Oracle of Ages: Mermaid's Cave

Goron Games
The goron minigames on Rolling Ridge form a little trading sequence that Link needs to complete to get access to the next dungeon.

• Target Carts (Future): Link shoots the targets from a moving cart to acquire a rock brisket, which he’ll trade to the hungry goron for his heirloom vase. He then takes the vase to the goron’s ancestor in the past and trades it for Goronade.
• Shooting Gallery (Past): Link deflects a ball shot from a cannon to destroy statues (there’s a similar game in Lynna Village). He can win lava juice on the first try. On a second try, with a high enough score, Link can get a boomerang.
• Big Bang Game (Future): Link needs to give the game operator the Goronade to be able to play here. The game involves riding on currents and dodging bombs; much easier with Pegasus seeds and the roc’s feather. Link wins one of the keys he needs, the Old Mermaid Key.
• Dancing (Past): A goron in the past will recognize the key as the same one the past’s Graceful Goron (the goron running the dancing game) has. Link needs the key, so he trades the lava juice for a letter. After receiving the letter, the Graceful Goron challenges Link to show mastery of the dancing game before he hands over the key.

With both keys, Link can enter Mermaid’s Cave. This dungeon exists in both eras, each version has its own map and compass. Link first visits the past version of the dungeon to fully clear the path for him to explore in the future; it doesn’t make much sense sometimes, like when he can bomb through a wall in the past to open a passage in the future but couldn’t bomb through the same wall in the future even though the future dungeon’s generally not in as good repair, but, oh well. The future version has a puzzle where Link needs to use scent seeds for their intended purpose – luring monsters to their deaths – and just in case the player’s forgotten they have a purpose beyond basic ammo for the slingshot/seed shooter, there’s an owl statue there as a reminder.

The main purpose of the future dungeon is for Link to fight the miniboss – Vire, repeating the fight from Oracle of Seasons in his final appearance – and get the treasure, the mermaid suit, which lets Link swim faster and deeper. It also completely rearranges the swimming controls, and while swimming is much faster with the suit, it also requires constantly mashing the D-pad to even move. It’s not a good tradeoff. Anyway, with the mermaid suit, Link returns to the past, and confronts the dungeon boss, Octogon. Octogon fights above and below the water in the room, requiring Link to dive underwater periodically to shoot it and force it back to the surface. Link claims the sixth essence, the Lonely Peak. The Maku Tree, instead of pointing Link to the next one, says that Ambi has left her tower, so now might be a good chance to rescue Nayru.

Link vs. Veran, Round 1

When Link shows up at the tower to begin the rescue attempt, Ralph’s there, saying he’ll be the one to do it. He mentions a secret passage before charging off. The guards on the palace grounds will throw Link out if they catch him, and so begins the forced stealth section. Opening the passage requires hitting buttons in the four corners of the palace grounds and then swimming through deep water. Once inside, Link can fight off the guards rather than sneak by them, and ultimately comes to confront Veranayru. Mystery seeds temporarily can knock Veran out of Nayru’s body, and then Link can use the switch hook to separate the two so he can attack Veran without harming Nayru. After enough of this, Nayru is free. Unfortunately, Ambi returns to the tower at just the wrong moment and Veran possesses her instead. Ralph charges in, and Nayru brings him, Link, and herself back to the future.

Everything Veran did while possessing Nayru is undone, but everyone knows she’s still out there, so there’s still work to do. Nayru teaches Link the Tune of Ages (AKA Tune of Time), which lets him freely travel between the two eras and makes the other two tunes irrelevant. Twinrova swoops in to taunt Link about how little he’s actually done to thwart them, and how their plan to resurrect Ganon is still on pace. Ralph goes back to the past and Nayru back to her house, and the Maku Tree tells Link that the next essence seems to be inside a fish.

Next: Oh, boy, a water dungeon, made extra fun by the wonderful mermaid suit controls.