The other major island in the southeast quadrant is surrounded by a ring of ice. It even appears on the map, and as long as it’s there, the SS Linebeck can’t dock on the island. As the ship approaches, Linebeck suggests circling around the island and blasting the ice with the cannon. Each section of ice takes a few hits to destroy, and once it’s all gone, a docking port appears on the Isle of Frost.
The island is home to two tribes of people. The ones near the docking port are the Anouki, who have antlers and wear fur-lined hooded coats. They don’t get along with the Yook, and split the island between them. However, the chief says a Yook has snuck over to the Anouki side, taken one of the villagers, and has been pretending to be that villager and living among the Anouki. And so, in order for Link to get to the temple and get the island’s pure metal, the chief wants Link to find the Yook imposter and kick him out. The hint he gives is that Yook are liars, while apparently Anouki are honest.
Ciela apparently doesn’t trust the chief, and her warning combined with the fact that the Anouki seem to really dislike the Yook put my senses on edge for a revelation that the Yook are the good guys and we just happened to meet the Anouki first. But there’s no other way forward at the moment, so Link heads up to the village and starts talking to people. Some of the villagers say that others in the village are honest, while the rest suggest that others are liars. Examining the hints Link’s gotten, it becomes apparent that if only one of them is lying, it’s Aroo. When Link confronts him, Ciela tries to convince him to leave peacefully, but her squeaky voice “drives [him] wild,” causing him to revert to his natural yetiesque Yook form. The Yook wants to eat Ciela, saying she looks tasty, and Ciela says she’s not (“I’m yellow [1], but I don’t taste anything like a delicious fruit!”). The Yook ends up blowing Link and Ciela out of Aroo’s home and escaping.
The chief opens up the way to the Great Ice Field, where the Yook live (Link’s ambivalent about revenge, but Ciela’s up for it). As Link heads over, a stone has a message explaining the Yook’s weakness. It’s mostly been wiped clean, but there’s enough to get the gist: chuck a bomb in their mouths as they’re breathing in to build up to blow everything in their path away. That stuns them and lets Link finish them off with sword attacks. Six Yook need to be defeated to open the way to the temple (as it turns out, they’re not friendly, so it’s okay), then one last Yook – the one who was impersonating Aroo – confronts him. Throughout it all, heavy winds also hinder Link’s progress.
An early puzzle in the Temple of Ice requires a bombchu, so this dungeon has to come after the Goron Temple. As an ice dungeon, the floors are slippery and there are icy variants of Bubbles and Keese to welcome Link. After fighting a couple Yook, Link get’s the treasure item, the grappling hook, which is more like a hookshot in this game, but it’s got a new twist: Link can sling it between two posts and either use it as a tightrope or a giant slingshot, which can be used to bounce things off of or to throw Link across gaps. There are two Wisdom Gems in the dungeon.
The dungeon boss is Gleeok, Two-Headed Dragon. One of the heads is fiery, one is icy, so the standard Twinrova tactics [2] work here, using the grappling hook to reflect attacks and crack their masks. Sometimes they flood the room, so Link needs to jump on the posts to be above the wave. Once both masks are broken, the two heads come forward and destroy two of the posts, but that’s okay, they change tactics. Now they build up big attacks, leaving their tongues hanging out, and Link grabs the tongue to pull the heads down to swat them. Once both heads are defeated, Link gets more sand for the hourglass, a heart container, and the Azurine.
As Link leaves the temple, he meets the real Aroo. With the grappling hook, there are a bunch of Spirit Gems Link can get across the world, bringing his total up to 16 Power Gems, 14 Wisdom Gems, and 15 Courage Gems. Gongoron and Aroo send Link letters, also containing a Courage Gem (Gongoron) and Wisdom Gem (Aroo). Gongoron invites Link to check out Dee Ess Island again, where the minigame has been set up. The game involves rolling Gongoron over the island, hitting targets. If it can be done in less than 35 seconds, Link gets the second bombchu bag upgrade, letting him have 30 bombchus.
Next: Filling out the map.
[1] The Spirit of Courage is yellow. Heh.
[2] Hrm. I’ve been playing the NES games so I’ve been thinking about the evolution of the Zelda formula, and A Link to the Past has a boss very much like this Gleeok in the dungeon where Link gets the Mirror Shield, but there’s no way to reflect the fire/ice attacks at the opposite heads. Checking it out, it looks like Oracle of Ages was the first game where every dungeon item is used to defeat its boss.
