A Link in the Past

More Zelda: Twilight Princess:

When I finished last time, I was sitting outside the entrance to the Temple of Time. I walked through the gate and was very pleasantly surprised to discover myself transported back in time. In this time period, the sacred grove was in fact the Temple of Time! I thought it was a delightful Ocarina of Time cross over and it definitely brought a smile to my face.

Once inside, I activated the "Master Sword Switch" again, and then was on my way. The first half of the dungeon was pretty straightforward. None of the puzzles were all that difficult; they mostly they just involved shooting diamond switches or places weights on buttons or scales. Before I knew it, I was at the mini-boss. This fight was a classic swordsman vs swordsman fight and was quite a bit of fun. None of my auxiliary weapons did anything to him, so I was forced to rely mostly on my secret moves and Wii-mote waggling. Following the theme so far, he died relatively easily. The game once again surprised me by offering up the Dominion Rod.

When you use the rod, it sends a little green orb out (it has a finite range) that, if it comes in contact with a specific type of statue (they have obvious holes in them), puts the statue under your control. That is, it moves in all the same directions that you do, and if you press the B button, it will perform an action (generally swing a weapon). I had seen at the beginning of the dungeon that there was a statue missing and lo and behold, it was in the mini-boss's room. I then had to take control of the statue and navigate it all the way back through the dungeon. Generally I HATE having to retread steps in games, but having the statue along for the ride made all the puzzle solutions just different enough to make it all feel fresh. Again, there wasn't anything too crazy here difficulty wise, it just took a bit of time. Before long, I had him back on his spot and the door to the boss room open.

The dungeon boss was a very large spider hanging on the ceiling. His one single eye would open and close periodically. I was kind of surprised there wasn't a big cartoon sign that said "Put Arrow Here," as it felt that obvious to me. Each arrow shot would make him fall, where I would quickly take control of a nearby statue and pound him. After three hits, he exploded in typical Zelda fashion, I sheathed my sword, and I started looking around for the heart container. Instead, I saw... his eye! The eye sprouted legs and was instantly surrounded by other small spiders. It ran away from me with comical music playing in the background. I must admit that I actually laughed out loud at this point. I chased the eye down, applied my sword blade liberally, and collected my heart container.

The next dungeon on my list was "in the sky." I went to Telma's bar in Castle Town who sent me to Kakariko, who sent me with a note back to Telma. She then sent me on a bit of a wild goose chase to find something that could help Ilia get her memory back. If I was playing an MMO, I would have been complaining about "all these Fed-Ex quests." Ilia regained part of her memory and I was sent to the Hidden Town that was full of moblins. One bow and arrow shooting gallery later left me standing by an old woman who had Ilia's charm. She sent me back to Ilia who regained her memory and gave me the charm... an item which calls Epona (I GET THE CALL EPONA ANYWHERE CHARM THIS LATE IN THE GAME!?!). Ilia then sent me BACK to the Hidden Town to talk to the old lady who gave me the ancient language book. I then went back to Kakariko and talked to the scholar guy there. He then sent me all over Hyrule to use my Dominion Rod on various statues so I could obtain the missing word from my book. I eventually made my way panting back to Kakariko and had the guy read the book. That allowed me to move a statue and find an old/broken cannon, which I knew I needed to take to the cannon guy. I did that, but he needed 300 rupees (I had 4), so I quit.

I want you to notice how many times I used the words "back" and "sent" in that previous paragraph. That was intentional. This interlude section of the game was wildly annoying and frustrating to me. Hopefully the next couple of temples allow the game to finish strong... I've liked it so far, but some things in this game have definitely been sub-par. *fingers crossed*