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.
