The Adventure of Link: The End

Three-Eye Rock Palace and Back to Kasuto

Let’s wait until the murder ghosts become visible before going back to Kasuto, and tackle the Three-Eye Rock Palace. Well, first get the last heart container, then tackle the palace. The good news: no more magos. Wizards are back, and doomknockers, and there’s still the usual assortment of iron knuckles (including two more mounted ones), but magos are frozen inside the Palace on the Sea where they can rot. There’s a 1-up here, guarded by two bubbles and a blue iron knuckle in a tight space. I managed to get it without dying [1], but unless that one life is the one that’s going to put you over the top for the rest of the game, it’s really not worth it [2]. The last boss is Barba, and it’s pretty easy. Use jump, pogo on its head with the downward thrust, and repeat until it’s dead. I’ve seen videos of people managing to take it out with one set of pogoing, but every time I try I fall in the lava. Better to just hit him once, land safely, and continue the fight.

The treasure in the palace was a cross, which makes the blue moas visible. Armed with that and with Three-Eye Rock growing an extra eye, Link can safely return to Kasuto and get the thunder spell. Like spell, it’s got one specific use, aside from which it’s too expensive to use. But Link can’t beat the penultimate boss without it, so he’d better go get it. Then back across the bago-bago bridges, cross a graveyard, and it’s time for the Great Palace approach.

The Great Palace

Just getting to the Great Palace is a tough task in and of itself. The hazards:

• Lava pits. Of course.
• Moas and girubokkus, because what fun is crossing lava pits without something trying to knock you in?
• Gerus, which now come in red and blue flavors, which combine the worst traits of dairas and iron knuckles.

The Great Palace is actually fairly deserted, but what enemies there are, man… Okay, first, we have the fokkeru, hopping birds that spit fire at Link, and if he sneaks under the stream, the fire tries to move back at him. It’s like a cross between a guma and a mago, but aside from requiring several hits to die, they’re really not that bad. Then there’s fokkas, bird knights that take the place of iron knuckles and have the same fighting style, with the added twist of jumping over Link’s head. These guys suck, and the best way I’ve found to kill them is do your best to block their attacks, then jump thrust them as they jump over Link. It’s still tough, and only worth it in that they will not be deterred from chasing Link and I usually take about the same amount of damage fighting as running.

Near the end of the palace we meet what’s got to be the funniest critter in the game: a giant bot. One jump thrust as it tries to fall on Link splits it into about half a dozen bots, which still take a bunch of hits to kill. Then it’s time for the real bosses.

Boss #1: Thunderbird. To make him vulnerable, Link has to cast thunder, which strongly limits what else can be cast. Shield saves more life than life can restore, so let’s go with that, jump, and reflect. Even with shield active, Thunderbird can kill Link in fewer hits than it can take from him, so this is not a forgiving fight.

Boss #2: Dark Link/Shadow Link/Link’s Shadow. I probably used the corner trick before, but no more! This time I’m going to stand in the middle and duel him as God intended! The vulnerability he has here is when he lands from jumping over Link. Unlike Thunderbird, the only spells that really help here are shield and life, which if used together with full magic and life meters, let Link take over three times as many hits from Dark Link as Dark Link can take from him. It’s a long fight, but quite fun.

The Ending

After Dark Link is defeated, the keeper of the Triforce of Courage presents it to Link. Armed with the third piece of the Triforce, Link is able to safely return all the way back to the North Castle and use the Triforce to awaken Sleeping Zelda.

“You saved Hyrule and you are a real hero!”

There’s a short scene where the curtain lowers on Link and Awakened Zelda, and when it’s down so just their feet are showing, Awakened Zelda appears to give Link a kiss, “The end” appears in the lower right corner, and the credits roll.

“Thanks a million.
“Push Start to replay.”

So, yeah, that’s about as I remembered: nastily difficult, some really annoying gameplay, but fencing with iron knuckles and Dark Link is so much fun I’ll forgive a lot of it. It’s the weakest of the four games I’ve played, but still a worthy entry in the series.


[1] If you die getting a 1-up, what have you accomplished?
[2] And it’s easier to farm tektites by Nabooru anyway.

The Adventure of Link: Palaces Two and Three and Two More Towns

The Next Two Dungeons

In Midoro Palace, new enemies include snakelike anerus, moas that rain fire on Link, floating guys that spit energy, upgraded stalfos who can jump over Link and try to downward stab him, and red iron knuckles. Nothing really stands out as being more difficult. Shortly before Link gets to the handy glove there’s the first sequence of falling blocks; it’s not hard to run through, though. The boss is Jermafenser (AKA Helmethead), and the downward thrust turns him into a joke. Activate jump, bounce on his head a few times, put the crystal in the statue, and we’re on to palace #3.

The Island Palace is a great example of (what I think of as) The Legend of Zelda’s approach to gradually opening the world. Just getting there requires jump, fairy, and the hammer. Completing the dungeon requires the handy glove and downward thrust. The candle, shield, and life are technically optional but make things so much easier. The statue in the beginning drops a red potion or iron knuckle if you hit it with the sword, and resets if you leave the dungeon, which makes it fairly convenient for farming.

Inside the dungeon we quickly meet a doomknocker, which is like an unholy cross between a goriya and daira and/or is an upgraded guma. The stalfos are replaced with parutamus, which are basically the same only they have helmets. And, of course, it’s time for blue iron knuckles to come out to play. These guys are tough, spamming sword beams as Link gets close and, at this point in the game, likely able to kill him in fewer hits than it takes to kill them. It’s telling that Rebonack, the boss, is just a standard issue iron knuckle with an added dismounting phase. It’s tempting to use jump against him, but it actually messes up the jump timing and I find it easier to dismount him without it. The other major difference is that unlike most iron knuckles that will eventually back into something solid to keep them from running too far, this one doesn't. It can go off the screen where Link can't follow, so Link has to lure it back out to continue the fight properly, which is really an unneeded annoyance.

Somewhere, Beyond the Sea…

Nabooru is the first town Link encounters after taking the raft across the sea. Although it’s closer to the Palace on the Sea than the Maze Island Palace, all the hints here are about the latter. Darunia will reverse that, although Link has to deal with both towns before Maze Island Palace [1].

“With boots I could walk on the water.” I won’t poke at the fact that he’s seeming to say that any boots will let him walk on water, because I know it’s due to translation condensation issues.
“Jump in a hole in the palace if you go.” Well, up yours, too, kid. (Okay, seriously, he's hinting about a navigational feature of the palace. Just some unfortunate wording.)
“See a man in Darunia before the islands.” I assume this is meant to hint that Link needs the spell from Darunia to beat the Maze Island Palace boss, but there’s a second man in Darunia whose teachings are needed, too. Also, Link needs to go to the islands to get the “item” that lets you see the magic man of Darunia.
“The river devil eats those who are weak.” A warning that Link can’t go south just yet, just like in Rauru.

There’s a sleeping ache who’ll hint about a heart container over the ocean if Link pesters him enough, but then we come to the longest, hardest, most epic quest in the game. A woman complains about being thirsty, so Link walks twenty yards from her house to a water fountain, gets some water, and brings it to her. She invites him in to learn the town’s spell, fire. It’s a decent spell, but really not needed; there are only a few enemies that require it, and they can be run from and/or pogoed over pretty easily. That said, farming the tektites around the village is a reasonably fast way to get XP/levels/extra lives, and if you want to do that, you need the spell.

Darunia is in the mountains [2], protected by two sequences of jumping over water pits while octoroks and floating bubbles try to knock you in. The town itself has the same thing as Saria, townsfolk turning into aches, only without warning. This is really annoying, because it makes you hesitant to talk to people, especially the generic-looking ones who say the same thing across appearances in all towns on a side of the sea, and one of them has a hint about the Palace on the Sea.

“The palace has a false wall.” Sometimes I wonder how these people know so much about these palaces which are infested with dangerous creatures.
“It is said east of Nabooru has…” Oof. This one’s just barely useful: go due east from Nabooru and you’ll reach the palace. There has to be a way they could have condensed it better.
“The devil does not like noise.” Hinting about the palace’s treasure and also how to get to the south area.

“A powerful knight lives in town.” Welp, there’s nothing to do but check every door to see if there’s anything. The house that Link notes has a chimney, so we find a house low enough to jump on, hop over roofs, and do our best Santa Claus impression. The jump thrust isn’t as generally useful as the downward one is, but it’s needed, and killing aches as they swoop in, or catching boss keys as they fall from the air, or being able to kill fokkas, or swatting the giant bot in the Great Palace make for a nice bonus.

Next: Maze Island, the Island Palace, and Kasuto ×2.

[1] Actually, you could probably skip Nabooru, if you know what you’re doing.
[2] Now that I know who it's named for, this is rather appropriate.

The Adventure of Link: Death Mountain and the Next Two Towns

Saria

The candle makes the caves nice and bright so we can see what Link’s up against, and so we set off on the journey to Saria. The cave’s not that bad; nothing I haven’t fought before, only now I can see them. The overworld monsters are a little tougher south of the caves, but overall with the levels I’ve already farmed the journey to Saria isn’t that hard.

A man standing by the town entrance greets Link with a cryptic warning: “Eyes of Ganon are everywhere. Be careful.” [1] Talk to enough people, and you’ll find out what he means: some of the people who repeat the same phrases we see in every town this side of the sea turn into aches when talked to. It seems to be a random chance; talk to the same person enough times and eventually they’ll turn into an ache.

There’s just not a lot of random chatter in this town otherwise. “In Midoro Swamp find a handy glove” is about all there is. As for that, all I can say is heh, “handy” glove [3]. The woman who lives with the town’s magician has lost her mirror, which can be found under a table in an otherwise empty house. Return to her with the mirror and she’ll let Link in to learn one of the most useful (if expensive) spells in the game, life.

The town’s other sidequest is more memorable. The guardians of the bridge leading to Death Mountain won’t let Link cross since he’s not of Saria. A sleeping bot gives the hint of how to cross the river if poked enough times: “Master is in woods N of river.” Going to the woods, Link can find a man named Bagu who gives Link his endorsement to cross the river, and we finally begin one of the toughest sections of the game. (I think I farmed up to 6/5/4 before making the approach. At those levels, it’s not that bad.)

Death Mountain

Reasons Death Mountain is brutal:

• It’s a maze. A wrong turn means fighting more enemies, which means further strain on magic and/or lives.
• Dairas. Their weapon can’t be blocked by the shield, so avoiding damage is hard. There are only so many chances to cast shield and life before Link runs out of magic, and not as many refills as one would hope. I’d rather take my chances with blue iron knuckles than these guys.
• It’s still the early game, and really easy to stumble in underpowered. I made sure not to do that, but that’s because I know better.

The reward at the end is, as the woman in Ruto said, the hammer. There’s a chance to try it out before returning to the rest of the world, and Link gets a magic container.

Also, the area around Spectacle Rock is a pretty nifty recreation of the overworld map of the first game. That’s an interesting decision that raises a bunch of questions like “How is Link able to move so much faster now?” and “Why were we only interested in such a small portion of the world?”

Oh, and don’t think just because Link has the hammer that he’s out of the woods [4]. The bridge connecting back to the main area has more dairas and other tough enemies.

Mido

Armed with the hammer, Link can now visit the fourth and final town west of the sea. In Mido, the hints are mostly about the third palace:
“Ask Error of Ruto about the palace.” If you go back to Ruto, Error now says to go south from Kings Tomb, the one that’s set apart from the others.
“The island palace in the south has a raft.” The item hint.

The magic quest is to help a woman’s sick daughter. Another hint in the town tells Link where to look: “Find magic in a cave in Moruge Swamp.” I already have both magic containers in the west, so it must be something else. Sure enough, it’s water of life, which lets the woman heal her daughter, so she invites Link in to learn the fourth spell, fairy. It’s a powerful spell, but it’s got too many drawbacks: expensive, can’t end the spell without changing screens, possible to get stuck. There are places where it’s required, but otherwise it’s not really worth it.

Also in the town, Link is told “No one is here but a churchbell will ring.” At the church, Link notes that the door is locked, but there’s an open one on the second story. By jumping up and going inside, Link can learn the downward thrust technique, which is a huge gift. Not everyone’s vulnerable to it, but for those who are, being able to bounce on their heads until they die makes them much easier to defeat [5].

There’s one more cave blocked off by a boulder, and that has the second heart container. And then it’s time to go to Midoro Palace.

Next: The next two palaces and towns.

[1] The box is too full for punctuation, but I added it to make Word’s grammar checker happy [2].
[2] Me too, to be honest.
[3] That is, by the manual, the glove’s official name.
[4] Even if it can destroy trees – an ability mentioned in the manual but never in game, even though you need it before the end.
[5] Going through Death Mountain in a new game plus to help write this, the downward thrust made a huge difference; dairas have gone from being scary to being trampolines.

The Adventure of Link: Introduction and Story

This game is forever linked with Super Mario Bros. 2 in my mind. They both came out in late 1988, but weren’t widely available until ’89. I got both around my birthday that year. Both are sequels to games that are synonymous with the NES, and drastic gameplay departures from their predecessors. As I recall, both were immediately regarded as better than their predecessors but now are remembered for being weird, due to the next games in both series returning to more familiar gameplay.

I think Zelda II has held up a bit better than SMB 2, although it’s hard enough that it starts counting against the game in my opinion. I didn’t finish this one until I came back in the summer of 1998 and, after moving, decided to hook up the old NES and take another crack at some of the old games. The battery in the cartridge was dead, so I couldn’t turn the game off lest I lose all my data, but I managed to push through, make it to the Great Palace, and finally got through it.

The Story

“After Ganon was destroyed, Impa told Link a sleeping spell was cast on Princess Zelda. She will wake only with the power of No. 3 Triforce sealed in a palace in Hyrule. To break the seal, crystals must be placed in statues in 6 well guarded palaces.
“Link set out on his most adventuresome quest yet…”

Unlike the first game, this was actually changed from the Japanese version (still in English):

“Several years after Gannon was destroyed, Link learns from Impa about the another sleeping Princess Zelda. He is told she can only awaken with the No. 3 Tryforce sealed in the Great Sanctuary in Disvalley. To remove the seal, crystals must be embedded into a stone statue standing in 6 sanctuaris.
“Link sets out on an adventurous quest…”

[sic].

Actually, retranslating it made it more confusing because it removed the reference to “another” Zelda, the only indication in the game that Sleeping Zelda isn’t the same one Link rescued in the previous game. The manual goes into a lot more detail, telling the story of Sleeping Zelda: her father hid the Triforce of Courage from her brother because he didn’t trust him, and only told her where it was. A wizard, frustrated with her unwillingness to talk, put a sleeping curse on her; her brother then got hit by remorse, but too late to save her himself. And it’s clear this happened long, long ago, and the first game’s Zelda is named after Sleeping Zelda.

Well, all that is clear now, and reading the manual I can’t see how I ever thought Sleeping Zelda and first game’s Zelda were the same, because it was incredibly confusing trying to figure out how things all fit together [1].

Once again, the manual goes into more detail, about how despite Ganon’s defeat, his minions are still out there, and Hyrule isn’t doing very well these days. Ganon’s minions are hoping to use Link’s blood to restore him to life, which explains the “Game Over / Return of Ganon” screen. So, that’s the quest: Visit six palaces throughout Hyrule to break the seal, then go to the Great Palace and retrieve the Triforce of Courage to wake Sleeping Zelda and save Hyrule from Ganon’s minions.

Some Quick Thoughts

Translation – Unlike the first game, which expanded the space for text to appear, most of the popup text in this game has to fit into a smallish box. And so, you get things like a woman telling Link where to find the hammer being boiled down to its most essential elements (“Hammer… Spectacle Rock… Death Mtn.”) and it still barely fits while making her sound like… I’m picturing a fortune teller yelling key words from her prophecy at Link as he leaves her shop.

Gameplay – The overhead exploration segments are reminiscent of Dragon Quest [2] and Final Fantasy [3], while the side-scrolling combat/platforming sequences (that make up most of the actual gameplay) are more like… Castlevania, I guess. It’s an interesting mix, and an odd departure from the first game, but it makes for good fun. Iron knuckle duels are much better than trying to get behind darknuts and stab them in the back, and well worth the thrill when you manage to beat a blue one without making a single mistake in your shieldwork. (Fokkas can fokka right off, though.)

E-I-E-I-O – Okay, I’ll be blunt. The experience rewards from trying to play the game straight aren’t enough. Death Mountain is a killer area because it’s really easy to stumble in underleveled, and if you don’t spend time farming, you’ll be lucky to make it to the Great Palace, let alone complete the bastard. The three ways I farmed for this playthrough were bits and bots in the beginning, goriyas around Saria before tackling Death Mountain, and iron knuckles from statues at the start of palaces 3, 4, and 6.

Sunday: His most adventuresome quest yet.

[1] At least I never thought Link was Zelda. I mean, except for the time I named Link “ZELDA” to see the “start on the second quest” thing in action.
[2] Or, as I knew it, Dragon Warrior.
[3] The first of each, anyway.

The Adventure of Link: Table of Contents

An index of posts about Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, the second game in the series.