Jabu Jabu’s Belly is a pretty bad dungeon, overall. Almost no enemies actually pose any sort of active threat and all revolve around “electric, so you can’t hurt it until you get the boomerang because it’s made of wood” (hey, it’s me, I’m the one who’s going to correct you, naturally: those electric worms are weak to the boomerang like everything else in the dungeon).
From an exploration standpoint it doesn’t make sense until you finish it and look back on it in hindsight. Almost every other dungeon in the game features a central hub room with some kind of eye-catching structure, or at least have said eye-catching piece of the level very clearly defined so you know what you’re working towards. In Jabu’s belly, because the textures are all moving to represent sliminess, nothing stands out within a room so you lose all visual markers. The point is to get rid of the blue/green tentacle so you can fall through the hole that leads to the miniboss, but on top of the importance of that particular part of the dungeon not being communicated well at all, you just find you don’t remember exactly where you were supposed to go.
The way to the boss is technically visible from the beginning, but it’s so easily ignored until you happen to wind up at the miniboss and follow your nose until you step on a random platform that gives you access to the door. It perhaps best exemplifies the reverse-engineering method of solving a puzzle, where you beat the dungeon only because you’re going to all the rooms you haven’t explored yet, not because any sort of visual or gameplay element draws your attention from one point to the next in a natural way. And then you fight a boss that is way harder than the first two and is very able to annihilate you on your first attempt if it doesn’t decide to stop spinning and you don’t know that deku nuts are good. Interestingly, it’s the only boss in the game that immediately starts upon entering the boss room, which gives you even less time to prepare.
It’s just such a tiny dungeon, even compared to the other childhood dungeons. The only reason it’s meant to take so long is that they bank on you either getting lost with the sinkholes or losing Ruto and having to backtrack to find her again, which isn’t the best thing to hope your players do, honestly.
There’s another dungeon later that I feel can only really be conquered by reverse engineering as well. I don’t really like this design for them. It feels less like you’re figuring it out, and more like you’re bashing your head against the wall until something happens. I actually managed to get through Jabu Jabu without any real backtracking, which is a relief.
In today’s episode, we end up doing some time shenanigans and I find out that if I was a bird I’d be an ostrich. Also, we attempt something pretty early, and it actually seems like it’d be viable so maybe we’ll return to it really soon.
I’ve been thrown entirely out of the Gerudo Fort before - you need to be careful, because if you get the necessary tool, they’ll throw you into the cell and you’ll have to complete the area or escape unseen regardless of the rest of your inventory. I suppose it’s probably possible to complete it at this point, but the stealth will be a real challenge.
If Mel takes us back there early, I’m definitely going to try to complete it. The stealth could be a challenge, but I’m sure if we take our time we can make it. The battles are tough though with only three hearts.
Remember when I said I’ve done a practice run? Yes, well, when I did I definitely had all the items I needed to tackle things easily. It’s also been well over a year now since I did that. So with that said, enjoy this one!
I will say, Mel is doing an excellent job of getting us to do things a bit out of order.
It’s kind of a moot point now, but Michael, did you forget about your shield? You had me worried for a split second when you took that hit from the White Wolfos (before you got it in one shot).
Forget my shield? I’ve never forgotten my shield ever. I probably will continue to not use my shield when I don’t think it necessary. But I assure you, I do use it. Though, it won’t always help. As you will see soon.
The time limit on drowning and your flesh burning off your skeleton is actually based on your health. I forget if it’s your current health or your maximum; usually when you get to the ice cavern you’ve got like 90 seconds of leeway.
It seems like there’s a moment before the timer actually goes though, so if you walked in with 2 seconds you could probably walk out before dying immediately. I had considered doing the temples without the tunics if we needed too, but seeing that time limit made me decide against it immediately.
Who ever said it’s a bad idea to do hours and hours of recording in one day? Clearly I can keep my let’s plays separate in my mind. Mel’s choices are actually pretty interesting to me. We haven’t really been sent anywhere that we literally can’t do anything in. I don’t know if that’s just her, or if the game is just that open.
Guess whose finally here to crash the party. Do you know how long it took me to find the link to this in discord? "Longer Than You Think–"
My favourite line in this whole thing is definitely he eats dongs, Michael.
Bold direction to take the Mario Party LP, we’ll see how it works out for you. I vote Ganondorf will win. Link would have to get like five more stars to make up for all the bonus stars Ganondorf is going to get.