The Wind Waker HD Logbook, Final Day

Beaten. 100%. That's it for now. (Spoilers ahoi!)

Well, there wasn't much left to do for today. The Wind Temple, two remaining Triforce Shards, three more Treasure Charts, a hand full of figurines and of course the final dungeon and boss.

I haven't done the slide puzzle game at Link's cabana. However, I'm not sure whether this actually counts towards 100% or not, because if you beat all puzzles, it will just start over. But I'll save that for later in case I'm bored. I also like to fill my Spoils Bag with 99 of everything (except Blue Chu Jelly, there you can only have eight). It sounds ridiculous, but it's actually quickly done if you know the right places. And it looks nice in your inventory. For the Knight's Crests there's a hidden room inside the Phantom Ganon maze, which has three Darknuts in it (including one of the caped guys, in case you missed it earlier for your figurine collection). Simply kill them with Light Arrows, collect the orbs, leave the room and repeat. That's something I'll do later, because I don't really have anything else for my Wii U and I don't plan to buy any other games in the near future.

Getting the Hero's Charm so late in the game feels a little bit weird. Well, I never really used this item until now, so it doesn't bother me as much. But if you're fan of it, it might trouble you that you don't have the chance to get this until after you got the Mirror Shield. In the GameCube original you could get the Hero's Charm right after Dragon Roost Cavern, if you wanted it badly. So, you were able to play the majority of the game with this item equipped.

On the other hand it's nice to get some actual reward from the Savage Labyrinth instead of just a lame Piece of Heart. It's interesting, how this changed over the versions. In the original Japanese version you get 10 Rupees at the end of the Savage Labyrinth as a kind of twisted joke. Then the updated western release put a Piece of Heart there. And now the Hero's Charm finally offers some real reward.

Another good thing about this change is that selfies with the Hero's Charm on the Miiverse are somewhat special and rare. It would be annoying, if everyone used this item for their shots, because Link looks really terrible with it. So, putting this item in such a late place in the game was probably not a bad idea.

Generally, I like how you can take screenshots or pictographs, post them on Miiverse, access your Miiverse posts from the internet, and save the images on your computer. That almost feels like Nintendo entered the internet age. Making screenshots in a Nintendo game was only possible with emulators, but now I can easily make screenshots on the console and post them right on my blog. Here you go:

I love this! This will make things in the future a lot easier.

(Update: Actually this is even easier. While being ingame you can directly upload your current screen on any website using the Wii U webbrowser. I'm posting images to my blog with this. Wow, Nintendo, you really surprised me here. I've even added some pictures to the previous posts.)

I also like the location of Treasure Chart #46. It's at the second secret cave at Pawprint Island, the one with the aweful summoning Wizzrobe battle. In the past I usually forgot about this cave, even though it's one of only three locations, where you actually need the Hookshot. And you used to get only Rupees there, so it was easy to miss this one on your playthrough. But not anymore.

With the new camera I finally had the chance to make more pictographs during the Puppet Ganon battle. It's interesting that it wouldn't give me the sigil during the 2nd or 3rd phase of the battle. So, it seems like Carlov accepts only pictographs from the first phase. It's good to know that. Or it might be that all my attempts to shoot the 2nd or 3rd phase were simply not good enough. The 1st phase is the easiest to catch anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

In the Ganondorf fight they added new red sparks, when your and Ganondorf's swords clash in the battle. It's a cool effect, simple but effective, like most improvements in this version.

And they've updated the credits. Now they show you a bubble of every character and monster in the game, as well important islands and events. It's really nice and a good update from the boring credits on the GameCube version that had like the same eight bubbles repeating over and over again.

Well, that's it for now. Of course to truly achieve 100% with this, I have to get a 100%ed 2nd Quest file as well. Since my figurine collection is already finished, this should be somewhat easier. But I won't be doing this in the near future. I will be saving the 2nd Quest for when I actually got an HD TV. I was playing this on my small, old tube TV. But while it only has a small screen, the image quality and the colors are brilliant. The Wind Waker HD looked beautiful on it. On the GamePad? Not so much, even though it should be the same resolution. But on the GamePad the colors didn't look as bright and vibrant. Also, some of the image looked noisy. Especially the red text. So, yeah, my small, eight year old TV has a better image than the Wii U GamePad. I'd still like to play the game on a big screen one day, which is what I'm saving the 2nd Quest for.

Now I'm actually in the mood for some quality topdown Zelda. Hopefully, A Link Between Worlds delivers.

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1 comment:

Matt DavisDecember 12, 2013 at 1:53 PM
You could get the Hero's Charm before Dragon Roost if you had the motivation to do it. Someone told me he'd done it so I tried it myself. There are Bokoblins around Pawprint Isle, so you can loot them. Obviously you have to do it without being able to change the wind, and you have no Grappling Hook, but it can be done.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013