The Eastern Temple borrows a lot of its look from the Eastern Palace of A Link to the Past, and reuses the Light World dungeon theme from that game. The layout is nothing similar, except that both are winding mazes of rooms. Some enemies and hazards are familiar from the Eastern Palace, like Stalfos that jump away from Link when he attacks and the rolling balls that Link needs to dodge, hide from, and/or find a way around. Wizzrobes make their first appearance here. Also, our old friend the spinning floor tile trap makes its triumphant return, increasing the difficulty by not stopping after the tiles are all used up. No, then the rest of the room’s furniture – pots, treasure chests, and even the giant statues – start spinning and flying at Link.
The ghostly hint givers return; the one that shows up this time tells the Links to use a Moon Pearl to bypass a giant cascade of the rolling balls. In the Dark World, there are fewer balls, making it easier for the Links to cross to the other side of the room. There’s a long sequence of hidden doors, entirely within the GBA interface. Near the end of the dungeons, the Links can find a Big Key, which is used to open a double treasure chest to reveal a giant Force Gem worth 1000. Along with the giant pile of Force Gems that also appear in the room with the chest, there’s little excuse for leaving that room without the Four Sword powered up.
The boss of the palace is Stone Arrghus, a rocky version of Arrghus from A Link to the Past’s Swamp Palace. There are boomerangs in the pits of the boss room, which the Links can use in lieu of the hookshot to pull eyes off the boss and kill them. The boss gets stunned when hit by the sword, letting the Links pile on and quickly rack up damage, which makes the post-eyes phase faster than the original Arrghus. Once it’s dead, the Links rescue the second maiden, who says that Vaati is probably using the Palace of Winds that he built during his rampage in Four Swords as his headquarters. She guesses that one of the maidens is being held in her domain, Death Mountain, and the Tower of Flames. Like the other maiden, she breaks her crystal prison and turns into a fairy to guide the Links.
When the Links arrive in the Death Mountain Foothills, a nearby sign declares them to be wanted men, with soldiers attacking them on sight. Buzz Blobs also show up, requiring Link to stun them before attacking (or use ranged attacks) if he doesn’t want to get electrocuted, and I just now realized that yellow ChuChus are basically the same enemy. After the Links has a chance to get acquainted with them, the next screen has a tremendous number of them. They can take them on, but the intended design is to explore the screen and find a bombos medallion which will blow them all up.
Also returning from A Link to the Past are Deadrocks, which still temporarily turn into stone when attacked, only without being knocked back, which is both a boon (where they freeze is predictable) and an annoyance (it’s impossible to knock them out of the Links’ path). The first set is unkillable, but then the Links come to a house that’s been designed to be pushed around, spouting fire as it goes. Deadrocks run over by the house or caught in the flames die, and when all the ones on screen are dead, a bunch of hammers, which can also kill the Deadrocks, show up. The hammers can also be charged up to create a shockwave.
Toward the end of the level, the Links fight a bunch of Hinox. They throw rocks instead of bombs, but the main threat is their damage output. They hit hard and tend to knock Force Gems out of whichever Link they hit, and they can also grab a Link and strangle big enough numbers of Gems out of him to attract Tingle. The Links first fight a single Hinox, then three at once, then face like twenty of them. They’re not expected to actually fight the last group, but to find a cave with the second medallion type, quake, use it to turn the Hinox into harmless Zols, then Hurricane Spin over all of them.
Earlier in the stage, the Links were told about a Lost Woods-esque area called Hebra’s Hill, which the only way through is to stay focused on the destination – i.e., keep going upward. Once through the area, they face the stage’s boss, a Great Soldier with a couple big groups of normal soldiers on call. Once they’re all defeated, the way into Death Mountain proper is clear.
Next: Up the mountain.
