A tingly theory

As it turns out, Uncle Rupee's grand plan isn't to bring Tingle to the paradisical Rupeeland. In reality, Rupeeland is a place of slavery. It's what Uncle Rupee wants to turn the world into so that everyone will be forced to gather rupees to feed his greed. In fact, Uncle Rupee's ultimate goal is to turn everyone into a Tingle - something especially terrifying for Western gamers.

All of that doom-saying aside, the game says, precisely, "a Tingle." Yes, "a Tingle," not "Tingles." This means that "Tingle" isn't a person, but rather a thing, some sort of entity; an entity possibly like "The Hero of Time."

This little insight, though questionably canonical, does suggest that there's some sort of cultural bleed through between the worlds of Termina and Hyrule. After all, Tingle first appeared in Majora's Mask, the game that introduced the land of Termina. He then appears in Minish Cap and The Wind Waker.

Setting aside the former game, Tingle isn't the only thing from Termina in the Hyrule of The Wind Waker. The game's Phantom Ganon uses a sword apparently made by Zubora and Gabora, the blacksmiths from the foot of Snowhead in Termina.

Clearly there's some kind of dimensional crossover here. Perhaps the reason Tingle's not in so many of the Zelda games if looked at chronologically is because of Hyrule's cultural cycle. Tingle could be a one-off in Termina, but recurs in Hyrule whenever the Master Sword needs powering up. Perhaps it's a process that requires an influx of energy from the Termina dimension, thus causing the idea of Tingle to enter Hyrule's zeitgeist, and imprinting Phantom Ganon's sword with a maker's mark from Termina. Thus, Tingle is an entity born of an energy influx (or exchange) between dimensions (at least in mainstream Zelda titles).

What do you think? Feel free to leave your own thoughts on the question of what Tingle is in the comments.

Link's Awakened

The Nightmare boss at the end of Link's Awakening is an absolute bitch. I haven't had my heart racing and my body deking from side to side like that during a handheld Zelda boss fight for far too long.

Before that boss fight, in a great example of anti-climax, I didn't need to draw up a map or anything to get the Nightmare's key in Turtle Rock. I needed a regular key, which I already had, and to find the stairs leading to the boss door. Handily doing both within minutes and then being convinced (and later having it confirmed) that the Wind Fish's Egg wasn't a full dungeon, I figured I might as well just finish the game. So, I did.

Upon finding the Egg to be a puzzle, I called up Ulrira. His tip agreed with my tuition and I ran over to the library.

Already prepped with paper and pen at hand, I wrote down the way through the Egg maze, and rushed off to the Egg. Burning all of the enemies along the way, of course.

However, the greatest puzzle of all (mostly because there was no companion to pull me aside and say - "Ganon's weak to your sword spin!" Or, "The Giant Bot sure does look like it'd hate thickener...") - the Nightmare boss nearly did me in.

Thankfully, completely aware of what I had with me, and armed with my knowledge of Zelda bosses up to this game (and that I had one of Crazy Tracy's potions), I battled on.

The menu screen was called up for a few quick time-outs and to get my bearings, and, after switching Roc's Feather in for the shield and my bow for the sword, I jumped and dodged and shot until the Nightmare boss's final form (which reminds me of Vaati's (in The Minish Cap), actually) was arrowed to death. The Nightmare boss called me out for ruining its plan of dream domination, and I briefly met the Wind Fish before waking us both up with the eight instruments.

I'm glad that Marin was the last we see vanish (before the whole island is shown disappearing, at least), and the Wind Fish's flying over Link suggests that it was a very real dream indeed.

Now, though, I'm left wondering two things: How is the ending different if you finish the game with zero deaths? And, just how long was Link passed out while clutching those two logs for buoyancy?

I may never learn the answer to the latter, but the answer to the former will be discovered once I've cleared the rest of my game backlog. For now - consider The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening completed!

Not quite Hallway-Hallway-Hallway-Boss, but still...

All right! Face Shrine down, two more dungeons to go!

Actually, that particular dungeon has made something clear. The top-down viewpoint lends itself to more complex puzzles and orienteering.

Now, I haven't played much of the handheld Zelda games beyond Minish Cap, but all of the console Zelda games to date have had fairly straightforward dungeons. That is, rather than delaying your getting the map and/or the compass, most of the dungeons in Zelda games since Ocarina of Time have lead you to one or the other (or both) fairly early on.

On the other hand, in the Face Shrine, I only found the compass and map shortly before getting the big key. Part of this might be some rust on my gaming skills, but I also think that the 3D Zelda games have much more linear dungeons. That is, you're much more hamstrung into going in one set direction (more often than not because other rooms branching off of the first couple of rooms are only accessible only with the dungeon's special item).

Skyward Sword's dungeons are huge and impressive, but even they are designed in a similar way. You go in, early on you get the map or compass (or both) and then find the dungeon's item, and finally the boss key.

Sometimes the pattern is broken up with a late compass or early item, but the boss key is almost always the last thing you come across. This pattern makes sense in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, where the full freedom of 3D motion coupled with a third-person perspective might have been overwhelming in dungeons that can be almost freely wandered around. But, that the same linearity is still detectable in Skyward Sword is disappointing.

Perhaps we'll finally see something mirroring the difficulty of the top-down Zelda games' dungeons' designs in WiiU Zelda, where the gamepad (even if only used as a map) opens up some excellent possibilities.