Some Zelda natter: Minigames and being close to done

[amethyst73]

After whupping Zant's backside (literally, in one of the more amusing chunks of the multistage fight with him), I spent some time at a few of the minigames that I know can yield pieces of heart.. and I must say, I'm feeling kind of pathetic.

Early in the game, it's possible to get a piece of heart from goat-herding.  That one is pretty easy, I got it ages ago. 

The flying fruits game: I find the controls to this less accessible than I'd like.  It feels like (1) you have to indicate the direction you wish to fly a moment or two before the bird will actually go in that direction, and (2) you have to be pretty precise in hitting the strawberries to make it count.  There was *one* time I got something like 5k points (you need 10k to win I think), but then crashed.  I've gotten only about 1500 or so in a 'complete' run since then.  It's not looking terribly promising for winning.

The snowboarding game: I've gotten so that I can go pretty fast, but always end up crashing and getting knocked off my snowboard partway through - and this is racing Yeto, not his wife!  Dunno how much more time I'm going to burn on this.

(Both of these, however, make good "Oh, I want to play for a little while, and if I don't make progress I don't have to save and have my total playcount timer (now standing at 85+ hours) go up even more.")

Last night I tried looking for kitties in the Hidden Village.  Cats found: 19.  Cats needed: 20.  Dang, but I thought this would be a straightforward minigame!  Not so much so, apparently.  Heeeeeere, kitty kitty kitty!

Hearts achieved: 18+2/5.  It'd be nice to find at least one more piece, so that once I've gone through Hyrule Castle I'll have 19 containers.

I've done minimal amounts of stuff at the fishing hole.  I still haven't caught that dratted fourth bottle, and haven't done much fly-fishing in a while.

Poes caught: I think 39 or so at this point.  Durned if I know where the rest of them are, but I'm finding it hard to care.  I'm so close to the end of the game that having access to an immediate 200 rupees if I'm ever at zero is just not very valuable.  'Sides, I know where about a ton of money chests are, and I have a bunch of golden bugs I can turn in for cash.  Speaking of which:

Golden bugs caught: Most, but certainly not all.  I think there's an entire pair that I've totally missed.  Again, it's close enough to the end of the game that I'm not certain how valuable it would be to find the rest... although a 1200-rupee purse would be very pleasant for the final battle, I'm betting!

STAR game, version 2.0: Hard!  Might give it a couple more goes, but you know? 60 arrows seems to do the job just fine in every case so far.

One place that I haven't gone at all yet is the Cave of Ordeals.  I've heard that it's harder than basically any other temple in the game, and I'm wondering if that's because of puzzles or battles.  I'll certainly stick my nose inside before finishing.

It's been a great game!  Through the 85+ hours I've put into it, it's been mostly very accessible for someone who wasn't a real action-game player at the beginning.  There's been good variety to the puzzles and play style.  And the characters and story have been very well done, particularly Midna, who rocks my world.  The only thing I can complain about really is the obligatory horseback battles, which were both been bad in a couple of ways: first, it took forever to figure out that you can't contol Epona when you're aiming (or that the flunkies regenerated), and second, that they were the obnoxious multi-stage battle type complained about earlier in which there is no save point between stages.  The save-the-cart run in particular felt like it briefly spiked the difficulty level in comparison to what came both before and after, but that could be just because I'm particularly incompetent at horseback riding.

I don't know if I'll finish it by the end of the year, but it's possible.  Thank you, Nintendo, for crafting such a good game.  Next up: Super Paper Mario.

Comments

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

Our least favorite part of the whole game was the Zant ice fight - so long and so frustrating. The Cave of Ordeals doesn't sound much like your cup of tea - it's all monsters, no saving, and I don't think there are any heart pieces.

Have you found all the fairy circles?

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the ice bit was weird. I actually did okay for the first 2, but then it took FOREVER to get in the other required hits. I think MiniZant was supposed to remind one of the MiniSpider half of the Giant Spider fight - except you could shoot the MiniSpider, and shooting MiniZant did zilch. (I still think the save-the-cart run was worse though; that took DAYS for me to beat, rather than many minutes.)

Thanks for the heads-up in the Cave of Ordeals. I probably won't bother too far with that, then.

If by fairy circles you mean the various 'big holes' scattered about leading to caverns where you defeat the inhabitants and get a chest with heart piece or cash, I dunno. I think I've got most of them at this point, but I'd have to see a map of where they all are!

I think there must be more non-minigame heart pieces left though. I've been to the fortuneteller, and she's shown me a couple of places that I simply don't recognize! Hmm. I'll get me some money and maybe make some sketches...

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah. The Cave of Ordeals is in some ways an interesting challenge, because you have to optomize your fighting to conserve scarce resources (including hearts). But it's very, very hard, and all battle of attrition. I think I tried it two or three times. The first time I went in with whatever preparations I happend to have, and I had a hard time figuring out how to handle some early fights, so I didn't make it far at all. The second time, I was totally loaded for bear, but I still only made it something like 80% of the way through. Kinda interesting, but very hard, and totally side quest.

It is certainly not necessary to finish the various side quests to beat the central story of the game. Mostly, I think they're there to give it replay value.

--Adam

[amethyst73.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah - the other bit of the game that I found distinctly frustrating was the whole Lost Woods sequence, particularly the first time through, when you're stuck as a wolf. Rather more manageable, but still quite irritating (due to the fact that it is sort of a maze, there are some rooms you hafta go through more than once, and it's sometimes hard to identify which way to go even when you're a human). Needlessly long and annoying and frustrating. Damn the beasties-every-friggin-five-seconds.