Zelda

A Link to the Past:

Day 36: (December 11, 2014) A Link to the Past

Woohoo! New game!!! ^.^ As explained on Day 35, this is the first game on the split where Gannondorf won in Ocarina of Time. After the death of the would-be Hero of Time, the sages pulled Gannondorf into the Sacred Realm and sealed him there. That way, Hyrule could still exist with some degree of peace, even though Gannon was alive and well on the other side. Many many years later (centuries?), people started to forget about the days of Gannondorf and even though some ranom people would find some way to slip into what was once called the Sacred Realm, Life just kinda went on. Or at least it did until a powerful wizard named Agahnim showed up and started using desdendants of the sages to break the seal on the Sacred Realm so he could get the Triforce, which is said to be in that land. He is pretty much done with this task and has only one descendant left: Zelda. The story begins with Zelda telepathically contacting Link in an effort to get him to get her out of the castle before Agahnim sacrifices her and opens the gateway to the Sacred Realm. Link wakes up from the sleep he was in when he was contacted by Zelda just as his uncle (his only living relative) was leaving to go somewhere. I followed directions from Zelda and went to a secret enterance to the castle and went in. I found my uncle dying from battle wounds. He gave me his sword and shield and asked me to save the princess Zelda. I was already doing that anyway so of course I accepted! I continued on and found the princess in a jail cell. I killed the guard keeping her there then we left out a different secret enterance and I left her with a still faithful servant of the royal family. It wasn't much but after getting that much done, I called it a day. :P

Day 37: (December 13, 2014) A Link to the Past

Eager to get more done, I did as instructed by the servant who was keeping Zelda safe and went to Kakariko Village to talk to the Elder of the village. Yes, it exists here too. Even though it's on the other side of the castle now, it's still here. :) Now I have played this before, though I never finished the game. So naturally, that means I remember that the elder is not in the village and I knew where his house was but I couldn't quite remember who to talk to so I could get the map marker that shows me where this guy is... So I went around talking to everyone. Including the ones who inform the evil guards where I was. Oh yeah. The guards are out to get me because I kidnapped the princess. Lame, right? Kidnap someone to save them and the bad guys ruling the country are all of a sudden out to get me! Those jerks... Anyway, I eventually found a boy who knew where he was and I got a map marker that said the elder (named Sahasrahla. I used to think it was Sarahasla but I was pretty young when I first played it and never bothered making sure I got the name right until this play through..). So anyway, I found him in a little hideout near the first place he was going to send me to. He explained that he was a descendant of the sages and that I needed to get the Master Sword if I wanted to help Zelda and the wrld but before I could get that, I'd need to get three pendants. The first of course being in the dungeon we were close to. I accepted his offer to get the pendants then the Master Sword and save the world! Now since faith without works is dead, I got right to that dungeon and plowed right through it! It was more or less how I remembered and the dundeon designers did a good job with this one. Of course, in each game, the designers are limited by the system that the game is made on and if Nintendo went back to start a game like this from just the concept, it would be a whole lot different. What I mean to say is that I'm keeping in mind the system that these games were originally programmed for while playing. Obviously a two-dimensional game like this one isn't going to be anywhere near as complicated or easily immersive as Ocarina of Time which is 3-D and has so much more detail and dialogue. Also (probably mentioned previously), These games are made to take advantage of the hardware of the system they're made for like Phantom Hourglass uses the microphone on the DS and the original Ocarina of Time used the rumble pack which was a new thing in home video game consoles and Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess used the Wiimote and the Nunchuck for more realistic sword and archery controls. ...and A Link to the Past was programmed for the Super NES which means it's pretty limited by today's standards... It does have Mode 7... ... huh? Oh! Right. The game. Well, this one day was a bit of a binge play so I'm really fuzzy on some of the details. If you want to get a better idea of what these levels are like and how cool some of them are, play the game. I know a lot of people who call this their favorite Zelda game. There is a reason for that. Anyway, I got the first pendant from the Eastern Dungeon so I moved on to the Desert Dungeon all the way in the Southwest corner of the map. Getting in was cool because it required me to actually go to the library and get a book. You see, you open it up by speaking some words but the instructions and words are in Ancient Hylian and nobody knows how to read that any more! The book lets Link translate the message at the enterance and after he says the magic words, it opens right up. In this level, I avoided all sorts of sand monsters and got an extra heart piece or two and then got my second pendant. Then it was off to the last one! ...up at the top of Death Mountain. This Death Mountain is tougher to navigate than the one in Ocarina of Time. The only way up starts in a cave with pits you can fall to you death in and after that, you get boulders randomly dropped from the top of the screen where in Ocarina of Time, you know when the bolders are coming. :/ Anyway, I found my way up while acompanying another traveler going to the top. Once there, I finally got access to the Sacred Realm!!! Woohoo! It's a bit limited but it's kinda necessary. I used the other realm to get into the last of the three pendant dungeons and got to work! I killed some bad guys and did the Zelda game thing and soon found myself the proud owner of all three pendants necessary to get the Master Sword! I love this next part because it's pretty much the iconic moment that a lot of people know from these games. After traveling to the opposite side of the forest near Kakariko, I came to a clearing with a small shrine built around the Master Sword which has been sleeping for centuries. So when you see a picture of the Master Sword in some scerene, that is what the situation was until Link came back to reclaim his Master Sword in this very game. I took the sword out of its pedestal and immediately thing got crazy! Agahnim found Zelda and opened up a portal between the worlds... It wasn't cool. Somehow, Sahasrahla found a way to talk to me telepathically (like Zelda does) and told me to get to a certain place (same place where the first pendant was) so I could go through that dungeon and free the sage that was being kept there. At that point, I decided to call it good for the day and leave the rest of the story for other days...

Day 38: (December 14, 2014) A Link to the Past

I made my way to the first sage dungeon (with much help from a kind little monkey) and did the hero thing. This is the point where I have much less experience so I didn't quite plow through this level like I did with the others. I did a bit of fumbling but with the help of two jars and a fairy in each plus a place in that very dungeon to stock up and get more fairies, I did it! I freed the first sage!!! Oh yeah, I also got this nifty mallet that is pretty much this Zelda's version of the Megaton Hammer. Good fun stuff. :)

Day 39: (December 17, 2014) A Link to the Past

I didn't get much done today. Consider yourself warned. I traveled to the second sage dungeon but was immediately blocked... I need me some flippers because there's no other way I'm going to go swimming and get through this one without them. I traveled to the regular world and fumbled my way through the new Zora's Domain (why do these guys hate Hylians now...? :( ) and found the King Zora. At least this one doesn't want to kill me. Instead, he'll just sell me those flippers I need for 500 rupees. I paid up and swam off back to the dungeon where I decided that I just wasn't feeling it and I saved the game...

Day 40: (February 12, 2015) A Link to the Past

Yeah, first time in a long time. I got a bit done, though! I went straight into the dungeon that requires the flippers. You see, in order to get past the first little bit of this new dungeon, I needed to flip a switch on the other side of an area that you need to swim through. So anyways, I did that, got into the dungeon, and started killing the new Hylian Lake monsters (because this dungeon is in the Dark Realm's area near Lake Hylia). This one was pretty tricky and I was painfully reminded of how much stronger the Dark Realm enemies were as I used up all three of my fairies more than once. Part of what made this tricky is the standard non-linear nature of the dungeon. Not sure if I mentioned this before but many places in regular RPG games are pretty linear with minor side-tracks that give you cool bonuses but in Zelda games, you need to go as far as you can in one direction then you will need to turn around and try using what you got here at a place where you weren't able to go into before. This dungeon certainly had that going on, as I had to get the Boss Key then get the hookshot (heck yeah!!!) to get further in the dungeon. I know, that is still standard format but I don't remember seeing this dungeon before so it was tough. So I figured it out and made my way to the boss for the level. This one was kinda strange but also like a few I've seen before so I kinda knew what to do. I used my shiney new hookshot and pulled the mini-couds from the big cloud and killed them one at a time then killed the big one what was hiding behind the little ones! And thusly, I freed one more of the Sage descendants! After having done that, I checked my trusty map to see where the next level was... Score! It's in the forest! I always love the forests in these games. Whether it's the nice pleasant green ones or the dark eerie one like we have in the Dark Realm here, They're always awesome. :D ...except it wasn't so easy to get to... Good thing I have that cool new hookshot! I used that to cross the river to the right of the pyramid and I was on my way to the forest all the way in the top-left side of the map. On my way, I picked up a piece of heart by going between worlds and also found a nice new red shield! I can't remember what was supposed to be so special about the shield but hey, it's new! To make a brief detour, I went to the Dark Realm's version of Kakariko Village. I was pretty disappointed to see homes falling in and thieves everywhere. It was pretty sad... That was enough for me, though so I went North to the forest! Of course, it had to be like the dungeon in the Light Realm where I could enter through the regular enterance or I could fall through holes and end up in whatever part of the dungeon was underneath that... I explored a bit and found a few different enterances to this dungeon. I tried a few out and tried to use the floor switches that changed where holes in the floor of the dungeon are and using the only key I could find, I decided to end it for the day...

Day 41: (February 15, 2015) A Link to the Past

So I did a bit more exploring and I found it! Another way in! I went around, found another key, finished everything I could in there, went back to the first enterance I found and went through that one as well then the second one I found and holy cow that was crazy because the stupid Floor Masters (the hands that garb you and drop you off where you entered that dungeon) seemed to be unusually successful at their game. Anyway, I blew up a wall and got the Boss Key and I found the Fire Rod! Since that Fire Rod seemed to be the only new tool from that level, I decided to take it to the crazy bug looking thing where the Maste Sword was in the Light Realm. I used the Fire Rod on the bug and the majority of it went up in flames, revealing what I was pretty certain was that dungeon's boss! I went in, went through a few rooms and quickly determined that I needed more fairies... So I got some from under the rock by a nearby fortune teller's hut and got back to it. I went in there and was a bit disapointed when I ran out of magic and ended up easily killing this one with just my sword. Oh well... I freed the Sage and was one step closer to beating this game!

Day 42: (February 17, 2015) A Link to the Past

Alright. So the next place is in the middle of the Dark Realm's Kakariko Village. There's this large gargoyle thing just standing there with a pitchfork blocking my way in! I wandered everywhere I could in the city and read every sign and talked to everything that didn't attack me and that looked like it might give me some information but I never found anything that would help me get in. It was a bit saddening, really... So instead, I decided to play a treasure chest game in a building off to the left of the dungeon I can't get into. The idea is pretty simple. I give the guy 30 rupees and he lets me open two of sixteen treasure boxes. I decided to see if there was any pattern to it. I got some graph paper and decided that I would choose a certain two every time to help make that pattern more noticible. And after playing that game 84 times, the best thing I have to say for it is that by opening the two boxes in the middle, you are so very likely to get 100 rupees from one of those boxes. When I wrote it down, I only forgot one box's contents so out of 167 opened boxes, 64 gave me 100 rupees! It was THE most common box to get! So if you play this game and you want rupees, just play that treasure box game in the Dark Realm's Kakariko Village. You'll be rich. And now, if only I could find out how to get into that dungeon... Oh yeah. There wasn't a pattern to those box contents; they seem to be pretty random.

Day 43: (February 21, 2015) A Link to the Past

So... As it turns out, the way to open that up is by pulling the gate out from the enterance to the level. Crazy. Anyway, I got in there and well I don't remember much of what happened because I made the mistake of waiting a few days to write this up and a bit has gone on in the last few days. What I do know is that I found my way through the level, I got a new tunic! Now how often can you say that, huh? Anyway, new tunic. And then I killed the dungeon boss. And once again, I don't remember which one this was. It's kinda sad. :/ Continuing on, I went to the next dungeon and ended up getting stuck once more. To get in this level, I need a new spell like the Quake one I got a while ago but I don't know where it is. I remember that to get the spells, you need to read stone tablets with the book of Mudora. So I decided to set out looking for those stone tablets. I found one close to the level but that wasn't the one I need... So that means I have two out of three and I don't have the one I need. Nintendo, you suck. I looked a bit more and talked to a witch assistant who gave me some magic powder. That's cool but still not what I'm looking for. I even found a piece of heart! ...but not the spell I need to get into the next level. I'm going to come back to this another day and give it another go...

Day 44: (February 24, 2015) A Link to the Past

Well that wasn't so bad. I decided to try out Death Mountain since I haven't spent much time there yet. I wandered around a bit on the far right of the map and didn't find anything too useful but I went to the west side of Gannon's Castle and realized that I haven't been there before. I went back to the Light Realm there and I found it! That one last spell that I need to get into the next dungeon! I quickly made my way back while making sure that I'm fully stocked on fairies and hearts and opened that dungeon right up! Now inside the dungeon, I began wandering around, picking up keys, opening doors, hitting switches to change which blocks are passable and which aren't. I found three places to use the Boss Key before I ever got that key, too. That's kind of rude but oh well. I wandered around some more and came to a couple rooms where each had a pair of places for a fire. I moved the bricks that block each in the first room and lit the fires but nothing happened. Then I went to the other room and did the same. Nothing. So I quickly got the two in this room again and went back to the first room to get those too, and then the ground began to shake! When the shaking finally stopped, I got a message saying something has changed in the dungeon. I'm still not sure what it was but when I dropped through a hole in the second fire room, down to the floor below, I realized that I was dropped right next to a room with a treasure chest that I haven't opened yet. I quickly ran back to that room and went one to the right then dropped down. Much to my favor, that chest held the Boss Key! I took that Boss Key to a room with a chest that can only be opened with that key and in it, I found a cane! I think it was called the Cane of Samora or something like that... I dunno. Magic cane. It's a magic cane. I used it and for the first time in all my Zelda playing experience, I found out that I have a magic cane that creates blocks. :/ I'm sure that'll come in handy in the future? Anyway, I went to the room I remembered that had a doorway that required the Boss Key to get through it. I went there and entered the new room and was met by more bad guys. I fought my way through that room and others after it, making my way to the room where I found that dungeon's boss... This boss was kinda new. He was a big eye with a bunch of little eyes in a big glob of goop. Some of the little eyes would some out and try to hit me while the big one would wait a bit and shoot out some lightning. My sword had no effect on the eyes so I used the cane to make some blocks and throw them at the eyes and the glob but nothing seemed to help... I'll just come back to it later... :/ Part 2 I came back to the game later that day and decided to give it another go. I decided to fill my jars with two servings of the blue potion which restores all hearts and magic and the last jar has the fallback fairy for just in case I die (the potions aren't going to automatically heal me if I die but the fairy will). So I came back to it with that and went up against that multi-eyed slime monster. I decided to just attack one eye for as long as I could with my sword to really make sure it wasn't doing anything to it. Eventually, that eye disappeared. I killed it! Using up both potions plus my extra fairy, I finally killed the big eye and freed the last sage! Well, with the exception of Zelda because she kinda counts as a sage, somehow. Anyway, I finished that dungeon and I only have one more marked on my map! Remembering that I could still get my sword tempered, I decided to focus on that before heading to that last dungeon. I began making my way back to the frog that I couldn't reach before in hopes of getting my sword tempered. You see, the blacksmiths in the Light Realm are great friends and only work when together. But they aren't doing any work since one managed to slip into the dark realm and I'm pretty sure that this frog stuck on a trail just a little outside the south side of the Dark Realm's Kakariko is the missing blacksmith. Using the power gloves which I got earlier (Titan's Mit?), I removed the rocks that trapped this guy. He quickly thanked me and told me that he was exactly who I hoped he was. I brought him back to his shop and he and the other blacksmith began working on my sword. While they were doing that, I remembered that there was a well with some kind of altar in it that's right by the blacksmith's shop. I jumped on in and decided to try the magic powder that I didn't have last time I was there and I was successful! Some little bat creature came out and made some statememts that I guess were supposed to make him sound annoyed but his punishment for waking him up was a bit strange. Kinda similar to something I remember from Link's Awakening (I haven't gotten to that one yet in the Project) where a bat gave either more bombs or more arrows. Anyway, this one cursed me with half magic consumption. So from then on, any spell I cast or magic I use only takes half of what it did before from my magic guage! Not doubling my guage like the Great Fairy from Ocarina of Time but having roughly the same end result. With that done, I went back and got my freshly tempered Master Sword! It should hit by twice as much now. That is neat. :) Not quite ready to head to the last marked dungeon, I thought about going for more heart pieces or the last jar when I remembered that there was a gravestone in the Light Realm that I wasn't able to move before. I decided to go after that and see if I could get it open. After all, I've got some good luck going on; why wouldn't I give that another try? I walked myself over to the graveyard and went over to the gravestone. I think I tried bombs before but tried them again anyway, just in case I remembered wrong. No luck. I tried pulling and pushing it open again. Same deal. I decided to run at it. Success! It opened up! I went inside to see what was there and found something I didn't even know existed. I expected a piece of heart but instead, I found a magic cape that turns me invisible! It uses magic but that invisibility thing is cool, right? I trust this will let me go near bad guys without them knowing I was there. I'll have to test that out later because by this time, it was late and I needed to get to sleep...

Day 45: (February 25, 2015) A Link to the Past

On this day, I got right to it. I got in that last marked dungeon and went to work! It was a bit confusing. You see, that new magic cane I got was used to make block platforms that would go along a track, letting me just stand on it as it pulled me along. At intersections, it would let me choose which direction to go and sometimes, it would just plain stop so I could get off of it and get onto the regular ground. Now, I would give you more detail on this part but I made my classic mistake and chose to put off typing all this up until days later. By the way, I just killed Gannon and I'm trying to remember everything I did to get to that point. Anyway, I got through the level and even picked up whatever nifty tool they had in there to make me better! Yeah, it's sad that I had to think a while to remember that what I got was the mirror shield. It's a pretty cool shield because there are just more and more bad guys out there shooting energy at me but this deflects most of that so of course I like having it! Continuing on, I went through the rest of the dungeon and went up against a crazy boss with one fire and one ice head. I used the ice and fire rods like you'd expect; one against its opposite element and reduced that monster to a snake-like creature then I killed that part. That freed Zelda and she told me to hurry over to Gannon's Tower (not far to the west of Turtle Rock which is where I was at the time). I did but before that, I took a little detour... I remembered something about needing special arrows when going up against Gannon and I think I remembered that they were in the pyramid, behind that large cracked part that I couldn't blow up with bombs or the bombos spell. So, I cheated. Sorry, everyone but that part of the pyramid has been bothering me for a long time and I really needed to know how to get in there especially since I was about to be going up against Gannon and might need whatever was in there! So I looked it up and found out that I needed to get some giant bomb from my house in the Dark Realm. I went there, got my giant red bomb, walked it back to the pyramid, and blew it up in front of that crack. And of course, it blew a hold in the side of that pyramid that was large enough to go through. So naturally, I went in! I found another fairy fountain where I could put stuff in. I chose the arrows and dropped them into the water... Right after that, a big fat fairy showed up. I told her that the bow and arrows were mine and she gave me better ones in return just for being so honest. After that, she made sure to tell me that she is normally beautiful but Gannon's power made her ugly. She could be right, I suppose. Anyway, she left and so did I. But after leaving, I decided to try other things so I went back in. Finally, I threw in my sword. When I told her it was mine, she thanked me for being honest and I got an even better sword in return! After all that, I decided to call it a day and figured I'd get to Gannon tomorrow...

Day 46: (February 26, 2015) A Link to the Past

And then tomorrow came. I went to Gannon's tower. It was tricky. I used a lot of fairies and a few potions. I found my way through. It was pretty linear for the most part so that helped. Along the way, I picked up the red mail which is better than the blue that I was wearing before. Now all that was just in the lower two floors of the tower. After I got the boss key, I could start making my way up. To my surprise, the higher floors weren't so hard! I kept going all the way up to the seventh floor where I found Agahnim. I used my now super-cool awesome fat fairy sword to deflect his magic attacks (again) and make quick work of the guy. When he disappeared, he turned into Gannon... Kinda crazy and not exactly what I expected but I guess it's kinda plausible? Anyway, he and I were both taken away and he crashed through the roof of the pyramid into an area just inside the top. I figured this would be the last battle so I went after him. I fought him twice and used all three of my life/magic potions plus my backup fairy. I died both times. I decided to call it a day and save the end for when I was really ready for it.

Day 47: (February 28, 2015) A Link to the Past

I woke up really early this morning and couldn't go to sleep. So of course I decided to give Gannon's defeat another try! I started out with my three blue (life and magic) potoins and my one fairy. I decided to just keep it classic. Sword attacks plus the arrows when he was stunned (The Kakriko elder recommended that second one). In addition, I knew I would need the fire rod for when the room went dark so I could light the fire and actually see where Gannon was. I did so much better this time! And I was dreading the second or third battles like are so common with guys like this but those never happened. I got him on my first try this morning and was immediately greeted by the Triforce, of all things. It explained what I already knew; that it would grant the wish of its holder and that a strong wish would have greater effect. It also said that Gannon was in control for the last long long while and that's why the Dark Realm became dark when it was once the Sacred Realm. I took the Triforce then the game ended. It showed certain characters that were helpful or necessary for me to get where I got and then it showed how many times I died in each area. Four total, in case you were wondering. I'm sure there were more but I was always quick to reset the game when I died to save time (and because I had a feeling it was keeping track..). Anyway, it showed that then it showed the credits. And now I'm ready for Oracle of Ages...