I've just beaten the Catfish's Maw dungeon, so two thirds of the dungeons are done in Hero Mode. This is going much faster than my first playthrough, of course, but I'm having a lot of fun here.
With the reduced damage input of the Blue Mail things are going much more smoothly, though I still have to return to that one Fairy Fountain in the Ukuku Prairie multiple times to heal up, because this is really the only practical space in the game so far that has a Fairy for my bottles. There are none in the trees, none under rocks and you also don't get them from Anti-Fairies. Only in the Fairy Fountains. And this is super inconvenient. They should at least have kept the apples in Hero Mode, because this is a new feature of the remake that is completely missing in this mode and this would also add more value to the Pegasus Boots here.
Plus, it's weird that there are trees now that shake, but don't offer anything. But in other places there are trees that you have to ram multiple times for them to drop Rupees. This was not a good idea, because now whenever a tree shakes, the player might think that there could be Rupees in there and then keeps trying. But nothing happens, because the tree originally had apples or a fairy, which won't appear in Hero Mode... This is a small issue, but not a good design choice. At least the Rupees should always drop immediately.
Anyway, I've noticed this already during my Normal Mode playthrough with the Red Mail, but it doesn't seem like the temporary power-ups and the mails are stacking any longer. Either that are this a minimum damage input and a maximum damage output... But for example the Moldorm fight always takes two hits now, no matter what I do. And if I pick up a Guardian Acorn and now get hit with the Blue Mail, I still take at least half a heart damage. There don't even seem to be quarter hearts in the remake. There weren't quarter hearts in the original either, but there only every second hit would only damage you with the increased defense.
Also, neither the Guardian Acorn nor the Blue Mail reduce your fall damage. It's one heart per pit fall, baby. Speaking of, there is this nasty Piece of Heart now in the Pothole Maze...
It's right at the end of the "maze", but it hides behind a gap of two holes. But of course you don't want to return there after getting the Pegasus Boots, so you try. And you make it. But then you're potentially trapped, because for the jump back you don't get the same momentum. You can still get back somehow, but it's potentially a death trap, especially in Hero Mode.
Otherwise I can confirm now that you're getting the Secret Seashell Chamber from the Tail Cave together with the Key Cavern chambers in the Chamber Dungeon, even if you haven't found the seashell yet. This time I didn't go there early, instead I went there on my way to Mabe Village with Marin...
First of all, the kid near the Weather Vane really has his texts screwed up. When Marin is still in Mabe Village before you go to Animal Village he tells you that she likes to hang around the beach. And once she's at the beach, he asks you where you have left Marin... It's like his dialogues got shifted. This isn't a big deal, but they still need to patch this eventually, because this way the player might not know where to look for her.
But once you found her it's fun time. This is still so extremely adorable and I hadn't even seen the funniest part yet. Whenever you jump across a big abyss, like next to the house of the bay, Marin follows you easily. She doesn't need any Roc's Feather or Pegasus Boots, she doesn't even have to take a run-up. She makes a standing long jump and this looks so hilarious... :D
I also took her to the Southern Shrine this time, but of course she doesn't pay any attention to what the Owl is saying. She only is paying attention to Link...
Overall I love the new warp system, how it makes getting around Koholint so much more convenient. But I still don't get why they didn't put a warp point right after that one mountain cave that I've crossed over a hundred times in my life now. Here, please put a teleport right here:
This would be the perfect. If you got there early before doing any of the Animal Village stuff, you wouldn't have went there for nothing. You could just activate a teleporter and then quickly return here later, once you've opened the Angler's Tunnel and got the Ananas for Papahl. But this way the game still forces you to go through the same mountain cave again and again and again...
It's potentially even worse in Hero Mode. If you want to heal up inside the Angler's Tunnel, you now will have to leave the dungeon, because there are no helpful Anti-Fairies there or flying hearts. (This even leaves a weird spot in the chamber in the northeast corner, where there is a single space in the water with nothing above it. If you have never played the normal version of the game, you will probably find this suspicious. But the answer then comes from the Chamber Dungeon, where this chamber still has the flying hearts...)
Anyway, let's say you want to heal during the Angler's Tunnel. Then you get out of the dungeon, teleport to the Ukuku Prairie, go to the Fairy Fountain, then teleport to Dampé and get all the way back through the mountain cave yet another time... Come on, Nintendo / Grezzo! Just put one more warp point there, please...
So, this has always been a great moment in the game for me when it came to side quest stuff. If you've left the Angler's Tunnel, you would not only get a nice warp song, but also two more Heart Pieces for another Heart Container, as well as enough Secret Seashells for the L-2 sword. And I'm happy to say that this is still exactly the same in the remake despite all of the additions of Pieces of Hearts and Secret Seashells now.
That one Heart Piece in the Kanalet Castle moat still gave me an extra Heart Container. Of course there are three more sunken Heart Pieces now, but normally after leaving the Angler's Tunnel I usually go to the one flooded cave and then to the moat, because it's all right there. And this is still true for the remake.
I was a little bit worried that there aren't enough Secret Seashells to get the Koholint Sword before the Catfish's Maw in the remake and I wanted to find this out. Of course I could have just done the math after my Normal Mode playthrough, but this way it was more exciting. But after I was done raiding near the hen house (and yeah, you have to go through the mountain cave one more time for this thanks to the missing warp point... uggghhhhh), I was looking at 39 Seashells.
At first I thought I could be getting one more shell from the fishing. However, only the Cheep-Cheeps start appearing after the 4th dungeon in the Fishing Pond and this can get you another Secret Seashell, but it doesn't seem like they can grow big enough for the 2nd seashell...
By the way, it's entirely random what fishes might appear. The blue light tells you that either a Cheep-Cheep, a Blooper or an Ol' Baron is in the pond. But since there were only Cheep-Cheeps available, the blue light rarely ever appeared for me and I had to go in and out CiaoCiao's dog house to let the RNG do it's work. That's like the fishing ponds in Majora's Mask 3D all over again... Why not always keep all the special fish, once they are unlocked?
Anyway, even though the fishing couldn't give me what I wanted, I was simply forgetting about two seashells at the moment, which were both quite interesting...
Well, this means you can 41 Secret Seashells before Catfish's Maw, which is enough for the better sword. Yay! It would have felt wrong to play the fifth dungeon without some sword upgrade. It's not like I never did this, but at this part of the game it's starting to get annoying, whenever enemies tank two hits.
I also wanted to see what happens, if you get multiple seashell rewards at once, so I didn't return to the Seashell Mansion after the Piece of Heart in the beginning. And... you simply pick all the rewards up one by one, where in case of the sword you won't be standing on the pedestal, but right next to it.
Otherwise I noticed how the Mermaid still gets angry, when you dive in front of her. But since she isn't looking for her bikini top any longer, she gets afraid that you could be stealing a scale from her without giving her what she wants first. Link is such a naughty boy!
Oh, and similar to the trees that had fairies or apples, the special Goomba spots in the tunnels might also feel weird / pointless in Hero Mode:
Normally you get a heart from jumping on top of a Goomba, but not in Hero Mode, so you can completely ignore these spots...
With the reduced damage input of the Blue Mail things are going much more smoothly, though I still have to return to that one Fairy Fountain in the Ukuku Prairie multiple times to heal up, because this is really the only practical space in the game so far that has a Fairy for my bottles. There are none in the trees, none under rocks and you also don't get them from Anti-Fairies. Only in the Fairy Fountains. And this is super inconvenient. They should at least have kept the apples in Hero Mode, because this is a new feature of the remake that is completely missing in this mode and this would also add more value to the Pegasus Boots here.
Plus, it's weird that there are trees now that shake, but don't offer anything. But in other places there are trees that you have to ram multiple times for them to drop Rupees. This was not a good idea, because now whenever a tree shakes, the player might think that there could be Rupees in there and then keeps trying. But nothing happens, because the tree originally had apples or a fairy, which won't appear in Hero Mode... This is a small issue, but not a good design choice. At least the Rupees should always drop immediately.
Anyway, I've noticed this already during my Normal Mode playthrough with the Red Mail, but it doesn't seem like the temporary power-ups and the mails are stacking any longer. Either that are this a minimum damage input and a maximum damage output... But for example the Moldorm fight always takes two hits now, no matter what I do. And if I pick up a Guardian Acorn and now get hit with the Blue Mail, I still take at least half a heart damage. There don't even seem to be quarter hearts in the remake. There weren't quarter hearts in the original either, but there only every second hit would only damage you with the increased defense.
Also, neither the Guardian Acorn nor the Blue Mail reduce your fall damage. It's one heart per pit fall, baby. Speaking of, there is this nasty Piece of Heart now in the Pothole Maze...
It's right at the end of the "maze", but it hides behind a gap of two holes. But of course you don't want to return there after getting the Pegasus Boots, so you try. And you make it. But then you're potentially trapped, because for the jump back you don't get the same momentum. You can still get back somehow, but it's potentially a death trap, especially in Hero Mode.
Otherwise I can confirm now that you're getting the Secret Seashell Chamber from the Tail Cave together with the Key Cavern chambers in the Chamber Dungeon, even if you haven't found the seashell yet. This time I didn't go there early, instead I went there on my way to Mabe Village with Marin...
More Fun with Marin
First of all, the kid near the Weather Vane really has his texts screwed up. When Marin is still in Mabe Village before you go to Animal Village he tells you that she likes to hang around the beach. And once she's at the beach, he asks you where you have left Marin... It's like his dialogues got shifted. This isn't a big deal, but they still need to patch this eventually, because this way the player might not know where to look for her.
But once you found her it's fun time. This is still so extremely adorable and I hadn't even seen the funniest part yet. Whenever you jump across a big abyss, like next to the house of the bay, Marin follows you easily. She doesn't need any Roc's Feather or Pegasus Boots, she doesn't even have to take a run-up. She makes a standing long jump and this looks so hilarious... :D
I also took her to the Southern Shrine this time, but of course she doesn't pay any attention to what the Owl is saying. She only is paying attention to Link...
That one Mountain Cave...
Overall I love the new warp system, how it makes getting around Koholint so much more convenient. But I still don't get why they didn't put a warp point right after that one mountain cave that I've crossed over a hundred times in my life now. Here, please put a teleport right here:
This would be the perfect. If you got there early before doing any of the Animal Village stuff, you wouldn't have went there for nothing. You could just activate a teleporter and then quickly return here later, once you've opened the Angler's Tunnel and got the Ananas for Papahl. But this way the game still forces you to go through the same mountain cave again and again and again...
It's potentially even worse in Hero Mode. If you want to heal up inside the Angler's Tunnel, you now will have to leave the dungeon, because there are no helpful Anti-Fairies there or flying hearts. (This even leaves a weird spot in the chamber in the northeast corner, where there is a single space in the water with nothing above it. If you have never played the normal version of the game, you will probably find this suspicious. But the answer then comes from the Chamber Dungeon, where this chamber still has the flying hearts...)
Anyway, let's say you want to heal during the Angler's Tunnel. Then you get out of the dungeon, teleport to the Ukuku Prairie, go to the Fairy Fountain, then teleport to Dampé and get all the way back through the mountain cave yet another time... Come on, Nintendo / Grezzo! Just put one more warp point there, please...
After Angler's Tunnel
So, this has always been a great moment in the game for me when it came to side quest stuff. If you've left the Angler's Tunnel, you would not only get a nice warp song, but also two more Heart Pieces for another Heart Container, as well as enough Secret Seashells for the L-2 sword. And I'm happy to say that this is still exactly the same in the remake despite all of the additions of Pieces of Hearts and Secret Seashells now.
That one Heart Piece in the Kanalet Castle moat still gave me an extra Heart Container. Of course there are three more sunken Heart Pieces now, but normally after leaving the Angler's Tunnel I usually go to the one flooded cave and then to the moat, because it's all right there. And this is still true for the remake.
I was a little bit worried that there aren't enough Secret Seashells to get the Koholint Sword before the Catfish's Maw in the remake and I wanted to find this out. Of course I could have just done the math after my Normal Mode playthrough, but this way it was more exciting. But after I was done raiding near the hen house (and yeah, you have to go through the mountain cave one more time for this thanks to the missing warp point... uggghhhhh), I was looking at 39 Seashells.
At first I thought I could be getting one more shell from the fishing. However, only the Cheep-Cheeps start appearing after the 4th dungeon in the Fishing Pond and this can get you another Secret Seashell, but it doesn't seem like they can grow big enough for the 2nd seashell...
By the way, it's entirely random what fishes might appear. The blue light tells you that either a Cheep-Cheep, a Blooper or an Ol' Baron is in the pond. But since there were only Cheep-Cheeps available, the blue light rarely ever appeared for me and I had to go in and out CiaoCiao's dog house to let the RNG do it's work. That's like the fishing ponds in Majora's Mask 3D all over again... Why not always keep all the special fish, once they are unlocked?
Anyway, even though the fishing couldn't give me what I wanted, I was simply forgetting about two seashells at the moment, which were both quite interesting...
Well, this means you can 41 Secret Seashells before Catfish's Maw, which is enough for the better sword. Yay! It would have felt wrong to play the fifth dungeon without some sword upgrade. It's not like I never did this, but at this part of the game it's starting to get annoying, whenever enemies tank two hits.
I also wanted to see what happens, if you get multiple seashell rewards at once, so I didn't return to the Seashell Mansion after the Piece of Heart in the beginning. And... you simply pick all the rewards up one by one, where in case of the sword you won't be standing on the pedestal, but right next to it.
Otherwise I noticed how the Mermaid still gets angry, when you dive in front of her. But since she isn't looking for her bikini top any longer, she gets afraid that you could be stealing a scale from her without giving her what she wants first. Link is such a naughty boy!
Oh, and similar to the trees that had fairies or apples, the special Goomba spots in the tunnels might also feel weird / pointless in Hero Mode:
Normally you get a heart from jumping on top of a Goomba, but not in Hero Mode, so you can completely ignore these spots...
Hero Status:
- Secret Seashells: 41
- Pieces of Heart: 23
- Chambers: 90
- Chamber Stones: 2
- Challenges Cleared: 6
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