Day 5: Beyond the Desert
Now that I have the Sand Rod, the very first thing I did was tackle the Desert Palace. And I have to say, it uses the Sand Rod *very* well, particularly in conjunction with Beamos; twice you make a sand column rise under a Beamos, one just renders it harmless by having the beam pass over you, the other makes the beam repeatedly hit crystal switches for you. The Desert Palace is also the first dungeon with an item, the Titan's Mitt! This lets me lift huge rocks. It was nice to see, because the game felt weird without it. Unfortunately, the dungeon let me down with an easy and boring boss, but the boss had a nice design at least.
With the Titan's Mitt in(on?) hand, I decided to travel around Hyrule and Lorule to find and flip all the giant stones. Of course, the game being what it is, I accomplished a lot of other stuff along the way. I found enough rupees to buy the Tornado and Fire Rods, and found enough Maiamai to upgrade both of those items. Ravio decided to close up shop since he was out of stock, but now he's literally just laying about my house. What is the deal with this guy? I also had enough rupees to buy the mysterious item from the Running Man, which turned out to be a Golden Bee that I gave to Bee Guy in exchange for a Bee Badge; the Bee Badge not only makes bees not sting you, they'll also follow you around for a bit and attack any nearby enemies, and that's pretty cool. Finally, I had enough rupees to buy the Scoot Fruit (warps you to the beginning of a dungeon) and the Foul Fruit (stuns all enemies on screen), which filled up two of my remaining four item spaces. I knew about these items basically from the beginning, but I forgot about them because I knew I'd never use them.
I also visited the Lorule Death Mountain because apparently I hadn't yet (it's made of ice), and would've gone ahead and did the Ice Ruins dungeon but I didn't have the fire rod at the time so I couldn't get in. There's this weird island with a piece of heart that I can't get to on either world, so that's frustrating.
Finally, I decided to make my way through the Dark Palace because I was tired of that section of Lorule not having a weather vane I could fly to. Dark Palace is a very dark, very heavily guarded area that you have to sneak around without getting caught. I should've gone through it earlier because it turns out to be a great place to get cash: there's a lot of green, blue, and red rupees sitting around, and they reset every time you get caught.
Another thing I should mention: the Lorule blacksmith saw my badass sword, which made him happy and now he wants to make it even more badass. That requires two more Master Ores, one of which I found already. Will I be getting a golden sword? Only time will tell.
Day 6: The Ice Almost Ruined Me
Since I didn't start playing until late, I decided to only do one thing today, and that was beat Ice Ruins. As the name implies, this is an ice dungeon, but it's not your standard one with sliding puzzles and the sort. There is some slipperiness, but mainly for treachery. The main gimmick here is traveling between floors, either through an elevator system or falling to the floor below (or the one below that). There's also a neat thing where pulling switches will make a chunk of floor advance to a different part of the dungeon where you'll need it later. It can never move back, though, so that can make things tricky.
I got another prize in this dungeon, but it was gear so I still have two item slots left. The prize was a Stamina Scroll, which is a fancy way of saying my stamina bar increased. I was really hoping for Pegasus Boots, but what can you do? And the boss was another one that was easy to figure out but tough to accomplish; this game has had a mostly good run with that so far. All in all this was a very interesting and fun dungeon, and arguably too difficult: I went through all four fairies my first time through, three fairies my second time through to figure out the stuff I missed, and two or three on the boss (it says a lot that there's actually a fairy fountain in the dungeon). It was also the only time so far I've looked in a strategy guide - not for anything essential - and there's still one door that I never figured out how to open. But that's ok.
So that was going to be it for the night, but then I realized that I had 79 Maiamai and wanted to find one more so I can upgrade my sand rod, but it seems like everyone I found needs the Pegasus Boots to get, and that's really frustrating. So I decided to venture into the Swamp Palace just long enough to get the prize if there is one. We'll get back to that.
The Swamp Palace, despite its name, is your standard water dungeon: you swim, use your hookshot, and change the water level. It does seem to be unique in that each floor has its own separate water level, but that's more odd than anything, really. Even the boss, Arrghus (or a close relative), is basically just Barinade. The Swamp Palace is nothing you haven't experienced before.
How do I know what the boss was? Because it turns out there was a prize, and that prize was...Blue Mail. It cuts my damage in half, which is nice, but it's still not Pegasus Boots. WILL I EVER GET PEGASUS BOOTS? It also replaced my green tunic on my gear menu, so I still have an empty spot there.
An empty spot there, two empty spots in my items, and only one dungeon left that I know of. I feel like I'm missing something. I also need a second master ore and have no idea where to get it. And Irene mentioned being able to hold apples in my bottles, but I'm pretty sure I've never seen an apple. What's she on about? I'm sure it'll all work itself out, these guys are professionals, but I hate when I don't even have a hint of what's to come.
Next time: Dark Palace
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