Day 3: Southern Swamp and Woodfall
My first thought when entering Southern Swamp was, “hey, maybe this game isn’t as dark as I thought.” The place was brightly colored, and it even has a tourist board. But boy, was I wrong. First there were the monkeys that had their brother kidnapped and asked me to rescue him. Not too bad, but then there was the poisonous water(!) and the Skulltula House, a building filled to the brim with giant spiders, where the first thing you see upon entering is a half-man-half-spider-thing.
Southern Swamp is home to the Deku Palace, home of the Deku Royal Family. They've kidnapped - and plan to kill - the monkey, because they think he has something to do with the disappearance of the Deku princess. It's important to note that all evidence points to the Deku king planning to not just kill the monkey, but to roast him. At least that's what I got from the huge fire in the middle of the throne room. (They're made of wood, so that can't be a normal thing.) Long story short, Link has to go to rescue the princess from Woodfall Temple.
Woodfall is creepy, not like Southern Swamp at all. It's very dark and the whole place is out to get you. Woodfall Temple, on the other hand, isn't creepy at all (except for one room that's pitch dark and filled with enemies called Boes that are black puffs with glowing eyes). It's also a lot smaller than I remember, and a lot easier too. Unfortunately, it's also the reason I had to look at a strategy guide for the first time, so that's lame. And for stupid reasons, too: there was a room that I hadn't been to and couldn't figure out how to enter (you ended up going to it after you beat the boss) and there was a stray fairy that I couldn't find (that I really should've been able to).
Speaking of the boss, Odolwa is straight crazy. He looks like a jungle warrior, which is crazy enough, but then he jumps around and convulses and does all sorts of weird things. I don't even know the strategy for beating him; he periodically called down giant bugs and swarms of...something, so I just hit him with my sword whenever I got a chance. That seemed to work, though.
Other things to discuss:
1. When you rescue the princess, you have to carry her back to the palace in a bottle. A bottle! How is that even possible?
2. Thanks to the openness of the game, I was able to have five hearts when I started the Woodfall Temple, instead of the usual three. It helped considerably.
3. After returning the Princess, the Deku Butler decides to give you a gift. To get it, you have to do the chase-him-through-a-series-of-complicated-corridors-while-he-floats-past-all-the-obstacles nonsense that originated with Dampe in Ocarina. I had to do it at least a dozen times, until I realized that it was much easier as regular Link. I figured since I was in Deku Country and following a Deku, that I should be a Deku to do it, but apparently that was not the case.
4. After beating the Woodfall Temple, you get to meet the first of the Four Giants. Here's a picture. This game is so weird.
Day 4: Snowhead and Romani Ranch
There's not much to do in Snowhead, but there's plenty of oddity to go around. The first real objective you accomplish is getting the Lens of Truth, which allows you to see the ghost of Darmani III (Dead Person #2); after you follow him to his grave and play the Song of Healing, you get the Goron Mask. And here's a perfect place to talk about something that I forgot to mention last time: whenever you put on a Transformation Mask, it plays a cinematic of you/dead person/both screaming in agony. Luckily, it's skippable...eventually. The first time you put on the mask, you HAVE to watch Link or whoever go through that torture. What the heck? Here's what it looks like:
This is actually from the third Transformation Mask, and Darmani's is actually more painful to watch, but this was the only one I could find.
After becoming Goron Link, you can get the Goron Lullaby and go to Snowhead Temple. But to do that, you have to stop a baby Goron from crying incessantly. And to do THAT, you have to talk to the Goron Elder who moves so slow the cold freezes him in place. What. Once you get the Lullaby, you have to play it to make the Biggoron sitting in front of Snowhead Temple fall asleep. When he falls asleep, he falls over into what appears to be a bottomless cavern. Does he die? Who cares? Link certainly doesn't. Fortunately, in this game it doesn't really matter whether he does or not because once you go back to the first day, he'll be back to life again. Still, that's some pretty crappy behavior on the part of our hero.
Snowhead Temple is pretty easy, but it can be frustrating. Several parts rely on rolling on precarious paths that are easy to fall off of. But it's pretty quick to get through if you don't care about getting anything (I'll get to that in a bit). I did have to use a strategy guide again, but only to find two fairies - one of them I should've been able to find, but the other was impossible, so I only feel half bad. You get the Fire Arrow, which definitely come in handy, but not against the Boss for whatever reason. The boss, Goht, is just as weird as Odolwa. He's a giant mechanical goat that runs around in circles. Strange. He's easy to beat, though; Goron Link has to chase him by rolling and run into him a bunch of times. Basic stuff.
After you beat Snowhead Temple, Snowhead turns to Spring. This is a good example of the fluidity of time in Termina. Only one region seems to have seasons, and it can change seasons without any of the other regions being affected. You can slow time, but no one seems to notice but you; in effect, it just gives you superspeed, but you're not actually moving any faster than normal, and the other characters aren't moving any slower (except for one thing where slowing time DOES make the characters move slower). And there are other examples that I can't think of at the moment.
Once Snowhead turns to Spring, you can get Powder Kegs and go to the Goron Racetrack. The Goron Racetrack, by the way, sucks. It's incredibly difficult to win, and if you happen to be in the middle of a race and there's 14 gametime minutes before the world ends, you can't pull out your instrument to go back through time. You're just stuck. This did, however, let me see what happens if the world DOES end, and it's not pretty. The moon, which is suddenly ON FIRE, crashes into Clock Town and destroys everything. In slow motion. It's not pretty. And since I wasn't able to go back to the first day on time, I had to completely redo the entire Snowhead Temple. But since I got to keep my double magic meter (a gift for collecting all the stray fairies), all I was interested in getting from the temple were the Fire Arrows and Boss Key; I was able to ZOOM through the dungeon that way. Goht was just as easy the second time.
Now that Link has access to Powder Kegs, he can blow up the boulders in front of Romani Ranch, which allows him access at any point, not just on the third day. Which is good, because I didn't realize just how KEY the Ranch was to so many parts of the game. It gets you two masks (at least), Epona, access to the Milk Bar (which gets you more masks and accomplishments), and so many other things. You also get to find out why Romani was catatonic on the third day, and it is not pretty. Here's what went down:
According to Romani, every year before the Carnival, these aliens show up and steal all the cows. This year, she plans to fight them off, but no one will help her because they think she's making it up. So we have this eight-year-old girl setting out to single-handedly save her family's ranch from invading aliens. That's pretty impressive. By the way, the aliens look like this:
Freaky.
And the next night, you have to help Romani's older sister Cremia deliver milk. This is one of the few things in the same that's scary without being balls-out bizarre. The path from Romani Ranch to Clock Town is blocked off, so Cremia has to drive through Gorman's Ranch. Once there, the Gorman Bros. chase her on horses and try to destroy all of her milk. That's messed up, especially since having your livelihood destroyed by bandits is the best possible outcome of the woman's-path-diverted-into-nonfriendly-territory-where-she's-attacked-by-two-strange-men scenario. Thankfully, this game is Rated E For Everyone.
And that's it for now. I'm still a fan of the game so far and I'm glad it's craziness is getting to shine through better than ever. I'm still on the fence about the dungeons, though; I feel like they could be better, but I'm not sure how. Next time I'll tackle Great Bay and...other stuff. Sidequests, probably.
No comments:
Post a Comment