August 19, 2009 at 7:56 am (Link's Awakening)
Tags: credits, game ending, magic powder, wind fish
Before I begin this post, I should explain the title of the previous post. That’s what the message is when you get the magic rod. This game has an odd sense of humor, to be sure.
Anyways, I beat Link’s Awakening. I slept on the problem and came up with a solution this morning. I had to try it even before breakfast. There is a library in the main village and I remember one of the book’s mentioning the Wind Fish Egg. Sure enough, it contained the directions for the maze. I won’t spoil it here, but let’s just say you’d never guess it on your own.
After finishing the maze, you jump into a pit and face six consecutive bosses. None were that hard, but for the first one I couldn’t cause any damage. The only item I didn’t have equipped was magic powder, so I had to leave and get some. Sure enough, that was what was needed for him. After that I made short work of the six bosses and watched the ending sequence. Oddly, when it’s done and credits finish, you just get a screen that says “The End”. You can’t go past it or restart or anything, so I just turned it off then back on. When I restarted it had me at my last save point. Guess there’s no master quest.
Next game will be Ocarina of Time. I’m going to play it on the Wii Virtual Console. I’m really looking forward to this one. I once owned it, but only played it for maybe 5 – 6 hours, so there’s a lot I haven’t seen.
Time played: 30 minutes
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August 18, 2009 at 10:55 pm (Link's Awakening)
Tags: magic rod, puzzles, wind fish
I’m tired, so I’ll keep this brief and to the point. I beat the 8th palace and got the final instrument. As usual, puzzles were plentiful. It’s interesting how they manage to add new types of puzzles to each level.
In the Turtle palace, they had puzzles involving remote control bridges, ice blocks and some really cool navigation. On top of that, there were several mini-bosses, though none were especially challenging. I picked up the magic rod in this palace, so I can now melt ice and light lamps.
On to the Fish Egg . . . Thankfully, it’s right nearby. However upon entering, I’m immediately stumped. It feels like a maze level, similar to the forest in Legend of Zelda. It seemingly repeats infinitely in every direction except down. I’ve tried various patterns, but none seem to work. I’ll approach it with a fresh mind tomorrow.
Time played: 90 minutes
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August 16, 2009 at 8:30 am (Link's Awakening)
Tags: boss, organ, palace, puzzle
No, I’m not making that one up. That’s the name of the instrument you get after completing the seventh palace. Maybe I’m juvenile, but it made me chuckle just a little.
I have mixed feelings about this level. For starters, it’s big. Four floors and lots of rooms. At the beginning you just feel like you’re aimlessly wandering around with no real sense of where you are going or where you have been.
After a while, you learn the room navigation and then focus on getting to the rooms you can’t get to, or parts of the room that are inaccessible. This is where the level gets really fun, and maybe a little frustrating.
There was one puzzle in particular that was truly ingenious. I won’t spoil it here, but on its face it looked like a typical block-pushing puzzle, but turned out to me much more. My only complaint is that after going through all the effort of solving it, all I got was some bombs. It was not a critical piece of the level.
The boss battle took place outdoors on top of a pillar. You fight a giant bird that has three or four types of attacks. One of the attacks is to flap its wings hard and try to knock you off the pillar. It doesn’t cause you to lose any damage and you can easily climb back up, so I didn’t worry about it too much. Then after fighting it for 10 minutes, I realized that every time you got knocked down, it basically reset the boss’ health. Then I took a different approach, and managed to beat it quickly.
Only one level left. As much as I have enjoyed this game, I look forward to moving on to the next one.
Time played: 2 hours
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July 11, 2009 at 4:41 pm (Link's Awakening)
Tags: eagle tower, rooster
I finally found the blasted rooster. I thought I had tried pushing the weathervane statue before, but apparently not. Once below, I used the third song to awaken it. Next, I made my way back to the cave with the Eagle key.
Using the rooster, I was able to get the key. Then I went and unlocked the Eagle Tower, level 7. I’ve found the map and explored about two thirds of the level.
I should be able to wrap it up during my next session.
Time played: 30 minutes
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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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