Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker (Wet Breath of the Wild)

[LaZodiac]

Super early video due to work that is also early. Ironically it’s a good thing this happened because I accidently messed up the upload and can fix it now.

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [13] Homecoming

Video Length: 23:16

Last time, we discovered that Greatfish Island had been destroyed by the forces of evil, the spirit protector having left for Outset Island. The pirates know of a way to get within Jabun’s hiding spot, and they’ve gone to Windfall. Now it’s time to pursue them. Will they help us, or will their desire for treasure override their desire to help us out? The King of Red Lions suspects that they won’t, and truth be told he’s probably right. Pirates do love them some treasure. So, once we arrive we use the opportunity to investigate the island, looking for where the pirates might be. After all, I can think of a few places they might go. Sadly the cafe bar thing lacks any pirate activity, though it does let us see that the townsfolk aren’t 100% sure the pirates are here or not. Even if they were, why would they come to this sleepy little island anyway? I mean it’s not like this is a merchantile island literally named after a term that means “gettin’ lots of money” or anything.

However, there is one person who can tell us where the pirates went, even if he doesn’t realize they’re pirates himself. The star gazer, that moon liker boy from a couple days ago, he’s seen some strangers head into the bomb shop. So now we know where to go, and now we have the event that I brought up millions of years ago that relates to playing hide and seek with the Killer Bee’s. Even though that’s optional, most people will end up doing it just as a matter of course from talking to NPCs that look interesting. One of the kids hides behind the bomb shop, seeding it in your mind that “you can go behind the bomb shop” and also revealing the ivy that lets you climb on top of it. If we had climbed up we’d of even seen the hole in the wall that we now go to climb through, to spy on the pirates in question. What follows entering the bomb shop is a fantastic scene where we spy on the pirates, and see a bit of how they work. Turns out the pirate that “tricked” or mail man friend probably WAS concerned for us, giving his reaction. And Tetra herself seems more focused on saving Outset then the treasure…made all the more clear when she notices us and lets it slide, even setting things up so her ship is unoccupied by anyone but that swabbie we hung out with earlier in the game. We overhear the password to get into the ship, the final key we need!

Once aboard the pirate ship, and with the password given to ole Niko, we can finally get inside. Tetra’s room is unguarded, and we immediately take the chance to investigate it. What we find is shocking, ancient murals showing a legend we the player may be quite familiar with, if we have memory longer than ten minutes. We also see a Sea Chart with certain islands marked out. Windfall and Outset appear on it, but specifically marked are Dragon Roost, Forest Haven, and Greatfish Isle. Between them, also marked, are what appear to be three triangular islands, of which we’ve seen two. Together these islands form a triangle within a triangle, and at the center of it all is a strange island. Fascinating. But most importantly of all, we see a portrait of what must only be Tetra’s mom. I think this is the first time I’ve ever actually noticed this picture and really took it in, which is a little sad on my part.

Invasion of Tetra’s privacy aside, it’s time to talk to Niko. The poor dumb idiot’s had a rough time now that we’re gone, but now that we’re back it’s time for another athletic challenge. This time, no platforms! Just swing from rope to rope in the time limit, and he’ll…give us the bombs. Yeah, that’s a good and smart idea that won’t backfire on him. We do it and get the bombs…only for Tetra to phone us on the shining stone. She throws down the challenge; she’ll give up on the treasure if we get to Outset before they do, and they leave at dawn. I’m glad Tetra notes that they didn’t leave EVERY bomb they have under the “protection” of Niko. With bombs in hand, we head off to Outset Island! Bombs are of course a somewhat situational item, hard to use in combat but otherwise pretty good for puzzles. Timed explosives are always fun in video games. Importantly, we’ve now unlocked the last bit of boat tech, and can now bring out a big ole cannon to fire on enemies. No more shall we run scared from sea monsters!

With a hurried heart we sail off to Outset. The seas are stormy and the night is long, no doubt an extension of the curse Greatfish Island was hit by when it was destroyed. Fitting that we can use evil to our advantage here. The King of Red Lions tells us to take advantage of it a bit more, to at least meet up with our family again. And it’s…quite a sad sight. Grandma is sick, mostly with worry no doubt, and the storm isn’t helping. We’ll find a way to fix this, but first we have a spirit to save. Around the back of Outset is a small whirlpool, not dangerous in the slightest, but it does prevent us from just taking aim and firing down the door of stone Jabun put up. It’s an interesting little minigame, and nice practice for Big Octo’s and other such things if you hadn’t found them already. We break down the slab and head inside to see our fishy spirit friend. We have a bit of a one sided conversation (I’ll post what the translations are for this dialogue at a more appropriate time) and somehow, the King of Red Lions gets Jabun to bestow upon us the third and final pearl, this one belonging to Nayru. He also breaks the terrible curse of night, which is appreciated.

So yeah, that’s the entire quest line for the third pearl done. The developers themselves have admitted that they had to cut some stuff, and it’s pretty clear that Greatfish Isle was once supposed to be in the game, and have it’s own dungeon and everything. But time constraints and other stuff takes it toll, and we have what we have. I would of liked to see what kind of island Greatfish was, but I also kinda like this as well. It’s the only real time the power of darkness really lashes out at the world, but it’s an effective scene. You only need something like this to happen once to really get a feeling of “we need to stop this as soon as possible”. What happened at Greatfish could happen to Outset. It could happen anywhere. Thus my not stopping for anything on our way from Greatfish itself.

But, that’ll be it for today. We’ve finished our quest for pearls, join us next time where we see what we actually do with the dang things. Hope you all enjoyed!

[LaZodiac]

Oh man, Zelda.

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [14] Pearls

Video Length: 28:23

In this episode, we pal around Outset Island a bit to start us off, taking pictures of aaalmost everyone. We miss like one person due to just not having enough space in the camera. Importantly, we talk to Sturgeon and find an in game way of learning how to heal our Grandma! I genuinely do not remember how I discovered that you use a fairy on her myself. I feel like it…might of just been an intuitive thing I thought of myself? AT any rate, it’s nice to see the game puts in hints for you to find. After meeting with Sturgeon we say hello to Orca, and unlock a new sword fighting minigame of sorts. I’ll be getting that hit counter up to 999, don’t worry. It uh…also won’t be on screen, or at least it might not. It’ll be sped up at the very least! But yeah, after that we also show Orca our knight crest’s and he freaks out and says if we get ten, bring them to him so he can show us their secret.

After that it’s time to dive back into the forest on Outset Island, where in we find it’s full of monsters now (just a mothula without wings and some moblins, which I do not disturb at all). But importantly, now that we have bombs we can bust are way into that fairy fountain! We do so, and get rewarded with five hundred extra space for rupees! Now that’s a solid wallet size. Now we can actually…you know, pick up rupees and stuff again. Without feeling shamed or wasteful, at least. After that, it’s time for some sailing! But first, we heal up Grandma and get the Elixir Soup, the singleg best healing item in the game, and perhaps Zelda in general. It fully heals magic and hearts, and until we next get hit it doubles our attack strength. That’s pretty powerful soup!

We hit a few islands of interest, but nothing we can actually complete yet. We do however find two other fairy fountain islands, and get a total of 99 bombs! I don’t think we’ll have to worry about running out any time soon. After that it’s just a quick bit of island hopping to get the pearls set in those mysterious statues, and awaaay we go! With an explosion of epic size and a blast of green, red, or blue light, the statues connect to form the triple layered triangle we saw on Tetra’s map, and out from that middle spot between all three islands rises a majestic tower, looking quite fancy. Link gets introduced to it’s super structure, and gets picked up by the King of Red Lions. Join us next time, when we tackle this mystical looking tower, to face the trial of the gods.

[LaZodiac]

Almost late episode because I forgot it was Monday rip me work schedule aaah

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [15] Tower of the Gods

Video Length: 21:55

Today, we begin our journey up to the top of the Tower of the Gods. The Gods have left a trial for us, and it’s up to us to complete it! This is one of my favorite dungeons, because it’s so very clearly different from the other dungeons. The others are a bit more naturalistic, looking more like areas that exist, whereas this one is clearly designed to challenge us, to test us. It’s really cool, and something I like a lot. You’ll see that expressed a lot throughout the dungeon, the few enemies within are easily dispatched and more of a test of your abilities rather than anything else. The dungeon has three floors to it, the first two floors having a sort of hub with branching rooms, and solving each puzzle in the branches will eventually cause the way forward to open. The first floor is boat themed, and I kinda wish there was more boat dungeon. Cause that’s kind of a fascinating idea, and one that I feel could of been done better? Or at least done more with. The first floor is about gathering these pillars that open up stuff, and there’s only two of em. The second floor requires us to find these cute little statue friends, and to facilitate that it gives us a new song! The Command Melody, which lets us take over certain things nearby. It’s a fascinating song, and one we’ll see more of later.

As for enemies, we’ve got a few! Not all of the new enemies are seen today though. We’ve got Yellow Chu-chu’s, which are annoying and covered in electricity until you stun them. We’ve also got Red Bubbles, flaming skulls that need to be put out with the Deku Leaf before you can smash em.

But yeah, that’ll be it for today. Sorry if the post is kinda constrained compared to what it usually is, while this is one of my favorite dungeons I don’t think I have much to say about it indepthly. It’s a cool dungeon, with a great aesthetic, and I just wish we could of got more boat stuff done in it. Though the waiting involved with the boat stuff…could do a little less of that.

[LaZodiac]

Okay, time for some more of this.

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [16] Trials

Video Length: 28:30

Last time, we picked up the Command Melody, letting us take over the cute little statue guys (and other things) for more precision control. We’ve got two more to get, so let’s go about doing that shall we? I actually quite like this little challenge, it’s fun. Simple to understand, easy to execute, but still requiring at least some thought. One of them is behind a series of somewhat tricky rope swinging stuff, while another is beyond some physic puzzles. They’re rather simple, but fun. It’s in this part of the dungeon that we get it’s item, the stylish as all heck Hero Bow! The bow, as you’d expect, twing twangs out arrows and is really cool. Aiming with the Wii U gamepad is actually really good, though I tend to fire a bit higher than you’re supposed to because I still have “drop distance” stuck in my mind, whereas it’s not a thing here. The bow can pierce the flames of those Red Bubbles we fought, killing them instantly, as well as just ruin the day of any other enemy we come across.

Speaking of enemies, we’ve met some new ones! First, certain statues are actually enemies in disguise, the Armos! They jump around and try to bump you with their spiky body, and have a big crystal on the back that animates them. Smash it and they’ll try to blow you up in a last ditch effort to defeat you. You can peg them in the eye with an arrow stun them. We also encounter their big brother, the Armos Knight, huge statues with a nasty looking face. They stomp around, occasionally opening their mouth. That’s your chance to strike, shove a bomb up in there! An arrow to their eye will cause them to open their mouth for you. During some minor backtracking we also encounter the Wizrobe! These bird wizards are huge jerks that blast out a three way fireball at you and teleport around. Arrows make quick work of them, so stick to range if you can. Finally, we encounter one of the funnest enemies to fight in the game. Darknuts, heavily armoured soldiers with huge swords! You can, and mostly HAVE to, parry their attacks. Get behind em to slice the ropes keeping their armour on, or do a cool as heck jump attack that slices their helmet in half! Darknuts get faster as you strip their armour off, and if you remove their weapon they’re capable of some pretty wicked kung fu, so don’t get cocky. Each Darknut carries a Knight Crest, a sign of their skill and power. We also encounter a different type of Beamos, the Blue Beamos that only shoots in a straight line, but importantly since we have the bow we can shatter their crystal eye!

After making our way through all manner of puzzle and fight, we’ve finally reached the top of the Tower. Big Key in hand, we enter into a vast room shining with light, and face the final trial of the Gods. It wouldn’t be a Nintendo game without a hand boss. It’s time for Gohdan, a robotic final exam for this divine Tower! Beating it is simple, shoot each of it’s eyes twice to stun it, then chuck a bomb in it’s mouth. You can disable it’s floating hands by shooting their eyes twice, but it isn’t actually required. Gohdan has basically two attacks, smashing you or otherwise pushing you around with it’s massive hands, and shooting a series of explosive bolts at you from it’s mouth. If you run out of arrows or bombs, Gohdan will gracefully deploy some for you to collect, since this IS a challenge by the Gods and not an actual evil monster. Three bomb blasts and the fight is over. Gohdan finds us worthy, rewards us with a heart container, and sets up a magical portal (again, different from the other bosses to show this isn’t evil) that takes us to the utmost top of the Tower. A bell hangs there, waiting to be rung, so we do what comes natural.

The bell rings out across the entire ocean, and from it’s chime a single point of light appears within the Tower of the Gods. We meet up with the King of Red Lions, and steel ourselves for the task ahead. We dive into the light, sinking down beneath the waves…to a place long forgotten. I’ll see you guys next time, where we’ll finally get to return…to Hyrule.

[LaZodiac]

Oh boy, it’s time.

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [17] Hyrule

Video Length: 23:59

Last time, we completed the Tower of Gods and dove beneath the waves, down to the ancient sunken city of Hyrule. I’d play up the fact that I don’t know it’s Hyrule but let’s be fair here, there’s no way it could be anything but. This time frozen land is probably my favorite set piece in the entire game, and with good reason. The atmosphere is fantastic, the whole “frozen in time” thing is REALLY cool, especially once we get into the main hall and see all the frozen enemies, and all the art hanging on the walls, the statues, everything has a really clear feel to it that makes you know for sure just how serious a thing this all is. They sell the majesty of being down here incredibly. We do a little puzzle to open up a secret basement, and the puzzle is a simple block pushing puzzle where you try to make a triforce with some weird blocks. You can really only grab them by the corners, not the middle, and pushing and pulling them can be a little finicky, and this is the only real problem I have with this segment.

After that opens, we descend into the basement…to find a series of massive knight statues surrounding a sword in a pedestal. Painted people surround the sword, praying to the gods. It is the Master Sword, and we draw it from the stonework where it rests. Time unfreezes, and we’ve obtained the blade of evil’s bane. We’ve got a lot of enemies to fight, but that’ll have to wait until we explore this sword chamber, because it has some of my favorite detail work in the game. You really just have no reason to explore anything here, but if you do…you’ll see a bunch of stain glass windows showing all our old friends. As a kid this really did blow my mind, and while it may not seem impressive now, what with there being tons of games that are pretty good at…god what’s the term, I think natural story building. The idea of having a skeleton with a note on it being a parody of it, that type of thing. Point is, back then games didn’t really do that very often, and Wind Waker does it SO WELL. That made no sense, but I like to think it did.

So, the Master Sword is, obviously, a massive increase in power next to our starting short sword. It does twice the damage I believe, and because of it’s sheer length it sometimes just hits enemies twice, especially when stabbing. This’ll be quite useful given we have a LOT of Moblins and Darknuts to take out here. This is an interesting combat encounter, and probably the weakest part of this next to the puzzle to get into the basement. The combat in this game feels really fun to me, but I can definitely see people getting bored of it after crushing an entire room of the same two enemies. A little variety (and upping the enemy count of the smaller enemies to make it more exciting) might of been a better move. That said, I think this is really fun still, and it’s always a hoot knocking enemies off of high places. And of course the number of Skull Necklaces and Knight Crests we get here skyrocket. Killing all the enemies stops the dark magic barrier keeping us within the hall, and lets us leave the castle. I check out the front exit first to show off how identical this place is to the final locale of Ocarina of Time to really set that fact in stone, and to show off the even stronger dark barrier preventing us from exploring Hyrule proper. Ah well.

With Master Sword in hand, we return to the King of Red Lions, who instructs us to head for the Forsaken Fortress. It’s time to finally face Ganon in combat, with the blade that’ll be able to kill him. On our way over we find a cyclone and I try to say hi to Cyclonus, the God of Rough Winds, brother of that nice frog we met on Dragon Roost Island. We get a picture, but uh…he sucks us up in his cyclone a LOT easier than I expected. The good news is, it plops us out near Outset, which in retrospect has some stuff I wanted to do on it so I decided (after some inner monologe prodding) to go there. First, we say hi to Outset Island’s Fishman so we can get that bit of info (and I knew this one was a bit more blunt than the others, thus my waiting) and then show off the cool minigame the Fishman have. Arrow based acupuncture! This is only for Rupees so it’s not that big a deal, and I still think postal work is a better one, but it’s not bad. Finally, we make landfall on Outset once moree, and show Orca our Knight Crests. He teaches us the ultimate move, the Hurricane Spin! Those of you who recall The Minish Cap will recognize this one, but it’s far more impressive here, where it first appeared. The move costs magic to use, but is way more destructive, but also probably as useful to be honest. Still, it looks cool and we have it, expect me to be stupid about using it in the future.

But yeah, that’s our episode for today. We’ve been to Hyrule, gained the Master Sword, mastered an ultimate move, and we have but one destination ahead of us. Go to the Forsaken Fortress and save our sister. That’ll be for next time, hope you all enjoyed.

[LaZodiac]

Onwards and upwards.

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [18] Phantoms

Video Length: 21:58

In today’s exciting episode of this, it’s time to head off to the Forsaken Fortress to save our sister! But first, some busywork! I forgot to actually put the photos we have stored into the figurine area, so I go to do that. In the process I meet an island or two that are quite interesting (mostly Ice-Ring Isle) and get my revenge on Cyclos for sending me flying last episode. After pumping him full of arrows, he grants us the Ballad of Gales, which lets us control cyclones! We can warp to any important island in the game. This includes the three pearl locations (Dragonroost, Greatfish, and Forest Haven) Outset Island and Forsaken Fortress, Windfall Island and Tingle’s home, the Tower of the Gods and for some reason Southern Fairy Island. It also has one other spot we can warp to, Mother and Child Island, but we’ll do that later since, as we see when we sail by it later, it won’t actually warp us TO the island, but INTO the island. At least that’s what Mr Fish implies. On our way to the Forsaken Fortress we also get to Rock Spire Island, a small little piece of land with a minor platforming puzzle that leads to a cave full of keese! More importantly, the Masked Beedle shop is here, selling really good stuff for very high prices. We only have enough to purchase the third bottle, however. We’ll be back for those last two things, rest assured.

After that, we finally return to the Forsaken Fortress. Their entrance is still closed off, but with our cannon we make short work of that, and infiltrate the island. Things have changed here, they’ve reset the searchlights, locked the doors, set up post barriers and destroyed our shortcuts. Talk about rude. And to further that, we can’t just waltz in here without any resistance. As we enter the main square of the fortress, a boss appears! Phantom Ganon, in all his ghostly nature! You play Tennis with him here, though if you mess up he’ll warp near you and do an attack that you can parry. Three rotations of this and he’ll die…except not, he runs off like a coward! How rude…but he does drop a treasure chest for us. Within is one of my favorite items in the game, the SKULL HAMMER. This cartoony mallet sends enemies flying when it kills them, and can squish lesser enemies into the ground! Fittingly enough, a small horde of miniblins then attack, letting me showcase the hilarity our good hammer can do. It’s quite fun, though…not even remotely viable a tactic.

We explore a bit of the Fortress, and reveal a silly mistake on my part: last time we were here I showed off our jail cell. I actually didn’t, what I showed off was the location of a Heart Piece that I’m pretty sure we could of gotten way back when. Oops, my bad! We’ll see the actual location of our jail cell next time. Until then, I hope you’ve enjoyed.

[LaZodiac]

Early post because of work nonsense again.

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [19] Ganondorf

Video Length: 28:18

Starting us off today, we’re gonna finish off Forsaken Fortress. There really isn’t much to talk about here, because it’s just the dungeon from before except we have all our shiny toys. It’s good gameplay though, and lets us really feel the difference. After going through this area we are definitely aware of just how much we’ve grown. So we cut and smash our way through, and finally come face to face with that door that taunted us so long ago. Once inside (and sneaking carefully about it, Link is wonderfully animated in this game with so much character) we can finally rescue our sister!..except the door is locked and we didn’t get any keys. Thankfully, Tetra and her pirate crew are here to lend a hand. They also…are distracting the bird, since he’s still kind of a big deal that we forgot to deal with. Oops! Tetra saves the two other people as well (for the fabulous riches) but…notices our sword and has a really hilarious looking shrug. Ah well. They leave, and the prison tower starts flooding. It’s time to fight the Helmaroc King!

The first phase of the fight involves running up the tower so we don’t get drowned to death. This is easy as long as you rush, but if you do delay you can use the grapple to swing past the destroyed platforms. The Helmaroc won’t make climbing his tower very easy. Once you get up there, give em a whack with your Skull Hammer, and it’s time for phase two. Sadly this is the part where we get back into the grove of “Wind Waker boss that makes you wait a bunch” where we need to wait for the King to decide to peck at us, leaving him open for another good hammering. A few more hits and his mask breaks, revealing his…actually really goofy face and crest. Then we just need to repeat this juuust a few more times, and that’s one scourge of the skies and seas dead and dusted. Heart container get, and onward…to the room of our foe.

And so…we meet Ganondorf. The mighty, former king of the Gerudo. Now just a man in a boat house on top of a spike island. We banter, we attack…and the master sword pings off him. This is one thing that, if I could change, I would. I want to get a preview of the fight we will eventually have. Let us fight Ganondorf…and see that our sword tinks off him. That is one of like two things I’d change in this game. So yeah…our sword isn’t sparkling. It’s power to quell evil has vanished for some reason, and there’s naught we can do. And then Tetra comes in and DOES A SWEET KICK UP GANONDORF’S STUPID FACE. This is BADASS and it really, REALLY shows how cool a character Tetra is, that she’d charge this guy head on given that she definitely, DEFINITELY knows just what a big deal he is as, once Ganondorf does get his hands on her…we are revealed that Tetra is Princess Zelda, and she has at least a piece of the Triforce of Wisdom. The shock of having found his target after so long is enough for us to be saved by Prince Komali and the friendly postman, and then Valoo sets fire to Ganondorf’s house. I doubt we’ve seen the last of him.

Following that, we return to the Tower of the Gods. Things aren’t looking so hot and we need to go visit the Master Sword chamber again, this time with Tetra in tow. We go there (after some…frustrating photography) and we meet the King of Red Lions in his true form…the King of Hyrule. He explains the meta plot of the game and how it connects to Ocarina; after Link went back in time it kinda…left a world without a hero. So they rebuilt. Then as the legends said in the opening…oops, Ganon got out and ruined the place. The Gods sent down a torrent of rain, creating the world we see now. The royal family split the Triforce of Wisdom in two, leaving half with the King and half with the Princess (and as we’ve seen from Tetra’s mom painting, it’s been passed down their family line). And now we have both pieces together. In a beautiful reference to Link to then Past’s opening, the Triforce of Wisdom is reformed, and Tetra…is kind of forcibly put in gallons of make up and a dress and blonde hair dye. Or she’s turned into a more Princess Zelda-y form, like how Zelda took on the form of a Shiekah back in Ocarina.

Which of course brings me to the biggest sticking point people have with this game plot wise, and the other thing I’d change. The King, reasonably, tells us that Tetra is not safe above sea now that Ganondorf knows who she is. While this is partly true, do consider that she kicked herself up Ganondorf’s face like it was a staircase. Girl can take care of herself. Probably on par with Link on sword fighting. She IS a pirate after all, she’s been in her share of scrapes. But no she gets to sit in the undersea sword house for the rest of the game basically. It’s…sensible but also really really bad because Tetra is a cool, snarky character with a nice design and a chip on her shoulder. And then we force her to cosplay as what we figure Zelda should be. This is a thing some people just do not like, and why people really like the crazy techno-naturalist Zelda from Breath of the Wild. But more on THAT in a couple years probably.

But with Zelda revealed, our mission is now more clear. We must go to the temples that serve as prayer batteries for the Master Sword’s power and see what went wrong. Someone get Fi a coffee. I hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you guys next time.

[Fefnir]

I think Helmaroc King’s theme might be one of my favorites in the game. The aesthetics of that battle in general are really good, but I love the song. It’s fittingly exciting for fighting the anime rival bird.

So unfortunately, Link’s Logbook ends at this point in the game, which is a shame because I love its style of humor and I want to see it applied to the latter half of Wind Waker. That being said, the premise of the ending is basically "what if Tetra didn’t just stop acting like Tetra the moment she was Zelda. KoRL’s a bit of a jerk, but whatever. It’s kind of a somber ending, but it does ask a question that I find very important: how bored must all the Zeldas be waiting around while Link does a thing?

(The last one isn’t quite as relevant, but I’m not passing up a chance to post a Link reaction, they’re the best.)

[LaZodiac]

God, what a good series. I wish Tetra wasn’t so…not a character after this point.

[LaZodiac]

Oh man new video time.

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [20] Mother and Child

Video Length: 27:47

This one is a little bit disorganized, because I myself was disorganized recording it. Work’s been a bit rougher lately, is all. I was planning on going over the whole ocean today actually, but realized that I should wait a bit longer. At any rate, our goal is to find the last two temples, and as we leave the Tower of the Gods the King also mentions something about how, hey back in the past the Hero of Time just sorta up and vanished, breaking the chain of reincarnation and shattering the Triforce of Courage. So now we have to go get it, to prove that we actually…you know, deserve it, since we’re NOT the chosen hero. Not yet anyway. We were chosen to be chosen, effectively. This is…a very weak part of the game, which I will elaborate more on once we actually get to the point where we want to do it. And of course, adding insult to injury as it were, we get Tingle’s IN-Credible Chart, which shows us the location of all the Triforce pieces. I’m not a big fan of this, like with the fact that the King just tells us where the Temple islands are. It’d be cool to just go exploring to find it ourselves. But ah well. More on this mess later.

First, we go to Mother and Child Island via whirlwind. And then we meet the true creepiest NPC in the game, the Great Fairy Queen. She likes Link, quite a bit, so she blesses us with twin powers. Fire and Ice arrows, magic using arrows that burn or freeze stuff, respectively. Unlike in say Ocarina, the Ice Arrows actually do freeze things! The fire arrows may also do more damage, I’m unsure on that because to be blunt I’ve never used these arrows offensively in any capacity any time I’ve played the game. Gonna do my best to actually use em though, because why not!

After that we head to Gale Island, the location of one of the next temples we can do. Only it’s blocked by a fearsome windstorm. Mr Fish says we can go to Ice Ring Isle to get something to help us get through though. The Zodi that is in the past playing this decides to ignore this hint like a reasonable person and instead go to the nearby Fairy island, which Tingle’s initial chart showed us to be one of the money fairies. Baddabing baddabom, 5000 rupee total! This’ll be quite good. After that I go to a nearby island to mess around on it, finding a Blue Chu-chu and not much else (well also a heart container, after fighting a gauntlet of enemies). Then I decide to warp down to Outset to get near the other temple island, Headstone Island. It’s blocked off by a massive head, but Mr Fish says there’s a powerful croissant on Fire Island that will help us get through. If only we could shoot ice or fire related magic…ah well. Maybe next time. Also we hit two submarines off the map, one of which is an interesting stealth section and one of which is every bombchu in the world.

Hope you all enjoyed this sort of a mess video. I hate waking up at 5 in the morning to go to work at a grocery store eheeck yeah see you guys next time.

[LaZodiac]

Oh hey more Zelda. Surprising, right?

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [21] Fire and Ice

Video Length: 21:25

In this video, we continue the busywork we need to do to actually Do Things! We go to Ice Ring Island and explore it’s mini dungeon to get the Iron Boots, stompy metallic fun shoes that make us incapable of acrobatics and generally aren’t actually very useful beyond amusing me greatly. Then we go to Fire Mountain, going through it’s mini dungeon to get the power bracelets, which let us lift really heavy stuff and nothing else. We also learn the one fatal flaw Wind Waker has over Ocarina. Your model doesn’t change when you get supplementary items like the bracelets. This is a shame because a big part of this game is growth, going from innocent youth to find your true heroic potential. In fact the initial game idea for this was to have Link actually age as you played, so you’d end the game as a teenager or maybe even a young adult. But that just didn’t work out since it was a Gamecube game. Please for the love of GOD Nintendo revisit this idea it’d be really really good.

After that we go to Headstone Island and unblock the way…revealing a large tablet with a song on it. Performing it with our baton brings about the spirit of Laruto, the dead Zora sage that lived in the Earth Temple, praying to the Master Sword to keep it’s divine power active (I’m personally imagining her and Fi talking on the phone about boys and stuff). It turns out she’s SUPER dead, Ganondorf’s minions murdered the hell out of her. But by the grace of the Gods her family bloodline has survived to modern times (because the Gods turned the Zora people into birds because they don’t want anybody to know Hyrule is under the water, which is also why the only fish in the sea is Mr Fish, as an aside!). All we have to do now is find the person with that golden harp thing she has.

And that’s it for this video. There’s a lot of set up to get into this, the second third of the game, but now that we’re here we can actually Do Things now. Hope you enjoyed, next time will be dungeon time once more.

Also as an aside is there a way to do slashthrough on text here?

[LaZodiac]

Video a little later than normal because somebody forgot to upload it. Cough.

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [22] The Sage of Earth

Video Length: 22:49

In this video, we finally get to work doing the Earth Temple! Or at least, eventually. First I do some minor stuff on Dragon Roost Island that I decided that now was a good time to do, even though in retrospect I don’t think it was? Regardless, we took down a rather expansive secret grotto to get a reward that was barely worth it, and then took pictures of everyone (one of which was redundant to take). After that it’s just a hop skip and jump over to where Medli’s practicing her harp, so that we can awaken her as the Sage of Earth! We get a rather beautiful theme as Laruto and her play music together in the void of conciousness, literally awakening her powers through song. When she awakes, it’s time to go. She gets to sit on the King of Red Lions and everything, which is super rad. We make our way to the entrance of the Temple, play the Earth God’s Lyric once more, and dive into the dungeon proper.

So, the Earth Temple is a spooky dungeon. Fitting, given it’s under Headstone Island. All manner of spiky stuff and grim aesthetic make up the design of this dungeon, and I actually kinda like it. There’s also some clear damage that the monsters have caused in their attempts to make the Master Sword unusable. This dungeon DOES have a gimmick, but we don’t encounter it just yet. Instead we encounter THE gimmick for BOTH of the next dungeons. Medli is actually coming with us and will contribute! She won’t contribute well mind you, she can’t fight or do anything herself, but we can carry her around, glide while holding her, and throw her to reach areas. And if we need more precise control, we can use the Command Melody to borrow her body! Nothing creepy about that, no sir.

But yeah, that’s it for today. Next time we’ll explore the dungeon more completely. Hope you all enjoyed!

[LaZodiac]

A biiit late because oops stayed up too late.

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [23] Earth Temple

Video Length: 27:17

In this episode, we start the Earth Temple proper…by of course forgetting how the follow mechanic works and abandoning Medli for a bit. Oops! But yeah, the Earth Temple is a fascinating dungeon with an interesting gimmick that, if you’ve been following all of my Zelda playthroughs, we’ve seen before. Skylights that let in the brightness of the sun! Additionally, Medli’s harp can be used to reflect said light. With this we’ll be able to melt things in the dungeons that have a specific symbol on it (that of a spiky looking soul) as well as activate these halfmoon halfsun switches. Though those require a bit more effort to get since every one we’ve seen is in a room with two of them. There’s also enemies that react interestingly to light, like the Dark Chu-chu’s that petrify up when exposed to light, and the Poes, horribly annoying ghosts that get turned physical by the healing rays of the sun. Otherwise we can’t kill them through any means of combat, though we can knock their lantern away…leaving them free to possess us for some mixed up control nonsense. Overall I’d say these enemies are more annoying than anything else.

But that’s not the only enemies around! We’ve also got Floormasters, a surprisingly durable (given what it is) hand that’ll try to grab our or Medli’s face and bring us back to a specific room. In Medli’s case, sticking her in a large bird cage, which I always found funny. Floormasters in this game are actually rather interesting because they’re resistant to a lot of stuff, and the stuff they’re not resistant to, they can still INTERACT with. Like throwing a bomb at them, they’ll toss it back. They can also pick up skulls/pots/rocks and try to chuck them at you as well. They’re parryable, but the timing for this is always a little finicky. After that we have the Redead, which is even MORE durable. Resistant to basically everything, the only way to beat it is to sword it. Sunlight does stun it, but only briefly. They, as you’d expect, let out a piercing screech that paralyzes poor Link in his tracks. Finally, we have Stalfos. We fight this guy as a miniboss, and then immediately fight two more showing that no no this isn’t some unique thing this is going to be a generic enemy from now. Their main tactic is to spin around with their big ole spiked mace, smash it down, and otherwise flail at you wildly. Destroying a Stalfos is a two/three part thing, depending on how you deal with them. Finish them off with a vertical slice and they’ll shatter into pieces, leaving the skull bouncing around to be killed. Horizontal slashes will cut the creature in half so that it shuffles away on it’s hands while it’s legs run around trying to kick you. Either way, the only way to defeat them is to destroy their head before they regenerate their body. The Skull Hammer, unsurprisingly, kills their head immediately.

For dispatching the Stalfos, we get the Mirror Shield! If anyone’s even remotely surprised by this given the dungeon mechanics, I don’t know what to tell you. Unfortuntaly the Mirror Shield isn’t all that special. It’s bigger so we’re less likely to get winged by an attack if we’re guarding, but that aside all it does is let us reflect light from the skylight around. But with Mirror Shield in hand, we CAN continue the dungeon, so that’s good at least. Of course, we’ll be doing the actual continuing next time. Hope you all enjoyed (especially the part where a half delirious editing Zodi realizes she doesn’t even remember half of what happens in this dungeon…) and I’ll see you guys next time

[LaZodiac]

Onwards, to more of this!

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [24] Mirrors

Video Length: 26:33

In this episode, we continue delving into the Earth Temple, solving puzzles and making use of our shiny new Mirror Shield. To be honest, there isn’t much for me to actually WRITE about down here below the video, since we don’t actually finish the dungeon here, but we do get close! There’s all manner of nasty gribbles to deal with, from Redeads to even more Keese, to Stalfos that are now just basic enemies after being a miniboss in this exact dungeon. The last unique enemy we encounter is the Blue Bubble, which has a stronger fire shield than the regular Red Bubble, and if you get hit you’ll be cursed, unable to use items for a few seconds. We finish the video with the final (sorta) iteration of the mirror reflecting puzzle, a rather large room where we’ve got to get a single skylight to bounce around the entire room so we can solve another of the twin sun switches.

But yeah, that’s it for today! Hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you guys next time.

[LaZodiac]

Let’s finish off that Earth Temple, shall we?

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [25] Jalhalla

Video Length: 18:21

Suuper short video today compared to normal because work’s been getting rougher and I just didn’t have time. Next recording session will be done in a more proper manner than this.

Anyway, it’s time to begin the final leg of the Earth Temple. We finish off the puzzle we had just completed, and in doing so gain access to the final room of the dungeon, in which a singular Darknut stands between us and the boss key. We dispatch him with relative ease, obtain the key, and return to fight the boss. Note that we uh…did miss a Joy Pendant treasure chest, in that room we cannot go back to since it required having Medli around and oops we don’t have a Medli anymore after we finish the dungeon. Ah well. Let’s talk about the boss!

Jalhalla is an interesting boss, in that he’s actually technically the mask, not the huge ghost man himself. That’s all made up of the Poe’s that went inside of him. Jalhalla is one of the more fun bosses to fight, since the way you beat him is actually rather active, and doesn’t require much or any waiting. The boss himself has a series of attacks, be it throwing fire at you from his lantern, sucking up air to try and get you close for a damaging and possessing body slam, a breath of fire to roast you, or even a breath of regular air to push you into the arena’s spikes. I forgot to put on the iron boots for some of those blowing and sucking based attacks, which would of been a smart move. Thankfully, the way you DO deal with him interrupts all of his attacks; shining light on him with the mirror shield! Once enough light has shined, he becomes corporeal instead of just corpulent, and falls to the ground. Then you just have to throw him into the megaspikes to break the Poes out of his body. Each Poe dies in a single sword or arrow hit, but I like to go for the fancier method and Hurricane Slash them all! This phase has a time limit, in addition to having a kill limit, but I imagine tricky positioning and quick reflexes would let you bypass the latter at least a little bit.

The boss falls quickly, leaving us a heart container, and together with Medli we perform the Earth God’s Lyric one final time, connecting her phone’s wifi connection to Fi’s and making our sword open it’s hilt once more. We’re half way done. We bid Medli a fond farewell, and head back up to the surface. A quick jaunt to the next dungeon location (and some silly wind based antics) later, we learn that the sage of wind was a Kokiri, the ancient forest folk that became the Korok! Fado, the sage of wind, teaches us the Wind God’s Aria, and all but outright states “go play this for the good tree baby”. We do so (after getting a sweet letter from Baito) and have obtained our second party member, who we will consign to a temple deep beneath the waves as sacrifice to our legendary sword.

Hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you guys next time, where we delve into one of the more…fascinating dungeons in the game, in terms of sheer scope and scale.

[LaZodiac]

Oh hey another one of these, what a surprise.

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [26] Wind Temple

Video Length: 23:20

In this episode, without further hesitation, we dive into the Wind Temple! The King gives us a far less extensive tutorial on Makar since we already know the basics of controlling a friend…though given that Makar controls a slight bit differently than Medli it would of actually been nice? His copter feels like it controls completely different from Medli’s, and his ground movement is way different due to how he builds up momentum to start a waddlin’. His only real mechanic aside from this is that in specific mounds of dirt throughout the dungeon, he can plant a seed that grows into a tree that has a cute smile on it. We don’t get told this, though I imagine it’s possible to trigger a cutscene tutorial about this if we touch the ground with our own Link-y self. It’s not that difficult to kinda figure out though.

The Wind Temple itself is an interesting dungeon, with a really interesting aesthetic to it. Not like, super fancy or anything, but it does have this warm earth tone to the area that makes it feel special. Mechanically, it’s got wind vents and iron springs that we can use the Iron Boots on to spring up into the air! There are also blocks that the Iron Boots can break if you put them on over top of them, which tends to release enemies into the area below the block. It’s also got…a lot of stuff from the Forest Haven dungeon, further iterated on here. Compared to the Earth Temple’s Mirror Puzzles, I think I prefer how this dungeon builds upon the previous Makar oriented dungeon. There’s another pretty important mechanical “thing” here mechanically, but we’ll touch upon that more next time. Enemy wise we don’t really find much new to fight (we’re nearly at the end this isn’t a surprise) but we DO find Stalfos just casually hanging out, which is part of what makes me think you can’t do these dungeons in any order. We also get to actually see how Floormasters work, because they’re super huge jerks here.

People have mentioned that this dungeon is kind of like the Water Temple from Ocarina of Time, and while I do say in video I disagree with that, I do definitely understand where that sentiment comes from. The main hub room for this dungeon is massive and sprawling, and spoilers we’ll create a giant wind turbine in the center that’ll let us fly up to the roof. That’s potentially a lot of freedom to entrust to a player, especially given that your method for traversal is the Deku Leaf, and you’re kind of expected to cart Makar around with you the whole dungeon which only extends the length it takes to move around anywhere. Luckily, I’m pretty good at navigating the dungeon, and have a clear idea of where to go.

Rounding out the video, we say hi to this dungeon’s miniboss; the Summoner Wizrobe! This is probably one of the hardest fights in the game. The Summoner wizrobe can summon two enemies, taken from a rather extensive pool featuring Fire Keese, Darknuts, Moblins, and perhaps most worrying of all…Yellow Wizrobes. Yellow Wizrobes themselves can summon one enemy from a small pool of weaker enemies. Luckily, the Summoner can’t double up, so he can’t summon two Yellows who then summon one Red each and then you have a veritable army of wizards to contend with. This fight is still rather hectic, especially because the Summoner, despite not having a unique name, IS a unique photo and must be snapped to get a figurine! Now, combat wise you can just shoot an ice arrow at a Wizrobe (even the Summoner) and then insta kill it through smashing it or otherwise melting the frozen body with a Fire Arrow, but because of the enemies filling this room it’s a little tricky to do that (and I forgot at the time of playing this). After dispatching the Summoner (and his summons, they have ornithological inertia!) we are rewarded with the dungeon item…the Hookshot! Our noble springy sproingy stabby chain! This’ll be quite fun to use, but I’ll detail more of that next time.

I hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you guys at that aforementioned next time, where we’ll hookshot our way across the rest of this dungeon, pretty much.

[LaZodiac]

Early morning post because work. Also I’m stupid sick. Rip Zodi.

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [27] Mighty Darknut

Video Length: 24:25

In this episode we…stuff. I’m sick as hell writing this and I don’t remember most of what happened anymore even writing this at 11:28 PM where I have to wake up in fivish hours to get everything done in time before work at eight in the morning RIP. We have the hookyshot, and we hook shot things. We climb back up the gigantic pit hub area and save Makar using the Iron Boots heaviness, and then run around the dungeon doooin’ stuff! This dungeon’s honestly really boring and has tons of Floormasters to try and waste your time and it’s kinda bad.

We end up fighting the Mighty Darknut, which is like the regular Darknight but with a fancier hat, and sometimes a cape (you can set this on fire) and a beard, which rules. Also I think I did some very minor non-consequential sequence breaking due to having good timing with the Deku Leaf because I get the boss key before I think I’m actually supposed to? Cause that’s what the Mighty Darknut is guarding, and spoilers next video will show another room exactly like the Mighty Darknut’s room only with a small key. It’s weird. Anyway we turn on the big fan in the middle of the hub pit and that lets us fly around. It’s actually rather simple and not as confusing as you’d think, it’s just a little daunting when you first show up since it’s huge compared to everything else in this game, which is already rather large.

Then we get chopped to bits by the fan. Video eeeend. Hope you enjoyed, see you guys next time for when we finish this dungeon that really could of used a cut room or two.

[LaZodiac]

Drag yourself from your Switches today, it’s Zelda time.

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [28] Molgera

Video Length: 19:47

Another short one this time, but this I couldn’t really avoid otherwise. Sorry about that. Anyway, in this episode we finally head off to finish the dungeon, going through the last few rooms. There’s really not a lot to say, we’ve completed all the challenges this dungeon really has to offer, the rest is just smaller iterations on the puzzles we’ve seen so far. Enemies in a room that we can hookshot around in, and floormasters stalking out tree beds. And of course, wind pushing against you rudely while you slowly push blocks forward. The one real highlight here is the enemies hiding in or behind the stone faces on the wall, that you’ve got to pull off and destroy so we can get the final treasure chest in this dungeon. And thankfully, unless I’m mistaken, the final treasure chart in general that we need from any dungeon. Sweetness!

With all that said and done, and Makar safely stowed away near the boss door, it’s time to face said boss. The arena for this fight looks really cool, but sadly this is probably one of the worst bosses in the game. Molgera, the destructive sandworm! It creates a sinkhole to try and eat you, antlion style, but that leaves it open. Hookshot it’s tong antenna thing and you can hack away at it. After it takes some damage it spawns babies (which don’t need a photo taken) and will go to somewhere else and resuming eating. Or it might fly into the air and try to dive bomb you with it’s maw. That’s the ENTIRE fight. So yeah, not the most compelling boss, but at least it doesn’t take forever for it to open itself up to damage. And the music is fantastic.

But yeah, that’s it. With Molgera stomped on, we can play the song with Makar and awaken his true power as a Sage, and awaken the Master Sword’s true power. It’s not even stronger, and it comes with a cool shining white glow and everything. It sadly doesn’t effect any of our attacks appearance wise, and the Master Sword at full power doesn’t do anything too special other than let us kill Ganondorf, but hey, we can do it now! So lets go!..only to learn from the Fishman that Ganon hasn’t been seen since Valoo set his house on fire, and the Forsaken Fortress is void of all evil. Huh. That doesn’t bode well. Now all that’s left for us is to get the Triforce shards so we can return to Tetra…but first I’ve got some stuff I need to take care of!

So yeah. Hope you all enjoyed. Join us next time for when we start to tackle getting 100%. The way I’ve structured this out is kinda weird and not super good but then that’s because the things the game wants me to do now are also…not super good! More on that later. See you all next time!

[Fefnir]

My favorite part of Molgera’s theme is the fact that one of the instruments just sounds like a man making train noises throughout the entire thing. If Molgera’s gonna be the worst boss, at least his theme is suitably silly.

[LaZodiac]

Oh boy. It’s time for The Thing. Almost.

Zodi Plays: The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker [29] Island Adventure Prequel

Video Length: 28:17

In today’s video, we finish (basically) every side quest in Windfall Island. There’s a small handful that are going to require us going across the entire ocean to solve, and then a not of tedious busy work, but that aside we do everything here. And that’s basically it. We do all of Windfall, and that’s the whole video. Hope you guys like windmills we’re in it for the long haul. I don’t remember the exact order all these things happened so I’m just gonna go over them as I remember they happened.

First off, we check up with Mila, the former super rich girl who’s father forced us to pay a (relatively small in all honesty) fee for breaking his jars. She and her dad are poor in monetary gain now, due to him giving his entire fortune to Tetra…but in return he’s realized just how deep his love for his daughter is, and he doesn’t super care. Mila herself is…annoyed at her situation, and tries to do a crime, but we sneak after her and catch her red handed. She gives us a bottle, as crystal clear as our soul and conscious (yes) and runs off to do even more jobs. I…approve? Don’t work yourself to death kiddo. On the flip side we have Maggie and her jerk ass Dad who really only cared about money…he’s gotten even worse, and his daughter is trying to get romantic with a Moblin from Forsaken Fortress. He gave her a lot of Skull Necklaces and they sold them all to Beedle for a high price so they’re rich in pocket book, but…pretty poor in spirit. Ah well. So the wheel turns.

Speaking of Skull Necklaces, their use in this game! Dampa, one of the sailors on this island, has a glitchy and unfun minigame that you can play if you give him three Necklaces. It involves grabbing picks and setting them down in front of him, but not to close and not to far away and sometimes he’ll count a pig if it runs across from him it’s weird and I don’t like it and it took me like five minutes because one of the pigs just despawned it’s stupid butt. This is a completely optional sidequest…in the regular game. In this game, he gives us a new Treasure Chart that replaced -a thing- that we’ll talk about next time. You can also give Skull Necklaces to Maggie’s Father but I don’t think I have enough just yet and will do that during the final actual island adventure super special.

After that it’s time to spread the joy. By which I mean dump all of it onto Miss Marie. As it turns out we have 61 Joy Pendants…and the amount you need for rewards is 20, and then 40. We had exactly one more than we needed. Nice timing on me lastish video talking about “do we have enough?” I guess. For 20 pendants we get the Cabana Deed, giving that private oasis island you may recall over to us! Then for 40 more, she gives us another Wii U only treasure chart! This is in place of another item that we’ll get next time, but is not itself related to -a thing-. In the original game she gave us our last gear item for 40, but that’s been moved to somewhere else due to some general treasure shuffling.

We also fix up the Lighthouse. Nothing to special about that, though I do like how I just…had the right wind from the get go. This has never happened before, and I’m always suuuper bad at figuring out what the right wind is for this one, but nope this time it’s just perfectly in place. Nice going me. Then we light the windmill to make it into a proper lighthouse ferriswheel windmill combo, and get a chest for our trouble (as well as a reward from Kreeb, the windmill watcher).

Finally, we creep on Lenzo in revenge, getting a treasure chart by exposing the entirely non juicy gossip that is “Mineco is obsessed with having her picture taken and he’s the only man with a camera” and then we proceed to dump thousands of rupees on Lenzo’s head to get the Legendary Photos. These seven photos show off special characters that we ourselves could never take a picture of (or in the case of one, would require some finicky manipulation of space time to get without also being unable to make use of the photo). These are pricey, but it’s worth it. And also not even remotely worth it because oh my god DO NOT DO THE PHOTO QUEST. I spend a good portion of my time here taking pictures of everyone as well and it’s a heck of a thing. I do not recommend actually doing it yourself.

…also we cleared out the auction house of everything that mattered. I think that’s everything! Sweet. Hope you enjoyed this hot mess. Join us next time…for gold. Lots of gold.