she’s definitely going to be the next sage. After speaking poetically of Ruto’s feelings regarding Link, he teaches Link the song to teleport to the Water Temple, then ninjaports out before Link can get too close and figure out who’s hiding behind the mask.

With the blue fire, Link defrosts King Zora, who rewards him with a zora’s tunic that’ll allow him to breath underwater. Link takes this for a spin in Zora’s Fountain, where he discovers a heart piece on the floor. Then it’s back to King Zora to continue the delivery quest line; the zoras don’t have the eyedrops themselves, but they provide the eyeball frogs that the man at the Lakeside Laboratory uses to make the drops. They don’t stay good very long, and apparently warping is cheating, so Link and Epona have to hoof it to the other side of the map in three minutes. The scientist was hoping to eat the frog, but complies to make the medicine, which also has a short shelf life and has to be delivered to the top of Death Mountain. Fortunately, destroying Volvagia stopped the rockfalls, and the elevator plant provides a shortcut, but it still requires making good time. With his eyes cleared, Biggoron gets to work repairing the sword, and after three days gives the completed sword to Link, replacing the giant’s knife, which was rather useless as it broke if someone looked at it funny. Biggoron’s Sword, on the other hand, is a solid, powerful weapon, but can’t be used with a shield.

Now that that’s done, it’s time to go back to Lake Hylia. There’s a skulltula at the bottom of the Laboratory’s well that Link can reach now that he can walk on the bottom and roll into the crate, and then it’s time to head into the Water Temple.

Next: The boots were made for walking, and that’s just what they do. But first you have to put them on, and then remove them, too.

Ocarina of Time: Fire Temple

Returning to Death Mountain Crater as an adult, Link finds the bean has flourished into one of those elevator plants that’ll take Link up to a heart piece for another full heart. The elevator plant will also take him to the top of the crater where he can go out and meet Biggoron, the creator of the broken sword. He’d fix the sword, but he’s got dust in his eyes and needs medicine from King Zora before he can work again. I’ll go visit the Zoras after the Fire Temple, so let’s put this quest on hold till then. Getting back down requires the Bolero of Fire again (or going the long way, down Death Mountain Trail to Goron City, but let’s do it smart), and then it’s down a long ladder and into the Fire Temple to rescue the gorons.

Shortly after entering the Fire Temple, Link finds Darunia. Darunia’s about to make a doomed charge against Volvagia, and asks Link to rescue his people. The gorons are spread throughout the dungeon, locked in cells, and each cell has a small key in a chest. They also give hints when Link springs them. There are five skulltulas in the dungeon: two easily spotted on the main path, one hidden behind a bombable wall, and two on a side path that’s really only of interest to dedicated completionists (or skulltula hunters, although I would guess there’s a lot of overlap between completionists and people who continue actively hunting skulltulas after getting the heart piece reward).

There’s not a whole lot of combat in this dungeon, and most of the enemies that do show up are fairly simplistic: fire keeses (whom I’ve finally got a hang of now with the hookshot), torch slugs, and the reintroduction of like likes that now eat tunics in addition to shields. Speaking of shields, the spinning floor tile rooms are back, and once I realized that’s what was going on, as easy to deal with as in Link’s Awakening. The most involved combat, aside from the boss, is the flare dancer minibosses, which are quite fun: use the hookshot to pull them out of the flames, then whack them with the sword until they jump back in and light back on fire. The dancers’ fire turns different colors as they take damage, and eventually they just explode.

If the Forest Temple was about puzzles, the Fire Temple’s about mazes and platforming. There are lots of sequences of hopping over lava pits, a room that Link explores both from the ground as a maze with boulders rolling through it and then on top of the pillars that defined the maze, a maze where the “walls” are fires that are only visible from up close, another room where Link’s pursued by a wall of fire. There are two treasure chests protected by flames which can be temporarily dispelled by stepping on switches, and then Link needs to hurry to get the chest before the flames come back. The first of these is unimportant, just a gold rupee.

The second fire-protected chest holds the dungeon’s treasure, the Megaton Hammer. Getting it requires running along a narrow curving walkway, which I have trouble with even without the added pressure of having to do it quickly. Farore’s wind is incredibly useful here, because if Link falls off the inside of the curving path, it’s a long way down and a long way back up without magic. Screw that. But the feeling when Link finally navigates the path and reaches the chest and gets the hammer is great, and the hammer is a wonderful toy. It smashes tiles to open up ways down through the dungeon, can press switches that have rusted shut, flip torch slugs onto their backs where they’re helpless, and it’s just fun to swing around and break stuff.

When Link arrives to confront Volvagia, the subterranean lava dragon, Darunia’s nowhere to be seen. A quick survey of the battlefield: There are nine holes arranged in a 3×3 grid. The dragon pops out of one of these holes at random to attack. Link has a hammer. Yep, I’m pretty sure this is a game of Whac-A-Dragon. I say that flippantly, but it’s really quite fun [1]. Between chances to whack the dragon, the dragon completely flies out of a hole and either chases Link around breathing fire or flies up to the ceiling and starts raining rocks on everything. Finally, after taking enough hits, the dragon rises up one last time and crumbles to ash, and the sky over Death Mountain clears up.

Link meets Darunia again in the Chamber of Sages. Darunia thanks Link for everything he’s done for the gorons, and says that he’s happy to help Link save Hyrule by acting as the Sage of Fire. He gives Link the Fire Medallion, and as Link returns to Death Mountain, confirms that they’re brothers.

With the hammer, Link can exit the crater normally by smashing rocks and creating a path. Along the way there’s a Great Fairy of Magic, who doubles Link’s magic meter, so I’m guessing magic’s going to be a lot more useful in recruiting the rest of the sages. On the way down from Death Mountain, Link can discover two more skulltulas hiding behind rocks. There’s nothing new at the House of Skulltula, though, so breaking the curse on the last one’s probably going to require killing all 100 of them.

Next: Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.

[1] More fun than I’ve ever found Whac-A-Mole, really. Tontie is pretty fun, though.

Ocarina of Time: Death Mountain Revisited

With 50 skulltulas killed, Link returns to the skulltula house in Kakariko Village, where the last of the kids is freed of the curse and awards him a heart piece. The father is happy that all the kids are saved, but is resigned to remaining a skulltula himself. The egg Link got from the cucco lady has now hatched, and the cucco can be used to wake up Talon, who’s happy to hear that he can go back to the ranch. The cucco’s happy it got to wake Talon up, so Link returns it to the cucco lady, who gives him a blue cucco that belonged to her brother. Her brother’s hanging out in the Lost Woods, and takes the cucco and gives Link a mushroom that needs to be delivered to the village within three minutes. It’s a fairly easy task, especially with Epona on call to make riding over Hyrule Field faster. The mushroom’s recipient takes it and makes a potion, but by time Link returns to the forest, the guy’s gone. The Kokiri girl who’s there instead says that he’ll probably become a stalfos, and demands the potion that was created with the forest mushroom. In return, she gives him the saw the guy left behind. Checking around the various places in Hyrule, Link discovers that the saw belongs to the head carpenter, who’s now repairing the broken bridge into Gerudo Valley; Link can jump across the gap on Epona. The head carpenter takes the saw and gives Link a broken sword made by a goron. I’ll see him later, so let’s put this aside for now.

Back at the ranch, Talon’s determined to turn over a new leaf now that he’s running things again. Link takes the opportunity to visit Malon again and run her obstacle course. It’s tough, but Malon’s encouraging, and when Link finally gets his time down she gives him his reward. Well, she doesn’t give it to him directly, because it’s a cow and what’s Link going to do carrying a cow around, but she has it delivered to his old house in the forest.

With Epona and the bow, there’s one more thing Link can do now. When he rides over certain spots in Hyrule Field, big poes come out of hiding and try to run away. Two arrows can defeat a big poe, but if they make it to a wall or get far enough away, they escape. The big challenge here is getting the poes to pop out of the ground headed in a direction that gives Link enough time to run them down; the other part is learning how to shoot from horseback, especially if Epona’s going in one direction and the poe another. Each defeated big poe can be bottled and sold to the guy at the ghost shop for 50 rupees, and if Link catches all ten he gets a fourth bottle as well. Which would have been useful before starting ghost hunting, but whatever.

Return to Death Mountain

Now it’s time to head up Death Mountain to see what the deal is up there. The magic bean Link planted outside Dodongo’s Cavern is now an elevator flower that will let Link grab a heart piece, and inside the cavern there’s a skulltula that Link can get by summoning the scarecrow. There’s another skulltula on the platform suspended over the middle of Goron City. Goron City is nearly abandoned: there’s a giant goron in a cave that sells Link a giant’s knife for 200 rupees, and a successor to the Hot Rodder Goron. When Link stops the rolling goron, he turns out to be Darunia’s son, whom Darunia named after Link. Goron Link tells Hylian Link that Ganon kidnapped most of the other gorons and took them to the Fire Temple on Death Mountain as a sacrifice to the dragon Volvagia and gives him a goron tunic, which will let him resist the heat in Death Mountain Crater.

There’s a secret passage to Death Mountain Crater through Darunia’s room in Goron City, and Link meets Sheik again. Sheik talks about the bond of friendship and teaches Link another teleporting song, the Bolero of Fire. Every time Sheik teaches Link a song, there’s a cool little cutscene where the two play an extended version of the song together. Sheik ninjaports out, and Link notices another magic bean patch near where the Bolero of Fire would dump him. Planting a bean as an adult is not productive, so Link teleports to the Temple of Time, uses the Master Sword to go back to being a kid, teleports back and uses a bug to lure a skulltula out of the hole before planting a bean.

Before going back to Adult Link, there’s a couple more things we can do. There’s a skulltula Link can get now in Hyrule Castle, in a hidden pit near the secret entrance to the courtyard. Also, in Zora’s River, there’s a group of frogs on a log. They reward Link for playing the Song of Storms with a heart piece, and the five melodies he knew before growing up each earn a purple rupee and make one of the frogs grow big. Once they’ve all grown, they invite Link to play the ocarina to accompany them catching flies; the sequence is long and unforgiving, but awards another heart piece once completed. And now it’s time to take up the Master Sword again and head back to Death Mountain.

Next: And it burns, burns, burns.

Ocarina of Time: Forest Temple

As Link walks into the main chamber of the Forest Temple, four poes steal fire from the torches in the middle and scatter throughout the dungeon. Navi puts on her Captain Obvious uniform and informs Link that the poes stole the fire. I watched the cutscene, too, thanks. This sets the stage for the first main goal of the dungeon: track down and defeat the four poes to get the fire back and open the way forward. Or downward, as the case may be.

In addition to the poes, this dungeon features a bunch of new old enemies. Wallmasters make their return (still falling from the ceiling), along with a new variant call floormasters that split in three which, if not killed quickly, will reform the defeated floormaster and require it to be done all over again. And the stalfos knights show up, behaving much like lizalfos from Dodongo’s Cavern: block their attacks, then return serve. They also do the thing where the one not targeted watches as the other duels Link, and there’s one pair where Link has a short time after defeating one to defeat the other or the downed one reforms [1].

Being in the Lost Woods, you might expect the dungeon to be full of puzzles, and you’d be right. In addition to the familiar block puzzles (direction helpfully indicated by arrows on the floor), the eye switches (one of which is frozen solid and needs an arrow shot through a torch!) twist/untwist hallways which results in viewing the next room from a different orientation. Then there’s a corridor with ceiling with a ceiling that constantly tries to crush Link so he has to run to the few safe squares, some of which are occupied by big skulltulas who aren’t keen on sharing their safe space and are tough to hookshot because of the fixed camera angle. The fire-stealing poes each present a puzzle of their own. Two require smashing mirrors without getting too close, and the hookshot’s range is within “too close,” so Link needs to find the dungeon’s treasure, the bow, to hit the mirrors. The third requires pushing a bunch of cubes together to form a picture of the poe. The fourth appears right out in the open, but splits into four copies, only one of which can actually be harmed.

With the fires restored, Link can access the bottom floor of the dungeon. The main room is a giant circular room that can be spun around, with small rooms that can only be accessed when the main room is aligned a certain way. There’s a skulltula, one of five available, hidden in one of the small rooms, but the main thing Link needs to do is hit a series of switches in order to open the way forward.

Such a puzzling dungeon needs a puzzle boss, and we get it with Phantom Ganon, an evil spirit from beyond. This fight comes in two phases. First, there are six pictures around the room, and Phantom Ganon leaps from one of them, electrifying the room as he passes through. Making it harder, there’s a fake double that rides up at the same time as the real one. I found the easiest way to deal with this is to find a corner where the electricity doesn’t reach, helpfully marked with the Triforce symbol, and shooting Ganon as he charges over the center of the room. Three hits and Ganon dismounts, and he throws spells at Link, and the only way to hit him is, like with Agahnim in the future, to reflect the spells right back at him. Only it’s harder now. The timing has to be precise, and Ganon can hit them back at Link, in which case Link has to send them back again. With three bottled fairies [2], I didn’t think I was in any danger of dying (permanently), but this battle took me about 30 minutes to get enough hits. By the end of it, I had the hang of the timing pretty well.

After the phantom is defeated, the real Ganon makes telepathic contact, praising Link’s skill and saying that he’ll be harder to beat than his phantom, which he calls useless and banishes to the void.

Wrapping up the story, Link and Saria are reunited, and Saria accepts her destiny as a sage. She gives Link her medallion and promises they’ll always be friends. If Link calls her on the ocarinaphone, she tells him she’s happy to be helping save Hyrule. An offshoot of the Deku Tree appears where the old Tree was, and reveals to Link that he’s not actually a Kokiri, but a Hylian who was left in the care of the Deku Tree as an infant. With the Deku Tree Sprout now around, the village is once again peaceful. Mido is sad that Saria won’t return, but understands, and (indirectly) tells Link that Saria never gave up on him and apologizes for being mean to him before.

Link returns to the Temple of Time, and Sheik’s there to tell him he can go back to being a kid by returning the Master Sword to its pedestal, and he teaches Link a new song that will teleport him to the Temple.

Next: When there’s hidden poes in Hyrule Field, who you gonna call?

[1] And I only now thought of landing a couple hits on one and switching targets so the one that’s left is only at half health and it’s easy. Bah.
[2] These seem to be overpowered now. Seriously, if fairies instantly revive you at full health, what’s the point of potions? (At least red potions; maybe there’ll be a point where Link needs to conserve magic so a green potion would be a wise investment.)

Ocarina of Time: Fun and Games With the Hookshot

The fun with the hookshot starts immediately in Kakariko Village. It can hook onto the buildings’ roofs. There’s a skulltula on the roof of Impa’s house, and the man on the potion shop looking out at Death Mountain gives Link a heart piece. The cucco lady says she’s bred a type of chicken she’s not allergic too, and gives Link an egg to hatch, and I assume he’ll eventually use the egg on Talon, who’s moved into the village since being kicked off his ranch. But I have to wait to do that, so let’s go explore the world some more.

Lake Hylia’s suffered some drainage too – surely this isn’t all from that one windmill! The scarecrows are still there, and when Link plays the song he’d played as a kid, they arrange for one of the scarecrows to show up when Link plays the song. So, Link goes over near the fishing pond – which due to the lowered water level, is seemingly inaccessible – and plays the song. The scarecrow shows up on the ledge, and Link hookshots over to him.

Time has not been kind to the fishing pond; as it’s become inaccessible, Link’s the only customer. Oh, and the proprietor’s apparently losing his hair, so he’s wearing a hat and has added a rule about casting at people. No one’s broken the record Link set back seven years ago, but the proprietor said that the fish would be bigger now, so Link tries his luck. I spent a good chunk of time on this, even after identifying a particularly promising target that just would not stay interested in the lure. Finally I got it to bite and reeled it in and it was almost double the weight of the one from when Link was a kid. The reward for such a big fish was a golden scale, further increasing Link’s diving ability.

Now’s where the Lakeside Laboratory comes in: with the extra 3 seconds, Link’s now able to grab one of the rupees on the bottom, and the “secret discovered” chime plays at the same time. The scientist awards Link for his diving prowess with a heart piece. Outside the laboratory, the mature magic bean can put Link on the roof, where if he can handle the crows, he can make it to a platform with yet another heart piece. And there’s one more heart piece out in Hyrule Field, underwater in a hidden hole north of Lon Lon Ranch. There’s one last thing to get, a skulltula on the grounds of Ganon’s Castle that needs the hookshot, and now Link can appease Navi and return to the forest.

Turns Out You Can Go Home Again, It’s Just Overrun With Monsters Now

Without the Deku Tree’s protection, even the Kokiri village has been overrun by monsters – octoroks and Deku scrubs and babas. The Kokiri themselves are hiding in their houses; unlike Link, they haven’t aged any. Some of them mention Link, but no one seems to recognize him. Saria and Mido are both nowhere to be found in the village. There’s a gold skulltula here near the House of Twins, and then it’s time to head into the Lost Woods. A few turns in, Link discovers that Mido’s taken up his old habits of blocking the path, although this time it seems to be on Saria’s request. Link plays Saria’s song, which convinces Mido that he’s Saria’s friend, and Mido lets him pass, noting that Link reminds him of Mr. No-Fairy.

There’s another skulltula in the Lost Woods that requires riding a magic bean, and then it’s into the Sacred Meadow. The scrubs that used to dot the path are gone, replaced by moblins, who have clearly been eating their Wheaties [1], because they’re tougher than any other version. If they spot Link, they bullrush him, and they’re apparently immune to Z-targeting. However, they’re apparently incapable of looking off their patrol route, and one hit from the hookshot takes them out. A big moblin with a club blocks the end of the path, and it continually smashes its club into the ground, sending shockwaves at Link that knock him over. So Link has to weave between the blasts to get close enough to fight the Club Moblin, and probably gets knocked back at least once or twice while dealing damage.

When Link arrives at the clearing where Saria used to hang out, he looks sadly at her old stump seat. Sheik shows up and notes his sadness, and teaches him a song that will let him teleport back to the clearing: the Minuet of Forest. Sheik promises to see Link again before doing the Deku nut smoke bomb thing, leaving Link on his own. Overhead, there’s a branch Link can hookshot to, which puts him at the entrance to the Forest Temple.

Next: Chasing stolen fire.

[1] Or, since this is a prequel, stopped between now and A Link to the Past.

Ocarina of Time: Welcome to the Future

Stepping out of the Temple of Time, it’s plain that since Ganon got the Triforce, the seven years since have not been kind to Hyrule. For one thing, Hyrule Castle is gone, and in its place, a giant fortress is suspended over a bed of lava. The marketplace, once so full of life, is now only occupied by ReDeads [1]. In the guardhouse that used to be a reliable place to fill up on rupees is a man who collects defeated poes and keeps them in a cage. This man is seriously unsettling, enjoying what Ganon’s turned the world into and hoping things get even worse. Oh, and he makes a really skeevy comment about Link’s looks and running a different kind of business. Right, then. Back away slowly, keeping an eye on the creepy guy.

Hyrule Field is both better and worse than in Link’s childhood. On the bright side, there are no more peahats, and the skeleton apocalypse no longer happens at night. On the other hand, there are now poes all over the place. And the sign pointing at Lon Lon Ranch now calls it “The Great Ingo’s Ingo Ranch.” That’s not right, so we’ll make it Link’s next destination.

Horsin’ Around

Talon’s nowhere to be found, and Malon’s working in the stable. She says Ingo’s trying to gain Ganon’s favor, Talon was kicked out, and she’s staying because she’s afraid of what Ingo will do to the horses without her to mind them. Ingo’s in the central corral, and lets Link ride a horse, ten rupees for a minute’s ride. It’s long enough to use Epona’s song to summon Epona and get up and get familiar with the controls. The second time, after calling Epona, Link goes to talk to Ingo, who challenges him to a race. Ingo cheats by jumping the gun, but Link’s able to overtake him and win the race. Ingo immediately challenges Link to a rematch, saying he can keep the horse if he wins. He works harder to keep Link from passing, but it doesn’t work. Ever the graceful loser, Ingo lets Link keep the horse – whom he’d been planning to give to Ganon as a present – but locks the gates to the ranch. Because it’s not like Link has spent the last few minutes learning to ride, including jumping fences.

When Link returns to the ranch, Malon’s back in her rightful place and Ingo’s just happy to still have a job. Malon remembers Link from earlier, and challenges him to beat her record on an obstacle course. I only tried once and failed miserably, but by the end I finally got the hang of the controls so maybe next time I’ll get it.

Kakariko Village

Kakariko Village doesn’t seem much changed over the years. The people who used to hang out in the Market have moved here instead, the carpenters finished their building and are gone, the cuccos aren’t there anymore, and something happened to the windmill to make the well go dry, but it’s not as drastic as the changes to the market or the giant ring of fire hanging over Death Mountain. There’s not much else here of interest, so once again, Link heads to the graveyard.

In the intervening seven years, Dampé has died. His diary promises a “stretching, shrinking keepsake” to someone who visits his grave. Next to his grave is one of the places where Link planted a magic bean seven years ago, and now there’s a flower elevator that will take Link to a heart piece! Inside the grave, Dampé challenges Link to keep up with him. If Link can make it through the final door before it closes, Dampé awards him the hookshot; since the boomerang is unavailable to adult Link (boo!), this will do. The passage ends at the Kakariko windmill, where Link can reach a heart piece. The man inside the windmill is furiously playing a catchy song on his organ, and blames the windmill’s current state on “that ocarina kid.” Well, I know enough time travel stories to know what’s up, so 1) apparently I’m not done with Link the kid yet [2], and 2) Link learns the Song of Storms from the organ player so he can use it in the past.

Link can go back to visit Dampé and run the course again, and if he can make it in under a minute – not an easy task – he gets another heart piece.

Next: Hooked on a feeling.

[1] I’d have left the happy dancing couple there, with them unaware of the wights surrounding them, and the wights looking at them, afraid to come any closer. But that element of farce would have completely undermined the horror of finding the marketplace like that, so I can understand why it wasn’t done.
[2] Another villager mentions a man who could “see the truth” whose house was where the well is. I’m guessing child Link turbocharged the windmill and drained the well to get whatever that man’s secret is [3].
[3] Or will do so eventually [4].
[4] I hate time travel linguistics.

Ocarina of Time: Childhood's End

Fun With the Mask of Truth

One of the features of the mask of truth is that Link can get hints from the strange stones that dot the landscape. Some of these are things I’ve already figured out on my own (dropping bugs into small holes, the running man in Hyrule Field), some have been said elsewhere (Kokiri have companion fairies, Impa’s one of the Sheikah), and some should be bloody obvious (Ganon wants to rule the world), but there’s still some interesting things to learn here:

• The owl’s name is Kaepora Gaebora, and he’s the reincarnation of an ancient sage.
• Non-fairies who enter the Lost Woods become monsters.
• Zelda’s a tomboy, which I’m sure has no connection to a character I’m about to meet.
• There’s 100 of the gold skulltulas.

Expectations, History, and Timelines

At this point, I have a fairly good idea of how things are going to go, based on what I’ve played before and stuff in the manual. This is clearly set in the pivotal time before A Link to the Past, around the time that Ganon got the Triforce. So Link and Zelda’s efforts are going to be in vain and Ganon will enter the sacred realm, and then the rest of the game – the part with the adult Link – will be the Imprisoning War with Link fighting to keep Ganon from conquering Hyrule while the Wise Men seal him away in the Sacred Realm.

Except there’s that other thing, the fact that the games set after this one are split across three timelines, so that’s just one outcome. It’s not necessarily even the one we see here; it could be that this game is the story of Ganon getting the Triforce rewritten to allow Link to stop him more permanently – actually, the A Link to the Past manual seems to suggest there wasn’t a Hero to wield the Master Sword during the Imprisoning War [1], so this feels right.

At any rate, it’s obvious this isn’t quite the end of the story. There’s still a bunch of spots left to fill on the inventory, a lot more skulltulas to get, and an entire second row to the life bar to fill in. Plus there's a bunch of talk of things happening over the next years, Chekov’s magic beans, Link as an adult to play as, and an area he’s not allowed to properly explore as a child. No, this is clearly the “Link has the three pendants, gets the Master Sword, and goes to stop Agahnim only to get drawn into a bigger quest” moment.

The Door of Time

Well, in the time I spent running around between getting the Ocarina of Time and going to the Temple of Time, I’d forgotten what to do. So, naturally, I stood on the image of the Triforce on the ground and played Zelda’s Lullaby and was surprised/disappointed when nothing happened. Then I tried Song of Time, and still nothing. As it turns out, Link has to go up to the altar itself and play the Song of Time there. Anyway, the Spiritual Stones go in the altar, the door opens, and Link finds the Master Sword. Drawing it from the pedestal floods the room with light.

However, Ganon shows up and reveals he’d followed Link. Now he has access to the Sacred Realm, and Link is powerless to stop him. All Link and Zelda’s planning has massively backfired, and while there’s no denying Link helped the gorons and zoras in his efforts to round up the Spiritual Stones, it would have been better if he’d left them with their respective protectors afterward and done his best to protect the Kokiri Emerald.

Anyway, Link finds himself in a room with an old man, Rauru, one of the ancient sages. Link has aged seven years, and yet somehow his clothes still fit. Rauru explains that Link was too young to wield the Master Sword when he attempted to take it, so he was sealed away until he was old enough. Ganon has the Triforce, but if Link unites the sages, Ganon’s evil can be contained in the Sacred Realm.

As Link leaves the Chamber of Sages, he returns to the Temple of Time, where he meets a Sheikah named Sheik. He [2] tells Link where to find the other five sages: one in a forest (Kokiri Forest, or more likely, the Lost Woods), one on a mountain (Death Mountain), one under a vast lake (Lake Hylia), one within a house of the dead (Kakariko graveyard?), and one inside a goddess of the sand (Gerudo Valley, no doubt). The first one he says Link should awaken is in the Forest Temple, a girl Link knows – Saria, no doubt. But apparently, Link needs something to get to the Forest Temple, and like Impa before him, tells Link to start his new adventure at Kakariko Village.

Next: Racing horses and ghosts.

[1] Although it also says that the Master Sword was created as a response to Ganon getting the Triforce, when this game clearly depicts it existing before that happened.
[2] I know who he is, but I’ll play along.

Ocarina of Time: An Encounter Foretold

If Link calls Saria on the ocarinaphone at this point, she’ll say worried that something bad is happening at the castle. When Link goes to the castle to investigate, the scene from his nightmares plays out. Impa and Zelda flee the castle on horseback; when Zelda sees Link, she throws something that lands in the castle moat. And then Link finds himself face-to-face with Ganon, who demands to know where Zelda’s horse was going. Link characteristically says nothing and draws his sword to fight Ganon, who’s amused by his spirit but knocks him over with a magic blast. Proclaiming that he will soon rule the world, Ganon takes off to find Zelda.

Link jumps into the moat to get the item Zelda left for him, which turns out to be the Ocarina of Time. He immediately replaces the fairy ocarina with it, which is a little inconsiderate given that the fairy ocarina was a parting gift from a dear friend [1]. Saria even remarks that the ocarina sounds different if Link calls her. Anyway, as soon as Link picks up the Ocarina of Time, Zelda contacts him telepathically to let him know she had to flee but to pass on a fifth song, the Song of Time. Now Link has everything he needs to open the Sacred Realm and protect the Triforce, but there’s so much to do before that.

The Great Roundup

While Link can’t finish planting magic beans, gathering heart pieces, or killing gold skulltulas, there’s a lot of progress that can be made on that front now, plus another quest that can be wrapped up [2][3].

The first stop is to return to Kakariko Village. There was a skulltula in the graveyard that I noted earlier, and now with the boomerang it’s possible to get the token after killing it. Going up to Dodongo’s cavern, there’s another skulltula there that requires taking the elevator platform up to the second floor and running it backward – since the pillar hasn’t been brought down to create the stairway to the second floor, Link can access the skulltula and kill it with the boomerang. Back in the village, another kid in the skulltula house is freed of the curse and awards Link with another wallet upgrade.

There are two skulltulas in Lon Lon Ranch that were out of reach when Link last visited. Now it’s time to run all over Hyrule Field and visit locations where the Stone of Agony triggers. Each one hides an underground area with nice rewards. The first, near Kakariko Village, has a gold skulltula protected by a big skulltula. The second, near Lake Hylia, has a business scrub who’ll sell Link a heart piece for 10 rupees – given the usual extortionate rates these guys charge, this is a bargain and a half. The third, near Gerudo Valley, has a bunch of webbed-off areas, one of which has a cow and another gold skulltula.

While running around Hyrule Field, Link comes across a man running laps around Lon Lon Ranch. He stops running at night, giving Link a chance to talk to him. He apparently wishes he could be a rabbit, even if it’s just pretend – aha! The bunny hood has found its new owner, who fills Link’s wallet. Fifty of those rupees go to the mask owner, and this quest chain is now done. Link is given a new mask, the mask of truth. And he has enough rupees to go back to Zora’s River and pick up the last magic bean.

Back in Kokiri Forest, there’s another place to lure out a skulltula and plant a magic bean. There are two more of these patches in the Lost Woods, plus a Stone of Agony hole with a business scrub who’ll upgrade Link’s Deku nut capacity. Another Deku nut capacity upgrade can be earned by returning to the Forest Stage and wearing the mask of truth. Inside the dead Deku tree, there’s a skulltula in a previously-inaccessible room – getting in requires a bomb, and collecting the token requires the boomerang. Link’s now killed enough skulltulas to break another kid’s curse, and his reward is… bombchus.

Gerudo Valley is not welcoming to child Link, but there’s some stuff he can do without fully entering the area. There’s a skulltula near the entrance, and a couple heart pieces Link can reach with his cucco glider. There’s also a skulltula/bean patch of dirt, and we know what to do with that. The river in this area flows into Lake Hylia, where there’s one last skulltula hiding on the Lakeside Laboratory. There’s also a couple scarecrows, one of whom asks Link to make up a song for him. Link obliges, and the scarecrow promises to remember the song. The owl’s still hanging around the area and offering Link a ride to the castle, and now it’s time to go.

Next: Dread it… run from it… destiny still arrives.

[1] I’m sure he just stuffed it deeper in his backpack, to keep as a memento while he uses the Ocarina of Time for its added magical abilities. Right?
[2] This section doesn’t perfectly reflect how I played it. I’ve rewritten it to minimize how much extra running around and backtracking I did.
[3] Since the Stone of Agony is useless to me, I’m following a guide – without story/plot information – for locations where it would trigger if it weren’t.

Ocarina of Time: Inside Jabu-Jabu's Belly

For a dungeon in a watery location, Jabu-Jabu’s Belly is oddly full of electric creatures. Talking to Ruto seems to suggest that this is a recent development, no doubt caused when Ganon was refused the Spiritual Stone. Baris and biris show up as enemies, and they’re always electrified. There’s also tailpasarans, wormlike electrified critters, and parasitic tentacles, presumably from the boss, that spread throughout Jabu-Jabu’s insides and mostly serve to block Link’s progress until he can find a point to attack them. Navi identifies each of the parasitic tentacle growths blocking Link’s path as a “[color] slimy thing,” and keeps taking control of the interface to warn Link even after he’s presumably figured out not to touch them. Oh, and eventually there’s blobs in the water Link needs to convert (temporarily) to platforms.

The other notable feature of the dungeon is Princess Ruto. She’s not happy to see Link – or at least, if she is, she hides it well – and tells him to get lost. She falls through a soft spot in Jabu-Jabu and is still annoyed when Link follows her down. She finally gives up when it becomes apparent Link isn’t going to leave her, only she sits down and makes Link carry her the rest of the way. Sadly, there’s no sequence of Link doing the item get thing with her. On the other hand, she can be thrown at the various electrical enemies to kill them – although my accuracy isn’t that great with that – and used to hold down switches, although she gets huffy about being left behind while Link goes through the door to deal with what’s in the next room.

The treasure of the dungeon is the boomerang, which makes dealing with all those electrical enemies easier. It’s also an all-around good ranged weapon with unlimited ammo, although harder to aim without Z-targeting [1] than the slingshot and sometimes it only stuns the target, although that usually allows Link to sneak in and whack them. And, like other games’ boomerangs, it’s good for retrieving distant items, although the inability to lock on to them and the fact that they disappear after one or two failed tries makes it easier to go after them personally [2]. The boomerang’s consistently been one of my favorite Zelda items, and while this one may be my least favorite so far, it’s still pretty great and was pretty much welded to my C-Left spot afterward.

There are four skulltulas here: One on a vine wall in a room where Link has to hit a switch to raise the water level to advance, two before the miniboss, giving Link a chance to practice with the boomerang, and then one before the boss.

Eventually, Link and Ruto find the Spiritual Stone, which of course is a sapphire, and Ruto throws caution to the wind and runs and claims it, and now’s when the game makes its item get screen joke. The game wonders why Ruto gets the sapphire, but it belongs to her and her people, at least for now. The platform she was on rises up, leaving Link to fight Big Octo, a giant octorok miniboss. The standard boss mechanic works: stun it, now with the boomerang, and get close, whack it with the sword, and start chasing it down again. Chasing it down is tough, because it runs about the same speed Link does, and the easiest hits came after it hit Link and started its approach from the other direction.

Ruto’s nowhere to be found on the upper level, so Link pushes on to reach the boss: Barinade, Bio-electric Anemone. This feels almost like a boss out of Star Fox, with its multiple phases and the way the baris spin around it. The boomerang is essential here: first to sever the tendrils attaching Barinade to Jabu-Jabu, then to stun Barinade while swordwork takes care of the actual damage. The baris separate in two phases and are immune while Barinade is not stunned. Once they’re all gone, Link can kill Barinade itself, and Ruto appears in the portal back to the surface.

Ruto admits that she’s thankful to Link for the rescue and offers him a reward. Of course, Link asks for the sapphire, which she gives to him… as an engagement present. And unlike Talon, I don’t think she’s joking.

Before leaving Zora’s Fountain, there’s a couple skulltulas to get: one near where Link and Ruto emerged, and another hiding in a tree. There’s also a great fairy of magic hiding in a cave behind some boulders, and she teaches Link another spell, Farore’s wind, which lets him mark a spot in a dungeon and then teleport back to it, which is going to be useful in a little bit. Also, looking at this fairy, I think they’re wearing vines. Heading back downriver to Hyrule Field, Link stops to buy a ninth magic bean, and now it’s time to go back to Zelda with the three Stones.

Next: A dream come true.

[1] Not an issue most of the time, but it makes it harder to use against gold skulltulas.
[2] Gold skulltula tokens are a positive exception to this: they can be locked on, and as far as I know don’t fade.

Ocarina of Time: Aquatic Fun

Every time Link re-enters Zora’s River, the owl’s there to repeat the same message: Link needs to prove a connection to the royal family to enter Zora’s Domain. It’s informative once, but gets old quickly. I’m not overly fond of the owl – some guilt by association there because of how the one in Link’s Awakening lied to Link – but I have to admit the song that plays while it’s talking to Link is pretty cool.

There’s a skulltula in a tree near the entrance to the area, and then going further upriver requires a cucco glider, which should totally be a new mode in the next Pilotwings. Octoroks seem to have become aquatic at some point and shoot rocks at Link, but they can safely be ignored. The cucco glider helps Link get two more heart pieces along the way, and there’s a second skulltula waiting on a ladder. Then it’s time to enter Zora’s Domain, which of course requires Link to play “Zelda’s Lullaby” at the door to part the waterfall.

Unlike the gorons, the zoras appear to be fairly content before Link’s arrival. The king is worried about his missing daughter, Ruto, but they’re not facing the prospect of starving to death or the death of their guardian spirit, so Ganon didn’t hurt them too bad when he couldn’t get them to give him their Spiritual Stone. One of the zoras will throw rupees into the water for Link to round up by diving, and for a guy who grew up in Kokiri Forest that doesn't have much deep water, Link's a pretty good diver. Once Link masters the game, he gets a silver zora scale which doubles the length of time he can stay underwater. There’s also a heart piece if Link lights five torches, and I played with Din’s fire, which seems to ignite everything near Link on fire. Nifty.

Now that Link can dive longer, there’s an underwater tunnel in Zora’s Domain that he can go through and visit Lake Hylia. The main purpose of this visit is to find a bottle, which is near the entrance, highlighted by Navi, and marked with a trail of rupees, so it’s obviously pretty important. Inside this bottle is a message from Ruto, saying she’s inside Lord Jabu-Jabu’s belly waiting for someone to help her, and encouraging them not to tell her father. Well, ignoring that last bit is probably the best way to get help from King Zora is to show him the letter, but while Link’s here he may as well look around. There’s another patch of soil which has a skulltula that can be lured out with bugs and then Link can plant a magic bean. The building here has some sort of potion researcher, and while I’m sure this will be interesting eventually, I can’t find anything to do here just yet. The six-second dives aren’t even enough to get the red rupees in the water in his lab. Anyway, there’s another skulltula on an island, bringing the total collected up to 25. The owl’s here, too, and he mentions a Water Temple in the area and offers Link a ride to Hyrule Castle, which is out of the way for now so Link declines.

In a separate area off the Lake is a pond that’s been set up as a fishing minigame, and since there hasn’t been a minigame yet that didn’t have some sort of relevant reward, I guess it’s time to break out the tackle box. This is another thing that was designed to use the Rumble Pak, but at least it’s fairly obvious visually when a fish jumps on the line. I lost the first few fish I caught because I couldn’t get the last step of spinning the rod to fully bring the fish to shore, but overall this was a fun little minigame. Once Link finally catches a big enough fish, the man at the shop awards him with another heart piece.

Even when shown the letter from Princess Ruto, King Zora doesn’t believe Jabu-Jabu would eat her. Then he realizes Jabu-Jabu’s been a bit weird since Ganon came poking around, so he agrees to let Link by to try to rescue Ruto. He moves out of the way, one inch at a time. After twenty-five times [1], he’s finally out of Link’s way. Normally, at this point, I would go to Lon Lon Ranch to fill all the bottles with milk, but I don’t want to risk the owl being at the start of Zora’s river, nor having to watch the King scoot over again, so I’ll have to hope my one bottle of milk is sufficient.

In the fountain behind him is a huge fish, but the fish doesn’t seem interested in eating Link. Returning to Zora’s Domain, one Zora says that Ruto was in charge of feeding Jabu-Jabu, and another suggests offering a fish. Unfortunately, Link had to turn the one he caught at the pond over for his heart piece, but there’s some fish swimming around Zora’s Domain that can be caught and put in bottles. Catching one, then returning to Jabu-Jabu and releasing it, gives Link a chance to show off his Jonah impression as he’s sucked into the giant fish along with his offering.

Next: Princess Ruto turns out to be a handful.

[1] I counted.

Ocarina of Time: Fairies and Magic Beans

Before Link can even start up the mountain to visit the fairy Darunia tells him about, there are a couple points of interest to visit. Firstly, right by the entrance to Dodongo’s Cavern is a patch of soil reminiscent of the one in the Kakariko Village graveyard where bugs lured out a skulltula, and sure enough, it works here too. There’s another one hiding behind a bombable wall. Then it’s off to Goron City for some fun there. Using a bomb to stop the Hot Rodder Goron gives an increase to bomb capacity, and there’s an area blocked off by boulders that hides another gold skulltula. With 20 claimed, another of the cursed family is free, but there’s no hurry there, and we’ll pass back through Kakariko on the way down from the mountain.

Going further up the mountain to the fairy requires blowing up a few rocks, then as Link gets closer to the mountain’s summit, the mountain starts shaking and rocks fall on him, so it’s time to turtle under the Hylian shield, which is probably the real reason he was told to get one before tackling the mountain. Waiting out each rockfall and running forward when the opportunity presents itself means it takes about four cycles to reach the end of the trench, then it’s time to climb, knocking some skullwalltulas out of the way as he goes. At the top of the mountain, Link finds the owl, who offers to make the descent easier.

There are two caves on the mountaintop. One has to be opened with a bomb, and contains the great fairy, who seems to be wearing some kind of leopard skin bodypaint, boots, and not much else. Anyway, she teaches Link how to do a spin attack, which now gives him a magic meter. She encourages Link to visit another fairy near Hyrule Castle, and to come back for healing when needed, which… she’s not exactly near anything, and there’s a cow on the way up to her that Link can milk repeatedly to heal up, so it’s not exactly a likely prospect. The second cave is really hot, and Link can only stand the heat for a short time. Long enough to kill another skulltula and pick up a heart piece (on separate trips), though. Now finished with his business here, Link talks to the owl, who gives him a ride back to Kakariko Village. From the landing point, Link’s able to get another heart piece, and the uncursed skulltula gives him a Stone of Agony, which is useless to me because my controller doesn’t rumble.

At this point, Navi starts suggesting Link visit Saria again, so he calls her on his ocarinaphone [1], and she says the third spiritual stone is the Stone of Water, and it belongs to the zoras, so that’s the next destination, but first Link has business in Hyrule Castle. Behind a boulder in a dead end in the castle approach, Link finds the second fairy, who teaches him a spell, Din’s fire, which I haven’t actually tested yet. There’s a new game available in the market, bowling with bombchus, which are a lot smaller than their Hyrule Warriors incarnation. This game is frustrating, especially the second stage with the target way off to one side or the other. The third stage is easier, even with the motherclucker sitting directly in front of the target and only moving a little in either direction. But there are a couple useful rewards, another heart piece and another bomb capacity increase, so it’s barely worth dealing with the aggravation.

Now it’s time to visit the zoras… well, it’s time to enter Zora’s River. Because before Link gets too far upriver, shortly after blowing up the rocks blocking the way, he meets a man selling magic beans. He encourages Link to plant them in soft soil, the kind that Link’s been able to lure skulltulas out of with bugs. There’s a patch right next to him – which is sadly skulltula-free – and then Link runs to the Kakariko Village graveyard and Death Mountain to plant beans where those skulltulas came out. Then he stocks back up on rupees to buy more beans; I was able to buy eight pods before I ran out of money the second time, and figured I could come back later to finish this off. And now it’s time to go upriver for real.

Next: Stream and pool is wet and cool: so nice for feet. And now we wish…

[1] Actually, when I called her, I was buttonmashing trying to play the Sun’s Song and played Saria’s instead. That didn't stop Navi suggesting Link go in person, oddly.

Ocarina of Time: Dodongo's Cavern

The tutorial’s finished, so now it’s time for the first real dungeon. It’s still taking advantage of the game being three-dimensional, but I’m not so sure I couldn’t see this dungeon existing in A Link to the Past (well, aside from the fact that Link has to jump over gaps, which that Link couldn’t do). The transition between floors is accomplished by stairs, although they’re really big stairs so Link has to climb up each one individually, which makes for a weird experience.

Although I’ve now played a few hours and have the controls mostly managed, this dungeon brought home that I still haven’t quite mastered them. One puzzle, which required throwing a bomb onto a ledge to blow up a wall – pretty standard stuff from earlier games – took a ridiculous number of tries before the bomb didn’t bounce off or it didn’t register I was trying to throw the bomb instead of drop it or I ran off the platform with the bomb and had to get back there again, which at least made me proficient at side-stepping and making a jump that’s directly behind Link. The other frustration is that Z-targeting seems to have a range of about 5 feet, which isn’t always enough when a fire keese is charging at Link. Let’s just say out of all the enemies in this dungeon, Link took more damage from fire keeses than the rest of them combined. And I learned why the gate guard back in the village suggested Link get a Hylian shield.

One last complaint about this dungeon, which is otherwise pretty awesome: The first impression of Navi wasn’t great and she has a reputation for being annoying, but for the most part I haven’t minded having her along, and she was even helpful when I realized she was hinting to go talk to Saria. But when she interrupts as I’m preparing to carry out a carefully lined-up jump across an elevator platform to say “There’s lava on the floor. Standing in it’s bad for you, so don’t do that,” and the time it takes to clear that message means I have to wait for the elevator platforms to come back up, I wish Link had a fly swatter.

As for other enemies, the beamos make their return with a welcome change: they can be killed with bombs [1][2]! They respawn eventually, which only means Link gets to kill them again, hooray! Armos make their return, and need to be also killed with bombs. Given the name of the dungeon and one of the reasons the gorons haven’t been able to mine the place, various dodongos were bound to show up. The baby ones aren’t much of a threat, at least once I learned to run away from them during their death throes. The adults are trickier, but it’s a lot of fun getting them to shoot fire one way, sneaking behind them, and stabbing them in the tail. The other new enemy, lizalfos, are similar: use the shield and wait for them to attack, then counterattack. Both rooms with lizalfos have two of them, and they trade off attacking Link rather than both of them ganging up on him, which is sporting of them.

With so many enemies vulnerable to bombs, and bombable walls becoming common, and bomb flowers everywhere on the mountain, it can hardly be surprising that the dungeon’s treasure is a bag so Link can carry bombs of his own, and enough bombs to fill said bag. Watching bombs go from “they start dropping immediately” to “now you need a dungeon item to have them at all” has been weird. There are three gold skulltulas in the dungeon. The first is easy to spot with a skullwalltula after the big staircase. The other two are hidden behind bombable walls, one of which requires some doubling back to get to.

The boss, of course, is the infernal dinosaur himself, King Dodongo. This is the direct inspiration for the Hyrule Warriors dodongo fights, so once I figured out the quirks of the arena, the strategy – chuck a bomb in its mouth when it’s sucking in air, whack it while it’s down, dodge the rolling attack, rinse, repeat – was already there. As Link exits the dungeon, Darunia’s there to celebrate. He confirms that it was Ganon who blocked off the cave, and that he wanted the Spiritual Stone. But now Link’s cleared the cave, so Darunia declares him a Sworn Brother and gives him the Goron’s Ruby. He tells Link he should visit the Great Fairy on Death Mountain, then calls for the other gorons to see him off. As the gorons offer a “big goron hug,” Link, probably wisely, hightails it the pancake out of there.

Next: In all likelihood, Link visits a fairy and then runs all over Hyrule blowing stuff up for heart pieces and skulltulas.

[1] Complete with a nod from Navi to dodongo disliking smoke.
[2] The ones in Hyrule Warriors can too, but they’d be too annoying there otherwise.

Ocarina of Time: Death Mountain/Goron City

Death Mountain

Death Mountain is hardly as dangerous to traverse as it has been in other games. There are a few tektites hanging around the lower path, and that’s about it for enemies. Further up is tended by gorons, friendly dwarvish rock-eating creatures whose disappearance from later games in the series makes me wonder. The Kokiri at least have that hidden elf village vibe that gives a little bit of hope that later Links may just not find them, although them being wiped out after the Deku Tree’s death seems a distinct possibility, too. The gorons on the other hand just seem to be gone and Death Mountain has not fared well in their absence.

Not that things are peachy for the Gorons now, either: Their main quarry was overrun by dodongos and then Ganon magicked a boulder in front of it, sealing it off. With their main and favorite source of food cut off, the gorons are hungry and dispirited, and one of them even says they’re facing extinction, although his talk about how the gorons aren’t interested in eating rocks not from Dodongo’s Cavern suggests that may be a little melodramatic and/or premature. Sure, they may not be as good, but if it reaches the point of starvation if they don’t eat other rocks… those other rocks might start looking a lot tastier.

Goron City

Goron City is a maze of rings and caves going into the mountain. Big Brother Darunia, the leader of the gorons, has taken the spiritual stone and shut himself in his room, waiting for a messenger from the royal family. So, Link stands in front of his room and plays “Zelda’s Lullaby” to gain access, and Darunia feels insulted that the messenger is a kid, on top of his other problems, and says his people’s problems are just that and they don’t need any help from strangers. He kicks Link out.

Up a level, there’s a cave where “Saria’s Song”/the Lost Woods theme can be heard coming from deeper within. If Link takes a Deku stick and ignites the bomb flowers in the cave, it opens a passage to the Lost Woods. The goron in the cave asks Link about the music coming from the passage, saying the gorons all like it. And so, Link goes back to Darunia and plays “Saria’s Song” for him, which, well…



The song snaps Darunia out of his funk. He properly introduces himself to Link and Link finally gets the chance to ask for the Spiritual Stone. He hints that someone else was after it, and won’t just give it to Link, but offers a trade: If Link can open up and clear out Dodongo’s Cavern, he can have anything he wants, including the Stone. He gives Link a Goron’s Bracelet which gives him the strength to lift the bombs from the bomb flowers, so there’s one last thing to do in Goron City before leaving. On the bottom level are a bunch of unlit torches. When they’re all lit, a giant vase starts moving around the bottom level. If Link can toss a bomb from the flowers into the vase [1], he gets a piece of heart, which means a second full heart container before the dungeon.

Now Link leaves Goron City to head back to the entrance to Dodongo’s Cavern. It remains as stubbornly sealed up as before, so we’re going to have to get creative to get him in there. There’s a bomb flower a bit up the mountain; a bit too far for Link to run it all the way back down to the entrance and blow the boulder, but it’s conveniently positioned directly above the boulder and entrance. Link drops the bomb over the edge and it blows the boulder up and clears the way to enter. And… seriously? That’s all it took? None of the gorons have thought of doing this before now?

Inside, the way is blocked by another bombable wall, but the flowers are much nearer and so it’s easy enough to blow the wall and enter the dungeon proper.

Next: Dodongo’s Cavern.

[1] Much easier said than done. I’m still struggling with the controls a bit here, and lost track of the number of times Link set the bomb down rather than throw it, or ran over the edge holding a bomb, or threw the bomb off in the wrong direction. It was almost to the point where the next post in this series was going to be “Why Link Went Into Adventuring Instead of Basketball, Part 1 of TBD.”