Immediately south of the Dueling Peaks region, the Bridge of Hylia stretches south across Lake Hylia in the Lake region. Farosh, the yellow-green electric dragon, flies over the lake at night, meaning Link now has places to farm bits of all three dragons. The tower is to the west of the road leading south from the bridge; the surrounding area is patrolled by tough monsters, but the climb is fairly easy. A journal with hints to the locations of six more DLC items is in a ruined shack surrounded by the smaller lake to Lake Hylia’s northeast. Three of the items can be found in the Lake region: the lobster shirt Link wore at the start of Wind Waker (gives resistance to heat), Ravio’s bunny hood (increases sideways climbing speed), and armor reminiscent of Phantom Ganon (Ocarina of Time-style; part of a set, no bonus for a single piece).
The first major landmark Link comes across is the Highland Stable. This stable has a group of mounted Bokoblins harassing travelers; Link deals with them on his way in, and there was a sidequest for it, but it’s already done, so he can skip to the reward. A man at the stable challenges Link to ride his obstacle course, and rewards for beating the times are a bridle and saddle set. As with the racing games in Ocarina and Majora’s Mask [1], most of the trouble with the obstacle course is controlling the beast. I suppose there are times when you want to direct the horse’s view separately from Link’s, but for racing that’s definitely not the case. I don’t know that there’s a one-size-fits-all solution to the horse controls, but these are not fun. Also, horses have been given some basic intelligence, which is generally nice, except that having a mind of their own sometimes means they go off and do things you don’t want them to. (Also, the age-old problem of running straight at a barrier and the horse refusing to jump it for no apparent reason never went away.)
The shrine near the stable is Ka’o Makagh (“Metal Doors Open the Way”). The puzzles start with simply opening metal doors using Magnesis, but the real challenge comes when it’s time to navigate the higher level of the shrine, where the interesting stuff is up even higher with no way up. The shrine’s name points to using one of the doors as a bridge, but as with so many puzzles with the solution of “blow something up,” if you don’t spot the thing you need to blow up (the wall one of the doors is hinged too), it is very frustrating, although running around screaming does help blow some of that off.
The stable has hints toward another set of horse gear. Only the saddle is in this area, in an area far more interesting for what else is there. It looks like a Great Fairy Fountain, only Malanya, the fairy (or god, as they call themself) here, offers a different service – reviving dead horses. I didn’t know they could die. And Malanya looks like Bongo Bongo with a horse head mask. It’s a creepy effect. (As with the Great Fairy Fountains, the music changes once Malanya is offered rupees – only here, Epona’s Song [2] is laid over the Great Fairy’s theme.) The saddle Link can find lets him summon his horse, but Epona can’t use it.
Off in the other direction from Malanya, there’s the Mounted Archery Camp. One of the guys there runs a mounted archery minigame and as much as I want to run screaming and say pancake that, it has a set of horse gear for getting the high scores, so… yeah, I’m in. Here’s where Link being able to look separately from Epona is useful, but Epona’s not on rails and can be spooked, so you can’t ignore her, either. I don’t know if this is really harder than the mounted archery game in Ocarina, but it has two big strikes against it. First, you don’t get provided a bow and arrows, so you have to use your own, and it counts against your bow’s durability. (I quickly said “Okay, but then I’m only saving if I get a winning score.”) Second, starting the game has too many prompts. (“Do you want to play? Do you need to buy arrows? Will you pay the entry fee? Do you need me to explain the rules? Shall I repeat all th... oh, wait, I’m just an archery game host, not an overtalkative owl.”)
I quickly hit on two things that made my score better: using a multishot bow and bomb arrows so close counts better. After several runs of being stuck in the mid-teens, I decided if people swear by using tilt controls to aim, maybe I could give it a shot. My third run ended when I fired a volley straight into Epona’s head. I went to play again and discovered I no longer had a horse. I guess they can die. Back to thumbstick aiming. What finally broke me through was switching from Epona to a different, slower horse (a striking black horse with white mane and tail I captured near Hyrule Castle). This gave me more time to aim while still getting me to the last set of targets with just enough time to shoot them.
Next: My Korok dedication is seriously tested.
[1] I’m not sure if horse controls in Twilight Princess were better or they just recognized the limitations better and didn’t make a minigame that exposed them.
[2] Malanya… Malon… I just got that…
