The Pyramid makes up for the Desert Temple’s simple structure: it’s full of traps, puzzles, twisty rooms to find the way through, and the like. And of course, you can’t have a pyramid without mummies, so the Gibdos are out in full force. Unlike the Gibdos encountered in the desert, most of the ones encountered here simply die rather than retreat to the Dark World as Stalfos; the only exception is one miniboss encounter with four of them that requires shifting to the Dark World to finish them off. (And then coming back to the Light World to get the Force Gem reward before exploring the Dark World more. Oops.)
Near the end of the Pyramid, there’s a puzzle where the intended solution is hitting a set of switches to bring out the platforms that will let the Links walk across a gap, then entering the room again and adjusting the switches to activate the platforms for a second gap. I’ve gotten decent at tossing a Link across gaps, though, so I was able to skip most of the first half of the puzzle, only realizing after going back into the switch room what I’d done. Also, this was the first time I saw a use for the ability to close the GBA window on the screen, so that I could see what platforms were out with the switches and which weren’t.
The final boss of the Pyramid level is Moldorm, with the added twist that its tail’s color indicates which Link can harm it. In many ways, it’s less frustrating than previous incarnations have been. Sure, it’s a fight on a platform that the Links can get knocked off of, but getting knocked off doesn’t reset the fight, so it’s still frustrating to have to work the way back up the platform again, but far better than it was. The tradeoff comes when it reaches about 50% health, when it splits into two Moldorms, which quickly crowd the platform.
Once the Moldorms are down, the Links advance to the next room to find a trident that grants its wielder destructive power has been stolen. The maiden-fairy realizes it’s Ganon who stole the trident, and speculates that he may be the true power behind everything that’s happened. Gee, it’s not like this has been hinted at for the last two chapters. When the Links free the next maiden, she calls for the other five to join her in locating Princess Zelda. They contact her telepathically, and she says she’s in the Tower of Winds before a male voice laughs and contact is cut off. The maidens all turn back into fairies to Lead the Links to Frozen Hyrule.
Frozen Hyrule is right next to the desert on the map, but that’s okay, its condition is caused by evil magic. The music in this area is a remix of A Link to the Past’s Dark World theme, which perfectly fits for an area of cursed winter. The maiden-fairies note that the Tower of Winds has disappeared, and go ahead to guard where it should be, leaving the Links to find the fourth jewel in the hopes that doing so will make the Tower come back. Throughout the early parts of the level are frozen Force Gems, and as the Links go deeper they find walls made of ice, so getting a Fire Rod to melt the ice is the first goal. Getting the Fire Rod involves passing through an area of blizzard conditions, which hurt Link if he’s caught in the worst of it; fortunately, there are lots of holes he can fall into to wait out the winds.
After getting the rods, the Links backtrack through much of the level, melting and collecting Force Gems. During all this, I felt a little bad for Tingle when the Links grabbed a few hundred from one stash and he was ecstatic floating away with a single small green Force Gem. (Didn’t stop me from popping his balloon with the Fire Rod later in the level when he tried to sneak off with a large green Force Gem, though.) Pengators make their return appearance from A Link to the Past in this level, including a massive group of them spawned by standing on a floor switch.
There are a pair of bosses at the end of the level. First comes another Manhandla, with the added complication that this fight’s on a frozen pond, so traction is hard to come by. The second fight is against a Big Dark Stalfos, who has a large complement of soldiers in the Light World, and in the Dark World surrounds itself with a ring of Keeses. He also seemed to have a lot more health than the first three. When the Big Dark Stalfos is defeated and the Knight restored to himself, he entrusts the Purple sacred jewel to the Links, who now have everything they need to rescue Zelda.
Next: Rescuing Zelda.
