Link wakes up in the Lorule Blacksmith’s house; the Blacksmith’s Wife apparently found him lying in the middle of a road and brought him there to recover. And now that she has, she tells him to get lost. As Link leaves the house, Hilda contacts him to tell him a little about Lorule. It’s a dark mirror of Hyrule, and parts of it have crumbled away to nothingness, leaving no way to walk across the gaps. Fortunately, Yuga’s actions have created more fissures like the one Link passed through to get to Lorule in the first place. (And there are weather vanes throughout Lorule, and Irene’s broom answers the bell there, so fast travel works and can cross the gaps.) Finally, Hilda leaves Link with a warning that Lorule is dangerous, which Link immediately learns when he goes down the steps and fights a Hinox that throws bombs faster than the ones in A Link to the Past did.
The starting of Lorule is the largest, covering the equivalents of Kakariko Village, Hyrule Castle, Link’s House/Ravio’s Shop, and the Southern Ruins. There’s a lot to do in this area. Just south of the village, there’s a shop selling access to a Big Bomb Flower; Link can take a big bomb and it’ll follow him around until it takes damage, which sets it off to explode. The big bombs are needed to open the way to the Swamp Palace, open a cave in the Southern Ruins with a heart piece, and open a cave near the flower with a pond for Link to throw rupees into. These rupees make the fairy that lives in the pond stronger, and once Link’s tossed 3,000 rupees in, he gets a bottle. Another bottle can be found by bombing the back wall of the equivalent of Link’s house.
There are three minigames in this area. First is the Lorule version of Rupee Rush, which requires more rupees, but there are also more and better ones to be found. The ultimate reward is a heart piece, and there’s a Maiamai Link can liberate from a wall in the area. The second, located in Lorule’s version of Flute Boy’s grove, is Octoball Derby – an Octorok spits rocks at Link, which he hits to try to break pots scattered around a field. If Link hits three pots in a row, a bird flies overhead that’s worth 20 points, and Link’s going to need to hit at least four of them to have a good chance of getting the 100 points needed to get the Heart Piece reward. On the other hand, if Link hits the rock straight back into the Octorok, it’s worth 0 points and the Octorok immediately spits another rock. I wouldn’t note this except it’s way too fscking easy to do. And the village has a chest minigame, which also has a heart piece. There doesn’t seem to be an equivalent of A Link to the Past’s digging minigame, and good riddance.
In addition to the one in the Rupee Rush, there are 14 Maiamais in this area, and Link can find 12 of them. Six are on walls, spread all over the region (one requires taking fissures to Hyrule and back), two are in trees, one under a skull near the Octoball Derby, one under grass by the Big Bomb Flower, one atop a pillar, and one underwater near the Swamp Palace. The other two appear to be under heavy rocks, so that’s it for this corner of Lorule. Link warps back to Hyrule via a fissure in a building in the village, and finds himself in a locked house in Kakariko, whose inhabitant stops to give him a heart piece.
Back in Hyrule, Ravio has exciting news: he’s decided to start selling all his items! The prices are high, but this game has the most plentiful rupees I’ve ever seen. Also, there are two benefits to buying the items. First, Link gets to keep them if he dies; it would take a lot of dying to make up the difference between multiple rentals and a single purchase, but there’s also the convenience of not having to go back for them. Second, owning the items means Mother Maiamai can upgrade them. Link gets one item upgrade per ten baby Maiamais returned to Mother, so that means he can upgrade five right now. I chose the Bow (shoots three arrows instead of one), Tornado Rod (bigger radius, does minor damage), Hammer (more damage, bigger shockwave), Boomerang (faster, flies farther; basically like Magic Boomerang compared to Boomerang from earlier games), and Bombs (bigger blast, more damage).
Next: The tragedies of hunting the Golden Bee.
