Skyward Sword: Bazaar

The knights’ uniforms, as seen on Pipit, are kind of like Link’s normal tunic, only yellow-brown. They apparently change color annually, and the new year’s color is, of course, green. Gaepora had doubts about the color, but seeing Link put on the uniform, it suits him. (Of course, anything’s better than the getup he’s had up to this point. No one else dresses like that.) Gaepora wishes Link good luck in his travels before returning to his quarters to study ancient texts for more information, and Link is welcome to return as he needs. He also suggests that Link stop by the Skyloft bazaar to stock up for the journey.

As Link leaves his room, Fledge approaches with a present he made for Link, an Adventure Pouch, which holds useful items. The starting pouch can hold four items, which include important items like Link’s shield and bottles. Right now, there aren’t enough items to fill the pouch, but they wouldn’t give Link four slots if he wasn’t going to use them all, and wouldn’t have the pouch (plus the Item Check for overflow items) if Link got to carry everything with him at the same time like he usually does, so… well, it’s obviously fine for now, but we’ll see how it works out. One of Groose’s lackeys – the short one who threw eggs at Link during the race – is stalking the halls and blames Link winning the race for Zelda’s fall and I don’t have time to listen to him. Outside the Academy, Instructor Horwell gives Link a wooden shield, warning that it might break easily and is susceptible to burning.

Fi pops up with a bunch of news. First, she recaps everything we know so far: the tablet she gave Link has opened a path through the clouds to the surface. But Link’s not ready to go to the surface yet; he needs to go to the the bazaar and stock up. Really, I don’t know what he’d do without her. She also points out that the huge controller displays that point out what the buttons do can be turned off when the player gets comfortable with the interface, so… maybe eventually.

As Link enters the bazaar, the fortune teller calls out to him, saying Link’s about to go on a dangerous journey. He offers to tell Link’s fortune, at a special rate of 1 rupee. Okay, I can make that back easily enough, so let’s do it. The fortune teller says Link’s about to head into a dangerous wooded area, so he should get a shield and potions. His eyes see everything, but somehow missed the big wooden disc on Link’s back. I want my rupee back.

Next to the fortune teller is the potion shop, and the potion seller says Link needs potions, which I think I would get by now even if they weren’t hammering that point home. But she actually sells them, so what else is she going to say? Oh, Link’s also going to need a bottle to carry potions in, so she gives him one to get started, and he buys one of the two available potions, the red potion that restores eight hearts. Link’s only got six [1] right now, so it’s not like he needs one of the better potions. And they’re not ready yet, anyway.

Also of note in the bazaar: The potion seller’s husband takes bugs and grinds them up to boost potions. Another man uses treasure to upgrade gear. There’s the basic item shop. There’s a woman cooking, but she doesn’t seem to be selling anything. Finally, there’s the Item Check, where Link can store items he can’t fit in the Adventure Pouch, and whoa, are they prepared to store a bunch of items. The woman who runs the Item Check has the same kind of terminally bored attitude that Salvatore did back in Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass.

Finally armed with the shield and potion everyone’s telling him to get, Link finally heads out to begin his landward journey. The hole in the clouds has a bright green beacon shining through it, so it’s impossible to miss. As Link approaches, Fi pops out to explain that the green beacon marks the safe place to pass through the clouds, and that there’s a mark on the map just in case the beacon isn’t bright enough. Is it too late to trade her for a talking hat? Anyway, the Loftwing passes over the hole, and Link jumps off to fall the rest of the way.

Next: Men walk on earth.

[1] Yes, the game starts Link with six hearts rather than the standard three. I’m guessing this is their way of staving off the typical Zelda game issue where the early game is tough because Link doesn’t have much health.

Skyward Sword: The Goddess Sword

Link is falling in a black void when he hears a voice saying his name. He looks up and sees an angelic figure against a bright light, and the camera zooms in on her, a blue woman who says, “I am waiting for you. The time has come for you to awaken. You are vital to a mission of great importance.” She says Link’s name again, before the vision turns to Link falling through the sky, just a little above Zelda. Zelda falls into the mouth of the giant scaly worm Link’s dreamed about before, causing Link to wake up back at the Knight Academy. Link’s Loftwing caught him and brought him back to the Academy, limp and unconscious, but mostly unharmed. Zelda didn’t make it back, so Link explains what happened. As Gaepora takes it in, Link immediately tries to jump to his feet, but Gaepora stops him. He asks if anything about Zelda seemed off, and Link brings up her talk of the surface, and his dreams. Gaepora doubts there’s any connection, so he clearly has no idea how these things work. He leaves, telling Link to rest and that Zelda will be fine.

As soon as he’s gone, Link hears the blue woman’s voice outside the door. Going out into the hall, he sees her at the foot of the stairs, and follows her. She goes up the stairs and through the door and continues on through Skyloft, giving Link a chance to practice platforming, climbing, and dangling. Along the way, Link fights ChuChus, Keese, and a Remlit, who’s a lot less friendly after dark. The woman eventually comes to a wall with a Loftwing crest (reminiscent of the later crest minus the Triforce) at the base of the Goddess Statue. She passes through the wall, the crest glows, the wall disappears, and Link follows her in.

In the center of the cave, there’s a stone with a sword stuck in the middle. The blue woman emerges from the sword to greet Link, “The one chosen by my creator. I have been waiting for you. You will play a role in a great destiny.” Her name is Fi. Link has a destiny, starting with taking up the sword in the cave, and Fi is meant to help him fulfill it. Link is still uncertain, so Fi decides to help put his mind at ease a bit by telling him that Zelda is indeed alive and part of Link’s mission. And so, if he wants to help Zelda, he should probably take the sword. That spurs Link to action, and he walks up to the stone and draws the sword. Eventually. It’s not just “walk up to the sword and press the button to pick it up.” No, it’s motion controls again. Sigh. After drawing the sword, he has to hold it straight up so that it can be charged by light. The captions identify the sword as the Goddess Sword.

Gaepora enters, saying he had suspicions about Link, and seeing Link with the Goddess Sword confirms them. The sword chamber was left by the goddess with a few words, “When the light of the goddess’s sword shines bright, the great apocalypse will wake from its long slumber. Do not fear, for it is then that a youth, guided by my hand, shall reveal himself in a place most sacred.” The sword chamber’s existence was known only to a few. And recently, along with Link’s dreams and Zelda’s voices, the Goddess Sword has been glowing. And he finally acknowledges Fi, adding the rest of the prophecy, “The youth will be guided by one born of the blade – one who is youthful in likeness yet wise with knowledge immeasurable.”

Fi calls oral tradition inaccurate, and notes that Gaepora’s rendering of the prophecy is incomplete. “The youth who draws forth the guiding sword shall be known and the goddess’s chosen hero, and it is he who possesses an unbreakable spirit. He shall be burdened with the task of abolishing the shadow of apocalypse from the land. Such is his destiny. With the spirit of the blade at his side, he shall soar over the clouds and plummet below… and united with the spirit maiden, shall bring forth a piercing light that resurrects the land.” Link remembers Zelda’s words from earlier, and Fi says his journey will take him to the surface.

Gaepora says it’s not so easy; no one has pierced the cloud barrier in living memory. Fi gives Link a tablet that can show a path to the surface. To use it, he first needs to activate the altar in the chamber by striking the crest above it with a Skyward Strike (point the sword up to charge, then strike). This reveals a little niche that the tablet fits in the lower right corner of. (Shades of the Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks maps.) Once the tablet is placed, a light flies from the Goddess Statue that splits the clouds, allowing Link to travel through the goddess’ barrier to the surface. Fi returns to the Goddess Sword, where she lives.

Gaepora stops Link for a final request. He doesn’t know what the “apocalypse” the prophecy mentions is, but it’s clear Link and Zelda are caught up in stopping it. He asks Link to find Zelda and bring her back and to see his journey through to fulfill the prophecy. And he has one final thing for Link… for winning the race, he was supposed to receive a knight’s uniform. It should be ready soon, and will suit Link better during his travels.

Next: Link needs a shield! And potions!

Skyward Sword: Wing Ceremony

Now that Link’s got his Loftwing back, he’s ready to report to the ceremony for the race. Before he goes, Zelda talks about hearing a voice a moment ago, and noting that this isn’t the first time it’s happened, and it’s happening more often. She then turns to questioning what’s below the clouds – some say it’s an empty land, some say there’s nothing at all, but she thinks there’s something down there and wants to see it for herself. I didn’t think so at the time, but writing this I can’t help but think of Marin looking out at the ocean and wondering about the bigger world.

Link and Zelda jump off the nearby dock onto their Loftwings, and Zelda suggests Link do some basic maneuvers as a tutorial on how to fly to make sure the bird’s not hurt. The controls are simple and mostly intuitive, and after a short time flying and testing everything out, Zelda says everything looks fine, so the two answer the ringing bells and report to the ceremony. Zelda heads off to tell her father they can start, and Groose comes up after she’s gone. He complains that because Link had to go rescue his Loftwing, all his warm-ups were wasted, and he’s stiff now. Maybe if he hadn’t been the reason Link had to rescue his Loftwing, or maybe even if he weren’t saying the Loftwing’s disappearance was Link’s fault, I might still feel a little bad for him, but as it is… yeah, no.

Groose then switches gears to jealousy over Link and Zelda’s relationship, which his lackeys note has been going on for a while. But he’s still confident he’s going to win and that’ll give him a chance to win her heart (and a sailcloth she made that’s apparently a prize for the winner). He gets lost in thinking about that and doesn’t notice that Zelda’s come back until his lackeys point it out to him, too late to stop Zelda from overhearing more than she wanted to. He stammers off that he’s happy Link found his Loftwing and wishes Link a fair race before making a quick retreat. Zelda’s sure Groose doesn’t actually plan on a fair race, but knows Link can beat him anyway, and my Wiimote slipped when I was picking a response here to “Us? Alone?” earning Link his own scolding to take things more seriously.

Instructor Horwell calls the racers – Link, Groose, and Groose’s lackeys – together to explain the rules: A statuette will be attached to a yellow Loftwing, and the first one to catch it and take the statuette wins. Horwell outlines the stakes of the race: the winner graduates to the next class and receives a gift from Zelda – and because it’s the 25th anniversary of the Knight Academy, the gift will be given atop the Statue of the Goddess. He also says he expects a clean race, and Gaepora speaks up to single Groose out here. The race starts, and – if Link can actually lose, it’d take doing worse at it than I did, which I’m pretty sure is impossible. The first time Link gets close to grabbing the statue, Groose charges, knocking Link out of the way, and one of his lackeys starts throwing eggs at Link. No such save occurs the second time, and Link claims the statuette and victory.

As Link flies back with the statuette, Zelda shouts out to him and jumps off the sky island, and Link catches her. He flies over to the Statue of the Goddess, where Zelda takes the statuette and presents it to the goddess as an offering, playing a song on her harp as she does so. She then takes the role of the goddess and bestows her blessings upon Link, giving him the sailcloth. Link promptly presents it to the goddess his own way (i.e., Item Get!), which Zelda chides him for, telling him to take the ceremony seriously. The stories say that the original version of the sailcloth was given by the goddess to her chosen champion, and Zelda’s happy she got to give the replica to Link. Now it’s time for the end of the ceremony, and Zelda steps up to Link… and tells him to jump off into the courtyard below, giving him a push to get going. Fortunately, the sailcloth’s not just a trophy, it’s a parachute, so Link uses it to land safely. (The sailcloth smells nice, too. Yes, the game actually notes that.) And… look, game, if I wanted to play Pilotwings, I’d play Pilotwings.

With the formalities of the ceremony over, Zelda invites Link to go flying around together. (Link still has the sword – probably excusable that he kept it before the ceremony, but if he’s got time to go flying with his friend, he’s got time to take it back to the Sparring Hall.) Zelda talks about how wonderful the day was, and starts to bring something else up, but the moment is killed by a black tornado in front of them. Zelda is thrown from her Loftwing, and when Link tries to dive after her, he’s thrown himself.

Next: Strange women distributing swords: Maybe not a great basis for a government, but it works for choosing a hero.

Ocarina of Time: 3D Update

After playing the Link’s Awakening remake, I figured I should move on to the other updated editions of the games: Ocarina of Time 3D, Majora’s Mask 3D, The Wind Waker HD, and Twilight Princess HD. (I’ve covered the other two, the A Link to the Past of A Link to the Past and Four Swords and Four Swords Anniversary Edition.) I’m starting with the 3DS games now that I’ve finished the DS games, and will do the Wii U games after I wrap Skyward Sword. For the record, I have a 2DS, so I can’t play in 3D, so I have no idea what 3D adds to the game, if anything. There certainly was never a time when I felt I needed 3D for the game to work, although of course it’s a game that was originally designed for 2D.

Ocarina of Time 3D is largely a direct port of the Nintendo 64 version to the 3DS. (The changes made for later N64 printings of the game – Fire Temple chanting, Gerudo symbol on blocks and the Mirror Shield – are kept.) The graphics are touched up, going from early 3D blockiness [1] to actually looking pretty good. Sheikah Stones were added near Link’s home in Kokiri Forest and in the Temple of Time to give hints to stuck players. The interface has been redesigned nicely for the 3DS – the touchscreen has two item slots, plus a permanent one for the ocarina.

The highlight of the remake is the rework of the Water Temple. It’s just an inventory change (Iron Boots are now an item, so they can be put on and taken off with the press of a button), highlighting where Link can change the water levels, and the cutscene where Link first raises water to the intermediate level highlighting that there’s something to explore underneath a block that raises up, but these touches make it so much better. (The Tektites respawning and falling on Link’s head in the large central room are still there, sadly.) I still got stuck because I missed the time block behind the Longshot chest, but oh well.

As for the rest of things I wasn’t looking forward to in the remake… All the things that require Epona and are more complicated than “jump over the gap in the bridge” were still hard, whether it was racing Ingo to secure her freedom, racing the clock to get a cow sent to Link’s home, chasing down Poes in Hyrule Field, or the Gerudo archery game. The other things – not so much. I found I was much better at archery than I remembered as long as I wasn’t doing it from horseback, got through the Dampé race for the heart piece on the third or fourth try, and got the hammer fairly quickly too. So, horse controls still not great, everything else better.

I did the few things I skipped/missed in the first game. I raced the man who teleports from the entrance to Gerudo Valley to the bridge in the Lost Woods one second slower than it takes Link to run it a couple times. At the fishing hole, I found a sinking lure and used it to catch a Hyrule Loach… and also stole the fishing hole guy’s hat and dragged it through the pond before finally letting it go. (Poor guy.)

On my first run of the game, I could understand why Navi wasn’t popular, but I only remember being annoyed one time, when a tutorial popup that no one needs (“Don’t fall in the lava!”) interrupted a lined-up jump onto a moving platform. That changed this time. Her reminders of what the next quest objective should be seemed to pop up too often, and the game apparently has no way of knowing if what Link’s doing is working to that objective, so she’ll remind him he’s supposed to be going to the forest to find the sage as he’s trying to sneak past the Moblins. Navi now has two new things to tell the player – that they’ve been playing for a while and should take a break, and that they seem to be having trouble with a dungeon and should check a Sheikah Stone for a hint. I guess it’s the authentic Ocarina of Time experience, but yeesh.

In Link’s home, he can use the bed to revisit old boss fights. He only gets a limited set of items for each fight – usually only the ones needed to win, plus a potion for the later bosses – and only three hearts for Gohma, increasing by one for each boss up to ten for Twinrova. It took me several tries to get past Bongo Bongo [2], until I refined the strategy that worked for me earlier. After winning rematches with all eight bosses, a final mode is unlocked to face them sequentially, starting with five hearts. After each boss, Link gets to choose between two chests, which have random items – including extra heart containers, useful items (including the Longshot, so with bad luck he may have to fight Morpha with just the short Hookshot), stuff that may be useful later (he can get an empty bottle early, which gives him a chance to get potions later), or useless junk like Deku Seeds and Nuts. I didn’t much like this addition, particular with the fluky random items.

Overall, I quite enjoyed revisiting Ocarina of Time, and I think when I replay the game, this is the version I’ll come back to. (Until the next remake comes along.) I think the next time I do, I’ll try the Master Quest…

[1] Because I basically missed this generation of games, I have zero nostalgia for this look.
[2] I also needed a fairy-rez to beat it in the dungeon.

Skyward Sword: Loftwing Rescue

Link returns to Instructor Horwell (the same one who had him chasing after Mia earlier) to explain the situation. Horwell is alarmed, but agrees to talk to Gaepora about the situation while Link looks for his Loftwing. No one at the Academy knows anything about the Loftwing – well, Fledge definitely seems to, but gets skittish about actually saying anything – so Link heads into town. Along the way, he’s stopped for a tutorial on rolling into things, in this case a tree. Link complies and shakes loose a bug that the kid runs after while Link collects the blue rupee that fell out. The kid gives up on catching the bug, lamenting that he doesn’t have a net.

A bit further down the road, another student named Groose is celebrating with his two lackeys about wrangling a Crimson Loftwing into a pen. Link comes up behind the three of them, and it’s not clear how much he heard, but given that the player got to see enough… probably the same. Groose starts mocking Link about how he has no chance to win the race, and notes that the Loftwing’s nowhere to be seen anyway. Link has a couple options here, but the best one is to take a jab Groose’s hair, which is ridiculous. Groose goes calling Link names until Zelda shows up and starts going off on him, which basically stuns him speechless; he’s clearly got a thing for her. He pulls himself together to storm off with one last taunt about Link’s Loftwing before he and his lackeys do a synchronized jump off a dock onto their Loftwings. I don’t know why, but Groose reminds me a lot of Beauty and the Beast’s Gaston.

Zelda figures Groose is the reason for Link’s Loftwing’s disappearance, and takes to the skies to look. Link returns to the Academy, where Pipit, one of the knights, has gotten Fledge to come forward with what he knows. Fledge heard Groose plotting to hide Link’s Loftwing near a waterfall, and Pipit figures out that must mean the one waterfall on Skyloft, which is marked on Link’s map.

But it’s dangerous to go alone, so Link goes to the Sparring Hall to borrow a sword for the trip. This comes with a tutorial on how to use the sword; it mostly follows the way the Wiimote is swung. There are logs around the Sparring Hall for Link; each can only be successfully attacked one way. Once the logs are destroyed, the instructor teaches Link two other maneuvers: spin attack (swing the Wiimote and Nunchuk together), and the fatal blow (target-lock a downed enemy, and swing the Wiimote and Nunchuk together). It’s easy for now… but good against logs is one thing. Good against the living… that’s something else. Anyway, the instructor here stops Link from leaving with the practice sword, but relents when Link explains why he needs it – but tells him not to cause trouble.

As Link leaves the Sparring Hall, a Sheikah Stone (basically a special gossip stone) pops up and calls Link over to chat. The Sheikah Stone introduces itself, saying that when Link gets stuck on a puzzle, he can come to it for hints. (Sheikah Stones had previously appeared in Ocarina of Time 3D, but this is the first appearance in a non-remake game.) It doesn’t have any hints for Link now, so Link heads on his way.

Getting to the waterfall requires passing through a cave, and as Link approaches, he can sense his Loftwing being boarded up in a small hole in the wall. The cave itself gives the player a chance to practice fighting against enemies (Keese and ChuChus); I was mostly flailing about at this point, which is fine for easy enemies, but I’m guessing it’s going to get harder. (Also, Link holds his sword to match the way the player’s holding the Wiimote; that makes sense, but it looks goofy and I’m constantly trying to figure out how to hold it so it looks maybe a little more natural.)

After Link’s through the cave, Zelda swoops down to talk to him. While they’re talking, Zelda seems to hear a voice, which distracts her for a moment, but she shrugs it off. A short distance ahead, they see the cave, and Link uses his sword to cut the ropes holding the boards and free his Loftwing. The Loftwing steps out of the little hole and spreads its wings, and after a brief exchange of affection with Link takes to the skies.

Next: Flying lessons.

Link's Awakening: Chamber Dungeons

The signature addition to the Switch version of Link’s Awakening is Chamber Dungeons. After Link rescues BowWow from the Moblins, Dampé comes up with the idea of rearranging rooms from the dungeons Link’s completed to create new dungeons. His hut is where the Camera Shop was in the DX version; the Photographer seems to have moved on, and, a few cute pictures aside, I don’t miss him. Link can’t actually do anything with this until he’s completed Bottle Grotto and taken BowWow back home, but after that’s settled, the game opens up.

There are two modes for Chamber Dungeons. The first is challenges given by Dampé, which come in four sets. The first set covers the basics. There must be an entrance room and a Nightmare boss room. Aside from the entrance, every door must connect to another door. Pairs of staircases will use one of the game’s underground passages to connect to one another. (If an odd number of staircases exists, either the passage you can fall into during the Moldorm fight [1] or the one the key falls into in Angler’s Tunnel will be used.) There must be a way into every room. Some challenges come with places where certain types of rooms must be placed (e.g., the room has to have a treasure chest, stairway, or a locked door), or have a design where every available square has to have a room. There have to be enough treasure chests to spawn enough keys to open all the locked doors. While exploring dungeons, Link has to collect all the chests; he gets small keys until he has enough, the last chest opened has the Nightmare Key, and the rest of the chests have rupees.

The second set of challenges is slightly more complex, and then the third set introduces restrictions. In one, Link is limited to three hearts, another has a five-minute time limit, and in the third Link can’t use his sword. The rewards for completing these first twelve challenges are two pieces of heart and one full heart container, a bottle, and a Seashell. Link also unlocks free mode, where he can arrange things however he likes. (This mode feels pretty pointless without being able to share online.) There’s a fourth set of twelve challenges and these are a doozy. Not necessarily to play through – even with restrictions, they’re only as hard as you make them – but they’re rough to design; the layouts are big and/or complicated, and it’s easy for something to not line up just right. The only reward for these dungeons is rupees, and by time he unlocks them, the only thing really left to buy is Chamber Stones, so unless you’re a completionist or you really like the Chamber Dungeons, it’s not really worth it.

There are 20 more tiles Link can unlock. Six of these come from amiibo: five from scanning any Zelda amiibo, plus one for scanning the Link’s Awakening Link amiibo. The other fourteen come from Chamber Stones. Seven are bought at the Town Tool Shop for 1280 rupees apiece. (Fortunately, rupees are very plentiful in this game – especially using the Chamber Dungeons.) Two are won from the Trendy Game, two from the Fishing Hole, two from collecting Seashells, and one via the Rapids Ride. Some of these unlock room effects – rains of rupees, hearts, or bombs; added Wall Masters and enemies; and spawning a Shadow Link miniboss. I’ve only fought Shadow Link once, so I’m not clear on the mechanics, but he’s got a lot of health (possibly like Ocarina of Time Dark Link, who had as much health as Link) and hits hard: normal attacks do 1 heart of damage, spin attacks do 3 hearts. The reward for beating him is a bunch of rupees and recovery items.

While, overall, I enjoyed the Chamber Dungeons and thought they were a nice addition to the game, there were three big flaws. The first is the pointlessness of the final set of challenges. That also came after Turtle Rock, so it feels like the game just stops dead right before the ending. Second, by reusing rooms from completed dungeons – and reusing them again and again through repeated challenges – the Chamber Dungeons start to feel repetitive and samey after a while. (Also not helping the huge batch of challenges in the end.) Finally, stair connection is not something the player has any power over, and the AI for how they connect is terrible. It seems to prioritize connecting the closest staircases, no matter how little sense that makes, and can isolate a set of rooms to not connect to the rest of the dungeon and leave it to the player to rearrange rooms to make it work.

Even with the flaws, the Chamber Dungeons were fun. They were an easy way to get rupees for the Bow, and later, the Chamber Stones. Fighting the bosses multiple times gave me a good feel for how they changed for this version of the game. The execution isn’t quite perfect, but it never quite reached the level of tedium that, say, the Nintendo Gallery in Wind Waker did. (I may change my mind on this on future plays, since there’s a heart and a half locked behind it. On the other hand, if I can copy my challenges from my first play to an amiibo and reuse them…)

Overall, I think the Switch version is an upgrade to what was already one of the best Zelda games in the series and is the definitive version of the game. What made the Game Boy game great is still here, and the presentation is nicely touched up for a modern system.

[1] Which turns falling off the edge from falling into a passage to a normal fall, respawning Link minus a heart.

Skyward Sword: Skyloft

Running around the Knight Academy gives the player a chance to familiarize themself with the basic control scheme. The basic movement controls are the same as ever, although the lack of an analog stick on the Wiimote means the camera’s back to how it was in the N64 days. (Also, the Switch option for target locking is gone, sadly.) Link can run now by holding the A button; rolling is the one intrusion of motion controls in basic movement, requiring shaking the Nunchuk while running. While doing something strenuous, like running or climbing or carrying something heavy or spin attacking, Link loses wedges of his Stamina Lime, and if he runs out, he has to stop to catch his breath. There are Stamina Fruit plants growing around the world and grabbing one restores the Stamina Lime to full.

Before leaving the Academy, Link meets Fledge, who’s carrying big barrels to the kitchen. Link gets to help out, with Fledge explaining how to toss things, although the woman in the kitchen’s bound to get upset if anything breaks. After Link successfully delivers a barrel, it’s all too tempting to run around smashing everything else. The woman gets angry at him for doing it, ultimately threatening to talk to the headmaster and have Link expelled. Fledge seems oblivious to Link’s destructive streak and gives him half his pay for the job.

As Link leaves, an instructor calls to him from above, ready to offer tutorials on target locking, dashing up walls, jumping, dangling and crawling on ledges, climbing, and pushing boxes. There are two objectives to this tutorial: first, getting up to where the instructor is, then rescuing Headmaster Gaepora’s pet, a catlike Remlit named Mia. The instructor directs Link to Gaepora, who’s up by Skyloft’s Goddess Statue along with Zelda. Along the way, Link runs across a man fixing a gate who points out the bird statues around Skyloft where Link can offer prayers to the goddess (i.e., save the game). The whole scene is awkwardly written, including the phrase “As you know…” when the man talks about how the statues are all over the place.

At the base of the Goddess Statue, Zelda’s still playing the harp and singing. She stops when she senses Link behind her and turns around to greet him, showing off the harp and the clothes she’s wearing, part of her role as the goddess in the forthcoming ceremony. After a bit, Gaepora – Zelda’s father – comes up to the two of them. (Gaepora resembles Ocarina of Time’s Rauru, and in a nod to Rauru’s owl form/Gaepora’s namesake Kaepora Gaebora, he has giant eyebrows which, along with his moustache, goatee, and sideburns, give him a distinctly owllike appearance. And he even punctuates a sentence with a “hoo hoo” laugh.) He talks some more about the ceremony: there’s a Loftwing race, and the winner gets to participate in the ceremony along with Zelda.

At the mention of the race, Zelda goes off, saying that Link has been neglecting his practice and not terribly into it when he’s been practicing. Gaepora tries to reassure her and explains to Zelda all about the Loftwings. The birds are a gift from the goddess, and they form symbiotic bonds with Skyloftians. Meeting their paired Loftwing is a big deal for young Skyloftians, and Link’s was special. His Loftwing is a rare crimson breed that was believed extinct before Link’s showed up. Link took to flying without a need for instruction, and Zelda was jealous of Link’s bond with his bird. This cutscene is the gate repairman’s speech about bird statues times a hundred; there seriously had to be a better way to get this information to the player than this.

Zelda’s not placated, though, as she’s worried that if Link doesn’t do well enough in the race, he won’t be able to become a knight. Gaepora keeps trying to reassure her, so she turns on Link, telling him to get some extra practice before the race. She drags him over to a dock where he can jump off onto his Loftwing. Link’s hesitant because he can’t sense the Loftwing, which Zelda just takes as Link not wanting to practice, so she pushes him off the dock. Link’s calls to the Loftwing go unanswered, and Zelda eventually realizes something’s wrong, jumps off and calls her Loftwing and saves him before he falls through the clouds.

Gaepora wonders where Link’s Loftwing could be, and Zelda apologizes for not believing him about not sensing it out there. Bells start ringing, and Gaepora notes it’s getting late, sending Link to find to Instructor Horwell and have him come talk to him about delaying the ceremony while Link finds what’s happened to his Loftwing. There seems to be a lot of favoritism here because Link and Zelda are close friends, and I kinda wonder if the others in the race would get similar treatment and feel bad for them if not.

Next: That sympathy doesn’t last long.

Skyward Sword: Introduction and Story

Skyward Sword has four major distinctions. First, it’s the Wii’s Zelda game. Along with that, it’s the motion control Zelda game [1]. Three, it’s the earliest game in the timeline, set before The Minish Cap, Four Swords, and Ocarina of Time. Finally, it’s the flagship game for celebration of the 25th anniversary of the original Legend of Zelda [2]. Of the four, it’s the motion control aspect that stands out most in my mind when I think of this game, which is why I’ve not been terribly excited about playing it. My one experience with the Wii’s motion controls was frustrating; the upgraded Wiimote gives me a little hope things will be better, but… we’ll see. I’ve played a little bit into the game [3], and it feels gimmicky so far. So to roll, I need to push forward on the Nunchuk’s analog stick, hold down A on the Wiimote, and shake the Nunchuk? Woooo. (On the bright side: I have gotten good at the coremost Zelda mechanic of smashing pots… to the Knight Academy’s cook’s dismay.)

Skyward Sword is also the third major game represented in the base story of Hyrule Warriors, so there are some things I’ve picked up:

• Fi (“The Goddess Sword”), the robot angel sword spirit. I’m figuring she fills two roles, as Link’s sword and companion. Her name’s supposed to be pronounced “fie,” but thanks to Fiona on Burn Notice, I have a hard time not saying “fee” instead.
• Ghirahim (“Demon Lord”), the flamboyant, theatrical bad guy with a Gene Simmons tongue. He may be connected to Ganon somehow (even though Ganon won’t come around for quite a while yet).
• The Imprisoned (no title – his name works as one), a giant black worm with pointy teeth, a sword stuck in its forehead, and feet with giant toenails that it hates having cut.
• There’s a giant divine sky whale who likes pumpkins.
• There’s a character named Groose.

Story

“This is a tale that you humans have passed down through uncounted generations… It tells of a war of unmatched scale and ferocity, the likes of which would never been seen again.
“One dark, fateful day, the earth cracked wide and malevolent forces rushed forth from the fissure. They mounted a brutal assault upon the surface people, driving the land into deep despair… They burnt forests to ash, choked the land’s sweet springs, and murdered without hesitation.
“They did all this in their lust to take the ultimate power protected by Her Grace, the goddess. The power she guarded was without equal. Handed down by gods of old, this power gave its holder the means to make any desire a reality. Such was the might of the ultimate power that the old ones placed it in the care of the goddess.
“To prevent this great power from falling into the hands of the evil swarming the lands, the goddess gathered the surviving humans on an outcropping of earth. She sent it skyward, beyond the reach of the demonic hordes. Beyond even the clouds. With the humans safe, the goddess joined forces with the land dwellers and fought the evil forces, sealing them away. At last, peace was restored to the surface.
“This is a tale that you humans have told for many ages, generation to generation…
“But there are other legends, long hidden away from memory, that are intertwined with this tale.
“Now, a new legend bound to this great story stands ready to be revealed. A legend that will be forged by your own hand.”

A lot of this is new, as one might expect from a prequel; this predates just about everything familiar (except the Golden Goddesses creating the world). The “ultimate power” the goddess here has could be the Triforce. Or not. We’ll see.

On the surface world, a giant fissure splits the ground, and a giant black scaly worm crawls out, opening its toothy mouth wide at the camera. In the sky, giant birds fly around a floating island. People jump off of docks onto the birds' backs. Zelda plays a harp and sings and her giant bird comes to her, and she gives it a letter.

At the Skyloft Knight Academy, Link’s dreaming of the black scaly worm when a light appears and a voice tells him it’s the start of the game so he can wake up now. The scaly worm roars, driving the light away, but Zelda’s bird enters the dream, and Link rolls out of bed to find the bird staring at him through the open window. The bird spits Zelda’s letter at Link, bonking him on the head, and flies off. “I know how much you like to sleep in, so I’m guessing this letter will be your alarm clock this morning,” the letter reads. It goes on to talk about the Wing Ceremony that day, and how Link promised to meet Zelda beforehand. (As the text gets to the part where Link promised to meet Zelda, it slows down, and I can almost hear Zelda saying it, drawing out the sounds.)

Next: Taking (motion) control.

[1] Twilight Princess had a Wii version with motion controls, but it was co-released for the GameCube without motion controls, and that’s the version I played and think of.
[2] Also released that year: Ocarina of Time 3D, Four Swords Anniversary Edition, and Hyrule Historia, which I got for Christmas last year and I’ll finally be able to read soon.
[3] No sword yet, though.

Link's Awakening: Switch Remake

The Switch version of Link’s Awakening is a from-the-base remake. Everything’s 3D modeled, although the game keeps a tilt-shift perspective so it plays like 2D (much like the DS games). The models look like little toys, and gosh, they’re cute. Screen transitions only happen through doors, meaning the overworld and large dungeon rooms are all seamless. There’s a blurring effect at the edges, which hurt my eyes playing in handheld mode, but once I docked the Switch and played on the big screen, it was all better.

The controls are touched up nicely, taking advantage of the Switch’s multitude of buttons. The sword, shield, and Pegasus Boots all have dedicated buttons, and the Power Bracelet is automatically equipped (for balance purposes, Link still can’t lift pots without it). There are still the two item buttons so bomb arrows can be used, but when I wasn’t using bomb arrows, I had the Roc’s Feather permanently equipped to Y. (Other items are much more situational – honestly, if Roc’s Feather on Y was locked in with bomb arrows activated as they are in Twilight Princess, I wouldn’t mind.)

There are twenty new heart pieces (plus one more heart container) and twenty-six new Secret Seashells. The Seashell rewards have been revamped: a heart piece at 5, a Seashell Sensor that pings when Link gets close to where a Seashell is hidden at 20, a Chamber Stone at 30, the Koholint Sword at 40, and another Chamber Stone for all 50. (In addition to the old Seashell rewards being gone, this is “or above” now – no more missing rewards for not checking in at the right time.)

New stuff with items: Link can collect bottles to keep fairies in. The fairies don’t auto-revive him (that’s left to the Secret Medicine [1][2]) and once bottled only restore about five hearts. Manbo’s Mambo can warp Link to any warp point from anywhere (in the overworld) – a vast improvement over the original version’s fast travel – and there are ten total warp points. Link can buy back the item he trades for the Boomerang (because with the extra Seashells and warp points, he’ll still need the Shovel) for 300 rupees. The Boomerang, Hookshot, and Magic Rod are nerfed. It hurts worst with the Magic Rod, which is needed for a few puzzles in the dungeon and to fight a couple bosses, and that’s about all it’s good for now. The Boomerang is no longer a one-hit kill, but can still kill enemies with enough hits, and stunlocks them in the process, so it’s still good. (The Flying Rooster trick is gone: the boomerang returns to Link rather than hover below him.)

All of the minigames have been expanded. The Fishing Hole isn’t just “catch the one fish with the heart piece and be done with it,” there are lots of types of fish, two heart pieces and two Seashells as rewards, heavier lures to unlock, and it’s a decent way to make rupees now. The Rapids Ride has a new mode in which Link needs to race to the end for prizes (that seem to get worse as his time gets better). The Trendy Game has the claw failing to grab the targeted item or the targeted item rolling out of the claw, and lots of new stuff to get. There’s a whole little sidequest of collecting figures from the Trendy Game and finding places to display them across the village, so that’s fun, except for the part where you try to grab the Piranha Plant figure.

Most of the boss fights have been improved. Moldorm adds cracked floors around most of the room so it’s harder to fall off. Angler Fish’s lure now bounces Link back when he attacks it, so he can’t just float and hit it until it dies, which at least makes the fight take longer. Facade moves around the room, and the flying tiles can knock bombs away from him. Evil Eagle doesn’t reset if Link falls off, and has his full range of attacks from the start so Link can’t just beat it in three hits before it starts doing more than flying overhead. The nerf to the Magic Rod makes Hot Head a little more dangerous. Hardhit Beetle recovers a bit more slowly and it’s easier to tell how much damage it’s taken. And the Shadow Nightmares feel more balanced in difficulty (again, the nerf to the Magic Rod mean the Lanmola form takes three hits instead of one) [3].

A few other minor changes: The horse head puzzles were changed to actual puzzles rather than just “toss them until it lets you stop.” The Color Dungeon added non-color indicators to everything, presumably to help accessibility for colorblind people. A few lines of dialogue are changed. I think the game’s easier than the Game Boy versions; part of that is because of changes that absolutely do make it easier (Link has more health – at least potentially), but I’ll allow that a good chunk is also that I’ve played it a few times so I’m better at it.

Next: Oh, and the Camera Shop and Photographer are gone, and someone else has set up shop.

[1] So bottled fairies act like other games’ potions and the potion acts like other games’ bottled fairies.
[2] The one change I outright hate: If Link finds a redundant Secret Medicine, he puts it back in the chest. This sucked with rupees in Twilight Princess, and we’re doing it again? My run of Turtle Rock got slowed down because I thought I missed a chest, so I went to get it, only to discover it was the Secret Medicine I left behind because I didn’t need it. Sigh. In Twilight Princess I used the magic armor to drain rupees so I could claim all the chests, but I’m not waiting for Link’s health to drain to zero to get another Secret Medicine.
[3] Most bosses get a splash screen with their name, but not the Shadow Nightmares, and especially not the final form, so it seems we’re stuck with DethI. Gah.

Spirit Tracks: Malladus

In the passenger car, Link, Zelda, Anjean, and Byrne prepare for the final battle. Anjean wants to come to help, but she’s still injured, so Byrne, barely holding together himself, volunteers. Link and Zelda look at each other and wordlessly agree that the two of them will be fine on their own. Anjean agrees to this, and creates a Phantom for Zelda to use. As Link and Zelda prepare to leave, Zelda asks Link what he plans to do after everything’s finished. Link can say he’ll go back to being an engineer, stay a warrior, or that he doesn’t know. The two of them climb atop the demon train, and Malladus awakens to begin the final battle.

The first phase of the battle has Zelda marching toward Malladus. Complicating matters is Cole, who summons rats, which brings Zelda to a stop. If one of them touches the Phantom, Cole takes control of it until Link can break his strings. (It’s easiest to use the boomerang for this. On my first run I did it with sword, which put Link in the Phantom’s range. That hurt, a lot.) Halfway up, Malladus begins shooting a laser attack that Link has to hide behind the Phantom to avoid. Finally, Zelda gets close enough to Malladus to grab a hold and restrain him until Link can shoot him with a light arrow and drive him out of Zelda’s body.

As Malladus loses his grip on Zelda’s body, Cole flees, and Zelda tells Link to do the same. Link instead runs toward Zelda, but then the Demon Train explodes. Link comes to in time to see Malladus’ spirit driven out of Zelda’s body, and Zelda immediately flies toward it… and through. Repeatedly. Cole yells for Malladus to hurry up, and just as he’s about to reclaim Zelda’s body, he’s stopped by Byrne. Byrne tells Zelda to focus, and Zelda prays to Tetra for a blessing, and finally returns to her body. Link runs to catch her, and the hero’s theme plays… only to stop abruptly when Zelda lands on his head. Zelda doesn’t seem to mind the rough landing too much, because it means she’s back, and she gives Link a hug.

The nice moment is interrupted as Malladus destroys Byrne for his interference. Cole starts encouraging Malladus to drive Zelda from her body again and retake it, but Malladus decides to claim Cole’s instead. The form he assumes calls pig demon Ganon to mind, but he says Cole’s rejecting his spirit. He doesn’t have much time… but he can do some damage before he fades.

The second phase of the Malladus battle has Zelda charging up her power while Malladus spits fireballs at her. Link needs to deflect them… and now, after two games of generally getting along with the touchscreen controls, is when that skill abandoned me. Deflecting the fireballs often drops hearts, and I had two potions (plus the Song of Healing, which I assume would work here, if I actually remembered it), so I was never in any real danger of dying, but it took me an hour to get through this without the game interpreting what was meant as a slash as wanting to run into the fireball (bad) or roll out of the way so it can hit Zelda (also bad). Oddly, the times when Malladus spits out a bunch of fireballs that need to be deflected with a spin attack were never so hard.

Once Zelda’s charged up, she and Link play a Lokomo duet of the game’s title theme – her singing, Link playing the Spirit Flute. The tune is five notes and has two jumps, so it was a little tricky, but I got it faster than blocking the fireballs. Once it clicks, they’re joined by the five sages from the sanctuaries. This causes a weak spot to appear on Malladus’ back, starting the final phase: Link gives the bow to Zelda and distracts Malladus so she can shoot him in the weak spot. Every now and then, Malladus collapses, and Link can whack him until he breaks off a horn. The third time, Link instead starts pushing the Lokomo Sword into a gem on Malladus’ head, and Zelda comes over to help. Eventually, the gem breaks, and the demon king is no more.

With Malladus gone, light breaks. Anjean comes out of the Spirit Train, and knows that Byrne’s sacrifice is what he wanted… and pulls together his spirit so he can eventually reincarnate. However, after seeing what Link and Zelda are capable of, she knows the Lokomos can leave the world in their care, and the two start fading off into the heavens, joined by the other five sages. As Link and Zelda watch them go, they join hands.

The credits show, in illustrations, life returning to normal in New Hyrule. Highlights are Zelda returning to the castle and reuniting with Teacher, Niko telling the Spirit Tracks story to Aboda’s children, and a final illustration from the game’s title sequence of Link driving the Spirit Train while Zelda flies alongside it, revealed to be a picture on Zelda’s desk. As she works, if Link knew what he wanted to do when peace returned, she hears a sound from the window – a train whistle for engineer, or swords ringing against each other for warrior. She runs over to the window to wave (if Link’s training, the sounds indicate he gets distracted and knocked down). If Link said he didn’t know what he was going to do next, Zelda simply looks out the window and smiles [1].

Spirit Tracks took Phantom Hourglass and refined it, fixing my two big problems – mostly bland dungeons and a disappointing soundtrack. I liked the Temple of the Ocean King, but the Tower of Spirits worked well, too. On the other hand, I think this game made me mad at it more than any other – dodging the demon trains got old, and the new treasure system (with some things made annoyingly rare to encourage trade) is a mess. But what I think stands out the most for me about this game is Zelda finally taking a central role in the series named for her, easily becoming my favorite version of the character yet.

[1] Seeing all three endings requires doing the whole Malladus fight three times. Thankfully, I had a much easier time with the fireballs the next two tries. I think I let my frustration get inside my head the first time.

Link's Awakening: DX Update

Link’s Awakening has received two major revisions. The most recent is the update for the Switch, which reworks the whole game, and I’ll get to that next. First up is Link’s Awakening DX, a Game Boy Color rerelease of the original. I’ve already briefly touched on some of the points that changed back in my original comments, but this time I’m going to take a real look at them.

The biggest change, of course, is the addition of color to the world. This is mostly a cosmetic difference, so to really show it off, an extra dungeon was added to the game, hidden in the graveyard. It doesn’t have any set place in the game’s dungeon order, and only needs the Power Bracelet (and Link to not have a companion – BowWow, Marin, or the rooster) to enter. The Pegasus Boots let Link knock a book down in the library that explains how to get in, but for someone who knows the trick or looks it up online, it doesn’t actually lock you out. The only item that’s required to defeat the dungeon is the Magic Powder, needed for one of the minibosses. The music for this dungeon is a remix of the original NES game’s dungeon music.

Pretty much every room in the dungeon is color-themed in some way. The entrance has a pair of Stalfos that challenge Link to identify the colors their wearing (required for access). There are a number of puzzles requiring hitting rotating statues with the sword; the hit statue and all adjacent to it spin once, and the goal is to turn them all blue. New enemies are either camouflaged to match the floor tiles where they spawn, or need to be knocked/thrown into holes surrounded by the same color as themselves. Finally, there are rooms with enemies (and Link) bouncing off floor tiles that go from green to yellow to red to gone each time they’re landed on.

There are two minibosses in this dungeon: Avalaunch, a Hinox variant that rains boulders down on Link, and a giant Buzz Blob, which Link needs to sprinkle Magic Powder on before attacking. The Nightmare is Hardhit Beetle [1], a giant Hardhat Beetle. Hardhit Beetle fits the color theme, slowly changing from blue to red as it takes damage. However, it knocks Link back, and can recover damage as well. My experience with this fight has been very frustrating, joining the ranks of poor bosses in the game. Eventually it dies, and Link visits a great fairy for his reward. This is an optional dungeon, so there’s no Instrument of the Sirens, but the fairy awards Link one of two tunics. The blue tunic halves damage taken and the red tunic doubles damage dealt. The red tunic doesn’t really stack with the sword upgrade, so the blue tunic is more useful in the long run (although Link can return to change his mind, so it’s not a terrible idea to go red until completing the Seashell collection, then coming back and switching).

The second big addition to the game is the photography sidequest. A new building, the Camera Shop, got added to Tal Tal Heights, and when Link visits, the Photographer wants to take his picture. Link can go along with it or get knocked into place and have his picture taken anyway. Afterward, the Photographer will show up at key moments to take Link’s picture. There are a handful that can be missed – three that happen while Marin’s following Link around, and one in front of Kanalet Castle’s gate that becomes unavailable when the gate is opened. Getting a complete photograph collection is impossible without stealing something from the store. Stealing the bow, the only safe item to steal if you also want the Marin scene in the ending, kinda wrecks the game’s economy since there are a ton of rupees specifically so you can pay the 980 rupees for the bow. (Stealing it early also makes a few enemies – the teleporting Pairodds in Key Cavern and, when the bomb arrows are used, Avalaunch – much easier than intended.) I’m not a huge fan of this sidequest, although the one picture under the Mabe Village weathercock where Link and Marin were having a moment and Tarin obliviously crashes in is cute.

Extra hints were added to most of the dungeons (all but Angler’s Tunnel). In the original version, which had one hint per dungeon, there were Stone Slabs on the wall that were missing a piece, which was kept in a chest in the dungeon. For the remake, this was changed to owl statues that couldn’t say their hints without the Stone Beak item. The hints seem to be points where players get stuck. Some chests were shuffled to make the Stone Beak available for earlier statues without too much backtracking, and in the last three dungeons, a chest containing rupees was changed to having Secret Medicine instead. The Genie in Bottle Grotto had his fireballs slowed down to make him a little less deadly, and he says a line as a hint to pick up the bottle and throw it into the wall.

Finally, as I mentioned back in the ending of my original run, the sequence with Marin at the end has changed from a winged Marin appearing over the “The End” title to the Ballad of the Wind Fish playing as an image of Marin appears in the sky, then disappears as a seagull flies past.

Next: [Right Joy-Con slides into place.] *click*

[1] Other names it’s gone by include D. Poon (a transliteration of the Japanese name), Giant Hardhat Beetle (a better translation of its name), and Evil Orb.

Spirit Tracks: Compass of Light

At the top of the Tower of Spirits, near the altar where Malladus was revived, is the twentieth and final stamp station. After stamping Niko’s book, Link can shoot a pair of eye switches with the Bow of Light to cause the altar to raise up, revealing a staircase down to the final set of floors of the Tower to explore. The Lokomo Sword is already powered up, so there’s no need to go chasing Tears of Light this time. The first two floors (and left half of the third floor) are a series of long, complicated puzzles involving passing Zelda through all four types of Phantom (the basic Phantom comes first; they also know a secret they can tell Phantom Zelda). The only things new here are using the Sand Wand to create a walkway across the sand pits and, as was required to enter the area, using the Bow of Light to fire light arrows at eye switches that can’t be activated by normal arrows.

The ultimate goal of the first set of puzzles is to collect three keys, so the second set of puzzles begins with three locked doors. Behind these locked doors (and down another floor) are three light arrow eye switches, and again, hitting all three requires the three special Phantoms’ powers. This leads to a short gauntlet challenge: Link and Zelda have to fight off metal ChuChus, Stalfos, and Geozard Chiefs. Zelda’s most useful for the ChuChus, although Link can contribute with arrows, bombs, or sword beams. The others Link can smash fairly quickly.

The final test is a room patrolled by all four types of Phantom. Zelda needs to cycle through the three with powers, using the Torch Phantom to light torches, the Warp Phantom to cross a sand pit (Link needs to drag a Phantom Eye across the pit – good thing Zelda’s in the Warp Phantom), and the Wrecker Phantom to stun the normal Phantom and smash a bunch of Armos Statues so Link can get through to the final double door. Through the double door, Link and Zelda find the Compass of Light, which causes the Forest Rail map to glow with new rails: a path leading to a portal to the Dark Realm branches off just before Aboda Village.

Before making the final trip, Link stops in Aboda Village to give Niko the full stamp book. Niko’s extremely grateful and gives Link the second Swordsman’s Scroll, this one teaching the Great Spin Attack. Ferrus also asks Link to seek him out one last time, and gives a treasure as thanks for all Link’s done for him.

That leaves just one last loose end to wrap up before going to the Dark Realm and putting an end to Cole’s plot: the third round of Take ‘Em All On! The first ten challenges in this round include huge groups of easy enemies and still good-sized groups of harder enemies (three Big Blins at once – slightly mitigated, of course, in that Link can make them whack one another with their giant clubs). For the Heatoise battle, Link’s bow is unavailable, so he’s got to go the harder route of luring them into the Winders. Then comes the boss rush: Link fights all five dungeon bosses back-to-back. I had a lot less trouble hitting Cragma’s eye this time and had a better grip of where Skeldritch’s weak points were, so those two bosses were easier than before. Then comes the final battle: Dark Link. Dark Link has a number of sword attacks, and can use bombs and arrows. The two easiest attacks of his to counter are a jumping attack, which leaves him vulnerable for a second after missing, and the bomb, which can be detonated while he’s still holding it over his head. The reward for beating Dark Link is… well, you know, to be honest, the reward is having it done. But Link also gets a rare treasure for his hard work.

The entrance to the Dark Realm is a giant mountain with a swirling black portal hanging overhead. There are six Armored Trains on the rails in the Dark Realm. Also on the rails are Tears of Light, and picking them up with the Spirit Train empowers it to run over the others, and Link can blow the whistle to go superfast. The evil trains run away from the Spirit Train during this sequence as well. The effect is approximately like playing Pac-Man with trains. Four of the six trains are fairly easy to get, but the two patrolling the northeast section are tough. Not helping matters: there’s no obvious Tear of Light to get on the way to that area, and there’s only one in the area itself, and if the Spirit Train loses the Tear of Light powerup, it needs to be right next to the Tear to have a chance to get it before the Armored Trains catch up.

After the Armored Trains are gone, the Demon Train comes to fight the Spirit Train. This battle takes place on four parallel rails, and the Spirit Train can’t completely stop or reverse, just slow down a lot. This phase has three stages, in which Link destroys each car of the Demon Train. Each car has a limited section of rails for Link to work on before the Spirit Train falls off into the abyss, and Link needs to shoot out each car’s weapons. For the final section, after the weapons are destroyed, the Spirit Train rides in front and starts shooting the Demon Train in its face. After a while the Demon Train just stays behind the Spirit Train and tries to ram it to death while Link continues shooting it in the face until it’s forced to stop.

Next: It wouldn’t be a game about trains without a traintop battle, now would it?

Spirit Tracks: Ends of the Earth

Malladus’ spirit is in Zelda’s body, leaving Link a limited amount of time to drive him out before he figures out what he’s doing and becomes unstoppable. So, in the grand tradition of heroes that, to be fair, extend far and wide beyond the Zelda series, Link decides to blow off the final stages of the quest to wrap up sidequests. The first stop is back at the Sand Sanctuary, where Rael wants to study the cuccos’ defensive abilities, so he asks Link to bring him some from the castle. After the quest is completed, the cuccos wander around the sanctuary, and Link can grab one to glide over to the stamp station.

Bringing cuccos to Rael also gives another Force Gem, this one unlocking rails in the northeast corner of the Fire Realm. The last mountain rabbit is here, as well as the Ends of the Earth Station. This station has three caves, each with a series of rolling block puzzles. The first set (“Brainteaser”) is about as hard as the ones in the Sand Temple and rewards a rare treasure and 100 rupees for completion. The second set (“Braintwister”) is a bit tougher – there are multiple blocks with limited room to maneuver, so careful planning is required, and sometimes moving a completed block off its square. The reward is the final heart container and another 100 rupees. The final set is called “Brainmasher,” and… yeah. Each puzzle has three blocks and very little room; the last one just has the three starting spaces and three ending spaces. The reward for this one is a Regal Ring that he gets to keep, plus another 100 rupees.

Ferrus has sent Link another letter, asking to be picked up again. This time he’s in the Fire Realm and wants to sea the underwater rails. Fortunately, the evil trains are gone from underwater, leaving Link just the occasional Octorok to deal with. (I wonder if Ferrus would really leave the train underwater if things went badly enough? On the one hand, it doesn’t seem like the smartest idea, but on the other, it doesn’t look like it’s that far to the surface, so if he can swim, he’d probably make it. Also, he’s sharing the passenger car with Anjean and Byrne, which should blow his mind, but he sadly never comments.) Ferrus is delighted to see the Ocean Temple, which earns Link another Force Gem, unlocking rails connecting the eastern Fire Realm with the area around the Sand Temple.

The new tracks lead through a tunnel to a Dark Ore Mine. Linebeck had mentioned wanting Dark Ore, so Link buys some to haul down there. It disappears in the sun, and there’s exactly one path using tunnels and warp gates that’s fast enough to get it there before too much melts. That path leads back through the tunnel Link came through to reach the mine in the first place, and when entering from the direction of the Dark Ore Mine, it’s guarded by a Rocktite. This one has the same eye-closed approach that the big eye in the shadows did, and the Tektites in the tunnel don’t stop coming just cause the big one’s awake now. Link can only take one hit without losing too much ore. The mercy is that, once the Rocktite is killed, it doesn’t come back, so Link can try again and only have to fend off Tektites. The Force Gem reward opens a loop in the southeast corner of the Ocean Realm.

The final Ocean rabbit, and the 50th and final rabbit overall, is found near the new tracks, and there’s another station in the area, the Lost at Sea Station. Here, in a cave indicated by a laser beacon and blown open with a bomb, Link finds a gossip stone saying there’s a special temple. The temple is protected by Phantoms, and inside, Link can’t use his sword or bow (so Zelda can’t take over a Phantom to help out). Each floor of the temple has a special challenge. First, Link needs to evade normal Phantoms and light torches. The second floor has Torch Phantoms, and Link needs to blow out all the torches. This is probably the hardest floor, because there’s no map. (Thankfully, the Phantoms don’t relight torches already blown out.) The third floor has Warp Phantoms, Phantom Eyes, and paired fish heads that Link needs to pull the right cord of or more Phantom Eyes show up. The fourth floor has a bunch of walls to blow up and Wrecker Phantoms to help if Link can’t do it himself. On the last floor, there’s one Phantom of each type, and all Link needs to do is slip by them and grab their treasures. The final reward is a second Regal Ring.

Link now has enough ultra-rare treasure to buy the four Golden Train cars; this is when I farmed all the treasure I needed to unlock all the trains. This was done through a mixture of minigames (useful for the ones that drop fairly often), manipulating the DS’ clock date and checking stores, and mailing in Prize Postcards (a vast improvement from Phantom Hourglass – they can be bought in the Castle Town store, Link can mail up to 20 a day, and winning actually gives a prize, usually the first prize which is a rare or ultra-rare treasure). Also, with all fifty rabbits caught, in addition to the treasure awarded for each complete subset, Link is awarded a Swordsman’s Scroll which teaches him to shoot sword beams at full health.

Next: Waka waka waka waka.

Spirit Tracks: Rael

Zelda is understandably upset now that Malladus is inhabiting her body and yells after the Demon Train, but Anjean arrives, saying it’s too late. She’s clearly injured from her fight with Byrne, but not dead. Link, Zelda, Anjean and the unconscious Byrne relocate to the Spirit Train, where they discuss their next moves. Anjean says if Malladus is able to fully adapt to being in Zelda’s body, the Spirits would be powerless against him. Fortunately, there’s a weapon that might be able to drive Malladus out of Zelda’s body: the Bow of Light. Anjean’s not sure Zelda’s spirit would be able to reenter her body, which worries Zelda further, but Link’s optimism calms her down. The Bow of Light is located in the Sand Temple, guarded by the last Lokomo, Rael. Zelda asks Anjean to make sure Byrne stays unharmed, because she wants to deal with him herself. (Byrne’s eyes open, showing he’s not as unconscious as he seems, while Zelda continues shadowboxing in the background.) Anjean gives Link and Zelda a Force Gem restoring the tracks to the Sand Sanctuary.

In the Sand Realm (the northern part of the ocean map and southern part of the fire map), the enemies are Sand Gyorgs – sharks that jump out of the sand to attack the Spirit Train. They can be startled out of the sand with the train whistle, then blasted with the cannon. They’re incredibly persistent, which makes hunting the four rabbits in the area complicated. At the Sand Sanctuary, a tablet tells visitors to find the entrance to the sanctuary by “blasting where the gazes of the big statues meet.” There are no statues at the sanctuary, but there were four railside in the Sand Realm. The stone roads at the sanctuary mirror the tracks in the surrounding area, and the rays starting from the corresponding locations of the four heads and heading in the direction they were facing intersect at a common point. This is where Link needs to blast.

After the duet restores the path to the Sand Temple, Rael explains what challenges await along the way. First, “the big eye that looms in the shadows,” then “twisted tunnels,” and finally the “impenetrable temple.” As the train approaches a tunnel linking the two maps the Sand Realm spans, Zelda wonders what the big eye could possibly be, and of course it’s another Rocktite. Sometimes this one comes at the train with its eye closed, and Link’s got to blast a barrel to get it open again. Otherwise, this is the same as the first Rocktite fight. The twisted tunnels are, as that name implies, a series of short rails connected by tunnels that don’t seem to make sense in how they connect. Finally, the temple itself is surrounded by cannons that Link needs to shoot out before he can enter. Along the way, there are the final five desert rabbits, plus a warp gate between the rails near the Sand Temple and the rails near the Sand Sanctuary.

The first goal of the dungeon is dodging boulders, rolling spike traps, and Gerunes (enemies made of living sand), plus fighting off a bunch of Stalfos, on the way to the dungeon’s treasure item, the one I knew was in the game somewhere, the Sand Rod. The Sand Rod can raise blocks over sandy areas, and this one simple ability gets a lot of diverse uses: giving Link a lift to reach higher surfaces or a walkway across quicksand, blocking the rolling spike traps (sometimes so Link can walk on them), popping up under object to push them where Link wants them, pulling Ergtoroks (sand Octives) out of the sand so Link can attack them, and digging up objects (which includes the Boss Key). As for the Gerunes, the Sand Rod causes them to harden so Link can smash them with his sword or use them as blocks to hold floor switches down. Rolling block puzzles reappear here, with the blocks having spikes on the faces and corresponding holes that the spiked faces need to go face-down on. As is customary, there’s a stamp station.

The boss is Skeldritch, Ancient Demon, a giant skull atop a totem pole of vertebrae. In the first phase, it has two attacks: shooting rocks from its base, and a laser beam from its eyes. Nothing can be done against the laser beam, but the rocks can be trapped with the Sand Rod, then loaded into cannons and fired back at it, destroying one of the vertebrae. After the first two, the vertebrae are armored against attacks from certain directions, so after Link loads a cannon, he needs to move so that when Skeldritch turns to face him, the armor’s gap faces the cannon, the shoot the crystal switch activating the cannon with an arrow. Further complicating things, as Skeldritch loses vertebrae, it shoots out more rocks, and they’ll pulverize each other, so it becomes trickier to catch and load them. Once the last vertebra is gone, Skeldritch falls over, losing its helmet, revealing the crystal top. Link needs to use the Sand Rod to surround the skull, raise himself up, and pound the crystal until Skeldritch is destroyed.

Once Skeldritch is gone, a staircase opens up to the basement where the Bow of Light is kept. Link and Zelda return to the Spirit Train, where Zelda’s excited, ready to face Malladus… only Anjean can’t locate him. (The bad news sends Zelda tumbling to the floor. Seriously, this game.) Byrne pipes up, saying there’s more levels of the Tower of Spirits, and in those levels is the Compass of Light, which he created to locate the Demon Train for Cole, and now can be used against him. Anjean has a final gift for Link: The Lokomo Sword (which, like the Phantom Sword, resembles the Master Sword, only the guard is the Lokomo symbol), already powered up to deal with the Phantoms. Well, that would have been useful. Why wait till now to give it to him? [1]

Next: Time is short, so let’s do a bunch of hard sidequests.

[1] Maybe it was depowered until Link restored the four temples. Or she kept it for her fight with Byrne. I can think of a few reasons, but I wish one was actually cited in-game.

Spirit Tracks: Wrecking Ball

The recently opened Spirit Tracks have two stations. The first, Disorientation Station is way up in the northwest corner of the Fire Realm. From the station, Zelda sees a castle guard and wonder what brought him all the way out here. When Link gets close to the guard, the guard asks him the same question. Link turns the question back around, and the guard explains he came out treasure hunting with a friend. They got separated when the guard ran from a plant monster, and Zelda’s not impressed with him. To be fair, the guard isn’t holding himself in high regard right now, either, and asks Link to poke around in the caves to find out what happened. The caves are a maze of similar-looking rooms, so it’s easy to get lost, which seems to have been the guard’s fate. He left a stone saying he was going to die in the maze and apologizing for his plot to claim the treasure himself. There’s no body, but the treasure is still there, so he didn’t abscond with it. The treasure, an Alchemy Stone, is guarded by a Fire Baba, presumably the plant monster that split the guard and his friend. The guard’s grateful to know about his friend’s fate and final message, and not only lets Link keep the Stone but gives him 100 rupees on top of it.

The second new station is on the east side of the Ocean Realm. This station is a pirate hideout, and there’s a stamp station here, of all places. Inside the actual hideout, Link discovers a man who’s been kidnapped by the pirates. Rescuing him involves an archery minigame in three phases. In the first, Miniblins run in front of the cage and try to capture Link while he shoots them with arrows. Once that’s done, Link and the man jump in a minecart for a ride to safety while Miniblins ride up in their own carts. As they near the exit, the final phase begins, with the goal of taking down the Big Blin guarding the exit before Link gets in range of its club.

The man talks a girlfriend in Papuchia Village and asks Link to take him back to her. The pirates make a last-ditch attempt at retrieving the man, including a tougher-than-usual ship, and delivers the man safely to his waiting gi… eesh, this is awkward. Yeah, she’s the woman who Link set up with the Whittleton chief. (She says “there never was any ‘us,’” so… yeah.) Thankfully, Link got the Force Gem before the train detoured to Awkward Station, so he can now explore a new set of tracks that includes another ocean rabbit and a warp gate between the Ocean and Forest Realms. He can also go back to the Pirate Hideout to play the archery minigame again, for a pair of Goron children who keep getting themselves captured to liberate treasure from the pirates, which they share with Link, in addition to the other quiver upgrade and another heart container.

Anjean’s nowhere to be seen as the Spirit Train pulls into the Tower of Spirits, but Link and Zelda don’t need to her to tell them how to get started. The new area’s Phantoms are Wrecker Phantoms, which turn into a wrecking ball and roll after Link, smashing anything less sturdy than the dungeon walls along the way, and of course Zelda gets that ability after she takes over one of them. The drawback is that she can’t carry hold items or carry Link across lava, so once they’re done with needing the Wrecker’s abilities, they find a group of normal Phantoms after a miniboss fight against Stalfos, Geozards, and rats (to keep Phantom Zelda from just rolling over everything). The normal Phantom’s abilities are needed for the final puzzles, including another Boss Key electrified so only Phantom Zelda can handle it while Link protects her from Key Masters.

Finally, the two come face-to-face with Byrne, who says Malladus’ resurrection is nearly complete, and he “can’t let [Link and Zelda] cause any more harm.” (Zelda: “Hey, that’s what we were going to say! Well… maybe WE won’t let YOU cause any more harm!”) Byrne fights Link and Zelda in an octagonal arena, hopping from the posts around the arena and sending attacks down. The beams bounce harmlessly off the Phantom, but he as a more powerful attack that can stun Zelda. His other attack, with his clawed gauntlet, can pin Link or Zelda down and the other has to free them. If the gauntlet misses, Zelda can grab it to pull Byrne down so Link can get a few hits in. After a few rounds of this, Byrne stays in the arena for Link to fight, except when he charges up an attack that Link lets the Phantom absorb, then Zelda holds Byrne for some more free shots. Eventually, Byrne admits defeat, and Zelda lectures him on the power of teamwork, then turns to Link for a fist bump. While they’re caught up doing this, Byrne slips out the door as the music comes crashing to a halt. Link and Zelda chase after him. (“Wait! We’re not done with you!”) This is seriously what happens. I love this game’s writing so much.

At the top of the spiral staircase on the outside of the tower, Byrne arrives to a disappointed Cole. Still, the time he bought allows Malladus to revive and possess Zelda’s body. Byrne asks for the power he wants, and Malladus zaps him. Cole comes over and taunts him for ever believing that would happen. However, Malladus is still too weak to do more than that, so Cole summons the Demon Train to make an escape.

Next: Upgrading weapons.

Spirit Tracks: Fire Temple

As Link passes through the tunnel to the tracks surrounding the Fire Temple, the camera shows the three keys being carried by the Snurglar birds that stole them. They’re marked on the map, complete with arrows showing which way they’re going at junctions. Taking the Gorons’ advice, Link needs to drive the Spirit Train to meet them head-on, then blow the whistle twice – once short, once long. This stuns them, and then… nothing. They recover and fly off with the key and I’m left wondering what I did wrong. About the third time this happened I shot the Snurglar in frustration and ohhhhhh. Yeah, that makes sense. When shot, they drop their key, and the temple door opens a third of the way. They don’t give up just because Link has the keys; they chase as he rides around collecting the others, and all the way into the temple.

The Fire Temple has lots of lava beds for Link to cross, often by tossing a platform onto a fire jet to give him a safe place to stand as he does. Enemies include Stalfos, returning as they were in Phantom Hourglass (without the hammer to one-shot kill them), and Heatoises, new turtle enemies that either have to be shot with arrows or lured into spinning into the Winders to electrocute them so Link can attack their heads. The dungeon item is the bow, with eye switch puzzles to go along with them, now with the added complication of Link having to pick up and place the arrow cannons so they fire correctly. Finally, for a game whose overworld is all about rails, it makes sense for minecarts to show up again. The stamp station can only be reached by minecart, and the Boss Key puzzle involves Link riding in one minecart while the key rides in another; both have to be guided safely to the end.

The boss is Cragma, Lava Lord, a giant volcanic rock monster. The fight brings together all the puzzle types from the dungeon: After the weak point on Cragma’s stomach is shot, rocks fall from the ceiling. One of them sticks around, so Link has to goad Cragma into smashing it into a platform he can use to reach the minecart. He rides the minecart around Cragma, shooting its various weak points, until he’s cleared them all and has a shot at the eye. This causes Cragma to fall over as Link returns to the main platform to attack the last weak point on top of its head. All easy to describe, and quite fun to do, but I found hitting the eye to be near-impossible. I ran out of arrows on the minecart about five times, and eventually Cragma will grab Link if he can’t shoot it to stop it. Fortunately, the falling rocks drop arrows, so it didn’t become hopeless. Eventually, Cragma is defeated, and the Tower of Spirits is completely restored.

Now that the dungeon’s cleared, the Goron Target Range is open for business. This is the train version of Salvatore’s game from Phantom Hourglass, with Link riding through the targets – blue targets are 10 points, red targets are 30 points and can be hit three times, and Goron targets are –30 points. Some of the targets spin around and have Gorons on one side, so Link has to pay attention to what he’s shooting. The rewards are a choice between treasure chests – one has rupees, the other a treasure of improving rarity as Link does better at the game. This is what I eventually used to farm treasures, and where my patience snapped as I got dozens of Ancient Gold Pieces and Goron Ambers and one fscking Palace Dish.

Back in the Goron Village, now that Link has a bow, he can buy that quiver, upgrading his arrow capacity from 20 to 30. There’s a Goron here who wants to see snow, so Link takes him to the Anouki Village. There, the Goron meets with Kofu (posing as Honcho, for some reason), who wants to move somewhere warmer, so Link brings him to the Goron Village. Finally, a Goron wants to move to Castle Town and meet the princess, so Link takes him, and he runs off to find her. (Zelda wonders if he’ll actually get to meet her, before realizing no, of course he won’t.) And… well, he meets a woman, and thinks she’s the princess, only he’s disappointed she’s not like he imagined, and actually says that so she can hear, and she storms off. Even still, the Goron’s happy to be in the city. Link gets a Force Gem from all three passengers, plus one more for delivering Mega Ice to the fish seller in Papuchia Village. One of these opens a warp gate between the Snow and Fire Realms. With the newly opened tracks, and the tracks around the Fire Temple cleared, Link can round up eight rabbits now, including the last snow rabbit.

Next: Treasure hunters, pirates, monologuing, and big balls.

Spirit Tracks: Embrose

The Goron chieftain stands in the way of the path to the Fire Sanctuary, but when he hears what Link’s done for his people, he moves out of the way so Link can pass. The way to the Fire Sanctuary is full of enemies that want to eat Link – Like Likes and Fire Babas. As with the other sanctuaries, Link finds a stamp station along the way. The final test involves more of those statue heads and a puzzle involving the story interpretation of the statue arrangement. As with the other Lokomos, Embrose knows why Link’s come to visit and teaches him his part in the song needed to restore the tracks.

Before Link and Zelda head to the temple, Embrose hints that they may want to talk to the villagers for tips on dealing with the monsters on the mountain. The chieftain says there are three locks, and monsters have taken the keys. The other villagers give tips for dealing with the monsters. They’re good at running away, but if Link approaches them head-on he should be able to take care of them. They also dislike loud noises, particularly in a pattern probably best described as “choo choooooo.”

The Dark Trains are gone from the Fire Realm, don’t appear at all in the Ocean Realm (Link has to fight off Pirates there instead – fortunately without the boarding party encounter), and sometimes don’t appear in the Snow or Forest Realms (and Link sometimes has to fight Tanks – basically land pirates – instead). On the other hand, when they are in the Snow Realm, one of them is replaced by an Armored Train, although like all the evil trains it stays in its little area and only bothers Link when he goes up there.

Now that Link has a freight car, there’s a bunch of people Link can help out by hauling stuff. Starting in Goron Village, there’s one Goron who’s unable to return home because of a lava spout, so he needs Mega Ice to bring to him. Someone in Castle Town wants fish, and there’s a merchant in Papuchia Village who sells fish, so Link hauls the fish. A guy in Aboda Village wants to raise cuccos, so Link buys some from a guy in Castle Town and brings them to him. Whittleton needs iron to make new axes, and the Gorons sell it. The Anouki need wood to build a fence, and that comes from Whittleton. (They also need the bridge worker to actually build the fence.) Ferrus sends Link a letter asking him to pick him up from one of his photography expeditions, and asks to be brought to Aboda Village to meet Alphonzo. (He’s disappointed to learn Alphonzo doesn’t think of himself as a legendary engineer, but a legendary swordsman.) And Steem wants something to decorate his sanctuary, which turns out to be a giant vase sold by the Wise One in Papuchia Village. (It being a vase, Link can’t help himself and destroys it after going through the trouble to deliver it safely. Steem is understandably upset, so Link goes and gets another one. Chastised, he lets this one live.)

All this work adds up to seven new Force Gems. The new tracks have two new warp gates, connecting the Fire Realm to the Forest and Snow Realms. There are seven new rabbits Link can catch: four in the Fire Realm, and one each in the other three. The one from the Forest Realm brings his total to ten, and he now has one of each type of rabbit, and both of those accomplishments earns a treasure from Bunnio. (There are five types of rabbits, not four – one that Link caught in the southern Fire Realm is actually a Desert Rabbit. Although everything in story is pointing to the Fire Temple as being the last dungeon, there are a bunch of signs that it’s not – a fifth type of rabbit, Link at 12/16 hearts, the stamp book at 15/20, two empty inventory slots.) Oh, and speaking of the stamp book, Niko rewards Link for getting 75% done by letting him change outfits between the guard’s outfit/Hero’s tunic and his old engineer clothes.

The Force Gems have opened two new stations in the Snow Realm. First, in the northwest corner, there’s Snowdrift Station. This has a minidungeon, with five crystal switches across a narrow gap and a warning that hitting them in the wrong order will cause a person to “fall into darkness.” There are four staircases, each leading to a challenge for Link to overcome that leads to a tablet with a hint for the correct order to hit the switches. With all the hints, a bridge appears for Link to cross to a final challenge: fighting four Mini-Freezards in a small icy area, which quickly becomes chaotic with how they bounce all over the place. Defeating them leads to the reward: an ultra-rare Alchemy Stone treasure.

One of the challenges at Snowdrift Station was a maze with icy floors, which was a good preparation for the other new station, Slippery Station in the northern Snow Realm. The main feature here is a huge icy maze, with three challenges; the harder challenges have longer sections of the maze to complete. The trick is to learn to corner quickly by rolling, and thankfully rolling is much easier in this game than in Phantom Hourglass. The prizes for completing the three challenges are 300 rupees, a rare treasure, and another Alchemy Stone.

Next: From big tracks to little tracks.