The first of the two temples Link will explore is the Earth Temple, beneath Headstone Island. With the power bracelets, Link can lift the giant stone out of the way of the cave and enter. Inside, he finds a small shrine with notation that indicates how to conduct the wind to activate the shrine. Link conducts the melody, the Earth God’s Lyric, which awakens the spirit of the sage, a Zora named Laruto. As expected, she was killed by Ganon, and now a new sage needs to come to the Earth Temple to repower the Master Sword. The hint she gives is that it’s her descendant, who plays the same harp she played.
During Link’s latest visits to Dragon Roost Island for pictographs, Medli’s been playing that harp. So – the Zoras evolved into the Rito? One would think they would flourish in a flooded Hyrule, but apparently, they had to change to survive. Anyway, Link returns to the island and finds Medli still playing the harp. He takes out the Wind Waker and conducts her in playing the Earth God’s Lyric, causing her to enter a dream state, meet Laruto, and awaken as the new earth sage. With some sadness, she leaves with Link to go to the temple to take up her duties. As they disembark to head into the dungeon, the King of Red Lions speaks to her, telling her how she can help Link through the dungeon – which advises the player on how to use her abilities.
The dungeon is a mix of Ocarina of Time’s Shadow and Spirit Temples. Returning enemies include Floormasters, who grab at Link and send him back to an earlier point in the dungeon; Poes, who are intangible until light shines on them and love to grab Link and make his controls go all wonky; ReDeads, only now Link doesn’t have a song to freeze them or a mask to make them harmlessly dance; and Stalfos, who split into their component bones when they take enough damage and reform unless the skull is destroyed. The first Stalfos is the miniboss, but more appear later. There’s also a new type of ChuChu – this one’s basically invincible, but petrifies in the light and can be smashed, or more usefully, used to hold down a switch (until the ChuChu reanimates, anyway).
The two signature mechanics of the dungeon are escorting Medli (and switching to controlling her via the Command Melody [1]) and reflecting light. Until Link finds the mirror shield, Medli’s the only one who can reflect light, needed to open doors, disperse fog, and reveal treasure chests. Later puzzles require Link to position her to shine light in one place while he shines light in another. She can also help him by flying to places he can’t reach and carrying him when she flies for short distances. The good news is that the basic escort mechanics have improved since Ruto in Jabu-Jabu’s Belly. She’s fine if left alone, there’s no need to worry about her drowning, and… well, she’s interested in being helpful. The bad news is the mechanics of controlling her are frustrating. Worst is that the button to control her light reflection is not the same as the button to control Link’s; trying Link's button while controlling Medli returns control to Link, meaning he probably has to play the Command Melody again. Also, because Medli can fly, she’s incapable of climbing, and if she drops more than six inches she goes into soaring mode. I actually like the dungeon, and Medli’s awesome, but the control mechanisms required to get through get old fast.
Like the dungeon itself, Jalhalla sounds great on paper, but is frustrating to actually fight. Jalhalla is a mask that absorbs the essence of a bunch of Poes in the room and turns into a giant Poe, so Link needs to reflect light onto him, causing him to become solid. Then Link needs to throw him into a spiky section of the wall, breaking him down into the component Poes who can be individually killed. The problem is the light sources are temporary – there’s always at least one, but the locations can move with no notice – and so it’s possible that, as happened during my fight, Link has to run back and forth across the room from light to light, only for it to disappear before doing enough damage to Jalhalla. The time Link has to deal with the Poes seems arbitrary, too – sometimes I got enough time to easily kill a bunch of them, sometimes Jalhalla reformed after I got only one or two hits in. The Hurricane Spin was invented for this fight, though; it’s a lot of fun whirling Link around and cutting down the Poes.
Once all the ghosts are destroyed, the mask realizes it’s vulnerable and tries to escape. It gets caught in a beam of light, falls to the floor, and shatters as the Triforce design on the floor starts to glow. Medli enters the chamber, and Link conducts her one last time, with the Master Sword sitting in the Triforce design. Laruto’s spirit joins in, and I finally connected their melody with the title theme’s melody. As Link lifts the Master Sword again, some of its power returns, and the wings unfold. Medli promises to stay in the temple and pray to continue powering the sword while Link powers up the other temple; as Link starts to teleport out, she asks Link to look after Komali. Link found two treasure charts in the dungeon, and can use them to claim 200 rupees and a piece of heart.
Next: It’s like a Lanmola and a sarlacc had a baby.
[1] For a while, I thought it was the Command Medley, and was quite amused at the thought of using the Command Medley to command Medli.
