Sunday, May 29, 2016

Excuse me, Episode 3 - The White Knight


This is probably one of the better episodes, which isn't saying much, but it's still entertaining. It starts with Link and Zelda in a village, which gets attacked by Darknuts and an Octorok. Ironically the latter is the real problem, because most of the Darknuts get zapped by Zelda with a crossbow (Zelda's Crossbow Training), while the Octorok is huge and looks like the scariest Octorok ever. Here again the show predates Ocarina of Time with its concepts: the Octorok fires a shot at Link, but he reflects it right back, which isn't something that you could do in the NES Classics. But it's now measly defeated by that and things get out of control.

Enter Prince Facade from Arcadia. Could they have given him a more obvious name? (It's also the name of the Level 6 boss in Link's Awakening, but those are not related.) He's all handsome and charming and steals the girl, as well as the "Ruby", which was left as loot from one of the monsters.

Around the noble and narcissistic prince Zelda acts all like a "snoot", which is how Spryte accurately describes her, while she tries to intrude in Link's bath. She really takes the role of Lana in all of this and you could almost feel sorry for her. It even creates some irony in the situation, because Link essentially treats Spryte, the same way as Zelda treats him.

We also get to see King Harkinian for the first time. He used to be the King of Hyrule in pretty much all the North American Zelda works, including the Valiant Comics and the CD-i games, but he never was canon. He's fun though, he's like this very carefree and dopey person, who's probably incredibly incompetent at his job as king (it's really Zelda, who seems to do all the work), but he means good.

Well, everyone laughs at Link, after he tried to impress the nobles with fancy clothes, and he finally stands up for himself, riding off with his horse Catherine. If she had white hair, she would actually look quite similar to Epona. Anyway, Ganon uses the chance to kidnap Zelda, where he has some "Zola" drag her through the mud, because that's where Prince Facade would never follow her in fear of getting dirty. It's over the top, but lets that sucker Link be the hero again and get the girl and the "Ruby" back at the end. Nice one.

"Woah, loot!" - Link

No comments: