The defeat of Ganon, the return of Ganon

This entry is unprecedented, but why not make an exception for an exceptional game?

After yesterday's A Link to the Past session, and the entry that followed, I picked the game up again. Little did I know that the final three dungeons and the game's boss would tumble just so quickly.

The Ice Palace, Turtle Rock, and Ganon's Tower, each took about thirty minutes to finish. Prep for the final fight added about the same, since I wandered about a bit and made sure to get the game's best sword along with the necessary silver arrows. The final fight with Ganon (both of them) took about three minutes a piece. And in the end - not a single death.

"Wait, wait, wait - both fights with Ganon?" (You maybe ask.)

For the first time, I was knocked off of the platform on which you fight Ganon. At first I figured - ah, well, that's just a few hearts gone and I'll be right back in the King of Evil's face. But no. I actually fell to a lower area of the Pyramid in the middle of the Dark World. There wasn't anything special there, a psychic block whence Sahasrahla tells you you need silver arrows, but that's it. Yet, this new part of the game got me thinking.

So I wondered. I beat the snot out of Ganon. Then I tested my hypothesis. After beating Ganon I dove into the pyramid's depths.

"There's no way that the game will forget I beat Ganon because of this," I thought.

"You defeated the game's final boss?" the game asked as I jumped through the pyramid's roof once more. "That doesn't sound quite right."

And so I had to beat Ganon for the second time.

It's a small tick in the game's programming, but a curious one. There's no switch or variable or subroutine that tells the game you beat Ganon after you beat Ganon. The King of Evil is revived when the hero falls.

Although I'm entirely reading this into it, such a fantastic game in such a grand series could not have a better end-game exploit.

Wizzrobes must've given Misery Mire its name

I've been dogged by a foe since The Legend of Zelda on the NES. A mysterious, vanishing wizard in form obscuring garb: the wizzrobe. These guys have ended more of my adventures as Link than Ganon could ever hope to.

At the least, Misery Mire lived up to its name.

Within that dungeon's depths are some three Link corpses. One fell at the gaze of the dungeon's boss, the other two at the hands of wizzrobes. Each prone, green-tunicked body was swept aside with a quick reset, though.

I am going to finish this game with zero deaths. Even if it means playing parts of it four times over.

Besides, this ought to be the llast time I get careless and is definitely the last time I'll leave such a gap between saves. Nothing teaches you to save often like having to replay sections of a game over again.

Though this little boondoggle got me thinking. Saving in Zelda games was a roundabout process up  until the franchise went 3D.

In Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask you're asked if you want to save each time you exit your menu. In the HD remake of The Wind Waker, though, the save button is once more tucked aside.

Is this shift a reflection of Nintendo's broadening the Zelda franchise's approachability?

Most people who've picked up The Wind Waker probably have experience with the series if not that entry specifically. So the need to save frequently isn't really present, and putting the save button amidst your menus makes sense.

Whatever the case, my liason with A Link to the Past is just about over. The Ice Palace and Turtle Rock loom before Ganon's Tower, but each is about to take its own quick tumble.

The Wind Waker Hearty Darkness

I've already done a blog series (Let's Plays in text, as I call them) about The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (it starts here), but a little more needs to be added.
I recently cracked into The Wind Waker HD with my fiancée and have to say that the game's downright lovely. Even on an old tube TV, the graphics are lush, the colours are vibrant, and the lighting is immaculate. However, I've found that the latter effect is achieved through a bit of trickery.

Like most of the 3D Zeldas before it, dark rooms in the Gamecube version of The Wind Waker weren't shown as pitch black. They were dim, but you could see silhouettes and very bland colours while moving through a cave that was designed to be navigated with a torch. In The Wind Waker remake for the Wii U, though, those parts of the game that were previously dim are now just dark. Just plain, unabashedly dark. So much so that when you return to a room with any light at all the colours you can once again see really pop out at you.

Having to actually use a torch in the darker areas of the game is a pain, but the contrast is welcome and nicely reflects the conflict between the game's cartoonish appearance and darker undertones.

(Spoiler ahead.)

Let's not forget that this is the Zelda game that ends with Link stabbing Ganondorf in the face.

Exploiting a Link-sized loophole

Like the Helmasaur King's mask after the final hammer blow, A Link to the Past's linearity is now broken.

Armed with the Magic Hammer, I figured I'd see what new areas of the Dark World could be broken into. A vague memory pulled me to the Lost Woods, where, at one of the exits to Kakariko Village, I found a portal. After jumping through, I was primed to storm Theives' Town (so called), and quickly retrieved the Titan Mitts. With those great gloves on Link's hot hands, the entire structure of the game came crashing down.

The duck that was trapped in the village weather vane is now free. Link's sword was tempered by the dwarf smiths. The final bottle was retrieved. And, the cape that turns Link invisible was pulled from the Light World's graveyard.

This freedom of movement is what makes A Link to the Past great. If you know the game well, you're not just rewarded with cool stuff, but with the freedom to play its latter two thirds in just about any order you wish. That freedom is a true reward for skill because it puts so much power into a player's hands.

Though, this reward comes at the cost of story. A Link to the Past has one, of course. It's also an important part of the Zelda timeline, but so much of the game's story is in its atmosphere and NPCs, rather than in dialogues or exposition dumps. Or even cutscenes, for that matter. I think you can count the number of cutscenes in A Link to the Past on one hand.

The question is, though, has there ever been a story-heavy game that plays non-linearly if the player knows a trick or two?

When Link got Helmasaur'd

The Helmasaur King and I have never gotten along. Every time that I've faced him I've fallen at least once before vanquishing him, the first of the Dark World's fiends. Tonight's session was no exception. I admit it, I struck the reset button on my old Gamecube as soon as the "Game Over" screen appeared. As I pulled out the first satisfying syllable of a favourite four letter word.

On that first part of tonight's session with A Link to the Past, I spent 15 minutes gathering a heart container and the Bombos Medallion, as well as probing my limits in the Dark World. Before the Hookshot, it's a very small world. And it's even smaller before you get the Magic Hammer. Then, a good twenty minutes went into the first dungeon, The Palace of Darkness, before a five minute fight with old H.K. The fight that saw Link getting brained on the business end of that boss' flail of a tail. Well, that's how you've got to imagine a dramatic end to a dramatic fight, anyway.

On my second run through I gathered everything I'd gathered before in a about five minutes, navigated the labyrinthine dungeon in about 14 minutes, and then smashed and slashed Helmasaur King into an explosive end in about three. I also saved at every step of the way, unlike my impulsive first session.

The first dungeon of the Dark World is a big shift from the Light World's three. It's about as tightly designed as the Tower of Hera, but is more puzzling. From figuring out that Link can push statues onto switches, to needing the patience to navigate through mazes infested with fire-breathing Green Kodongos, The Palace of Darkness is definitely a steep step upwards in terms of difficulty. So much so, in fact, that the rest of the Dark World's dungeons are easy in comparison. Really, the only thing that most of the others have on the Palace of Darkness is length. That includes the Swamp Palace, though it too will be made short work of and its Hookshot will come in handy.

After a trip to the woods

Another dungeon done. The Tower of Agahnim took a cool 15 minutes to get through, including the fight with the man himself. A fight in which the bug net featured prominently. This one took a little longer since so many of the rooms are dark. Not to mention, getting by mostly unscathed required more strategy than just barrelling through enemy ranks.

One of the best parts of A Link to the Past is the satisfaction you feel when you stride forth from the Lost Woods with the freshly retrieved Master Sword. Slicing through enemies and shooting an energy beam from your blade when at full hearts always makes you feel like a real bad ass. Doubling the damage you do with a single equipment upgrade never felt so good!

Unfortunately, though, the version of the game on the GBA has been doctored in a few ways. The witch Syrup's assistant is now another witch (who is supposed to be Maple from the Oracles games) instead of the generic enrobed apprentice. Link's uncle doesn't die saying "Zelda is your..." And, most devastatingly of all, the Death Mountain glitch seems to have been fixed. And here I was thinking I could break the game wide open, getting the Titan Mitt well ahead of schedule.

I suppose the first two dungeons will have to be done first after all.

Triumph in the Tower of Hera

I'm not sure why the final dungeon in the Light World is called the Tower of Hera.

Perhaps it's because in Greek mythology Hera is a scorned woman, the jealous wife of the very polyamorous Zeus. Just as there would be few true hearts in her eyes, there are very few hearts available in this tower, despite enemies taking generous bites out of Link relative to what we've seen so far.

Or, maybe it's because she was the queen of the gods and was simply the one to deal with to gain admittance into dark, occult secrets. Not that she was the goddess of the occult (that was Hecate's domain), but simply by virtue of being a powerful woman in mythology she has an air of mystery and intrigue about her.

Or, perhaps more mundanely, the Moon Pearl is essentially a piece of jewellery, and Hera is a woman. Though, the fact that the Moon Pearl helps people to keep their real shape in the Dark World does suggest that it has some sort of truth-holding power. Or at least reality maintaining power. Wouldn't it be neat if the Moon Pearl were actually a hold-over from A Link to the Past's original futuristic, sci-fi setting? An item that created some sort of field around Link that made him appear as he wanted/needed to appear to others?

And maybe the old man who gives you the Magic Mirror was originally some old servant robot. That would at least explain his line: "If you wander into a magical transporter, gaze into this mirror." It's a line that sounds just a little too much like a wrecking ball against the fourth wall, even for a 16-bit era adventure game.

Speculation about the Tower of Hera and its treasure aside, it's a tiny dungeon. It claims to be a tower but Link must take an elevator when the screen goes dark between floors because this thing takes minutes to breeze through. The final boss notwithstanding. Though, I was only knocked off of the platform that you're forced to share with the frantic Moldorm three times, and knocked out not once.

At a guess, ten minutes of my thirty minute session went into this dungeon. The other twenty being spent grabbing the mushroom, visiting the Master Sword, and collecting a few stray heart pieces. Along with just jogging from the desert to Death Mountain.

Everything will get so much faster once I free that duck.

Organic anticipation

Tonight's time with A Link to the Past ran a couple over the usual 20 minutes. Not that a lot was done, rather just that the game doesn't offer a quick way to get from major place to major place until its final third. True, once you get the flippers you can use the "magic waterways of the sea folk," but those sea folk don't have any business on land, and that's just where Link is busiest.

So running over to get those flippers, finishing a heart container and briefly looking for a mushroom used up quite a bit of time. In fact, the run back to the Desert Palace and subsequent whooping handed out to the three sandworms that are the dungeon's boss took little time in comparison.

In no way does the game's lack of a quick way to get around so early in the game work against it, though. Because it's not easy to run from one side of the world map to the other, the game effectively railroads you.

You could go and explore between dungeons, yes, but if you get all of the Light World's goodies (and some of the Dark World's, too) first, then you'll run into fewer insurmountable obstacles. Running into fewer insurmountable obstacles means making fewer return trips to places, which means a more efficient experience. Though there's something to be said for wandering around an area, bumping into some gap or immoveable rock and realizing that there must be something that can help you out further into the game. It's actually an ingenious way to create organic anticipation.

Power Gloves get!

Well, A Link to the Past just got easier. At the end of my last 20 minute session I grabbed the Ice Rod, bought the second bottle, and got the Power Gloves. The Ice Rod is kind of incidental (like the two pieces of heart I picked up), but the bottle will be incredibly useful for my "no death" goal. Then there're the Power Gloves.

Ah, the Power Gloves. They aren't as devastating to the order of the game as the Titan Mitts are in the Dark World, but these bad boys let me get the Flippers and general potions. And, with the flippers, I can visit the fairy behind the waterfall to get some item upgrades and the fairy in Lake Hylia to boost my item capacities. Plus, I'll be able to swim out to the hobo living under the bridge at Lake Hylia, the very one who gives me bottle number three.

Actually, when I go there, I'll be addressed by name and everything. This has already come up quite a bit in Kakariko Village - but it doesn't happen anywhere else really. The thief-type characters you meet in caves don't use your name, neither does the sage-looking guy in the cave near the Desert Palace. Which leads me to believe that Link is some sort of regular around Kakariko Village.

Of course, Kakariko being the only real town on the world map, this makes sense from a realistic sort of perspective. Link and his uncle don't look like they farm around their house on the hill, so they must deal with the villagers for food and clothing. Perhaps that sort of familiarity is all it is. Link is just another face that the villagers frequently see. Yet, as cool as it would be for Link to have already distinguished himself in some way, that's probably just what it is. Such familiarity would explain why you get people saying that they still trust you in spite of rumours and that you look like a decent enough guy.

Still. It leaves me wondering just what life was like for Link and his uncle before the game begins.

Eastern Palaces and currency declines

One dungeon down, 10 to go. There's really nothing else to say.

I've played through the first dungeon of A Link to the Past (the Eastern Palace) so often that it's become rote. The image that kept popping up in my mind while playing through it: a straight line.

That's not to say that the Eastern Palace is a direct sort of dungeon. But it's definitely designed to get you to collect all three of the major dungeon items: the map, the compass, and the item. Though, part of that is just statistics, since more people are likely to turn right when given the choice (if I'm properly remembering my signs from the Dungeon Man dungeon in Earthbound). Not that getting everything in this dungeon really tacks on that much extra time. From start to finish, it must've taken just a little over 10 minutes to get through.

What I don't understand, though, is why you're given so many rupees. There's a cache in a room behind Sahasrala, there's a room full of blue rupees in the dungeon, and chests give you fifties and hundreds like the rupee's as valuable as all the sand in Hyrule. Actually, considering the fact that an empty bottle is going for 100 rupees in the Kakariko Village marketplace, maybe that's not far from the truth.

Link eludes capture

One of the reasons why video games entries have been spotty lately is because I was waiting.

Waiting for a good time to test out my video capture set up.

Unfortunately, it looks like there are a few bugs that need working out, particularly my program's telling me that there is no capture device attached in the middle of displaying what's being fed through my capture device. That device by the way is the Diamond VC500. The software I'm running is Ulead VideoStudio 10. And yes, I'm running it all on an old version of Windows (XP).

Another of the reasons for the scarcity of entries about video games is that I was waiting for an opportune time to marathon A Link to the Past, my favourite entry in the Zelda series. Since I don't currently own a 3DS (or a 2DS, for that matter), I can't play A Link Between Worlds just yet and so I figured that its predecessor is the next best thing. That time's not come up, but more important than marathoning it, I want to get through the game without dying a single time.

Unfortunately, all I have with me (aside from an emulated copy, either on the Virtual Console (VC) or through less legitimate means) is the GBA port. Since I've already played through it on the GBA, I figured why not put the old Gamecube Game Boy Player to use and play it on the TV (or computer monitor, as the case may be). The trouble with the game's GBA port, though, is that Nintendo either forgot or neglected to port over Link's grunts from the original game. Instead Link's cries and struggles call up the Nintendo 64 entries in the series thanks to the use of child Link's sound effects.

Not only does this ruin the charm of the original game, but it assumes that this game's Link is the same age as child Link. But what in the game itself even suggests that?

Is it that he's living with his uncle? That he isn't in the middle of military training?

Everyone in Kakariko seems to know Link - unless he's some sort of Dennis the Menace-type character before the game begins, it seems like he'd need to have been active around town before people would be able to know him. To do that, he'd have to be at least a little older than the Link of Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask. I'd like to peg his age as that of the main character of a fun Zelda-esque Genesis game called Crusader of Centy: 14.

So, why am I playing this version when there's a perfectly good port on the VC? Because controlling it with the Gamecube controller's analog stick almost simulates walking on ice. It's just a little bit too sensitive. Considering I know the game well from playing through it several times, I welcome the extra challenge.

After the wind's been woken

Ganon's Tower was way longer than I remembered. The maze and finding the Light Arrows and then your final ascent to where Ganondorf and Zelda wait had been entirely forgotten. And that's pretty surprising.

The maze is easy enough, and the final ascent is uneventful. But, the major reason for those final stairs and the enemies along the landings being so quickly dismissed is the Light Arrows. A single one of the shining projectiles instantly destroys any enemy - from Bokoblins to Darknuts. With magic jars on almost every landing, shooting down the final lines of enemies is entirely painless. Though the fight with Puppet Ganon makes up for that.

The first two forms are easily dispatched. Bring the glowing blue orb into view, and hit it with a light arrow. Bang, done. But, this boss' third form, the Moldorm form, is just plain terrible. Fighting the Moldorm in A Link to the Past is bad because it takes patience and timing to land enough hits - but at least in that game you've got the 3/4 view in your favour.

Once you find yourself in the middle of Puppet Ganon's Moldorm form all you can do is slash and hope to hit the head to buy yourself some escape time. Though that gives you hardly enough time to get out and to shoot at the flailing worm's tail. That's definitely what makes this section of the final boss so difficult, though. In its appearances in previous games, you could just slash at Moldorm's tail. But, instead you need to use the Light Arrows on said tail. Needless to say, striking Puppet Ganon's Moldorm tail requires a little more accuracy.

The final fight in this boss sequence is shockingly easy after dealing with the thrashing body and rapidly moving target that is Puppet Ganon's Moldorm form. The fight with Ganondorf just sees you slash away at the villain until you need to let Zelda hit you with a light arrow to stun the Great King of Evil. That last downward blow to the head always looks like it should do more than just turn the man to stone, but so it goes.

Having recently finished Skyward Sword, there are actually a few strange similarities between these boss fights. The formation of the swords that Ganondorf uses to block Link's attacks changes with each strike, similar to Demise's constant blocking of Link's first attack. Both enemies are also downed by a downward strike, something that could allude to the Downward Stab from The Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Of course, what I'm left wondering is was there a point in The Wind Waker's development at which players had more control over the angle of Link's attacks, or is Ganondorf's changing his swords' arrangement each time he blocks merely aesthetic?

In the end, The Wind Waker is a worthy entry in the Zelda franchise, despite the hate piled on it when it released in the West. The game's cartoony style brings back the whimsy found in A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening - a quality that helps any good game shine brighter.

Don't hate the bosses, hate the boss anterooms

Ganon's Tower is ready to be ascended. Link's got his Hero's Charm, and all four of the previous bosses have been beaten.

Go figure that game's most fun boss battle becomes the hardest when replayed. Not to mention that its lead up is also the most frustrating. It's one thing to perfectly land on a moving platform after gently wafting over with the Deku Leaf, but it's quite another to inch your way down a hallway, reluctant to wake any sleeping Redeads. Unless we get to see them in glorious HD once Zelda U's released, The Wind Waker's Redeads are still the series' creepiest.

Re-fighting the bosses is a nice call back to Majora's Mask's optional boss rush. Doing so in black and white, rather than The Wind Waker's full colour is neat too. It's as if Link were fighting the memories of these bosses, or perhaps Ganon's reconstructions of them. They are, after all, all his creatures.

What's left unclear, though, is whether defeating them merely opens the door to Ganon or if it causes a break in whatever power he had to actively exert to maintain the four part lock on the door to the stairs. The latter makes Ganon seem all the more fierce an opponent, and an enemy truly able to don three forms to battle with the Hero of Winds.

Comparing gauntlets

The lead up to Ganon's Tower in The Wind Waker seems like it's a prototype for the lead up to Skyward Sword's final boss sequence. Both are gauntlets in the form of continuous battles with a variety of enemies, though Skyward Sword's feels much much more like Link is being pitted against the army of evil.

Compared to the trials you have to go through to get the Triforce Shards, it's quite literally a walk through a field. Though the fight against two Darknuts in a ring of fire is an exciting - though not very challenging - one. Since The Wind Waker's enemy walk is so underwhelming on the Gamecube, since you just march right through (and can even just run past most of them), it'll be very interesting to see what's done with it in the HD remake. The hardware differences should make whatever change the Zelda team makes stand out.

Hopefully they don't change the reward for the Gold Membership at the Beedle Shop Ships. It comes late in the game, and might seem useless, but the "Fill-Up Coupon" is the perfect way to re-fill everything before you go down to sunken Hyrule for the final time.

A fractured cap for the Triforce quest

If the lack of a sense of accomplishment plagues you at the end of the Triforce quest in The Wind Waker, I think I know why.

The Triforce is an item of such grand legend in the Zelda series that its alleged existence in former games stirred the internet to a fever pitch. Whenever Ocarina of Time's remade, and when the Master Quest was released, there were all sorts of rumours that the Triforce would be obtainable. It's the same thing in Ocarina's Beta Quest, and undeniably one of the coolest things about any Zelda 64 reconstruction project is the possibility that you would be able to get the Triforce.

The one game in which you do get the Triforce, A Link to the Past, has a supremely satisfying ending - and actually getting the Triforce is a major reason for that.

In The Wind Waker, quite obviously, you also get a piece of the Triforce. It's a quest that takes about two to three hours to complete, but the pay-off doesn't match the effort. Yes, you need to get the Triforce of Courage to progress in the game, but the immediate reward is just a cheap little animation. The game jumps to the inventory screen and shows the Triforce of Courage glow while all of its cracks and fissures disappear. This is, plainly and simply, just not enough.

The game's designers went to the trouble to make each piece unique, and yet the joining of them together gets a level of attention dwarfed by even the cinematic of the Triforce of Wisdom reforming:



Suffice to say, a more satisfying joining sequence can be added to the list of improvements I hope to see in The Wind Waker HD.

Charts and Challenges

I set out on the last leg of the Triforce Chart hunt, thinking I'd only find that chart. Instead, I came away with a chart that shows where all of The Wind Waker's hidden caves are, where all of the heart containers are, and where all of the sea platforms are. These could be useful, sure, but much earlier in the game. At this point, things are wrapping up and I doubt that anyone would remember all of the things that they've already gone through and/or gotten.

Also, after having fought four Darknuts simultaneously for the second time, I've got to say that their bunching up is irksome. It's a great defense, which draws out the fight, but it's also a sure way to knock off helmets while leaving their armour on. And since they're practically impervious to everything except a sharp sword point, an exposed head is little help.

Still, despite the problems of the four-on-one Darknut vs. Link match ups,  such battles are just plain fun.

Idle sailing

The hunt for the Triforce Charts continues, and what I've pulled from it is that seagull piloting is tough.

On Bird's Peak Island, I must've wheeled around that second-to-last switch at least three times. Thankfully, the last one was handily dealt with by bow and arrow. After such a challenge, though, just going below and conducting the Wind's Requiem made getting that chart seem quick. Strangely so, considering the lag in this part of the game.

But it's not a bad lag.

What better way to make a game based on the ocean replicate the feel of sailing and of grandeur than of making a sailing-heavy part of it slow. It would definitely be going too far into realism if there were certain days when you couldn't leave port because of storms, but the slow sailing times aren't terrible. It forces you to take the end of the game more slowly, and really, why is it necessary to rush through a game, something that's supposed to fill your leisure time?

Triforce wrangling, part one

When Link falls down a hole in the ground does he scream because the length of the fall surprises him?
Or is it because he reaches the bottom and is terrified by what he sees? Why does he even scream when he falls down holes? Without a formal count, a solid guess as to how many he's dove down so far would be 30. Maybe Link's just always optimistic about his fall, but then ultimately disappointed and his scream is an expression of the inescapable loop in which he has found himself.

As you might've guessed, I'm in the thick of the Triforce wrangling section of The Wind Waker.

In a Developer Direct with Eiji Aonuma (posted as part of the E3 blitz), he pointed out that this part of the game ruined the experience's pacing and is something that many players complained about. I can see why, because it's unlike anything we've ever had to do in a Zelda game before.

But, it also suits the game very well.

The Wind Waker is supposed to be a game about an adventure in a flooded version of Hyrule, making sea travel essential. Plus, there's no shortage of treasure (and other) charts that show you where treasure (or subs, or Big Octos, or the Triforce Charts) are. Exploration via sailing is a huge, and necessary, part of the game. Sailing around Hyrule to find the Triforce charts, and the things themselves, is then a logical way to wrap the game up.

However, if the Zelda team does make a change to the Triforce hunt in Wind Waker HD, hopefully they give us direct access to the sunken surface of old Hyrule for it.

Savage from room to room to reward

It's a little known fact that Twilight Princess was originally going to be a sequel to The Wind Waker. Though the final versions of both games are quite different, some things in Twilight Princess are the stuff of a The Wind Waker sequel. The Wind Waker's Hookshot, though not clawed, feels quite a bit like the prototype of Twilight Princess' Clawshot and Double Clawshots. It might be an obvious connection (the case could be made for them just being the same item, merely redrawn), but there's another that's more substantial.

The quest for the Triforce Charts in The Wind Waker, takes Link back to his home of Outset Island. On the isle, the chart is found in the "Savage Labyrinth," a series of rooms infested with enemies from throughout the game. Any players of Twilight Princess will recognize this idea's being reused for that game's "Cave of Ordeals." But it wasn't just the idea that was carried over. The ultimate reward - even the final room - is similar.

As mentioned, these areas involve 51 and 50 rooms respectively, each holding a group of enemies to be handily dispatched. The final room of each involves a mad melee with four Darknuts, and the final reward of each is particularly underwhelming.

In Twilight Princess, the various Light Spirit fountains across the land become populated with fairies. In The Wind Waker, you get a piece of heart. Twilight Princess' reward is slightly more substantial, but considering that both involve a solid 40+ minutes of battling and neither can be completed until the final leg of each game, their rewards fall far short of the effort required.

At least the in-game rewards are rather thin. Hardcore Zelda players will take each area's completion as a point of pride, but it would be much more incredible if there was something grander at the bottom of each. Maybe a scroll that teaches Link the sword beam technique.

Maybe that's one of the things added to The Wind Waker HD (along with a higher gear for the boat), or at least such is hoped.

Seas v. Skies

Link is pretty impervious. He takes getting hit by cannon fire quite well, losing only 1/4 of a heart. And the King of Red Lions takes no visible damage whatsoever.

The sea battles in The Wind Waker, as simple as they are, are definitely the game's overworld's saving grace. They make travelling between places more interesting, and add an extra layer to accessing those islands around which ships keep a tight perimeter. It's also hard to deny that it's just plain fun to put on the Magic Shield and barge into a three-on-one bout, cannon blazing.

This built-in distraction from travel is what Skyward Sword's "Above the Clouds" area is missing. There are some enemies flying around up there, but none of them actually engage you. They'll fire off rocks as you pass, or fly in a set pattern bearing rupees, but none give chase or effectively bar your way.

As lush and lovely as Skyward's Sword's environments are, its three dimensionality of movement in flight is what does that mechanic in. Nothing can really bar your way if you can just fly over or under it. Though jumping over sharks on the Great Sea is fine.