Level 5 – This one is where level 4 was in the first quest. One last level before getting the magic sword… and dammit, wizzrobes show their unwelcome faces. The bow’s here, meaning the game’s able to use gohmas again, and as mentioned in the quest intro, Link has to sneak past one to get the bow. The boss is a three-headed gleeok, a nice cap to the phase of the game without the magic sword.
These first five levels spell out EALDZ, which I completely failed to grasp the meaning of as a kid. I might have thought of the Z as a 2, which didn’t help. Now, of course, I realize it anagrams to LED Z – A, an endorsement of the production team’s favorite English band. And no, it never seemed strange to me that the Japanese game used English letters until now. Levels 7 and 8 are spirals, and 9 is Ganon’s head. If there’s any meaning in level 6’s design, I don’t get it.
Level 6 – Now we have the magic sword, so they’re throwing everything they have at Link now. Wizzrobes, like likes, and bubbles (including red ones) form the majority of the dungeon’s enemies, with a few token appearances by vires and keeses. This culminates in a boss rush: a two-headed gleeok, a manhandla, and finally a gohma. Oh, and after the gleeok is a room of red bubbles, with backtracking required to get a blue bubble if you want it. However, manhandlas can be defeated with bombs, and gohmas are immune to the sword anyway, so may as well press on.
Level 7 – At this point, it’s not that the game is hard, but that it’s exhausting. Level 7 is so full of darknuts that Planters was going to package and sell it until they realized they’re misleadingly named and no one’d want to eat them. The stairways greatly complicate the dungeon path, there are dead ends, two old men demanding payment show up, the boss is a four-headed gleeok, and the only treasure is the red candle which is so barely useful I’m surprised it wasn’t shuffled to much earlier in the quest.
Level 8 – The dungeon entrances have been hidden for a while now, but the last two have hints pointing at them. This one comes from the sixth dungeon, where an old man says, “South of arrow mark hides a secret.” [1] The layout challenges are still there, but the enemies are mercifully easier than they’ve been at any point since Level 3. It’s all goriyas, stalfos, ropes, keeses, and wallmasters, with minibosses limited to an aquamentus, dodongos, and moldorms. It’s like the game’s saying, “Okay, the last few levels have sucked, and level 9 is going to throw everything there is at you, so have a break.”
Level 9 – The hint for this one came up in Level 4: “If you go in the direction of the arrow.” It seems to be missing a consequence clause, but follow the arrow and bomb everything and eventually the entrance to Death Mountain will appear. There are only a few stairways here, but man this dungeon is still a fscking maze. And wizzrobes make their final stand in defense of Ganon. After seventeen and a half dungeons, nearly two quests, and one defeated Ganon, I finally had to use a potion to get through this place. I used the second during the Ganon fight. Finally, the Triforce of Power was taken from evil hands, Zelda was rescued, and the epic ending could kick in.
“You are great.
“LINK – 0
“You have an amazing wisdom and power.
“End of ‘The Legend of Zelda 1’
“©1986 Nintendo”
Oh, right. Eight-bit games. A winner is me.
So that’s the first game. It’s hard to look critically at it, between the mix of nostalgia and how much of a classic it is. And there’s a reason for that, it really is good. The difficulty in the second quest is a bit cheap sometimes and gets exhausting, but unlike a lot of classic Nintendo games, I actually finished this one back in the day, so it can’t be too bad. (Battletoads? Ninja Gaiden? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Adventure Island? Mega Man… okay, I did beat that one, but that’s probably the upper limit.)
[1] The Japanese version said north of a lake. It works out the same, but there’s only one arrow mark, so I like this one better.
Showing posts with label The Legend of Zelda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Legend of Zelda. Show all posts
Sunday, July 8, 2018
The Legend of Zelda: Second Quest
The second quest significantly ups the difficulty from the first quest. I was surprised by this when I replayed the game after several years. I remembered it being different, but not so much harder.
Another Quest Will Start From Here
Level 1 – The first dungeon in the second quest is a good demonstration of the new quest’s design: Link doesn’t have the white sword yet, he fights blue goriyas, there are minibosses (a dodongo and a pair of moldorms) already, and the stalfos shoot sword beams. And yes, the only treasure in the dungeon is the wooden boomerang. Fortunately, the boss is still an aquamentus, which is still as easy as ever.
Level 2 – Hidden where the blue ring shop was in the first quest, things get fun from here. Thankfully, Link can get the white sword now, and he’s going to need it against darknuts, gibdos, and even pols voices since he doesn’t have the bow. A manhandla shows up as a miniboss, and a two-headed gleeok guards the Triforce. The recorder is the treasure this time around, and he can use it to get two extra heart containers, so for one level he can be about on par with his first quest self.
Level 3 – The old level 2 entrance got converted to a fairyless fairy pond, and how to get into the dungeon hasn’t changed: use the recorder. This dungeon is really easy, especially by second quest standards. It’s the smallest dungeon from either quest (and one of its rooms is a grumbly goriya). Ropes make their return, and they’re blinking now, but I can’t tell if there’s any actual difference from the old ones. There’s no miniboss, unless you count the goriyas between the boss and the Triforce. The boss is a dodongo trio, but there’s a couple rooms to pass through before getting the Triforce piece.
Level 4 – Level 3 was nice, but the gloves are off now! Blue darknuts make their return, along with digdogger minibosses, and they’re not the worst part of this dungeon. Nor is the guy who holds Link ransom, demanding a heart container or 50 rupees [1]. No. The worst part, and the worst enemy in the game, is the goddamn red bubbles, who completely disable Link’s sword until he gets a full life refill or touches a blue bubble. Oh, and it doesn’t help anything that this dungeon is huge, to make up for the last one being tiny. The most exciting “treasure” here is the bomb upgrade, although getting the raft means getting a heart container and being able to continue the quest. The magic book is just them trolling, though. A digdogger shows up as the boss.
Next: The last five dungeons.
[1] I’ve always wondered – there are three of this guy in the second quest; is it possible to give up all your heart containers? What happens then?
- A lot of things have been moved. The letter’s two screens away from Level 9 deep in the mountains (and you’ve got to get past a pancaketon of lynels to get to it), the one heart container Link can get from the start is in the graveyard, and the blue ring requires a trek that’s fairly annoying with just the sword.
- Aside from level 1, all the dungeons have moved and most are hidden, and there are fewer hints about where they are.
- The order Link gets items from the dungeons is shuffled. From the first four, he gets two boomerangs (greatly useful but kind of a letdown when that’s all), the items needed to access Levels 3 and 5 (which also allow quick travel between dungeons and getting three of the overworld heart containers – it’s the opposite of the boomerang: there’s only so much use for the raft and flute, but some of those uses are huge and so getting them is a big relief), and the magic book (useless until you get the wand in Level 8). Link has to sneak past a gohma to get the bow. There are optional keys in a couple dungeons that Link can’t get without the stepladder, which he doesn’t have at that point.
- Heart container acquisition is slower. Link has to do Level 1 with the sword and Level 5 with the white sword.
- Tougher enemies show up sooner.
- Especially in the later stages where gear differential is less, the dungeons are bigger and more confusing. Dead ends/one-way doors, lots of stairways, and false walls get annoyingly common in the last few levels.
- There are a couple other new things, but I’ll get to those with my level-by-level breakdown.
Another Quest Will Start From Here
Level 1 – The first dungeon in the second quest is a good demonstration of the new quest’s design: Link doesn’t have the white sword yet, he fights blue goriyas, there are minibosses (a dodongo and a pair of moldorms) already, and the stalfos shoot sword beams. And yes, the only treasure in the dungeon is the wooden boomerang. Fortunately, the boss is still an aquamentus, which is still as easy as ever.
Level 2 – Hidden where the blue ring shop was in the first quest, things get fun from here. Thankfully, Link can get the white sword now, and he’s going to need it against darknuts, gibdos, and even pols voices since he doesn’t have the bow. A manhandla shows up as a miniboss, and a two-headed gleeok guards the Triforce. The recorder is the treasure this time around, and he can use it to get two extra heart containers, so for one level he can be about on par with his first quest self.
Level 3 – The old level 2 entrance got converted to a fairyless fairy pond, and how to get into the dungeon hasn’t changed: use the recorder. This dungeon is really easy, especially by second quest standards. It’s the smallest dungeon from either quest (and one of its rooms is a grumbly goriya). Ropes make their return, and they’re blinking now, but I can’t tell if there’s any actual difference from the old ones. There’s no miniboss, unless you count the goriyas between the boss and the Triforce. The boss is a dodongo trio, but there’s a couple rooms to pass through before getting the Triforce piece.
Level 4 – Level 3 was nice, but the gloves are off now! Blue darknuts make their return, along with digdogger minibosses, and they’re not the worst part of this dungeon. Nor is the guy who holds Link ransom, demanding a heart container or 50 rupees [1]. No. The worst part, and the worst enemy in the game, is the goddamn red bubbles, who completely disable Link’s sword until he gets a full life refill or touches a blue bubble. Oh, and it doesn’t help anything that this dungeon is huge, to make up for the last one being tiny. The most exciting “treasure” here is the bomb upgrade, although getting the raft means getting a heart container and being able to continue the quest. The magic book is just them trolling, though. A digdogger shows up as the boss.
Next: The last five dungeons.
[1] I’ve always wondered – there are three of this guy in the second quest; is it possible to give up all your heart containers? What happens then?
Thursday, July 5, 2018
The Legend of Zelda: First Quest Ending
Level 5 – This is the first dungeon that’s slightly hard to find [1]. An old man in Level 4 points Link to the waterfall, where an old woman will tell him how to navigate the Lost Hills. The reward for getting the magic sword now is that blue darknuts and gibdos, which make their first appearance in this dungeon, are much easier to deal with. Pols voices also make their first appearance, but the bow is the way to deal with them. The dungeon’s treasure is the recorder, which would go on to star in Super Mario Bros. 3 as the warp whistle. It has a similar function here, but first it’s also needed to beat the dungeon boss, a digdogger, which shrivels at its sound and then gets finished off with sword attacks.
Level 6 – Okay, pancake wizzrobes. I actually don’t remember hating them so much from the last time I played the game [2], but they’re terrible. The red ones aren’t so bad, but killing them means dodging the blue ones which zip all over the place and shoot you and they’re just a bloody nightmare. And disappointingly, the magic wand doesn’t work against them; 8-bit wizard duels would have been awesome. It’s pretty common in this game for dungeons to be harder than the boss at the end, and here’s a prime example: the gohma dies in one hit from an arrow.
Level 7 – Okay, the hardest thing about this dungeon is finding the bloody place. The only hint is the Old Man Hint from the previous dungeon, “There are secrets where fairies don’t live.” That’s 98% of the map, guy. Narrow it down a little. The Japanese text mentions a pond, which should click once you find the empty fairy pond in the forest, bringing up the “try everything” reflex until the recorder makes the pond drain and the dungeon entrance appear. Once inside, the second hardest thing about the dungeon is figuring out what the grumbly goriya wants. I had a Nintendo Power subscription back in the day, and it explained that he wants food which you have in the form of bait, so I never had any problem with it, but in hindsight… yeah, it’s not clear. Another aquamentus is the boss, and with the magic sword it’s even more of a joke. On the down side, the only item Link gets here is the red candle, which is fairly worthless, except…
Level 8 – The hint for the location of this dungeon – which has to be sought out in the overworld [3] – is “Secret is in the tree at the dead end.” So the red candle can make the sequence where Link makes Smokey Bear very, very displeased a little less annoying until you figure out which tree to burn. It’s obvious once you know, but until then... Level 8’s mostly a throwback to level 5; darknuts, gibdos, and pols voices all make their return. The book of magic further renders the red candle useless, and the magic key greatly simplifies Link’s life. The final boss before Death Mountain is a four-headed gleeok, which is a great way to cap off the “gather the Triforce of Wisdom” phase of the adventure.
Level 9 – “Spectacle Rock is an entrance to death.” That one’s surprisingly clear, given the last two, although I’m not sure the term “Spectacle Rock” is ever used anywhere else, so you’re left to connect the twin rocks with a pair of glasses.
But here’s a thing. I don’t like to leave dungeon rooms unexplored. Even if a room serves no purpose than to trick you, make you fight a dozen blue wizzrobes before opening a staircase that dumps you back at the start of the dungeon with all the enemies respawned, it bugs me to not visit it [5]. So rather than taking an expedient path that still gets me all the items, I went exploring. The red ring is a boon, because it means wizzrobes don’t hurt as bad anymore. Since I don’t use the bow much, silver arrows are pretty much only useful because you need them to win. There are two new enemies: annoyingly fast lanmolas and patras with their clouds. Plus, of course, wizzrobes return to protect Ganon. Ganon is fairly simple once you recognize the figure eight pattern. It only takes one silver arrow to finish him off, and then Link can claim the Triforce of Power and rescue Zelda.
“Thanks Link, you’re the hero of Hyrule.
“Finally, peace returns to Hyrule.
“This ends the story.”
Next: Another quest will start from here.
[1] Level 4 is technically hidden, but getting the raft in Level 3 is a big flashing sign saying, “Hey, use this from the docks you’ve seen!”
[2] Which was, admittedly, ten years ago or so.
[3] Interestingly, the hint’s still there in the next quest, despite there being nothing in that tree. There’s another dungeon entrance in another dead-end tree, which if that’s why the hint got left for the second quest, only goes to show that it is a fairly vague hint [4].
[4] There’s also an old woman who tells Link to “Meet the old man at the grave.” In the first quest, this is about the magic sword; that got moved, but there’s another old man who moved into the graveyard to give a heart container, so the hint still works.
[5] The Adventure of Link gets a pass on this; it’s just not worth it once the palaces get ridiculously huge. Between that and the oh-so-appropriately named fokkas, just thinking about trying to 100% explore the Great Palace is a nightmare.
Level 6 – Okay, pancake wizzrobes. I actually don’t remember hating them so much from the last time I played the game [2], but they’re terrible. The red ones aren’t so bad, but killing them means dodging the blue ones which zip all over the place and shoot you and they’re just a bloody nightmare. And disappointingly, the magic wand doesn’t work against them; 8-bit wizard duels would have been awesome. It’s pretty common in this game for dungeons to be harder than the boss at the end, and here’s a prime example: the gohma dies in one hit from an arrow.
Level 7 – Okay, the hardest thing about this dungeon is finding the bloody place. The only hint is the Old Man Hint from the previous dungeon, “There are secrets where fairies don’t live.” That’s 98% of the map, guy. Narrow it down a little. The Japanese text mentions a pond, which should click once you find the empty fairy pond in the forest, bringing up the “try everything” reflex until the recorder makes the pond drain and the dungeon entrance appear. Once inside, the second hardest thing about the dungeon is figuring out what the grumbly goriya wants. I had a Nintendo Power subscription back in the day, and it explained that he wants food which you have in the form of bait, so I never had any problem with it, but in hindsight… yeah, it’s not clear. Another aquamentus is the boss, and with the magic sword it’s even more of a joke. On the down side, the only item Link gets here is the red candle, which is fairly worthless, except…
Level 8 – The hint for the location of this dungeon – which has to be sought out in the overworld [3] – is “Secret is in the tree at the dead end.” So the red candle can make the sequence where Link makes Smokey Bear very, very displeased a little less annoying until you figure out which tree to burn. It’s obvious once you know, but until then... Level 8’s mostly a throwback to level 5; darknuts, gibdos, and pols voices all make their return. The book of magic further renders the red candle useless, and the magic key greatly simplifies Link’s life. The final boss before Death Mountain is a four-headed gleeok, which is a great way to cap off the “gather the Triforce of Wisdom” phase of the adventure.
Level 9 – “Spectacle Rock is an entrance to death.” That one’s surprisingly clear, given the last two, although I’m not sure the term “Spectacle Rock” is ever used anywhere else, so you’re left to connect the twin rocks with a pair of glasses.
But here’s a thing. I don’t like to leave dungeon rooms unexplored. Even if a room serves no purpose than to trick you, make you fight a dozen blue wizzrobes before opening a staircase that dumps you back at the start of the dungeon with all the enemies respawned, it bugs me to not visit it [5]. So rather than taking an expedient path that still gets me all the items, I went exploring. The red ring is a boon, because it means wizzrobes don’t hurt as bad anymore. Since I don’t use the bow much, silver arrows are pretty much only useful because you need them to win. There are two new enemies: annoyingly fast lanmolas and patras with their clouds. Plus, of course, wizzrobes return to protect Ganon. Ganon is fairly simple once you recognize the figure eight pattern. It only takes one silver arrow to finish him off, and then Link can claim the Triforce of Power and rescue Zelda.
“Thanks Link, you’re the hero of Hyrule.
“Finally, peace returns to Hyrule.
“This ends the story.”
Next: Another quest will start from here.
[1] Level 4 is technically hidden, but getting the raft in Level 3 is a big flashing sign saying, “Hey, use this from the docks you’ve seen!”
[2] Which was, admittedly, ten years ago or so.
[3] Interestingly, the hint’s still there in the next quest, despite there being nothing in that tree. There’s another dungeon entrance in another dead-end tree, which if that’s why the hint got left for the second quest, only goes to show that it is a fairly vague hint [4].
[4] There’s also an old woman who tells Link to “Meet the old man at the grave.” In the first quest, this is about the magic sword; that got moved, but there’s another old man who moved into the graveyard to give a heart container, so the hint still works.
[5] The Adventure of Link gets a pass on this; it’s just not worth it once the palaces get ridiculously huge. Between that and the oh-so-appropriately named fokkas, just thinking about trying to 100% explore the Great Palace is a nightmare.
Wednesday, July 4, 2018
The Legend of Zelda: The First Quest
It’s Dangerous to Go Alone!
Before Level 1 – That whole laundry list of items that can be got before the first dungeon that I cited in the last post? Yeah, I rounded up all of those. This takes a bunch of rupees – the blue ring alone costs 250 – so there’s a lot of time farming rupees to collect items. I still remember my old farming route, which spends most of its time traveling along the shores before looping back to the fairy fountain east of Level 1 and then back to the start. This route is kind of harsh without a magic shield because it means having to dodge zora beams in addition to everything else going on, but there’s also two heart containers along the way, and the letter isn’t far off the route.
Level 1 – The first level is designed to be run straight away. The aquamentus isn’t very hard to begin with, and with the magic shield it’s a joke. Add the blue ring and the white sword, and there’s nothing in this dungeon worth mentioning [1]. Well, except don’t get careless against the wallmasters or you’ll have to do it all over again. The boomerang drops here, and the bow is the treasure. The bow feels like I should use it more than I do, but the 1 rupee/shot cost makes it generally not feel useful, and the magic wand later outclasses it. The boomerang, on the other hand, is a great go-to B-button-item: it can kill some weak enemies, stun more enemies, and pick up items from halfway across the screen.
Level 2 – The first quest dungeons all have names based on their shape. Some are a bit abstract, but I can see them (eagle, lion). Some I can’t really tell, although the creatures they’re named for are long and skinny, so they can really be any shape (snake, lizard, dragon). The only three that I can really say I can see are moon, manji, and Death Mountain’s skull. Anyway, the goriyas now are blue and drop the magic boomerang; there’s no other treasure here. This dungeon also introduces moldorms, who seem to have flipped names with lanmolas at some point: the moldorms here fight on sand like the lanmolas from A Link to the Past, and lanmolas in this game have to be attacked from behind. And the boss is a dodongo, with the infamous “dislikes smoke” hint… which led me astray when I first played the game, because I was trying to kill it with the candle (smoke → fire → candle). The blue, one-shot-per-screen candle. Yeah, that didn’t work. Now, of course, I’m not satisfied trying to feed them bombs; I go for the harder stun-and-stab method.
Level 3 – The old man here hints to get the white sword, so at this point it no longer feels overpowered. This dungeon is also the introduction of darknuts, who I remember as being epically annoying… but on reflection, they’re really not that much worse than everything else. Very few enemies in this game move in any sort of predictable pattern [2]; what makes darknuts dangerous is when they suddenly turn toward you they’re immune to damage while unless you’re fast enough you’re going to get hit. Well, that and they’re immune to a lot of B-button-items. A room full of them can be difficult to find a safe place to attack from, but that’s why God invented bombs. Speaking of bombs and unpredictable patterns, manhandlas are either quickly dispatched with a one or two bombs, or frustratingly take forever. The treasure here is the raft, which neatly leads to a heart container and to…
Level 4 – The most notable addition to the enemy roster in this dungeon is the like like. The first time I played this game, I remember being so amused by being eaten by a like like that I didn’t bother to escape, and… well, it was less amusing when I finally did kill it and find my magic shield was gone. However, most of the level is vires, which makes the level frustrating because vires don’t drop anything if they split into keeses, and keeses don’t drop anything ever. And gleeoks are the best boss in the game despite the strategy for them basically being “get up close and go stabbitystabbitystabbity until it dies.” The treasure here is the stepladder, which means that heart container that’s been teasing Link from the ocean is finally within reach, which also means…
Master Using It and You Can Have This
The Mast… er, magic sword [3] is now available! Unlike the white sword, which you’re pretty clearly supposed to get before/after Level 3, there’s no obvious point for the magic sword. If you only get the heart containers from the dungeons, you won’t get enough for it; if you only get the obvious one on the dock to the east, it’ll finally become available right before Death Mountain. Around Level 6 feels the most natural, since you’re in the area anyway, and that requires getting 3-4 extra containers. I wonder why they tied sword acquisition to heart containers rather than Triforce pieces collected (probably some programming shortcut).
Saturday: The end of the first quest.
[1] The eternal paradox of gaming: If you know where to find all those little things that make your life easier, you probably don’t need them, at least not straight away.
[2] Red leevers move slowly in a straight line toward you, ropes charge, traps snap on you, aquamenti move slowly forward and back, and Ganon has a figure eight pattern.
[3] Are they the same sword? “The Master Sword sleeps again… forever!” from A Link to the Past’s epilogue seems to suggest not, but I don’t know [4].
[4] Actually, the white sword’s sprite looks kind of like the Master Sword…
Before Level 1 – That whole laundry list of items that can be got before the first dungeon that I cited in the last post? Yeah, I rounded up all of those. This takes a bunch of rupees – the blue ring alone costs 250 – so there’s a lot of time farming rupees to collect items. I still remember my old farming route, which spends most of its time traveling along the shores before looping back to the fairy fountain east of Level 1 and then back to the start. This route is kind of harsh without a magic shield because it means having to dodge zora beams in addition to everything else going on, but there’s also two heart containers along the way, and the letter isn’t far off the route.
Level 1 – The first level is designed to be run straight away. The aquamentus isn’t very hard to begin with, and with the magic shield it’s a joke. Add the blue ring and the white sword, and there’s nothing in this dungeon worth mentioning [1]. Well, except don’t get careless against the wallmasters or you’ll have to do it all over again. The boomerang drops here, and the bow is the treasure. The bow feels like I should use it more than I do, but the 1 rupee/shot cost makes it generally not feel useful, and the magic wand later outclasses it. The boomerang, on the other hand, is a great go-to B-button-item: it can kill some weak enemies, stun more enemies, and pick up items from halfway across the screen.
Level 2 – The first quest dungeons all have names based on their shape. Some are a bit abstract, but I can see them (eagle, lion). Some I can’t really tell, although the creatures they’re named for are long and skinny, so they can really be any shape (snake, lizard, dragon). The only three that I can really say I can see are moon, manji, and Death Mountain’s skull. Anyway, the goriyas now are blue and drop the magic boomerang; there’s no other treasure here. This dungeon also introduces moldorms, who seem to have flipped names with lanmolas at some point: the moldorms here fight on sand like the lanmolas from A Link to the Past, and lanmolas in this game have to be attacked from behind. And the boss is a dodongo, with the infamous “dislikes smoke” hint… which led me astray when I first played the game, because I was trying to kill it with the candle (smoke → fire → candle). The blue, one-shot-per-screen candle. Yeah, that didn’t work. Now, of course, I’m not satisfied trying to feed them bombs; I go for the harder stun-and-stab method.
Level 3 – The old man here hints to get the white sword, so at this point it no longer feels overpowered. This dungeon is also the introduction of darknuts, who I remember as being epically annoying… but on reflection, they’re really not that much worse than everything else. Very few enemies in this game move in any sort of predictable pattern [2]; what makes darknuts dangerous is when they suddenly turn toward you they’re immune to damage while unless you’re fast enough you’re going to get hit. Well, that and they’re immune to a lot of B-button-items. A room full of them can be difficult to find a safe place to attack from, but that’s why God invented bombs. Speaking of bombs and unpredictable patterns, manhandlas are either quickly dispatched with a one or two bombs, or frustratingly take forever. The treasure here is the raft, which neatly leads to a heart container and to…
Level 4 – The most notable addition to the enemy roster in this dungeon is the like like. The first time I played this game, I remember being so amused by being eaten by a like like that I didn’t bother to escape, and… well, it was less amusing when I finally did kill it and find my magic shield was gone. However, most of the level is vires, which makes the level frustrating because vires don’t drop anything if they split into keeses, and keeses don’t drop anything ever. And gleeoks are the best boss in the game despite the strategy for them basically being “get up close and go stabbitystabbitystabbity until it dies.” The treasure here is the stepladder, which means that heart container that’s been teasing Link from the ocean is finally within reach, which also means…
Master Using It and You Can Have This
The Mast… er, magic sword [3] is now available! Unlike the white sword, which you’re pretty clearly supposed to get before/after Level 3, there’s no obvious point for the magic sword. If you only get the heart containers from the dungeons, you won’t get enough for it; if you only get the obvious one on the dock to the east, it’ll finally become available right before Death Mountain. Around Level 6 feels the most natural, since you’re in the area anyway, and that requires getting 3-4 extra containers. I wonder why they tied sword acquisition to heart containers rather than Triforce pieces collected (probably some programming shortcut).
Saturday: The end of the first quest.
[1] The eternal paradox of gaming: If you know where to find all those little things that make your life easier, you probably don’t need them, at least not straight away.
[2] Red leevers move slowly in a straight line toward you, ropes charge, traps snap on you, aquamenti move slowly forward and back, and Ganon has a figure eight pattern.
[3] Are they the same sword? “The Master Sword sleeps again… forever!” from A Link to the Past’s epilogue seems to suggest not, but I don’t know [4].
[4] Actually, the white sword’s sprite looks kind of like the Master Sword…
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
The Legend of Zelda: Cryptic Old Man
Large, Open World
Compared to the later Zelda games I’ve played, the open world really stands out here. Aside from two screens only reachable by the raft, the whole map can be reached with no items. The magic shield, blue ring, blue candle, bombs, bait, letter and potions, three heart containers, white sword, and power bracelet are available without visiting any dungeons, leaving only two more heart containers and the magic sword to get later. Any of levels one, two, or three can be done first, and even level eight, although that requires skipping the magic key [1], which requires killing a gohma to access.
On the flip side, there’s no need to explore a good chunk of that open world. It’s rewarding to do so, of course, but I figure it’s possible to miss 25% of the overworld screens without particularly trying, and with a walkthrough/map and determination to see as little of the world as possible, probably seeing only half the world is needed to complete the game and get all the items. In the first quest, the Lost Woods can by bypassed by stepladdering across the river to get to the northeast part of the map. The second quest uses a bit more of the map, but that’s probably to be expected.
The Old Man
There isn’t much in the way of dialogue in this game, but so much of it is memorable [2].
“It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.”
Unless you skip the door on the first screen you see – which can only be because you haven’t developed a healthy “go in every door you see, you might find something neat” reflex yet or you’re trying a swordless run – this is the first old man quote you’ll see in the game. It’s one of the series’ most famous quotes, enough to have its own Wikipedia article, and spawning variants like a person holding out a kitten. And there’s I Wanna Be the Guy, which I haven’t even played and know about its take on it.
“Eastmost penninsula is the secret.”
This one stands out as odd for three reasons:
1. Peninsula is misspelled, which took me forever to notice.
2. It’s not a translation of the Japanese hint, which refers to how the bow won’t work if you don’t have rupees, at all, but an entirely new one.
3. Thirty years on, no one’s entirely sure what the hell it’s supposed to mean. After consideration, I think he’s pointing Link to the letter, an important item that’s a good way off the paths between the dungeons. Everything else in the overworld is in shops, hinted at elsewhere, or unnecessary (the power bracelet). Other common guesses are a hidden “secret to everybody” moblin in the far upper right corner and the eastern part of the dungeon where the boss and Triforce piece are; the latter interpretation doesn’t work for me because that’s what the compass is for.
“Secret power is said to be in the arrow.”
This one is also changed from the Japanese, but for good reason: pols voices’ weakness changed from making noise into the controller to shooting them with the bow. The person who wrote the manual didn’t get the memo on that, however, so the reference to pols voices hating loud noise remained.
It also comes very late in the dungeon; Link can bomb into the room from the last room with pols voices, which probably means after the hint he won’t see them again until level 8. No wonder I never connected this hint to their weakness instead of Ganon's.
“Dodongo dislikes smoke.”
“Digdogger hates certain kind of sound.”
“Aim at the eyes of Gohma.”
“Patra has the map.”
One consistent translation choice is to interpret enemy names as a single creature’s name rather than a species name, even though there’s more than one dodongo, digdogger, gohma, and patra. For some reason, “Dodongo dislikes smoke” achieved meme status, but IMO it’s the least weird out of all of these. “Certain kind of sound” is an odd phrase, at least without an article before it. Gohmas only have one eye. And the hint about patras is about three types of useless, although the one it replaced (“Destroy the topmost boundary”) is really not clear either.
“Ones who does not have Triforce can’t go in.”
“Eyes of skull has a secret.”
Despite his reputation, I thought most of the old man’s dialogue is fairly good, if sometimes stilted, English, but sometimes stuff like this happens. I know enough about Japanese to understand why, but it stands out.
“10th enemy has the bomb.”
Wow. This one is so obscure it took twenty years and people ripping apart the game to figure out what the hell he’s on about: If you defeat ten enemies without getting hit, the tenth drops 5 rupees unless you kill it with a bomb in which case it drops bombs. If you make it to sixteen, you get a fairy. And this confusing hint replaces a much more straightforward one about the magic key.
"It's a secret to everybody."
Okay, this isn't the old man, and it's not a hint, but I can't leave it out.
Next: The first quest begins.
[1] And fighting blue darknuts with the white sword, you masochist.
[2] I don't remember why I decided to break a bunch of quotes down like this rather than separately as they come up. I must have had a reason.
Compared to the later Zelda games I’ve played, the open world really stands out here. Aside from two screens only reachable by the raft, the whole map can be reached with no items. The magic shield, blue ring, blue candle, bombs, bait, letter and potions, three heart containers, white sword, and power bracelet are available without visiting any dungeons, leaving only two more heart containers and the magic sword to get later. Any of levels one, two, or three can be done first, and even level eight, although that requires skipping the magic key [1], which requires killing a gohma to access.
On the flip side, there’s no need to explore a good chunk of that open world. It’s rewarding to do so, of course, but I figure it’s possible to miss 25% of the overworld screens without particularly trying, and with a walkthrough/map and determination to see as little of the world as possible, probably seeing only half the world is needed to complete the game and get all the items. In the first quest, the Lost Woods can by bypassed by stepladdering across the river to get to the northeast part of the map. The second quest uses a bit more of the map, but that’s probably to be expected.
The Old Man
There isn’t much in the way of dialogue in this game, but so much of it is memorable [2].
“It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.”
Unless you skip the door on the first screen you see – which can only be because you haven’t developed a healthy “go in every door you see, you might find something neat” reflex yet or you’re trying a swordless run – this is the first old man quote you’ll see in the game. It’s one of the series’ most famous quotes, enough to have its own Wikipedia article, and spawning variants like a person holding out a kitten. And there’s I Wanna Be the Guy, which I haven’t even played and know about its take on it.
“Eastmost penninsula is the secret.”
This one stands out as odd for three reasons:
1. Peninsula is misspelled, which took me forever to notice.
2. It’s not a translation of the Japanese hint, which refers to how the bow won’t work if you don’t have rupees, at all, but an entirely new one.
3. Thirty years on, no one’s entirely sure what the hell it’s supposed to mean. After consideration, I think he’s pointing Link to the letter, an important item that’s a good way off the paths between the dungeons. Everything else in the overworld is in shops, hinted at elsewhere, or unnecessary (the power bracelet). Other common guesses are a hidden “secret to everybody” moblin in the far upper right corner and the eastern part of the dungeon where the boss and Triforce piece are; the latter interpretation doesn’t work for me because that’s what the compass is for.
“Secret power is said to be in the arrow.”
This one is also changed from the Japanese, but for good reason: pols voices’ weakness changed from making noise into the controller to shooting them with the bow. The person who wrote the manual didn’t get the memo on that, however, so the reference to pols voices hating loud noise remained.
It also comes very late in the dungeon; Link can bomb into the room from the last room with pols voices, which probably means after the hint he won’t see them again until level 8. No wonder I never connected this hint to their weakness instead of Ganon's.
“Dodongo dislikes smoke.”
“Digdogger hates certain kind of sound.”
“Aim at the eyes of Gohma.”
“Patra has the map.”
One consistent translation choice is to interpret enemy names as a single creature’s name rather than a species name, even though there’s more than one dodongo, digdogger, gohma, and patra. For some reason, “Dodongo dislikes smoke” achieved meme status, but IMO it’s the least weird out of all of these. “Certain kind of sound” is an odd phrase, at least without an article before it. Gohmas only have one eye. And the hint about patras is about three types of useless, although the one it replaced (“Destroy the topmost boundary”) is really not clear either.
“Ones who does not have Triforce can’t go in.”
“Eyes of skull has a secret.”
Despite his reputation, I thought most of the old man’s dialogue is fairly good, if sometimes stilted, English, but sometimes stuff like this happens. I know enough about Japanese to understand why, but it stands out.
“10th enemy has the bomb.”
Wow. This one is so obscure it took twenty years and people ripping apart the game to figure out what the hell he’s on about: If you defeat ten enemies without getting hit, the tenth drops 5 rupees unless you kill it with a bomb in which case it drops bombs. If you make it to sixteen, you get a fairy. And this confusing hint replaces a much more straightforward one about the magic key.
"It's a secret to everybody."
Okay, this isn't the old man, and it's not a hint, but I can't leave it out.
Next: The first quest begins.
[1] And fighting blue darknuts with the white sword, you masochist.
[2] I don't remember why I decided to break a bunch of quotes down like this rather than separately as they come up. I must have had a reason.
Monday, July 2, 2018
The Legend of Zelda: Introduction and Story
Introduction
A year or so ago, someone asked me if I played the Legend of Zelda series, and I said I did when I was younger but hadn’t played any since A Link to the Past. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that, and a while back I picked up and played Link’s Awakening. And now I’ve decided to revisit the series from its roots.
Beyond Link’s Awakening, I know:
The Legend of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda is one of the games I remember watching my next-door neighbor/best friend, who introduced me to Nintendo, playing back before my family got a NES at Christmas 1988. Shortly after we got the NES, the game was one of the first ones we rented from the local video store, and… honestly, I think my dad liked it even more than I did, because it was only about three days after it had to go back that we had our very own copy of the game. I don’t remember spending much time on this game then. I beat it, sure, both quests, but then it was on to the next new shiny [3]. (Which I think was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.) But every time I’ve come back to the NES, this has been the first game I’d pick up.
The Story
“Princess Zelda has been kidnapped by Ganon.
“Are you a bad enough Link to rescue the princess?” [4]
No, that’s not quite right. It’s not exactly wrong, either, but the game’s story is fun enough that it deserves to be quoted.
“Many years ago Prince Darkness ‘Gannon’ stole one of the Triforce with power. Princess Zelda had one of the Triforce with wisdom. She divided it into ‘8’ units to hide it from ‘Gannon’ before she was captured.
“Go find the ‘8’ units ‘Link’ to save her.”
To be fair, back in the NES era story really didn’t matter that much. Usually, it was tucked away in the manual with the assumption people might read it once, forget it if they did, and gleefully stomp turtles and mushrooms to rescue Princess Toadstool [5] without a care as to what’s actually going on. Sure, there were exceptions. I remember Ninja Gaiden’s cutscenes being a fairly big deal. But generally, it was “You’re the good guy, go smash the bad guys,” and we liked it.
The manual has a little more on the story, about how Impa was sent by Zelda to find a hero, and she found Link [6]. But that’s about all there is, and the game doesn’t throw any sidequests or plot twists or princesses in another castle; it’s just find the eight pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom, go to Death Mountain, beat Ganon, and rescue Zelda.
The biggest surprise to me about the Japanese version of the game is that the intro is exactly the same, in English. Which might explain why the English stands out as being particularly bad compared to the rest of the game’s text; the Japanese text was translated, but this was already in English, so they left it alone. That probably also explains the “Gannon” spelling.
Next: I poke at some of the cryptic old man’s hints.
[1] This is currently my phone’s text alert sound.
[2] About twelve hours later, I realized that LoJack is the same goddamn pun. Twentysome years, and I only realized it now.
[3] Which wasn't as shiny as the Legend of Zelda's gold cartridge, admittedly.
[4] I realize I’m mashing up the arcade and NES versions here. I wanted to include Zelda’s name, but to me the “rescue the president” version of the quote is more memorable. So I did this as a compromise.
[5] As she was known then.
[6] Or, perhaps more accurately, the other way around.
A year or so ago, someone asked me if I played the Legend of Zelda series, and I said I did when I was younger but hadn’t played any since A Link to the Past. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that, and a while back I picked up and played Link’s Awakening. And now I’ve decided to revisit the series from its roots.
Beyond Link’s Awakening, I know:
- The general shape of the timeline. It fractured into three around the events of Ocarina of Time. All the games I’ve played are set in the same offshoot, in the following order:
- A Link to the Past (Link I, Zelda I, Ganon)
- Link’s Awakening (Link I, no Zelda unless you count Marin, Ganon only as a form assumed by final boss)
- Backstory of The Adventure of Link (no Link, Zelda II [“Sleeping Zelda”], no Ganon)
- The Legend of Zelda (Link II, Zelda III, Ganon)
- The Adventure of Link (Link II, Zelda II (III gets a couple mentions in the manual, but otherwise doesn’t appear), Ganon only when Link fails).
- There’s a character called Sheik who’s totally not Zelda in disguise.
- Navi says, “Hey! Listen!” [1]
- There’s a character called Tingle, who is… erm, not beloved. I’ve seen pictures of him, and all I can think is Roberto Benigni playing Pinocchio… which probably explains why that is.
- A Link Between Worlds has Hyrule's Mirror Universe version… Lorule [2].
- I’ve played the start of Four Swords (into gameplay, but not very far) and Breath of the Wild (I did the bomb rune shrine).
- I’ve played some of Hyrule Warriors, so I’ll probably recognize some of those people when they show up. And I don’t recognize that game’s version of Impa at all.
The Legend of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda is one of the games I remember watching my next-door neighbor/best friend, who introduced me to Nintendo, playing back before my family got a NES at Christmas 1988. Shortly after we got the NES, the game was one of the first ones we rented from the local video store, and… honestly, I think my dad liked it even more than I did, because it was only about three days after it had to go back that we had our very own copy of the game. I don’t remember spending much time on this game then. I beat it, sure, both quests, but then it was on to the next new shiny [3]. (Which I think was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.) But every time I’ve come back to the NES, this has been the first game I’d pick up.
The Story
“Princess Zelda has been kidnapped by Ganon.
“Are you a bad enough Link to rescue the princess?” [4]
No, that’s not quite right. It’s not exactly wrong, either, but the game’s story is fun enough that it deserves to be quoted.
“Many years ago Prince Darkness ‘Gannon’ stole one of the Triforce with power. Princess Zelda had one of the Triforce with wisdom. She divided it into ‘8’ units to hide it from ‘Gannon’ before she was captured.
“Go find the ‘8’ units ‘Link’ to save her.”
To be fair, back in the NES era story really didn’t matter that much. Usually, it was tucked away in the manual with the assumption people might read it once, forget it if they did, and gleefully stomp turtles and mushrooms to rescue Princess Toadstool [5] without a care as to what’s actually going on. Sure, there were exceptions. I remember Ninja Gaiden’s cutscenes being a fairly big deal. But generally, it was “You’re the good guy, go smash the bad guys,” and we liked it.
The manual has a little more on the story, about how Impa was sent by Zelda to find a hero, and she found Link [6]. But that’s about all there is, and the game doesn’t throw any sidequests or plot twists or princesses in another castle; it’s just find the eight pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom, go to Death Mountain, beat Ganon, and rescue Zelda.
The biggest surprise to me about the Japanese version of the game is that the intro is exactly the same, in English. Which might explain why the English stands out as being particularly bad compared to the rest of the game’s text; the Japanese text was translated, but this was already in English, so they left it alone. That probably also explains the “Gannon” spelling.
Next: I poke at some of the cryptic old man’s hints.
[1] This is currently my phone’s text alert sound.
[2] About twelve hours later, I realized that LoJack is the same goddamn pun. Twentysome years, and I only realized it now.
[3] Which wasn't as shiny as the Legend of Zelda's gold cartridge, admittedly.
[4] I realize I’m mashing up the arcade and NES versions here. I wanted to include Zelda’s name, but to me the “rescue the president” version of the quote is more memorable. So I did this as a compromise.
[5] As she was known then.
[6] Or, perhaps more accurately, the other way around.
Monday, January 1, 2018
The Legend of Zelda: Table of Contents
An index of posts on The Legend of Zelda, the first game in the series.
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