SPOILER WARNING: Area post Silent Realm 3 + sidequests
My Phantom Hourglass boat trip continued. I love that part of the game, I love how Link gestures and makes "heyaaa" sounds to fire cannon and the robot pirate is a nice replacement for Linebeck. The are four different ports and the third one was a clever minidungeon, where you carry a time shift orb. The dungeon itself was called the Sand Ship, probably one of the most unique dungeon settings so far in the Zelda series. You could shift the whole ship between two times and I liked the joke how the "crew" that you had to rescue only consisted of one more robot. The dungeon also felt a little bit more open than usual, which was a good thing, still nothing on the level of classic Zelda dungeon layouts though. The boss was quite the stereotype though... tentacles attacking a pirate ship? Wait, where have I seen this before...? Oh, and this time we got the bow, so the boss must have a huge eye. And alltogether it was a silly looking mix of a Cyclops, Medusa and Kraken. Of all the bosses this was weirdest one so far.
The bow didn't let me down though. You can use it in two ways. Either you use it like the Slingshot just by holding down A. But you can also draw the arrow yourself with the Nunchuck, which loads the full power up much faster. Also, the bow gets two upgrades and you also can buy additional quiver(s), which also gets two upgrades. So, finally there was some new stuff for upgrading, something that I badly missed with the previous three items.
Talking about upgrades, by now I'm also looking further into potions and upgrading them. I never really did this before, because the normal Heart Potion was just fine, but I collected so many bugs and Rupees by now that I want to put them to use. And some of the upgraded potions can be quite useful. If you upgrade the Heart Potion twice, it restores all hearts and you can drink from it twice. The upgraded Revitalization Potion restores your Shield automatically when it breaks. I'm currently only using the Goddess Shield, which was very expensive, but has low stamina. It regenerates itself quickly, but sometimes in a heated battle I fear that it will shatter. But the Revitalization Potion gives me some reassurance.
Fi again spoiled a puzzle for me. In the Sand Ship there was a room, where had to hit the Time Shift Stone through the ceiling. It would have been a nice challenge to discover this for yourself, but instead Fi contacts you and tells you about it. I'm pissed about these things, why even put such a puzzle there, if Fi tells you the solution right away? If I'm stuck, I can always ask her or visit the Sheikah Stone. She shouldn't be telling you anything.
About that, with the second flame you can now dowse for all kinds of things. Some of it is useful, like dowsing for treasures. But other stuff is just a big spoiler. You can dowse for Gratitude Crystals for example. I think I'm only missing two single crystals and I will never ever use the dowsing feature for them. I will find them on my own. It's fun searching for them and it's terrible that the game offers such guides. Where's the challenge of hidden items, if you get a detector?
I wonder what the third flame will be. Well, the Skyward Sword will probably turn into the Master Sword, but there must be some new ability. Hopefully it lets you load the sword beam faster. This was an issue during the boss fight on the sand ship, where you had to cut the tentacles using the sword beam. A medal with the same effect would be fine too.
With the whip you can steal the horns that some Bokoblins are carrying. This is reminiscent of The Wind Waker, where you can use the Grappling Hook to steal the spoils from your enemies. But so far that's the only item that you can steal with the whip, but better than nothing.
I won a Dusk Relic at the Bow minigame. So, there's a way to collect them outside of the Silent Realms. Though I got a good stock by now, I collected 9 Dusk Relics during the third trial. I had some trouble with the first part to the west, where lots of Poes are on a sand slope. But before that part you could collect two Dusk Relics, which was a nice opportunity to farm them. I think you will be able to repeat the trials in the Boss Battles mode, but better use the opportunity right away. And I'm glad that I've beaten the final trial (unless there's another trial in Skyloft, lol), though I thought the second one was harder. The path was much clearer this time, in the second trial you could go anywhere and it was hard to figure out where to go next without running out of time. But in the mountains you follow a clear path.
The fire protection earrings are basically the Goron Armor of this game, much like the Water Dragon's Scale replaces the Zora Armor. I wonder if you actually could get to the Fire Sanctuary without the earrings. The path is not that long, you only need enough health. I never tried and I'm actually regretting that I never had the balls to do it. This would have been a cool discovery.
I finally got the chest in the Bazaar... and I was disappointed that it "only" gave me 300 Rupees, I was hoping for something more special. You're coming by this chest every day and you want to open it from that start of the game and then it only contains Rupees? Why not a cool medal? I still only got 7 different medals and two duplicates.... the whole medal thing feels like wasted potential right now. Every time I open a big treasure chest I'm hoping for a new medal. And most of the time I get disappointed.
I like that you get healed by sitting down on a chair or a bench. I never noticed until meeting the digging Goron in Lanayru Cave, he tells you something different if you sit next to him. During the talk I got healed, it takes a little time until the healing starts, which is why I probably have never noticed this before. But in the Sand Ship for example there were chairs in some places, so that you could heal yourself. It's an interesting addition, it doesn't make any sense at all, but it works.
My Phantom Hourglass boat trip continued. I love that part of the game, I love how Link gestures and makes "heyaaa" sounds to fire cannon and the robot pirate is a nice replacement for Linebeck. The are four different ports and the third one was a clever minidungeon, where you carry a time shift orb. The dungeon itself was called the Sand Ship, probably one of the most unique dungeon settings so far in the Zelda series. You could shift the whole ship between two times and I liked the joke how the "crew" that you had to rescue only consisted of one more robot. The dungeon also felt a little bit more open than usual, which was a good thing, still nothing on the level of classic Zelda dungeon layouts though. The boss was quite the stereotype though... tentacles attacking a pirate ship? Wait, where have I seen this before...? Oh, and this time we got the bow, so the boss must have a huge eye. And alltogether it was a silly looking mix of a Cyclops, Medusa and Kraken. Of all the bosses this was weirdest one so far.
The bow didn't let me down though. You can use it in two ways. Either you use it like the Slingshot just by holding down A. But you can also draw the arrow yourself with the Nunchuck, which loads the full power up much faster. Also, the bow gets two upgrades and you also can buy additional quiver(s), which also gets two upgrades. So, finally there was some new stuff for upgrading, something that I badly missed with the previous three items.
Talking about upgrades, by now I'm also looking further into potions and upgrading them. I never really did this before, because the normal Heart Potion was just fine, but I collected so many bugs and Rupees by now that I want to put them to use. And some of the upgraded potions can be quite useful. If you upgrade the Heart Potion twice, it restores all hearts and you can drink from it twice. The upgraded Revitalization Potion restores your Shield automatically when it breaks. I'm currently only using the Goddess Shield, which was very expensive, but has low stamina. It regenerates itself quickly, but sometimes in a heated battle I fear that it will shatter. But the Revitalization Potion gives me some reassurance.
Fi again spoiled a puzzle for me. In the Sand Ship there was a room, where had to hit the Time Shift Stone through the ceiling. It would have been a nice challenge to discover this for yourself, but instead Fi contacts you and tells you about it. I'm pissed about these things, why even put such a puzzle there, if Fi tells you the solution right away? If I'm stuck, I can always ask her or visit the Sheikah Stone. She shouldn't be telling you anything.
About that, with the second flame you can now dowse for all kinds of things. Some of it is useful, like dowsing for treasures. But other stuff is just a big spoiler. You can dowse for Gratitude Crystals for example. I think I'm only missing two single crystals and I will never ever use the dowsing feature for them. I will find them on my own. It's fun searching for them and it's terrible that the game offers such guides. Where's the challenge of hidden items, if you get a detector?
I wonder what the third flame will be. Well, the Skyward Sword will probably turn into the Master Sword, but there must be some new ability. Hopefully it lets you load the sword beam faster. This was an issue during the boss fight on the sand ship, where you had to cut the tentacles using the sword beam. A medal with the same effect would be fine too.
With the whip you can steal the horns that some Bokoblins are carrying. This is reminiscent of The Wind Waker, where you can use the Grappling Hook to steal the spoils from your enemies. But so far that's the only item that you can steal with the whip, but better than nothing.
I won a Dusk Relic at the Bow minigame. So, there's a way to collect them outside of the Silent Realms. Though I got a good stock by now, I collected 9 Dusk Relics during the third trial. I had some trouble with the first part to the west, where lots of Poes are on a sand slope. But before that part you could collect two Dusk Relics, which was a nice opportunity to farm them. I think you will be able to repeat the trials in the Boss Battles mode, but better use the opportunity right away. And I'm glad that I've beaten the final trial (unless there's another trial in Skyloft, lol), though I thought the second one was harder. The path was much clearer this time, in the second trial you could go anywhere and it was hard to figure out where to go next without running out of time. But in the mountains you follow a clear path.
The fire protection earrings are basically the Goron Armor of this game, much like the Water Dragon's Scale replaces the Zora Armor. I wonder if you actually could get to the Fire Sanctuary without the earrings. The path is not that long, you only need enough health. I never tried and I'm actually regretting that I never had the balls to do it. This would have been a cool discovery.
I finally got the chest in the Bazaar... and I was disappointed that it "only" gave me 300 Rupees, I was hoping for something more special. You're coming by this chest every day and you want to open it from that start of the game and then it only contains Rupees? Why not a cool medal? I still only got 7 different medals and two duplicates.... the whole medal thing feels like wasted potential right now. Every time I open a big treasure chest I'm hoping for a new medal. And most of the time I get disappointed.
I like that you get healed by sitting down on a chair or a bench. I never noticed until meeting the digging Goron in Lanayru Cave, he tells you something different if you sit next to him. During the talk I got healed, it takes a little time until the healing starts, which is why I probably have never noticed this before. But in the Sand Ship for example there were chairs in some places, so that you could heal yourself. It's an interesting addition, it doesn't make any sense at all, but it works.
1 comment:
You can get through the small part at the beginning without the Fire Protection Jewelry, but it just kills you when you enter the Fire Sanctuary. I've tried it, because I actually thought that was the way I was meant to go.
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