I know I played this before. And this is a direct continuation of that, so if you haven’t go read that one first. It should be fairly fast.
So, where I left off, I was inside the Deku Tree, fumbling around plants and spiders. I just managed to get down to the basement level and I now stand there without remembering any of the controls…
You see, I’m playing a Nintendo 64 emulated game with an Xbox 360
controller, so the colors it so nicely shows up in the right are… wrong.
And I don’t remember what I mapped them to. But it’s ok, the
carnivorous plant is just getting a few free bites in while I throw
seeds at it instead of hitting it with my sword. It’s gotta eat too, no?
Finally getting my bearings, I realize I just gotta carry a burning stick over the water to burn the spiderwebs. (Trust me, that makes a lot of sense. Don’t worry about it.)
Inside the next room, there’s an annoying little nut shooter thing I
defeat, but just before I destroy it, it yells and tells me that if I
spare it, it’s got the secret for how to defeat its brothers. It’s not
like I have a choice, but now I know the order to do that is 2-3-1.
Ok? Ok.
Next to it is an iron barred door with a mysterious eye symbol over it.
Iron bars in Video Game = I can’t open the door with my hands.
I walk up to it.
Na’vi tells me I can’t open it with my hands.
Right.
So far so good. I bet the eye’s important (if it’s there, it’s important).
I stumble around for a bit, trying to figure out what I can do with the eye, before finding that nothing works and I go up and down the tree again to see if I missed something.
Nope.
Ok. It’s gotta be the eye then.
If you’ve just been given a tool, chances are you’re going to use that tool to solve the next task.
I’ve just been given a slingshot.
But I already… Oh. Well. No. that was it. Shoot the eye with the slingshot. I was certain I already tried that, but whatever, game.
Through the next couple of rooms, it teaches me I can dive underwater and push blocks (You don’t say?).
I circle around underground until I gain access to a deep, dark hole.
Naturally, I jump straight down.
Ah, and there we have three of those nut shooter dudes. I’m guessing
those are the brothers. So, we take the second one out first, then the
third, then the first, and lo and behold, it worked.
It’s positively
baffled that I knew the secret. It’s so baffled even, that it tells me
the secret to defeating “Queen Gohma” (The Boss, I’m guessing).
And the secret:
Video Game 101: Hit it while it’s stunned.
I go into the room. It gets dark, I hear mysterious sounds.
And there are pillars. Of course there are pillars.
If
there are pillars in a boss room, you use them to have the boss hit
them instead of you, stunning it and then… you can hit it.
However(!), plot twist!
That’s actually not what happens here!
Instead…
It’s got a big, red, glowing eye.
Guess how you stun it?
You use the slingshot (your new tool) to hit the big glowing eye (the weak spot) in order to stun it (so you can hit it with your sword).
Use everything you have learned!
Repeat. Now you’re playing video games.
I defeat the boss (because I have to) and get out of the tree!
And then the Deku Tree lays it on thick with the lore.
Let me try to recap:
It tells me that there was a Desert Man (capitalization my own, but seriously, the way it talked about it made the words Desert Man seem very important), cursed the Deku Tree, and is now searching for the almighty “Triforce”, which three goddesses left in the “Sacred Realm”, and this guy is now trying to find them.
He’s apparently very evil so Deku Tree (who’s OBVIOUSLY good) doesn’t want that to happen, so it sends Link (me) out to stop him.
So, first order of business: Get to “Hyrule Castle”. And find the “Princess of Destiny”.
I wonder who that is.
After, the Deku Tree dies to the curse, and I leave the forest where I have spent my entire life, without much regret.
Link seems to be a pretty stoic dude (child? fairy?).
However, just before I leave, my lady friend (the only one with
green hair, so she’s recognizable) finds me and gives me an Ocarina.
AW SHIIE— An Ocarina?!
No idea what to use it for yet, but if the game’s title is to be believed, this thing is kinda important.
So onwards to the Castle!
Sorry if this piece comes off as a little... bashing on the game. I by no means intended to fault the game for using video game tropes a lot. I'm fully aware that this game in many cases started (or popularized) a lot of these tropes. So this is more of an homage to the fact that this game did so many things unbelievably well.