Our next area is the Fortress, and the first level is the Sealed Gateway. Items are two Boomerangs and a Gust Jar. The first stage is populated by soldiers, who have upped their game from A Link Between Worlds; there’s basically no opening in their defense unless you make one with an item. The second stage has a flail trooper, followed by two soldiers more with more on higher ground throwing bombs and spears down at the Links. Stage 3 reintroduces the walls raised/lowered by crystals – keeping the wall form from A Link Between Worlds, which even without wall-merging allows for height puzzles. The final stage has a small puzzle with two pendulum-like weights suspended over a bridge that the Link with the Gust Jar needs to swing to allow one to pass, then a boss fight against two flail troopers.
The next level is Bomb Storage, but only one item is Bombs – the other two are Gust Jars. The first stage has a couple crystal switches in windows where the Gust Jar can reach, first from a bomb flower, then working together with the Link with the Bombs. The second stage has a set of parallel walkways the Links need to coordinate to get each other past puzzles (and the Gust Jar can be used to send Links between the walkways). Much of the third stage is an aerial cable car that the Gust Jars can propel with a couple crystal switches that need to be hit with Bombs. There’s also a bunch of rupees suspended on the rope, and it didn’t occur to me to toss a Link up there to get them. The final stage is a rematch with the Hinox Brothers; this one’s considerably easier at first because the walkway’s even bigger, the Hinox Brothers don’t move, and the Gust Jar can propel bombs right back at them. Once their down, their big brother comes in and tosses huge bombs at the Links. They’re not as big as the ones from Four Swords Adventures where the only way to survive was to get off the screen, but they do have a big boom radius so it’s helpful to lure them away from where the Link with Bombs wants to stand to throw Bombs at the Hinox. Further complicating matters, each time the Big Hinox Brother reappears, a couple Hardhat Beetles spawn; this would be fine in multiplayer with one Link handling the Beetles while the other two work on the boss, but frustrating in single player.
The third level is the Training Ground, where the puzzles revolve around Link riding on Armos. (Items: Bow, Gripshot, Gust Jar.) Key to the puzzle in the first stage is that Armos can bounce safely across lava, which took me way too long to figure out and I pretty much only did by accident. Stage two has combat that’s easy because a Link mounted on an Armos smashes anything not mounted on an Armos. The third stage has Beamos eyes; one mounted on the Armos the Links need to use, the other on a nearby pillar. There’s also a puzzle involving using Armos to block fire streams that feels right out of Spirit Tracks’ Tower of Spirits. The fourth stage seems the response to my earlier discovery and pits the mounted Links against mounted enemies for jousting. The Gust Jar can still knock enemies off their mounts, and then the Armos smash strategy is back in play. After the first wave, a second wave spawns with a mounted flail soldier, one with a shield that needs to be stolen with the Gripshot, and a bomb-throwing soldier on a two-high Armos totem.
The Lady’s Lair is the final level. The first stage gives the Links their items: Boomerang, Gripshot, and Gust Jar. The second stage pits them against three soldiers in rotating cable cars, one throwing bombs that can be thrown back. (If he goes before either of the other two, there are bomb flowers that can be used instead.) The third stage is a mostly simple climb to the end, with a couple combat encounters: one with Hardhat Beetles and a Shield Soldier, one with two Hinox and a Fire Flail Soldier. Finally, the Links come face-to-face with Lady Maud, the Lady behind all of Styla’s troubles, and… she’s everything that annoys me about her sister, plus she’s the villain so I’m going to be disinclined to like her anyway. I’m fairly certain she’s my least favorite Zelda villain, unless you count my extreme distaste for fighting the Imprisoned against Demise. (And that game had Ghirahim.)
Anyway, we’re on Area 5, not 8, so we’re only fighting the Tri Furies, the Lady’s Pets right now. These are based on the first three area bosses in order. First up is the Margoma pet that looks like an evil wedding cake. Strategy’s still the same, only difference is the bombs have to come from the flowers on the islands just off the main boss platform. Next up is the Moldorm pet, and this is my favorite Moldorm ever [1]. One of the Links can be tossed over to the bomb island, and sit there out of Moldorm’s grasp and chuck bombs at it. For the last phase when it’s bouncing around the platform with no pattern and its tail up where it takes a full totem to hit, I had to come back to the main platform, but that was no big deal. Finally, there’s Arrghus, protected by two fiery eyes and two icy eyes. They can be stunned and killed safely, or just ignored to hit the main eye with the Gripshot and finish it off when it’s down. Lady Maud throws a tantrum at the defeat of her pets and teleports out. The treasure chest at the end has the second piece of the Lady’s Ensemble, the Lady’s Collar.
Next: I’m starting to think I don’t like this game very much.
[1] Of the version known in Japan as Tail.
