July 5, 2009 at 10:08 pm (A Link to the Past)
Tags: hookshot, red medicine, stuck
I finished the sixth palace today. I had been stumped on this one, which is probably why I haven’t been playing much. Oh, and the fact that I couldn’t find my GBA SP had some bearing as well. I found it this weekend, so I resumed my quest.
In about 30 minutes I had completed the palace. It’s interesting to let a game sit for a while and come back to it with a fresh perspective. So many times that has been all I needed to overcome a roadblock. In this palace I got some “red medicine,” but it’s not in my item area so I can’t equip and use it directly. I’m not quite sure what it does.
I have already located the seventh palace, Eagle Tower, and the key to gain entrance, but I can’t figure out how to get the key. As odd as this sounds, I think it involves flying chickens. Several characters have dropped hints about the Weathercock statue and flying chickens, but I haven’t been able to figure out what I should be doing. The key is on the other side of a chasm that can be jumped over and I can’t use the hookshot. My only hope is a flying chicken.
Time played: 1 hour
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May 18, 2009 at 8:08 pm (Link's Awakening)
Tags: palace, stuck
I navigated through Signpost Maze and was rewarded with a third song for my ocarina. It supposedly brings dead things to life, but I haven’t found a use for it yet. On a side note, the maze is extremely frustrating until you realize there is a pattern. It probably took me about 15 minutes to see the pattern emerge.
I then found the entrance to the sixth palace, the Face Shrine. I have the map and found the L-2 bracelet which let’s me lift even larger objects. I even got the stone beak and the owl’s hint, but I can’t progress any further. My GBA needs a charge, so I’m going to stop here for the night.
Time played: 1 hour
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May 16, 2009 at 7:44 pm (Link's Awakening)
Tags: Game play, hook shot, items, palace, scale
The fifth palace was enjoyable. It was apparent that the item I needed was the hook shot. Just about every treasure chest was only accessible via hook shot, and I didn’t have it yet. The mini boss was a skeleton that you had to first hit with the sword, then injure with a bomb, very reminiscent of A Link to the Past. I beat him, but then he moved to another room. I found him again, and he moved again. I repeated this four times, and I finally got the hook shot as a result.
From that point forward, it wasn’t too hard to finish the palace. There was another mini boss, two spiders that required the hook shot as a weapon to defeat them. The final boss was a snake. It was easy to avoid damage, but the snake’s head would pop out of one of the four caves. As soon as it did, you had to latch on with the hook shot to draw it out, and then attack with the sword. Not very hard at all, beat it on my first try and I think I only had 3 or 4 hearts.
After this palace I did some more exploring. There was more item swaps. I swapped a broom for a fishing hook, the fishing hook for a necklace, and the necklace for a mermaid’s scale. Keep in mind, the people I exchanged with were all over the place. One guy was hiding under a bridge. I have no idea what to do with the mermaid’s scale. I’m sure I’ll trade it again for some other item.
Time played: 1 hour
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May 16, 2009 at 6:11 pm (Link's Awakening)
Tags: ghost, seashell
After defeating the fourth palace, I had this ghost following me around. He wouldn’t let me go into certain buildings, so it was cramping my style.
Turns out he wanted me to take him to his house. I found that then he said he wanted to go to his grave. Logically I went to the cemetery, but none of those graves were good enough for him. I recalled a lone grave elsewhere on the map, but it took me almost 30 minutes to find it.
Once I did, he was happy and stopped haunting me. I also got my picture taken. Not sure what that’s about, but I now have two photos in by album.
The ghost also told me to go BACK to his house and look in a jar. My reward?a lousy seashell. I now have 11 of these, but not enough to make the seashell meter at the Seashell Mansion happy. Guess I’ll keep hunting seashells.
Oh, I found the entrance to the fifth palace now. It’s a catfish mouth.
Time played: 1 hour
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May 16, 2009 at 4:08 pm (Link's Awakening)
Tags: boss, flippers, underwater
The fourth palace was pretty easy and uneventful. In fact, the angler fish boss was ridiculously simple. The one cool thing about the boss is that it was an underwater battle. It seems unlikely Link could swim and wield a sword, but who am I to argue.
This palace had a number of rooms with deep water that I could not cross. At one point, I began to fear that I was missing a crucial item that I should have obtained before entering this palace. After some perseverance, I located the flippers in this palace and was able to finish things up.
Now that I can swim, a number of new areas on the map are open for me to explore.
Time played: 1 hour
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May 15, 2009 at 7:10 pm (Link's Awakening)
Tags: castle, marin, ocarina
Finally I have made some progress. First I followed up on a hint I got in Animal Village and found the ocarina. Unfortunately, I don’t know any songs yet.
Next, I followed another hint and went down to the beach, finding Marin. She told me a little story through means of a cut scene. She longed to know what, if anything, existed beyond the confines of this island. She then followed me back to Animal Village. Here she played a song which woke up the walrus blocking the way to Yarna Desert. She also taught me a song on my ocarina.
In Yarna, I found the anglers key and was directed to jump in a waterfall. I wandered around finding the place to use the key then found my way to jump into the waterfall. I’m going to take a break before tackling the fourth palace.
Time played: 1 hour
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May 10, 2009 at 9:33 pm (Link's Awakening)
Tags: bombs, stuck
I didn’t have a lot of time, but I wanted to pick up the game again. I was stuck in Animal Village and I thought I needed bombs to progress. I walked all the way vback to the first village and stocked up on bombs and arrows.
I then discovered a warp spot to jump right back to Animal Village, which was nice. It saved me quite a bit of time. Unfortunately, the room I was able to open with the bombs didn’t lead to anything (yet).
I’ll try again tomorrow.
Time played: 15 minutes
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April 11, 2009 at 11:37 am (Link's Awakening)
Tags: color world, grave yard, logic, puzzle, underground
This game is really growing on me. I beat the third palace, which was quite enjoyable. There was a room that I got stuck in for about 15 minutes until I realized you had to combine two items and use them in tandem. So instead of selecting a sword and some other item, I selected two items and was able to progress. After beating the palace, I did some more exploring. I just found entrance to an underground “color world” through a graveyard. It’s not one of the eight palaces although it plays like one (map, compass, boss, etc). This level has some of the coolest puzzles yet. Very logic oriented, which I like. The bosses are quite clever too. For example, the final boss in this underground palace changes color based on how rapidly you attack. If you attack too slow, he reverts to full strength. If you attack too fast, he drops extra enemies. So you have to keep up the proper level of attack to completely defeat him.
Time played: 2 hours
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April 10, 2009 at 9:07 pm (Link's Awakening)
Tags: goomba, palace, power bracelet, side scroll
Since I’m on vacation, I decided to take some time and pick up Zelda’s Awakening DX again. This little game is fun, despite its age. In the second palace (not sure if there’s a better term) I got a power bracelet so I can finally pick up heavy pots and stones. This opens up a lot of the map to me.
I also enjoyed some of the side scrolling rooms in this palace. One not only had goombas, but had potted piranha plants. There was also a nice element of puzzles in this palace too.
The telephone rooms in the upper level are nice to point you in the right direction, but they might almost make the game too easy. I’m sure I’ll change my view of that as I get stuck in the future. It always happens at some point in a Zelda title.
Time played: 1 hour
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February 14, 2009 at 5:37 pm (Link's Awakening)
Tags: buttons, ganon, overview, princess, triforce
I’ll admit that I wasn’t all that excited about starting Link’s Awakening DX. It seemed archaic in comparison to Link to the Past. However, after having played it for about an hour, I have a much higher opinion of it.
For the most part it plays very similar to Link to the Past. It’s got a top down view, a spin sword attack, and the dialogue reminds me a lot of the previous game. The map system, compass, keys, etc, also feel very similar. The first town even has a rooster weather vane.
There are some interesting additions to it though. For one, in the first cave there’s a portion where you toggle from top-down to side-scroll view, very similar to the NES Zelda (but nothing as weird feeling as Adventure of Link). Taking it even a step further, you can get a “feather” which gives you the ability to jump in both side-scroll AND top-down mode. So in top-down mode, if there’s a chasm that is one block wide, you can jump it if you have the feather enabled.
Probably the biggest downside is the control mechanism. Since this was built for the gameboy you only have A, B, Start and Select. This makes it somewhat cumbersome to toggle items and maneuver between map and sub-menus. Probably the most tortured button combo is the one you need to save: hold down A, B, Start and Select at the same time. It usually takes me 2 or 3 tries to get it right. It’s tolerable though.
One other interesting thing about this game is the story. So far, no princess, no Triforce, no Ganon. It feels like a spinoff more than a main Zelda title. Despite this, it is more fun than I expected and I look forward to playing it through.
Time played: 2 hours
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