Doing this the oldschool way.
After the fifth dungeon Link's Awakening usually turned into a dungeon crawling experience. The Hookshot gives you some more side quests to do, especially in the remake, but after you're done with those it's one dungeon after another. It's an "issue" that various Zelda games have, for example it's similar for A Link to the Past and Twilight Princess. So, it's nice that the remake gives you now a little bit more to do between the dungeons, even if it's just more Trendy Game or fishing.
While the Trendy Game gives you a new figurine after every dungeon, the fishing only upgrades after dungeons 4 to 6. The Angler's Tunnel unlocks the Cheep-Cheep and the Catfish's Maw the Blooper (you're also getting the figurines for these two after the same dungeons by the way). And after the Face Shrine the Ol' Baron starts to appear.
In my first playthrough I didn't bother with playing the fishing again until somewhere near the end of the game, so I got all of these special fish at once. Now I did them one by one and it made a lot more sense to get the heavyweight lure from the Blooper at this point. You use the middleweight lure on the Bloopers and then the heavyweight lure on the Ol' Barons in the next step. Also, it felt much easier to catch the Bloopers now, probably because I think I know what to do to catch them...
Back to the Boomerang I noticed that you have to trade the Shovel and only the Shovel now to get it. It's the only item that the Goriya Guy will accept. On the GameBoy you could trade any item that didn't have a level (like sword or shield) or a counter (like bombs). The Toadstool also didn't work, but you could for example trade your Roc's Feather, your Hookshot or your Pegasus Boots. Of course it's a bad idea to give these away, so everyone always trades the shovel. But it seems the remake isn't giving you any choice here, where they could have saved themselved the trouble of this item prompt with the X and Y buttons. He could have just asked for the Shovel...
Anyway, the Hookshot is giving you a lot of options for what to do next, where I also went back to the mountains already. Because you know, I love crossing the one cave, though at this point it will be for the last time, because with the Hookshot you can finally reach the Eastern Tal Tal Mountains warp point. It doesn't really replace a potential warp point near the exit of the first, long mountain cave, because from the east end you still have to traverse two more caves to get back to the central mountains, after you finally got the Flying Rooster...
So, it's not really worth it to go there early with the Hookshot. But at least this warp point is somewhat practical in Hero Mode, because it's right in front of a Fairy Fountain, where you can easily refill your fairies.
And to me it feels like these Fairy Bottles got primarily added for Hero Mode. I've never used them even once in Normal Mode, but here I've been using them regularly, since they only heal seven hearts and there are no other healing options. The only fairies to be found are those in the three fountains. Not even the "light the torches before the boss of the Face Shrine" trick worked any longer...
While it's nice that the Fairy Bottles aren't just inventory decor any longer, I still feel like the game is missing something when I don't get fairies from destroying Sparks.
The Secret Medicine on the other hand never kicked in once. While the lack of healing options makes you worry a little bit in Hero Mode, like in other Zelda games with a similar mode the increase in difficulty gets less and less noticeable the further you proceed into the game... So, I never got to zero hearts in Hero Mode, not even once. And those treasure chests with Secret Medicines inside them are still trolling me, where I had to leave three chests behind for no good reason.
Anyway, as I've been saying, going for the rest of the Tal Tal Mountains early with the Hookshot isn't really worth the trouble. That's especially true for the west half. I went there anyway, because I was about to complete another Heart Container, but all the new Pieces of Heart around the Rapids Ride would have done the trick just fine. And since you can't get the last Piece of Heart and the last Secret Seashell before going into Level 8, there is no good reason to visit the area early, unless you really want that Magic Powder upgrade. Or you've screwed up and already have the Magic Powder upgrade and want the Bombs or Arrows now. Usually, I select the Bombs first (by saying "no" to the Magic Powder in case you didn't know), where you will have a full 60 as soon as you acquire your first bombs from the shop or the Chamber Dungeon.
But for an efficient 100% it's best to ignore the mountains at this point and simply focus on finishing the trading quest, getting some of the remaining Pieces of Hearts in caves and then go for the Rapids Ride, which unlike the GameBoy version has a lot to offer now, but exactly like the GameBoy version offers a nice transition to the Face Shrine.
I was hoping that the Face Shrine might have been more like the original in Hero Mode, but that's not the case. There are no secret rooms here any longer...
Entertaining Evil Eagle
I still love the Eagle's Tower, no matter how many times I complete the dungeon. It's great and I'm always sad when it's over. But at least in the remake you get a little bit more of it right afterwards with the Chamber Dungeon. I enjoy returning there after each dungeon, where the next challenge(s) I usually focus on using the new chambers from the last dungeon, in this case the Eagle's Tower. I even came up with the rule that in the very least I have to use the last dungeon's entrance and boss for the next challenge.
And in this case you are doing a "No Sword" challenge next, which leads to fighting the Evil Eagle in a different way... with the Boomerang!
The Hookshot doesn't hurt him any longer (or anything, really). And I didn't have the Magic Rod yet, so this was the best option. Arrows probably would have worked as well, but the Boomerang does its job nicely. But with challenges like this you get to learn all the different ways of disposing your enemies other than the sword, even if your secondary weapons aren't as overpowered as they used to be on the GameBoy.
The Koholint Sword is now the strongest weapon in the game. But at least in Hero Mode I didn't get to use its sword beams as often, because I wasn't constantly healed up, so the long-range weapons still have its merits. And Bomb Arrows are still overpowered, as they should be. You can kill some of the bosses very quickly with those, but of course you have to careful not to blow yourself up. They can easily get caught on a block or something and then explode in your face.
As for the "No Sword" challenge, it also gave me the underwater tunnel with the Cheep-Cheeps, which I now had to actually dodge carefully for the first time. Without a sword these tunnels play a lot more like a Mario game...
Why didn't you just long jump, guuurl?!
Minimal Turtle Rock
Back to the last proper dungeon in the game I decided to try my patented minimal run or this dungeon (see my old article about the Magic of Link's Awakening), where I visit only a little over half of the rooms on the map to get to the Thunder Drum...
And since the remake is quite faithful to the original, this still worked. However, because some of the rooms are now connected and count as one on the map, there are two more squares visited on the map now than there used to be. It's not a big deal, however, because the result still looks quite impressive:
It's now exactly half of the dungeon, 23 of 46 rooms are shown as visited. This route even skips most of the mini-bosses, where you will only have to deal with Blaino and the Fire Cue Ball, which are protecting the dungeon's main item and the Nightmare Key respectively.
And if you go to Dampé right after, you will still get all the chambers for the Turtle Rock dungeon, including all the other recurring mini-bosses. So, this should confirm with all certainty that you're getting all chambers of a dungeon, once you've beaten it.
Anyway, I have to say that I'm quite disappointed by the Magic Rod in this version of the game. Its fire effects are nice, especially on the grass, but it got nerfed quite badly as well for no apparent reason. In the original it literally lets you burn it all, where here the stronger of the normal enemies still take two hits. It also fires quite slowly, where hitting Hot Head with the thing isn't as easy as it used to be... Even for the Evil Eagle I still prefer the Boomerang or the Sword, while in the original the Magic Rod was probably the best weapon against this boss.
Hero Mode Finale
And then it was already time to wake up the Windfish again. This is what the maze had in store for me in Hero Mode:
→↑→↑↑←↑↑
I tried saving and reloading the game before reading the book for the first time, but the order remained the same. And I still think it's entirely random this time, so you can't just try the four known combinations until you get it right. Left, up, right, up, left, up, right, up and so on...
During the final battle I noticed how the Magic Rod is even less useful now. As if the poor thing didn't receive enough beating already... When I played the against the new Nightmares for the first time, I used the Magic Rod on Lanmola, because that's how I always did it. However, it doesn't get killed in a single hit any longer, not matter what weapon you use. Fair enough, but the Shadow Lanmola can be a literal pain in the ass, because it's constantly homing in on you. Which is why I tried the Boomerang on the thing and it stuns it. It stuns the Lanmola, making it much, much easier to kill than with the Magic Rod or any of the other weapons.
This means the Boomerang is still quite useful in the final boss fight, even though it doesn't really help with "DethI" any longer (Arrows are much easier and faster now). It won't help with the annoying Ganon phase, however. That one is still about taking a hit, so you can hit. Unless you like dodging his nasty attacks for minutes.
So, roll credits! I even had a little tear in my eye this time, when the story came to an end. When I first finished the game as a kid I cried like a baby, but even after so many years the feels can still get to you. Beautiful game with a bittersweet ending.
With that I'm looking at two complete save files now. Well, almost, because I wasn't entirely done with everything in Hero Mode yet... There is still the rest of the Chamber Dungeon stuff. Luckily, the weekend has still one more day.
Hero Status:
- Secret Seashells: 50
- Pieces of Heart: 32
- Chambers: 187
- Chamber Stones: 8
- Challenges Cleared: 12
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