Day 12
I upgraded my Medium Bomb Bag to a Large Bomb Bag.
Day 13: The Sand Sea And Other Things
I haven't played in over a week because of work. I tried playing last Sunday (Day 12), but I was so tired I could only play for like ten minutes. But I was free all day today and got a lot done. Let's get into it!
I started out at the Shipyard, which is where I left off of course, and though I thought it was a new dungeon, it wasn't. It's basically just a mine cart ride, and even though the Wii lends itself well to mine cart rides, it's basically every other mine cart you've seen in a video game. At the end I had to fight a miniboss (the same Gohma scorpion thing that was the boss of the previous Lanayru dungeon) for no reason, and the ship I was looking for wasn't here so I had to go to the Pirate Stronghold.
The Pirate Stronghold is this giant colossus that looks like an anglerfish. It took me forever to figure out how to get inside, mainly because I thought I had to hit something to open the mouth. It was also here that I learned the game cheats occasionally: the Stronghold has a dock for you to get off the timeshift boat, and there's a wall of rocks about halfway down the length of the dock to prevent you from driving around to the back of the Stronghold; but when you actually step onto the dock, the boat is suddenly inside the wall of rocks and the dock is shorter, making you think you can drive around the Stronghold when you really can't. (I say it cheats because you wouldn't notice it until you're on the dock, so then you'd get back on the boat to try to drive around to the back, but suddenly there's a wall of rocks preventing you from doing so). It was weird and I didn't like it.
Anyway, I finally found the way in (a regular old door that I just happened to miss) and was then treated with a little mini-dungeon. And just when I thought the timeshift stones couldn't get any cooler, the Zelda team proved me wrong once again with the introduction of the Timeshift Orb. The orb is designed to be movable from one power source to another, and you have to do just that. To do that, though, you have to carry it through the dungeon, which makes monsters appear, platforms appear, and door security to work properly. It's that last one that's the coolest, because it introduces a puzzle element (e.g., the only way to go through the door is to not be carrying the orb, but then you have to find a way to get the orb through the door). It's also around here where I learned that the Sacred Shield can block Beamos's beams (and if you do a shield thrust, the beam will stun Beamos for a bit)! That's great! Anyway, putting the orb into the new power source makes the angler's mouth open up, which is where you find some old masts belonging to the Robot Captain's invisible ship, and that means you can now douse for it. And that's good, because it's invisible. So now we're done with the Pirate Stronghold, except we're totally not because I know we'll be coming back here later (if for no other reason than that there's a Goddess Cube I can't get to yet).
So I tracked down the ship and it turned out to be the real dungeon. They tried to make it feel like a ship with narrow hallways and stuff, but the rooms are just a little too roomy, so it ends up feeling like an Old West hotel or something. The miniboss is the Ancient Pirate Scervo, who probably has one of the best names ever - it's like "servo" because he's a robot, but also "scurvy" because he's a pirate! He's super easy and you get the Bow for beating him, which takes up that mysterious open spot in my inventory. The Bow is cool because you can point and shoot just like the slingshot, or you can press the C button and draw back the nunchuk to get better aim. After this, I used the bow to hit a timeshift stone on the central mast of the ship, did some more dungeony stuff, got a piece of heart, freed the ship's crew, got the Squid Sculpture from the Captain's Cabin, and used it to unlock the door to the room holding Nayru's Flame...which turned out to not be there. This begins a pretty cool boss battle that I'll get to in a minute, but first let me talk about the Boss Key. The key, as I mentioned, is shaped like a squid, which both fits the theme of the dungeon and (spoiler alert) the boss itself; furthermore, the hole the sculpture fits into is shaped like a skull, which goes along with the pirate aspect. I really dig it. Anyway, after you open the door, the ship is attacked by a giant squid monster named Tentalus, and I really dig this too; this game is really good about explaining why the bosses are there. Then, pretty much the whole dungeon becomes the boss room, because as Tentalus punches holes in the ship, it starts to sink, so you have to avoid the tentacles and the rising water and rolling barrels and all that jazz. Pretty cool. Then you get to the actual battle, which occurs on the upper deck because that's pretty much all that's left, and it involves cutting off Tentalus's tentacles with Skyward Strikes, then hitting his giant red eye with an arrow, then hitting it again with your sword. [Side note: I also learned that if a bokoblin fires an arrow at you and misses, it'll stick in the ground for a second and you can pick it up to add to your inventory. That's nice attention to detail, and pretty useful.]
After you beat him, you get Nayru's Flame, which imbues your sword with more power, making it the Goddess Whitesword. I forgot to mention it when I got Farore's Flame, but this whole collect-elemental-things-to-power-up-your-sword-with-each-version-of-the-sword-having-a-different-name is very reminiscent of Minish Cap, and a White Sword being replaced by a Master Sword has previously been done in the Oracles Linked Game. The Goddess Whitesword also lets you douse for more things, including treasure, Goddess Cubes, and grabitude crackles. It's pretty sweet.
Now that my sword's all powered up, I went back to the Isle of Songs to learn "Din's Power", and then I went to Eldin Volcano to perform my last trial. It was pretty tough, but I got through it and was rewarded with the Fireshield Earrings, which protect me from heat. Why earrings? I don't know, maybe it's a Japanese thing. Anyway, this allows me to go to the Volcano Summit, which I'll tackle tomorrow.
Before I quit, though, here are some other things I did: upgraded my bow to an Iron Bow and then to a Goddess Bow, bought a small quiver and then upgraded it to a medium and then large quiver, opened two Goddess Chests (got a piece of heart and a gold rupee), got 5 crackles from Fledge, and found 5 crackles around Skyloft.
Day 14: Volcano Summit and the Fire Sanctuary
The Volcano "Summit" (it's clearly not actually a summit, because I'm inside), is kind of confusing because there's all these paths I can take. There's also a Goddess Cube that's in plain sight but surrounded by lava so I can't reach it. I ended up running into my bud Gorko again, and he's looking for more Goddess Cubes, but he's at a door that's blocked by things of fire. There's a frog head sculpture nearby and a sign that says to quench its thirst, so I went looking for a spring and found one. But that's not the only thing I found: in the same area as the spring (outside), there were a bunch of rock spires covered in leaves that led to another Goddess Cube. But I can't figure out how to get my clawshot to reach. Oh well, I'll figure it out. So I get some water and open the fire door, and guess what? There's more fire doors! So I open the next one, but I can't open the third one because Gorko says it's going to take a lot more water than my bottle can carry. He says that Lake Floria has a lot of water, so I should maybe go there. And I'm glad I did, because as it turns out, there was a Goddess Cube on top of the Forest Temple that I completely missed! So I got that and then I went to talk to the Water Dragon to ask if I could use her basin. She said sure because she wasn't planning on getting sick for a while, so I called Scrapper to carry it for me to the Summit. Except here's the thing: when I went through the portal to Eldin Volcano, I didn't land at the Summit. I didn't even get the choice. Man, Scrapper was sore at me. So I had to walk all the way up the volcano again and protect Scrapper from all the baddies. This is harder than it sounds (it took me three tries), but luckily the monsters stay dead if you have to do it over.
But anyway, once you get to the Summit, Scrapper pours the water and opens the door, which leads to the Fire Sanctuary. The Fire Sanctuary is really the first time a dungeon is this game could only be a dungeon. It looks like it's supposed to be a temple or something, but it fails. Even the Boss Key doesn't have a thematically appropriate shape, because there's really no theme to fit it to. But it is pretty fun, and laid out well. There are a couple mogmas you have to save, and one of them gives you the Mogma Mitts, an upgraded form of the Digging Mitts that let you burrow under the ground, which is kind of neat. They're supposedly rare, but all the Mogmas can burrow without them, so I'm not exactly sure why they exist (I'll just chalk it up to Gameplay And Story Segregation). There was this interesting mechanic that's hard to explain succinctly, but it involves a monster being necessary to your advancement if used the correct way - it lifts you up to a higher platform - while at the same time, killing it solves a puzzle. And since this seems to be a holy place or something to the Mogmas, a race of treasure hunters, there were treasure chests that held items that had nothing to do with the dungeon (I got a new Bottle, for instance), and I like that attention to detail. . . I just wish that attention could've been applied to the dungeon as a whole. Anyway, the boss is Ghirahim again, and before we fought he talked about the relief he found in the boss room that revealed there was a second Door of Time in Faron Woods. Then he went One-Winged Angel on me (sorta - he just removed his cloak and a tattoo appeared on his face and chest; it's hardly General Onox turning into a giant dragon, to give just one example), which was a mostly cosmetic change because his fighting style was pretty much exactly the same. Defeating him granted me Din's Flame, which transformed my Goddess Whitesword into the Master Sword. And you know what that means: Phase 2 of the game is complete!
After beating the Sanctuary, I went around to find all the Goddess Cubes I had missed (the one in plain sight at the Summit still eludes me, so I guess I'll be revisiting that area later) and I ended up with a lame Small Bomb Bag and two pieces of heart. Phase 3 begins tomorrow, and what lies in store? I don't know any more than you do, so we'll find out together!
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