Kokiri Forest
Saria says that while Mido’s being a jerk about it, he has a point about Link needing equipment. She tells him he can buy shields from the village store, and that there’s only one sword for him, hidden somewhere in the forest. The shields in the store cost 40 rupees, so Link has to round that up, and getting the sword makes that faster, so let’s get that first. In the training area, there’s a small tunnel Link can crawl through. On the other side is a big rolling ball, and a chest with the Kokiri Sword, and 10 rupees hidden among the grass. After that, there’s little to do but wander around the village and grabbing all the rupees, robbing and vandalizing the village Link lives in. It feels weird, except when stealing the rupees from Mido’s house, because if Mido weren’t being such a jerk, there’d be no need for this.
Kokiri Forest is clearly set up as a tutorial area, with the other Kokiri and signposts explaining how to use various game mechanics. A lot of this focuses on combat and the target locking system, which is good because a lot of it’s quite different from how the previous, 2D games have worked. As for Mido, I don’t know if him styling himself “the Great Mido, Boss of the Kokiri” has any actual weight to it or people just let him tell them what to do, but at any rate he was able to get a couple of the others into doing chores for him: picking up rocks and cutting the grass, which are designed to teach Link he can do these things too [1].
Anyway, Link eventually rounds up enough rupees and goes to the shop and buys a shield. Mido’s surprised that Link has a shield and especially the Kokiri sword, which doesn’t improve his demeanor. He calls Link a wimp, tells him he’ll never be a real Kokiri, and complains about Link being Saria’s favorite as well as the one the Deku tree wants to talk to. He does let Link pass, finally going off with a goriyaesque “grumble… grumble….” Link has to fight a couple weak enemies on the path, and then he finally meets the Deku Tree. The Tree tells him that the nightmares he’s been having are a result of the evil spreading throughout the land, and that the Tree itself is cursed. Link can break the curse, if he enters the Tree, and we have our first dungeon.
Inside the Deku Tree
The first dungeon is more about puzzle-solving than combat; most of the enemies pose little to no threat, and are only dangerous because they constantly respawn, although that also means an unlimited supply of useful items like Deku seeds and sticks. About the only enemy that isn’t generally tied to a single location are the gohma spawn – gosh, I wonder what the end boss of this dungeon is going to be – otherwise everything stays more or less where they are, so Link only has to kill them if he needs to get past them or needs their items.
The dungeon is a departure from earlier games; the multiple levels are more continuous, with Link needing to climb vines and ladders to go up, and at one point needing to jump from the top level to fall through to the basement levels. The puzzles range from being easy to grasp, like needing to light a torch when there’s a burning torch next to it, to ones where I discovered the solution by accident, like the previously mentioned falling from the top floor through the spider webs [2]. The treasure is the fairy slingshot, giving Link a ranged weapon, which is needed to knock some skullwalltulas out of the way so Link can continue his climb.
There are three special enemies in the dungeon called gold skulltulas, who for whatever reason drop tokens as proof that Link killed them. They also seem to be immune to locking on, so Link has to carefully aim his attacks at them [3]. The end boss, as hinted at, is a queen gohma, and this is where a couple features I recognize from Hyrule Warriors were introduced to the series: bosses get
an introductory cutscene with an identifying title – the gohma’s is “parasitic armored arachnid” – and taking the shot to the weak spot stuns her and Link has to run over and stab her until she’s dead. Link gets a hint about the latter, so it’s not a shock to do it that way. This gohma’s an upgrade from the ones in The Legend of Zelda, but still pretty easy to kill after working out the timing of when her eye’s vulnerable.
The gohma leaves behind a heart container, which Link grabs, and then he takes a portal back to the surface. The Deku Tree thanks Link for what he’s done and fills in some bits of the story. He talks about the origins of the world and the Triforce, and how now an evil desert man – the same man from Link’s nightmares, who I see no point in pretending I don’t know is Ganon [4] – is seeking the Triforce and put a death curse on the Deku Tree to try to get an emerald he was protecting. Link is entrusted with the emerald, charged with making sure Ganon can’t find the Triforce or Sacred Realm, and told to seek out the princess at Hyrule Castle. The Deku Tree asks Navi to help Link along his journey and says goodbye to her before dying.
Mido blocks the way back to the village and blames Link for the Deku Tree’s death. The other Kokiri, however, seem saddened by Link’s imminent departure. Saria’s not in the village, because she knows Link’s going to be leaving and is waiting to say goodbye on the bridge out of town. She says she knew Link would leave someday, but asks that he remember her and come back to visit. She gives him an ocarina, and Link pauses for a moment, trying to figure out what to say before remembering he never gets to say anything [5] and just runs away toward adventure before he loses his nerve.
Next: Oh, crap, guess hoo's back.
[1] No power bracelet/glove needed here! Well, yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if one does come up eventually.
[2] I accidentally wiped my save, so I had to play this twice. Even knowing what to do here, it took me a bunch of tries to line up the perfect landing here.
[3] I’m getting better at the controls and didn’t even bother with Z-targeting the skullwalltulas; just aimed and shot with the slingshot.
[4] I could be wrong and it’s not Ganon. Or I could be wrong and right and it’s Agahnim Mk. II.
[5] Joking aside, he did seem to answer Mido’s challenge about not having equipment. (“You’re right. I don’t have my equipment ready, but…”)
