(I play a game 1 hour every Sunday and write what happens inaccurately. Currently I'm playing through Majora's Mask. See previous parts here.)
This seems like a weird time to keep doing a goofy blog about old Zelda games, but honestly, it's one of the things keeping my weekly rhythm sane so I'm keeping at it.
That said, go donate, go help. Go do what you can. Because Black Lives Matter.
Last time, we learned the mischievous ways of putting Gorons to sleep and became a kickass rollin' Goron Hero ourselves. So now all that's left to do is go put the biggest Goron we can find out if his awoke misery.
But, before that, there's a 3 day timer we need to keep in mind, so I'm going to go to the bank and reset--
hold on. Now I'm a Goron. In Town.
That's weird.
And it reminds me of something. There's a guy in the bomb shop who didn't want me to sell me a big bomb because I couldn't carry it. But NOW, I can carry anything.
That's right!
Approved? Son, I was approved before you were born! I'm dead, actually, you see. I'm probably kinda old. So... Of course I was approved.
No, I don't have my papers on me.
I know they're dangerous! Why do you think I want one? Geesh. Fine. Okay. Where's this instructor person?
Oh, the cave that's iced up that I can't access yet? Great. Awesome. Keep your powder keg behind a technicality. I get it.
I'm just gonna go save your village then.
I go back up the mountain.
and pull out the big guns:
Let's see if it works:
Success!
And then he... rolls down?
Into the abyss?
Oh. Whoops! Just killed him, I guess! That's another apology letter Link has to write! Oh well.
I mean, who put him there actually? He was just being a nuisance.
He's not whoever is making the mountain cold, because it's still cold. And that's the monster INSIDE Snowhead, I think. because that's where temple is and the big bad is usually inside the boss room. You know. "lurking." As bosses do.
Anyways, we roll up Elsa's Castle and are presented with our newest challenge:
So what's the deal? We gotta walk on lava? We gotta fight wolves with our bare hands? We gotta solve annoying timing puzzles?
Oh, I can do that. I can do that.
And then there's a wolf! That I fight with my bare Goron hands.
Then I try to roll over a crevasse but fall down
and learn that Goron's can
walk on lava.
Yeah, you thought I just made up that list out of thin air, did you?
Well, let me tell you, there wasn't actually an annoying timing puzzle. I was just being a dummy. But we're not quite there yet!
Oh, boy, we in a temple now!
A real one!
Don't think too hard about the fact that it architecturally reminds you of Water Temple! It's... fine! It's...
--oh fuck.
It's... don't worry... it's....
see there's...
there's lava... that's wasn't in the water t-- and a chest in the lava? What? Who designed this? Ok I guess I gotta go grab the
oh crap!
I guess lava is really just really hot water, huh?
With... flaming bat skulls.
A little further in, I venture into a room that has a strange little creature.
What is that?
Tatl, ENHANCE!
Uh, what. the hell? A "Real" Bombchu? What were the Bombchu's from ocarina then? Fakes? And this looks nothing like those. This is a mouse with a bomb for a tail.
It's got a hell of smile though. Look at that boy!
I hit it once and it deals half a heart in damage. Which is honestly disappointing.
Who put that here, I wonder?
And okay. I know that the "who would've possibly designed this?!!"-jokes can get stale because the answer is very quickly nothing but "it's a video game that needed some puzzles."
But this time... This is a big mining shaft. Right? Like, look at the images above. And it's definitely designed for Gorons, because it's got ramps and roller-places everywhere. But then it also got this:
That's a... prison? For the... dodongos? Wait, there's been none of those since the foot of the mountain. Hm. For the... real bombchu's... And now they're escaped!
Also watch this (boy, I'm skipping around but this is a dungeon episode, what you want me to do)
In the Goron punch-combo, the last attack is Link turning around and... butt-smashing his opponent.
Yeah, I'm not kidding.
Butt smashing.
Gorons are racier than I thought.
But then we come to it, the puzzle that, for some reason stumped me completely:
Pretty innocuous looking, right?
Well. You're... right. You're right. It is. But! It's also... very... diff.. not it's pretty easy.
But it requires a very intricate set of inputs that, if done even a little wrong, messes up the whole thing! But only if you're doing it wrong.
Because I was doing it wrong.
It's a pretty standard hit-blocks-in-the-right-order-puzzle that, for some reason, I just couldn't wrap my head around, and made it way harder than it needed to be. I was trying to hit the button and run back to the beginning and switching masks on and off to jump as Regular Boring Link and stomp as Cool Goron Link but I didn't need to do half of all that.
I still did need to switch to Basic Link because Badass Goron Link cannot jump normally or reach anything a foot above his head. He's... too cool for that.
And the puzzle was timed, and with my slow method I could almost do it, which is why I thought it was the right way and I was just being slow. But after 5 attempts, I realized that couldn't be the intended path.
It did it, eventually, when I found out I could just walk back to the middle instead of going all the way back to the start and doing a bunch of extra jumps I didn't need to.
Anyways, onwards!
There's some more rolling and jumping and Cool Goron Shit happening until I stumble into this room where we meet the next clue in the puzzle:
Hello? You don't seem that dangerous. You're very sm--
Oh now you're big. Okay. okay. That's fine. What, you gonna shoot magic at me?
Or... dance? Or dance. That's cool.
I'm gonna... shoot arrows at you while you dance?
All right, done!
That was pretty simple. He was trying to throw some ice magic at me or something and popping up in the different corners of the room and maybe doing some illusion shit but I could just shoot him and that was it.
Also, The Superior Goron Link cannot use a bow. Or even Bombs. Which seems a little strange considering that Bombs are a Goron Thing? That's where we get the bombs, from the Gorons.
But apparently they didn't want to animate Goron Link holding a bomb.
It'd be... Too Cool.
They spared us, is what they did. We'd have honestly fainted if we saw it. Like, how close are you swooning when you see Goron Link Butt smashing the air?
Right? Imagine if he, while doing that, was holding a bomb?!
Yeah. You see what I mean. That's singularity material, right there.
Anyways, I roll out the room and die.
But now that we got Fire Arrows, we can shoot all the icicles blocking everything in every room and actually make progress, so that's neat! This dungeon is a real ice and fire situation! In a Goron Mining Shaft turned Bombchu Prison! Turned Ice Castle and yet also fire castle! It's very sensible, just wait for the lore book. It's right around the corner!
That'll be next time! Where we'll also reset time because this took 2 in game days. Yep.
PS: Getting fire arrows at least was far more sensical than last time.