(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.)
Last time, I, uhh... Woof, it's been a while, hasn't it? Yeah, sorry about that. I had some vacation and events happening which didn't leave me with a lot of time in the last many weekends to do this properly, so, here we go I guess. Back in it.
Quick recap, also for myself: I got a sweet dead corpse to wear as a mask and pretend to be a rockstar in a band where the lead singer has lost her voice, apparently. And I need to go get some eggs.
Why?
I don't remember. I gotta to get them eggs, okay?
But first, let's go say hi
That's right, we never actually met the lead singer. Let's see what she has to say
Oh right. Uh, whoops.
But I can see it in her expression! The sad face! (Why is that last line there)
And that's all she wrote, so, I guess I should go explore somewhere.
seems a good as place as any.
Good thing no one has accused me of being a tourist! I'm not a tourist; I'm a rock star. And a Goron Hero. And a Kokiri Idiot. Those are always welcome!
Do these qualify as murky waters? They don't seem that bad. Maybe you folks have weirdly high standards. Just sayin'.
I explore a bit what's around the ocean now that I can swim around it fully. I swim north to a big wall.
And let me also just say that the swimming is GOOD. Man, they really nailed the movement of their new abilities in this game compared to Ocarina. Both the Goron and this ability have just been all movement and it's so cool.
Oh hello. What's up?
I hope my arms on my hips convey the correct amount of suspicion of this person's character.
...You were just leaving? Yes?
You're here here to sell your pristine collection of seashells to the pirates? Selling out are we?
Another horny person. What's with this beach? Is there just nothing to do here?
I haven't changed facial expression since I was born, friend. I am incapable of it. It look upon all my adversaries with a suitable amount of indifference underlying a tinge of constant surprise and anguish.
But he stays there, unable to move away from the possibility to see a human female person despite the big wall blocking his vision. The wall is also blocking my entrance path so I swim elsewhere, trying to find another approach.
More murky water? I'm starting to not believe the warning signs here.
Sea snakes, though? I ain't messin' with no sea snakes.
I'm gonna presume they're at a safe petting distance, and venture towards Pinnacle Rock.
I dive and immediately see...
signs?
underwater?
Okay... I guess I should follow them.
I realize pretty quickly that this is a Lost Forest situation, because they thought that the Lost Forest could be improved by adding water.
They were wrong.
I'm able to follow the first couple signs just fine, but then I get to these two teasers pointing opposite ways
And they're BOTH lying.
Either way I go it does the "Whoops, fading to black because we don't have any more area loaded"-fade and I'm back where I started.
So I turn around and see a Zora I straight up missed on my way there.
I have gold earrings? Does that count? I'm a sorta fish. Presumably.
Apparently they can guide me to Pinnacle Rock. Which is a Very Zelda Move, so okay then. Where are these golden GPSes?
Well, nowhere, turns out.
but I learned that you can stand on the ocean floor! Like in that movie with the pirates! Except I'm not a zombie pirate...
...Yet.
That's gonna happen someday.
It also turns out that all that hinting about the golden fish are all misdirection and I DO in fact need to get into the pirate fortress. Just not from above water, but by breaking this incredible security system:
These wooden boards block a hidden tunnel, expect, it's only one of them that has a tunnel behind it! That's how you hide a tunnel, you just put up more doors and expect intruders to only be right 25% of the time and never try another one!
Well, I'm not that 25% percent, but I am part of the unexpected group of people who can use their head
Literally
Smash! Tadaa! Link used his head for once!
(Okay, I'm not allowed to use that joke again.)
Pirates! On Boats! We made it!
Which kicks off this track that's... quite unlike anything I've heard in Zelda before. It's this one. There's something haunting about that trumpet that starts at 0:15. Slow and dreading, lumbering along, wistful and yet lonely. Quite a different vibe than last time we met the Gerudo... well now they're pirates. They're entrepeneurs, okay?
Before we proceed inside for the stealthy bits, I got a very important... piece of... business... to take care of.
Just aim and... click
There we go. Class A smut. The boy's gonna love this. This should be censored, with all that action. Just look at that. Illegal, I tell you. Dayum.
Uhm, where was I?
Right, sneaking into the well-protected, very dangerous Pirate Fortress.
See, they aren't able to look down even a little bit underwater! Very dangerous!
It doesn't take long to get inside, as there's a pipe I can open with a Goron Pound (naturally, another ingenious security measure: A person can't both have Goron strength AND be able to swim!
Actually. That is quite smart.
They just didn't account for Link literally stealing the ability of those he leaves in his wake.
Inside is some surprisingly un-stealth-like box-moving and arrow-hitting puzzles which aren't that interesting.
But what is interesting is that there is this incessant need they have to leave treasure chests around with 20 rupees in them. As if the pirates are rewarding intruders with pebbles. Or just leaving their treasure around the fortress willy-nilly. That's also a possibility.
There's also a water elevator.
A pirate's favourite method of transportation.
If you think about it, aren't boats just horizontal water elevators?
Hm? Yeah, I got you there. You're stunned.
As stunned as Link when he realizes he can't smash these barrels with his sword.
That's some sturdy wood.
And that... that is a... telescope.
That overlooks the inside of the fortress.
Soo, the pirates need to spy on themselves? Or they want to give intruders a heads-up? Man, I keep swinging back and forth on whether these people are ingenious or terrible at defending their own castle.
But the next door takes me out into that open courtyard and that was a bit too much for me to handle right then and there, so I called it for today. Next time, we'll see how serious they are about protecting their... whatever we're going to find in here, that isn't interestingly constructed protection schemes.
See you then! I promise that one will actually be on a sunday!
