As Link works his way through the canyon, Tatl will sometimes feel uneasy, sensing a nearby Garo ninja. If Link puts on the Deku Mask, the ninja will attack him, and leave a hint about the surrounding area. I probably did this more than I should have; getting to the next dungeon requires a lot of work and I didn’t think to have the Inverted Song of Time running from the start. On the other hand, some of those tips were lifesavers.
The main part of Ikana Canyon has a house surrounded by gibdos, a castle whose entrance proclaims it can’t be breached, a dry river bed leading to a cave, and the entrances to the fairy fountain and the next area. In the cave, Link finds Sharp, who begins playing a song whose music harms Link. Link fulfills Flat’s request and plays the Song of Storms, easing Sharp’s pain and refilling the river. The river turns a wheel at the house, which causes the pipes on top to begin playing a cheerful carousel music piece that causes the gibdos to turn to dust.
As Link approaches the house, a girl sees him and locks herself inside and refuses to talk to him. Link waits for her to leave again, and sneaks in once she’s gone. In the basement, he finds the girl’s father, who’s about half turned into a gibdo himself. Link plays the Song of Healing for him, breaking the curse, leading to a nice scene between father and daughter. As they hug, Link takes the gibdo mask left behind by curing the man, and heads out for the next objective.
At the top of the canyon is a well Link can go down. Inside is a maze filled with gibdos who want various items. Most of them can be found somewhere in the well, but two have to be brought in: a blue potion to go north, or five magic beans to go east. There’s actually a fairy fountain down here, although given how annoying it is to get to, I’ll stick with gathering the fairies near owl statues. The prize down here is the mirror shield, which has been significantly redesigned from Ocarina of Time to have a rather unhappy-looking face that gets projected on the wall when it reflects sunlight. The sunlight trick is needed to escape the well, into Ikana Castle’s courtyard.
Just inside Ikana Castle is a group of ReDeads. One of the Garo ninjas said they used to be a dance troupe, and if Link wears the gibdo mask around them, they dance harmlessly rather than screaming and hugging the life out of him. There are two paths, north and south. The north path is all pathing puzzles for Deku Link. When he gets on the roof, there’s a heart piece he can grab with some quick Dekucoptering, and a switch to step on to help on the southern path. The southern path is more combat-intensive, with the return of floormasters and another wizzrobe fight.
A powder keg is needed to shine the light in the main room to allow Link to open the way to the final boss fight against the late King of Ikana. The king closes the blinds and sends his guards to fight Link; Link burns the blinds away with a fire arrow, stuns the guards with his sword, and shines the light on them to destroy them. Then the king comes down, and it’s pretty much the same except he hits harder and takes more hits to stun. After Link wins, the guards start squabbling over whose fault their defeat was, but the king is glad to be free, and teaches Link the Elegy of Emptiness, the last song, which he’ll need to enter the dungeon in the area and fully break the curse on Ikana. The song lets Link leave a creepy statue of himself behind, and he can apparently use it in each of his transformed forms to leave up to four statues.
With the Elegy of Emptiness, Link is ready to begin his ascent of Stone Tower. There are falling rocks to avoid and beamos to avoid and blow up, and the main feature is zipping around with the hookshot and stepping on buttons to move blocks to create a path across the pit. The switches require Link’s weight to stay down, so he has to use the Elegy of Emptiness to put a goron, zora, and human statue on each set. (Deku Link is too light to press buttons, and so is its statue.) After two puzzles, Link reaches the top of the tower where there’s an owl statue and one last button/statue/block puzzle. After figuring out the button configuration and jumping across the blocks to make sure I know what to do when I tackle the dungeon for real, Link played the Song of Time.
Next: The world turns upside-down.
