Cleansing the Sea
Before Link sets out for the next dungeon, he can explore the seas better with the mermaid suit allowing better swimming and the ability to dive to see how things are different on the ocean floor. Near Crescent Island in the past, he can find a tokay in a cave with a shield he found that he was holding for the owner. He’s been waiting a long time, and while he was waiting he polished it into being an upgrade for Link’s shield, which since he’s gotten the iron shield via secrets, it becomes the mirror shield. I’m inclined to think that this is not Link’s original shield, but, heck, it could be. Also, after an underwater maze, Link can find the final heart piece.
The Zoras in Labrynna live in the southwest corner of the map, and getting there, even with the mermaid suit is difficult because Veran’s dark magic has poisoned that area of the sea. The path requires switching between surface and underwater and traveling between past and future, and fortunately there’s a gale seed tree near the entrance of the village in both eras, so once Link makes it once, he can quicktravel back. The poisoned water has made the zora king ill, so Link gives him a potion he picked up from an encounter with Maple, which cures him. He tells Link the “fish” he’s looking for is Jabu-Jabu, but as long as the water is poisoned, entrance is denied. He gives Link a key to the zora library, in case he wants to try to cleanse the seas.
Also in the zora village, Link gets the final secret from a former pupil of Holodrum’s Sunken City’s master diver. The message is for their shared mentor, who challenges Link to a new test: swim through a maze and recover the item in 30 seconds or less. This one’s almost as tough as the boomerang lawn mowing, and the reward’s even sillier. It’s a ring that grants increased swimming speed, which would have been nice to have while trying to complete the trial.
En route to the library, Link finds a great fairy in the past, who’s been transformed into an octorok by Veran’s magic. She asks Link to find fairy dust to cure her condition. In the future library, Link finds a book that was once a part of a set. He takes it to the past library, where the book and the rest of the set give directions for navigating a room with invisible floors over a giant pit. Once Link has successfully navigated the whole path, the old man at the end gives him the fairy dust he needs. Once cured, the great fairy gets to work cleansing the seas, which affects both past and future, and convinces the zora king to allow Link to enter Jabu-Jabu.
Jabu-Jabu’s Belly
Being a water dungeon is already a strike against Jabu-Jabu’s Belly, and the mermaid suit controls do nothing to help with that. One additional frustration that comes up during the dungeon is that while Link’s underwater in top-down areas, the B button is hard-set to “surface,” meaning he can’t use whatever item is set to that slot, leaving him with only one. The dungeon’s layout doesn’t do it any favors, with the standard water dungeon trick of raising and lowering the water level to progress; the floor that needs to be flooded/drained most is the bottom floor, while the buttons that control the water level are on the top floor, so a lot of backtracking between the two extreme floors is required, even if you know what you’re doing – far from a guarantee the first time you visit.
The dungeon’s bosses are easy, seemingly in apology for the dungeon’s difficulty. The miniboss is another Angler Fish; it’s actually a little harder than the one in Link’s Awakening, but that’s not saying much. The room where Link fights it doesn’t have water, so the Angler Fish bounces around the room; if Link hits it with a scent seed, it flops to the ground, giving Link several free shots at it. The Angler Fish guards the dungeon’s treasure, the long hook, an extended switch hook. The final boss, Plasmarine, has red and blue forms, and shoots energy attacks in the color of its current form. Link uses the switch hook to simultaneously change its color, making it vulnerable to its own attack, and drag it into the path of its attack. After a short fight, Link claims the seventh essence, the Rolling Sea.
Next: The bonus dungeon.
