A Clouded Look for the Ladder

I know it's a feature they added to Phantom Hourglass, and that might not have made it into The Wind Waker's production, but being able to mark your map would be super useful. I'm not even supposed to be exploring yet (something the King of Red Lions is too keen to remind me of if I stray even a hairsbreadth off course), but I'm coming across things that should be marked. 

Particular among these is a submarine just to the south of Eastern Triangle Island. Along with the towers and rafts, it's another monster den where you can find some form of treasure for clearing it out. This sub housed a bottle, but what has me coloured curious is what's above the chest. 

As with the standard ship hold area, there are raised floors on either end of the room in the sub, and the side you come down has a ladder going to the lower level. The raised floor just behind where the chest appears has no such contrivance, though - unless I missed it. Or maybe it's something to get later in the game. 

It's always The Wind Waker's fine details that elude me.

Like a Boss

Once again the bosses in Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland leave me impressed. In the Deku Tree dungeon, you fight three plants before heading down to the main boss. To beat them, you need to throw their own poison mushrooms into their gaping, slobbering maws.

The dungeon's final boss is the same, except that you don't just throw the mushrooms at them, you get launched over to them by some sort of bizarre spring vine that sports a single giant eye. The danger comes in the fact that the boss also fires exploding seed pods. Plus, if you get launched without a mushroom, you get chomped instead and lose something to the tune of 1/4 of your health bar.

What's really exciting about this boss fight - and all those that came before - is that they're new in a genre that hasn't seen much innovation in boss fights. Zelda games tend to make their bosses a puzzle, but more often then not it's just a matter of using your newly acquired item in a certain way.

Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland handily gets around that by not usually giving you any new item in its dungeons. Instead, the bosses are fought using both of the DS' screens (even if the top screen's sometimes just a display).

Still, this game makes me wonder about the bosses of Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks - not to mention Zelda's Wii U entry.