We're dancing with Poes, both in the darkest depths of the forest and in the open widths of Hyrule Field. After a change of heart, I decided to go with the traditional route of playing the Forest Temple first, which still led to an exciting discovery about the potential order of the temples in this remake. Afterwards I put my new Fairy Bow to good use by hunting down all the Big Poes.
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Let's start with a good tip I have received: there is an option for a classic Ocarina control scheme. Here you can play the notes entirely with your right hand, where it uses the R-button for the original A-button note and arranges A, B, X, and Y like the classic C-buttons. It's much more intuitive for those who still have the old Nintendo 64 songs memorized. R, B, X, R, B, X is the Song of Storms, for example.
Sadly, those who are used to the Nintendo 3DS layout will be struggling either way. But that's something Nintendo could still patch in.
The second type of Poe in Hyrule Field really stands out now. These aggressively keep their distance from you, while they shoot at flames at you. And they are very fast, so I don't think there is a real way of fighting them before you have a bow. But once you do, Link does some impressive pre-aiming here while targeting, so that you can shoot them effortlessly.
In addition, you can now find normal Poes in certain spots, like around the little encampments at the edges of the field. And there are Stalchildren roaming the fields, thought they don't randomly come out of the ground any longer, like they do during the child era. New swarms of Guays can also be encountered, with one turquoise bird inside this swarms that drops a red Rupee. Once that special Guay is defeated, the rest will fly away.
Welcome home...
There are also more monsters to find in the cursed Kokiri Forest, where it's adorable how one of the Kokiri hiding in the houses is now holding up a Deku Shield to defend herself. I also think it's great how the sword fighting tutorial dude now take his stick to defend the village. That's right on character and certainly quite brave of him.
Anyway, not even Link's house is safe now. His new roommate doesn't seem to mind, though...
Cows look so cute in this game that I actually find this pet to be a good reward. And it will never be not funny how it got here. Malon and Talon probably let Ingo do the job, but he still had to find out where Link lives, transport a whole cow up into a treehouse, avoid a plague of monsters while doing that and be quick about it, so he doesn't turn into one himself.
Though, the most threatening monster is gone anyway. There used to be those larger Deku Baba variants, but for some reason they got cut from the remake, where they are no longer found here or in the Forest Temple. But maybe they will have a comeback in the Master Quest expansion.
If you're longing for a good monster comeback already, then look no further than the one grotto at the Kokiri Forest. There you get a return of the Deku Scrub Bros., testing you if still know their correct order. This is such a neat addition, even though you get only 50 Rupees out of it.
The grotto has one the new propeller plant entrances, which tell you to play the Song of Storms. And I'm really liking the design change, where this has evolved quite a lot over the decades. On the Nintendo 64 you either needed a guide book or a Rumble Pack to find all of the secret grottoes. I had neither as a child, but I had time, so I just placed bombs and played the Song of Storm next to every tree, after I somehow found out about one of these.
Ocarina of Time 3D made things more accessible with the Shard of Agony, but you still had to try whether you needed bombs or the Song of Storms to open the grotto. In the remake all you have to do is pay attention to the environment, but with the high level of detail this actually became a fun challenge.
For example, when Nintendo first released footage of the Wolfos fight at the Sacred Grove, I wasn't able to tell whether the grotto is still there or not. But it is, in the corner, also as one of the plants (it used to be a bomb entrance).
By the way, I think they did a good job with translating that cave and its LSD textures into something more realistic. It may not be as special and memorable, but it's still quite unique from what I can tell.
But I'm getting ahead of myself here, so let's go back to the Lost Woods for a bit...
One of the omissions of the Nintendo 3DS version was how Cojiro started crowing from out of your inventory once you're getting closer to the Master Craftsman's son. And sadly, they haven't brought this neat, little detail back. The blue Cucco still crows when given to him, but it's not the same experience.
But at the same time you can still hear Saria's music in Lost Woods as an adult, which doesn't really make much sense, since she isn't there any longer. Mido also comments how he will stay there in the woods, because he wants to keep listening to it... There is even a whole new cutscene, where he visits her at the Sacred Grove, right before she disappears into the Forest Temple. It was a bit creepy with how Saria kept saying that a voice kept calling her into the temple, but not intentionally.
And the dialogue with Mido became a bit more awkward. Since Navi now speaks for you, she downright tells him, "hey, listen, it's me Navi. And this is Link." He simply refuses to believe it, so you can still have that original bit where he asks to give Link a message, though deep down he knows he is already talking to him. But I appreciate these added moments, fleshing out the world and characters of Ocarina of Time.
In the last entry I've talked about how you had to go to the Forest Stage as a kid with the Mask of Truth as early as possible on the Nintendo 64 to not potentially miss out on one of the Deku Nut capacity upgrades. You shouldn't have to worry about this in the remake, of course, and on top you can just show the mask as an adult on your way to the Forest Temple.
Though, for the 100% you will have to return here as a child anyway, because there are Magic Beans to be planted. And ideally you want to do this before becoming an adult, so nothing much changes, really.
The new Magic Plants look like a reference to the Super Famicom logo, where each of its four leaves has a different basic color, just like the four seeds within the Magic Beans themselves. They are also somewhat slower and linger for a bit at your destination. At least the hidden Rupees in Kokiri Forest are now gone permanently once you've grabbed them, making them feel more like a treasure chest that you want to get.
That's even what they've added to the Lost Woods entrance, where the Magic Plant doesn't let you do a shortcut onto the bridge any longer and instead flies under it when on its way to the new chest. Lame.
And what's up with those Moblins? I had a real good laugh when I first saw their lack of armor on the back, because this is the last thing I expected from this remake. Why does it look so kinky? They took the weirdest iteration of this enemy and made them even weirder.
However, this maze could be quite scary on the Nintendo 64. It made you worry what's around the next corner, but now I won't ever be able to take this seriously again. What the eff, Nintendo? At least they have changed the music to some slow, quiet whistling of Saria's Song, given the area a more haunting atmosphere.
The Forest Temple was always my favorite dungeon in Ocarina of Time and one of my favorite dungeons in the entire Zelda series. And I'm far from alone with that opinion, where Nintendo had to be really careful here not to disappoint.
This dungeon was part of the preview sessions, so we already had a good picture of what would be awaiting us. Going with the theme of a haunted mansion was ingenious, where it perfectly fits the forest and the ghosts, but there were some changes not to everyone's taste.
They have streamlined the entire part with the two courtyards, where they have even removed the room with the Dungeon Map in it. Originally, you had to go through this room to enter the east courtyard, where then you could drain the well, which takes you back to the west courtyard for a small key.
In the remake the map room has crumbled, so it can't be accessed anymore. Instead, you will get to drain the well directly, which then takes you to the east courtyard, where you find the map. And then you circle back into the main hall. It's a lot more straightforward, but I don't think that this is a bad change. It creates a nice flow.
Since the well got relocated to a more prominent position, they have also removed the pillars with the Gold Skulltula on top. The spider is still in the same "room", but I missed it the first time, so it's arguably a little bit better hidden than before.
The Stalfos look fantastic and ironically feel more alive now. It's fun to watch them how they wiggle with their skulls, clap with their teeth, and bang their swords against their shields to intimidate you. Imagine how an Igos du Ikana battle would look in a remake like this...
They also shouldn't be taken lightly. Enemies can now disrupt your spin attacks, which is also true for the Wolfos. So, while it's super easy to take down a ReDead with one, you are exposing yourself when you're against more aggressive enemies.
And while the combat has more depth now, it is still lacking something from later 3D Zelda games to make it truly feel dynamic: the Shield Bash. I really wish this had one. Maybe it would make it too easy, but I don't find it very satisfying to just stand there and shield, with no real way of punishing the enemies.
And again, the Stalfos were made easier in a way, because they don't seem to revive now. They don't leave a pile of bones that would reassemble itself when you were too slow with defeating their buddy.
The second Stalfos room above was also changed, because now it doesn't connect any longer via a hole. Instead, you have a green acid pit, which the Stalfos can freely traverse, while you should stay clear from it. And that's fine. It actually makes the fight more challenging, because the room doesn't get fixed as soon as the backup arrives. And it replicates the original idea, without a Stalfos walking through the air.
The Wallmasters are now far from subtle, but at least Navi doesn't feel the need to warn you about them. The spotlight also fits the theatrical presentation of the game very well. And they now stay defeated until you leave the dungeon, like all the enemies, so that alone makes it worthwhile to deal with them.
They also don't instantly abduct you now. You get a chance to break free, so they are less scary overall. To make up for it there is now a new one in the room that leads you to the upper sections of the dungeon, the one with the giant blocks, which aren't as large any longer. And there are some more interesting changes about this room.
There is an elevator shortcut now, which is a clever reuse of the elevator in the center of the dungeon. And this saves you the trouble of going through the block maze multiple times, which will certainly be a blessing for new players. Though, I personally wasn't really able to make good use of it, because you still need to get through halfway the maze once you have Fairy Bow for that treasure chest there.
And curiously, the eye switch here and in the upmost section of the room are protected by a thin iron fence, which is the first of a two-part-discovery that has me excited quite a bit. When I first saw this, my immediate reaction was, "wait, can I use the Hookshot on these without a fence?"
Later on, the room with frozen third eye switch got changed completely. It's now cold entirely, matching the blue half of the mansion and making Link chilly. And you only need to activate a torch for a simple William Tell shot, where this has sparked some controversy about things getting dumbed down, because in the original you had to ride a carousel of platforms and spikes while doing so.
But this new version follows more the traditional Nintendo approach: teach you a concept in the simples way possible and then increase the challenge with each new encounter. Near the end of the dungeon you will now find a second frozen switch, one which turns the chamber with the rotatable walls into a slightly better puzzle. It's nothing revolutionary, but it beats having to step on some switches in a trivial order.
And the original room with the rotating platforms could still be brought back in the Master Quest variant to make things as challenging as possible.
Anyway, this gave me the chance to proof my hunch from earlier: you can now activate eye switches with the Hookshot! And this is huge. That's a very elegant way of giving me what I wanted about the order of the first three temples.
Technically, you always could approach the Forest, Fire and Water Temples in any order you like. There was one eye switch in the Fire Temple that activated a shortcut, but you could navigate around that. However, the Water Temple had two eye switches used to open grates with targets for the Longshot behind them. So, you could get stuck after the middle of the temple without a bow.
It still showed one of those eye switches in the trailers / Zelda Direct, which had me a disappointed at first, but it's all fine when the Longshot now does the job as well. Then you won't need the bow at all, in theory at least. Well, I will avoid using the bow going forward, just to see how far I can now get without it. But this has me very excited.
Once you drop down after the blue twisted tunnel, you can now create a permanent shortcut in the blue / east courtyard via a block to push down. Pierre on the other hand is required to grab the Gold Skulltula here, so you may have to backtrack here later in case you forget to initialize the Scarecrow's Song first.
Let's talk about the Poe Sisters for a bit. Joelle and Beth get a beautiful animation now when they run from one painting to another to evade you. The fights now also have a new mechanic, where they get dizzy after spinning too long, so you have to dodge them a couple of times, before they appear. This makes it less random than before, which is always good.
Amy's puzzle now doesn't have an arbitrary one-minute timer any longer, where instead it's about dealing with a duplicate piece and figuring out which is the right one. In the Master Question version they should probably add a couple more of these, because this wasn't particularly difficult.
Finally, Meg gets her own portrait now, which you have to shoot to clear the way, before she appears in the central chamber. Maybe this portrait will stay empty as long as one of the other sisters are still alive, which is technically only possible for Beth. It's something I'm going to try in my next playthrough. (At least then the new elevator shortcut will prove to be useful.)
Anyway, with this new arrangement, you can watch how Meg realizes the defeat of her sisters, which is adorably sad. And I had some trouble figuring out the real one, because the camera doesn't show them all from a distance. I just usually went for the one I couldn't really see when they appeared, which turned out to be the right choice. But I was not able to tell if one is still spinning, only when they are about to attack you.
Update: Ohhhh, it's based on the torch color... I was so focused on the spinning that I didn't even notice that. And this sucks for colorblind people.
Curiously, I had similar problems with the Phantom Ganon battle. There can now be more than just three copies and I had a hard time telling which is the real one. I thought it might have to do with their traveled distance on the painting, which is slightly different for each one, but I couldn't make sense of it (yet).
On the other hand, the second half with the Death Man's Volley became much easier and gave me no trouble at all, probably for the first time ever. I guess it helps when the game doesn't run in some sloppy 20FPS, or even 16.66FPS...
Well, I will figure the rest out once I get the chance to repeat the battle within the Hall of Fallen Foes. I also hope that it will include mini-bosses and maybe feature the four Poe Sisters as one battle, similar to how Majora's Mask did it. And I'm wondering if the Skull Kids appear in there, because they seem to be tricky to defeat... but I'll get to that once I found the big addition to the remake.
The Deku Tree Sprout is super cute. And if you talk to him with the Mask of Truth, you'll get a little joke about him holding a monologue. Though, I would have liked to see more during that cutscene. Show me the civil war in action. Show me what Link's mother looked like. This could have been huge, just like the new Sacred Realm sequence, but they were playing it safe with this one.
Anyway, the forest is at peace now, which also brings back the option to read the thoughts of the Kokiri. During part where they are hiding from monsters this wasn't possible...
After the Forest Temple I got past the 50 Gold Skulltula tokens, which earns you a Piece of Heart. So, the rewards in the Skulltula house are pretty much identical, except that the Stone/Shard of Agony got replaced by the Echo Gem.
By the way, that one human arm left on the cursed rich man is so much creepier than in the original, where one of the spider legs was shaped like a human arm. He looks like Frankenstein's monster got merged with a spider.
Since the Shooting Gallery would be still too large for the new house that got built in Kakariko Village, they put most of it underground. I thought that was funny.
The expert variant is also a lot more challenging now, because the targets will move in whimsical ways. But it only earns you some Rupees, which doesn't seem to be worth the effort again, especially when there are lots of Rupees to earn elsewhere...
Which brings us to the Big Poe hunt, which has improved on so many levels. It's now perfectly clear where they will all spawn, because you can see their lanterns on some obstacles, shrouding it in a purple fog. This can be fence, a wall, some fallen over tree, or some other object where Epona can jump across it. And this will trigger them to appear.
This heavily limits the trial and error of the original, both with finding the right approach angle and finding them at all. When I first played the N64 original, I had a guide map from the German Club Nintendo magazine, which told me their locations and saved me some trouble. In the 80s and 90s they wanted you to sell a guide book along with the game, or a copy of Nintendo Power.
Now they are selling you an online subscription, so you can look up everything missing in the Zelda Notes app. But at least you don't really need that, because the game itself is giving you enough help, like in this case.
You can tell from a great distance where any Big Poes might still be missing. And once you have collected one of them, its lantern and the purple glow will go away, so you don't have to keep track of them. It's all now very convenient, where you can focus on the challenge of aiming your shots.
At least that wasn't made easier. You still can't target the Big Poes, and some of the Big Poes now move up and down, making them even harder to hit. Plus, if you don't fully draw your Fairy Bow, the arrows now drop like a hot potato. That's similar to the slingshot and also makes the target practice mini-games more difficult.
In addition, the Big Poes now give different comments once you've defeated them, which makes this more entertaining. There is some funny stuff in there and they react to your mask as well.
Oh, and Epona is now also easier to handle, where they have implemented some of the horse features and behaviors from Breath of the Wild. She is much faster, less finicky about obstacles, and therefore doesn't get stuck as easily. You can also jump off her at any time now, which alone is already a big improvement.
However, the bow remains to be your only horseback weapon. Other enemies, like the Tektites, still just get run over, where it would have been more fun if you also could use your sword now.
The rewards for the Big Poes stay pretty much the same, though the order has changed. You now get the empty bottle for 500 points already, which removes the irony that the reward would have been helpful for completing this quest. If you have all the other four bottles, then now you will be able to collect the remaining five Big Poes in one tour, which is nice.
But that may not be worth it any longer. The Poe Collector teases you that you will get "something golden" for your efforts and I was excited for a second, because golden items are usually a good thing in Zelda, before I realized that he was talking about a golden Rupee. Yay...
And that's not even more than before, because you still get the exact same amount as in the original. There one Big Poe earned you 50 Rupees. Now they only sell for 30, but you get an additional 200 Rupees for collecting them all. Either way, that's 500 Rupees in total...
I didn't even know what to do with all that money, so I bought two Blue Potions and transferred another 100 Rupees to Zelda Notes, just so that the ghostly bounty wouldn't be lost.
On a side note, the Poe Collector doesn't make comments any longer about how he could run a different kind of business if he looked as good as Link... Okay... So, that was too risque for modern Nintendo, but the leather strap fetish Moblins were okay? Who is to make sense of that?
In other news, it doesn't seem like there is a way of collecting the Fire Arrows early now... You can't see the sun at all as long as it's still perma-raining at Lake Hylia, and you also can't get on the little island. It looks like you could theoretically walk up there, but the rain makes things too slippery, which seems to be Link's biggest enemy across all time. And there is definitely no frog armor in this one.
Anyway, you had other options in the original, but Pierre now appears on a different island nearby, while the Magic Plant keeps enough distance from the island, so that you can't make the jump. So, they really want you to beat the Water Temple first.
But I will go with the boring, traditional order on my first run through the remake and experiment more in subsequent playthroughs. Where I'm sure that there will be plenty, because is very enjoyable to play and very pretty to look at.
PS: As I'm currently visiting family, I won't be able to play much and only in handheld mode, which I really don't want with such a beautiful game. So, don't expect another entry before next week!
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