Year Plans 2025: What I've Missed

Boy, this has been… a year. Please ignore my twitchy eye. Or the emotional exhaustion. Let’s just… talk about video games today, alright?

For the newcomers: I started setting up Year Plans in 2023, as a way to force myself to check out games selected somewhat at random through my collection. The idea was that if I only ever chose on my own what I wanted to play, there are games I own that I’d never touch! So why not leave it to luck? Of course, as I realized at the end of that year, I can always misjudge and overshoot. After all, I take direct inspiration from HowLongToBeat lengths to make these random picks, and I can never know how long a game will truly take me, versus how long that website says it takes on average. That said, I’m a very thorough player and I often go beyond just finishing a game's main story, so it often takes me longer than those indicated lengths to finish games.

Every year so far, I ended up with plenty of games I was hoping to cover in those 12 months, that I ultimately ran out of time for. 14 in 2023, and 17 in 2024. This year, however, I am proud to announce that I don’t have a lot of leftovers… only 8. I call that a win! But still, I wanted to operate the same way as before, by playing just an hour of each game and report on it for the last article of the year. Hell, there were so few this time around, I juggled with the idea of playing two hours of each instead! But nah. One hour will be enough. I’ll just write more for each.

The estimated duration of the eight games today ranges between 11 and 67 hours (…don’t start), and would have taken me an extra 250 hours to get done. I don’t think I would have had enough time.

Well then! With so few, I guess I won’t split these into categories!

Team Sonic Racing

Out of my way, Amy! I'm gonna steal the third place from
you!

There are many Sonic racing games out there, though for a while they existed under the “Sonic & All-Stars” umbrella that allowed characters from other properties to join the roster. This doesn’t quite work for Team Sonic Racing's concept, where characters play in their classic teams (with a few changes) and have to rely on each other to win each race. Each team has a Speed character (Sonic, Amy, Shadow, etc.), with a race car that has faster speed than average; a Technical character (Tails, Omochao, Rouge, etc.) with better handling and the ability to pick up rings more easily; and a Power character (Knuckles, Big, E-123 Omega, etc.) that is slower, but unaffected by most road hazards.

Five teams, 15 characters total, and the entire game is built around teamwork. The car of your teammate closest to first place leaves a trail behind, and the other two can drive along that trail to gain a speed boost. It feels a little like teamwork rubberbanding. Racers can pick up Wisps as power-ups – many of which feels directly inspired by similar items in Mario Kart.

One hour wasn’t enough to go too far into it, so I haven’t seen yet whether having to rely on your two CPU allies to get ahead leads to issues down the line (you never know how well the AI will play, after all), so… guess I’ll see when I get around to it.

Hyrule Warriors Legends (Part 3)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Yeah, still not done. Honestly, it feels like there’s no end to this thing.

Fairies and collectibles

I haven’t mentioned them much, but true to Legend of Zelda fashion, fairies are an important part of the game. You always select a fairy before entering a battle, and they provide bonuses throughout the battle. You begin with a few, but you can find more. Each fairy has a main element.

The mode has a few options: Dining Room, where you can feed fairies with the foods you occasionally find during battles. They also have personality traits, which influence the spells and abilities you can give them. Each type of food comes in three strengths, and foods influence specific personality traits on a fairy; stronger foods change the traits a lot more. However, these foods can also decrease some traits’ stats. This will also increase the fairy’s Level, and when a fairy hits Level 99, you can choose to revert her back to Level 1 with additional perks.

You can also dress up each fairy using fairy clothing you can find during missions. This will empower them in certain elements. Last but not least, you can change a fairy's passive Rental Skill at the School, where the skills unlocked depend on the personality values you’ve given the fairy. "Party" was an option to connect online with other players, but... yeah. I'm late to the "Party" on that one.

You can't see it too well, but that IS a Skulltulla there
on the floor.

You don’t only have fairies to collect, though… there’s also Gold Skulltulas. Another LoZ staple, Skulltulas are found in every mission of Legend Mode, with many more in the Adventure Mode. After certain criteria are met, these spiders will appear on the field. Kill one, and it drops a piece of a picture. Every illustration is made of 20 pieces, and there are 13 of those – that makes 260. In every mission where they appear, there’s two. However! You cannot go for both spiders on your first go through Legend Mode, as the second spider can only be found after Legend Mode was beaten once, and hidden on higher difficulties. Like this game isn’t long enough already!

Well, I'm nowhere close to being done.

And if that’s still not enough, you can also try to get every Medal. Those are basic achievements obtained as you play through the game, and some requirements are rough. Let's just say, good luck.

But then, there’s also…

Hyrule Warriors Legends (Part 2)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

The fight is on!

Fight across time

From here, the Story Mode splits into three branches. Forced to deal with all of them at once, the army splits.

Normally, the franchise says not to mess with
Gorons. That they're indestructible. Then, can
you explain why I've knocked out 1346??

Impa and Sheik head into the world of Ocarina of Time, where they look for the Gate of Souls that teleports enemies into their era. Instead, they meet a Kokiri fairy, who directs them to the Gorons and their leader, Darunia, who have captured Princess Ruto of the Zoras, following an odd encounter with Princess Zelda. We don’t get to investigate, as the story evolves to an armed conflict. The Gorons use many tricks to gain an edge on the battlefield, including taking forts equipped with cannons throwing boulders at the allied base. After cornering Darunia in his base, the heroines realize that the Gorons were manipulated by invisible monsters. Even after they’re dealt with, Darunia must still be defeated to regain his senses. When that’s done, Darunia releases Ruto and, irate that he got manipulated, joins the fight.

The Gorons and Zoras were in conflict over the monsters coming out of the Water Temple, where the Gate had opened. And who led them? Princess Zelda. In the following battle, we first open the Water Temple, and then face off against the faker, revealed to be a monster in disguise: A Wizzro. Sheik reveals that she knew, because she was the princess all along. (Since they’ve traveled to a different era, the other Zelda could have been the incarnation of herself from then, so that point is moot, but whatever.)

Yep, Midna has access to Wolf-Link in her fight.
No clue where he is the rest of the time, though.

Lana visits the era of Twilight Princess. Her search for the Gate of Souls is interrupted by Cia’s monsters, who attack a villager: Agitha, the friend to all bugs. After Agitha is rescued, her Goddess Butterfly leads the heroes to the Gate, but they’re intercepted by another army led by an imp with a headpiece. Yep, that’s Midna. She believes that the Hyrulean army is allied to the monsters who have been roaming the land. No misunderstanding that a strategic battle and a good beating cannot resolve.

Midna has a bone to pick with those monsters, so she joins our ranks. The next battle is set in the Palace of Twilight, and it ends in a showdown against Zant and a dragon called an Argorok. Tough fight. Confronting Cia, Midna exclaims that the sorceress is the one who trapped her in this imp form. A scuffle ensues where Cia’s mask falls off, revealing a face like Lana’s. After the villainess escapes, Lana explains that she and Cia once formed a single entity, who split apart into good and evil halves due to Ganondorf's manipulations. That’d have been nice to know in advance!

Yep, that's Agitha summoning a giant beetle to kill a
dragon. Didn't know she had the combat spirit in her.

Hyrule Warriors Legends (Part 1)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

(I had been planning to review this game all year – that I’m posting this review shortly after the release of Echoes of Wisdom is a happy coincidence.)

When I first began this blog, my only goal was to replay through my (at the time) modest collection of 60 or so titles, across a handful of consoles. Then I joined Steam, and Humble Bundle, and things spiraled out of control and now... lemme check... well, right now I have a backlog of over 250 games. What they don’t tell you about becoming a reviewer, Heck, a content creator, is that you quickly start looking for more content to create. In my case, this translated into buying a lot of games, hoping to play and cover them later, on this blog. I’ve probably bitten more than I can chew, but I’m still in the mood to keep trying.

....Actually, my Backloggd says 254.

Yep, mowing down literal hundreds if not thousands of
enemies is pretty much the default in Dynasty Warriors.

On the plus side, it has encouraged me to check out games and franchises I might not have tried otherwise – Trauma Center, Prince of Persia, Punch-Out!, South Park... and so on. This ties into today’s game in that, although I’m already well acquainted with the Legend of Zelda franchise – having now reviewed three of its games – I’ve never played anything from Koei Tecmo’s Dynasty Warriors series, which this Zelda spinoff is most like. These consist of hack’n’slash gameplay, and from what little I know of them, they all play somewhat similarly to each other. Since I’ve never played any Dynasty Warriors, I can’t really compare with Hyrule Warriors, originally released on the Wii U in 2014, with today’s game being a port for the Nintendo 3DS released in North America on March 25th, 2016. (This entry would get another remake for the Switch in 2018, as well.)

As a result, today’s game isn’t part of the famed Zelda Timeline, the one that branches off into three paths based on the events of Ocarina of Time. The Hyrule Warriors games are considered a spin-off and, therefore, don’t have any impact on the continuity of the classic series. This has an advantage: They can freely pick bits and pieces from the games released over the franchise’s then 30 years of existence without worry, and even add their own spin to the events presented. And damn, do they take full advantage of this.

This being a port, the story follows the same beats as it did in the original Wii U version, however we’re getting a handful of new characters and arcs to follow as well. And on top of the main quest, titled Legend Mode, we even have an entire additional Adventure Mode built on top of the map from the original The Legend of Zelda from 1986! But hey, I might be burning steps. Let’s start with the controls, then we’ll jump into the story.

Fighting Options

I played in Dynasty Warriors mode, but the playthrough
I'm pulling images from uses the Zelda mode.
(By the way, my screenshots come from a playthrough
by Squish Gaming. Go check it out!)

Every character in Hyrule Warriors has a large number of options that belong to them specifically; at least when it comes to weapons, upgrades, special attacks and gauges, gimmicks, and the like. However, at the core, all of them play similarly. Most buttons on the 3DS end up used. (When you first boot up the game, you're offered to control schemes: One more based on Dynasty Warriors, one more based on the Zelda series. I personally describe the Dynasty Warriors controls here, as those are the ones I used.) First, the circle pad to move, of course. Characters evade with B, do a basic attack with Y, and can do a stronger attack with X. As the game progresses, you unlock new combos to make, opening with a basic attack (or multiple in sequence) and throwing in a stronger attack at the end of a sequence (or, to be clear, anything from Y-X to Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-X). The A button is used for a very powerful move that can be unleashed only after a gauge has filled up over time from landing hits on enemies.

Oh, Princess Ruto has entered Focus Spirit.
She's about to Surf a monster army to death.

The D-pad has its uses as well: Press Up to target onto an enemy, and Left/Right to switch to a different target or move the camera. When you pick up magic dropped by enemies or found in broken pots, another gauge fills up; when it’s full, you can press Down to activate Focus Spirit, which will cause your attacks to increase in power and give a few additional bonuses like revealing a major enemy’s weak point. You can also empty the magic gauge in one go by pressing A, unleashing another powerful move.

Not a ton of items, but still enough to have
a few puzzle-based bosses in there.

The L button can be used to guard from attacks, and can also re-focus the camera behind your character. R is a special case; much like in classic Legend of Zelda fare, over time you’ll find items that help on your quest, some of which are even mandatory to defeat specific enemies. Bow and arrows, hookshot, boomerang, ocarina. You know, the classics. Using the bottom screen, you can open the item menu and select which item to use, and then use it with R.

And the touch screen has many uses. You can use it to read the mission map a little more closely, switch between characters (as several missions will see you playing as up to four characters spread out across the battlefield), or use the magic of the Fairy you've equipped before starting the mission. It's also where you can open the item menu and use potions, provided you've unlocked them for your current character, or swap between tools (bombs, bow and arrows, hookshot, etc.).

Hyrule Castle Down

He was easy to spot, he's the only one without
a helmet, the fool.

Princess Zelda is suffering from a recurring nightmare in which a mass of darkness attacks her in a field. She confides in Impa, who takes this as an omen of approaching dark times; therefore, they must find the Hero of Legend. Sure enough, there’s a distinctly Link-shaped soldier training on the castle grounds, and he’s already great in combat. Well! That was easy. The reunion has no time to happen, however, as an army of monsters is seen marching towards Hyrule Castle. Already listening to his Courage, Link runs into action alongside the Princess and her guard. He quickly rescues a fairy that joins his side (and will speak on the mute's behalf).

Yeah, we're not close to conquering everything here.

Every mission of Legend Mode is set on a large combat field with fortresses scattered about. Your team's owned fortresses are highlighted in blue on the touch screen, while the opponent's are in red (or, if three armies are fighting for dominance, the third group is in yellow). As either of the characters you can play in that mission, you can move towards a red fortress and defeat waves of enemies that appear in it, causing the current fortress leader to show up; beat that leader, and you conquer that fortress for your team. However, armies of enemies scour the map, and those will also attempt to take over the heroes’ fortresses, on top of reclaiming those they’ve lost. It can get tricky to take over new fortresses, while keeping those you've conquered.

Each mission has one main objective as well as additional ones that unlock depending on how the situation evolves; some further the plot, while others are side quests that can provide bonuses in this specific battle. However, each mission also comes with an instant defeat condition for the heroes. It usually, but not always, involves the characters' main fortress start in being taken. Alternately, it can also be a major character fleeing the battlefield after being defeated. Victory and defeat conditions often change on a whim, so always be aware of them.

In the first mission? Damn, they don't mess around.

When you conquer a fortress, a treasure chest may appear, with a reward for the character that opens it. However, enemies can reclaim fortresses, and you may have to reclaim a fortress you’ve claimed earlier. Plot beats are all about fighting for the upper hand. Near the end of a mission, a boss (or many) may show up. It can be a regular enemy without specific strengths and weaknesses, or it can be a Legend of Zelda type of boss that’s impervious to all attacks until you use a specific tool to expose their weak point.

Its gauge is almost empty! It's gonna get a 

That's the case of King Dodongo, a well-known boss of Ocarina of Time, who appears on the battlefield at the end of the first mission. It is fought just as it was in its home game: Toss a bomb into its mouth to reveal its weak point gauge, then slash away. Otherwise, your sword won’t even scratch it. It's not the only boss to work that way, as there's a handful of others.

After this first mission, Princess Zelda is reported missing; Impa asks for Link’s help, and hands him the green tunic... updated with knightly gear. We also get the ever-present explanation about the Triforce, but we also learn what happened this time: An evil spirit (Ganon, of course) took it long ago, but the Hero of Legend managed to beat the spirit and split its soul into four fragments, all sealed across time and space.

The witch and the fragments

And of course, the higher the badge, the rarer
the crafting materials for it.

In-between battles, you can pass by the Bazaar. You pick a character, and then you can:

-Use materials found on the battlefield to craft badges, which offer passive attack, defense and assist bonuses. For a same badge, the crafting materials can be different from a warrior to another, and later badges require materials that are difficult to gather;

-Level your unlocked characters up at the Training Dojo, with a cost in Rupees. However, you cannot level a hero up higher than the highest level you’ve reached with a character;

-Craft potions at the Apothecary using materials. These offer bonuses like finding more weapons on the field, or finding better weapons;

-Combine weapons together at the Blacksmith, to transfer special abilities from a weapon to another, destroying the material weapon in the process.

Some of those fields are a pain to run through.

The next mission is set at the Eldin Caves, where we fight an army of skeletons. Those are aided by Big Poes and led by a Wizzro. While exploring, Link and Impa encounter Sheik, who joins the fight with a harp as weapon. Impa is also a Sheikah, so she’s doubtful of Sheik, but lets (him? Her? Them?) join on the quest to find Princess Zelda. Oh, the irony. A mission later, we meet the new villain: Cia, a witch of the forest whose task was to maintain the balance of the Triforce. She has the power to look into other ages of Hyrule, and got infatuated with Link due to his status, also growing jealous of Zelda over her closeness with the Hero of Legend. This allowed a fragment of Ganondorf's soul to manipulate her into doing his bidding. That is, collect the other fragments and revive him.

Thankfully, against these evil forces, while exploring the Faron Woods, the Hyrulean Army recruits a new ally: Lana, a sorceress from the same clan as Cia, who promises to help. Meanwhile, we get our hands on a bow and arrows, and we use them to kill a Gohma. You know, the spider thing with a giant eye? That one.

You also learn that bosses are easier to take down if you
bring all of the playable characters to it.

This leads to a confrontation in the Valley of Seers against Cia and her forces, with the Hyruleans seeking to close the gate from which these monsters are pouring out. We do the hero thing, finding a boomerang and using it to deal with an annoying plant boss called Manhandla. I swear, if even one of those mouths starts singing "Feed me Seymour"... After which, the heroes confront Cia, but she manages to steal the Triforce pieces from Link and Sheik (the latter to everyone's surprise) and unite them to the Triforce of Power she already wielded. This massive power lets her open gates to other eras of the world’s timeline, where the other fragments of Ganondorf were hidden. If they want to stop her plan, the Hyrulean forces must go through these portals, explore these different versions of Hyrule, and prevent her from accessing the fragments.

Who needs swords, when you've got
*taps crossbows* these babies and an endless
reserve of projectiles?

But that's not all! There’s an alternate storyline happening concurrently, one that shows a young blonde girl who also believes to be the Hero of Legend. She has to be, her grandma told her so! She has her own trinket, a compass handed down to her by the same grandma. When trouble arises, Linkle puts on her own version of the Hero’s tunic, and heads out to Hyrule Castle to help. This takes her into the woods, where she meets and battles none other than Skull Kid, from Majora’s Mask. Then she keeps running to the Castle… in the wrong direction. Linkle’s gameplay is very different from Link’s, focusing a lot more on using crossbows and various projectiles like bombs against opponents. This helps set her apart a fair bit from Link. (According to many websites, early in development she was implied to be a distant unknown sister of Link's, but the idea was scrapped. I think she's better as a separate character.) She also has a funny relationship with Cuccos, with the chickens featured prominently in more than just one of her missions.

Despite being disconnected from the main plot, Linkle’s story ends up following it. We’ll have more examples of that in Part 2.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (Part 2)

Adult Link’s quest continues (and ends) today. Part 1 is here.

You know, if I had been that committed to sparkle motion, I could have posted Part 1 seven years ago and Part 2 today, and have both parts interact in some ways with each other. ….Unfortunately, I would have had to have thought of that back in 2016. Too late!

The next medallions

Darunia called his own Goron kid the same name you called
Link on the main menu.

Time to drop the hammer.

Much like the Forest Temple, the first dungeons in the Hyrule visited by adult Link have elements similar to the ones he visited as a child. We visit the Gorons again in order to enter Death Mountain. Most of them have been captured and taken to the Fire Temple within the volcano’s crater, to be eaten by the mountain’s resident fire dragon Volvagia. In order to navigate the temple without burning to death, Link needs a fire-resistant tunic, which is given to him by Darunia’s son. (How the tunic protects him when his legs are still bare, that’s never explained.) Darunia himself is in the dungeon as well, trying to rescue his people.

C'm'ere, Volvagia. I have a hammer and your head looks
like a nail right now.

In this rescue mission, Link frees the Gorons one at a time, always getting a new key with each. Great concept. This eventually takes him to the high point, where he gets a special tool, the Megaton Hammer, which lets him smash down rusty switches and, of course, beat the boss. Link has to play whack-a-mole against the fire dragon Volvagia, smack its head real good with the Megaton Hammer in order to slash at it with the sword. It was a tough fight for me, until I figured out the pattern eventually.

The fire, then the ice... Man, all these temperature changes
are gonna give Link a nasty cold.

Next up is the Water Temple, hidden underneath Lake Hylia. We need a special song taught by Sheik to teleport to it, as one path is blocked by a fence and the other path, accessible from the Zoras’ domain, is frozen solid. So are most Zoras themselves, really. In fact, before we can access this major dungeon, we have to go through an ice-themed dungeon in order to obtain Iron Boots, which allow Link to walk underwater. The place has a gimmick that involves burning away mysterious red ice using blue fire that can be kept into bottles. The blue fire is also needed in the Zoras’ domain to free the King, also encased in that ice; and the King, as thanks, gives Link a blue tunic allowing him to breathe underwater.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (Part 1)

More of me fighting my phobia of hype aversion! Yaay! It’ll be fun! And what a massive game it is that I’m covering today. One of the Titans of gaming. Needless to say, I’m a little worried.

From 8-bit open world to modern open world.

In the world of video games, few franchises have such a long and storied legacy as The Legend of Zelda, one of the most beloved adventure series out there. Present since March 1986, the adventures of Link and his quests that usually involve rescuing Princess Zelda and kicking Ganon and/or Ganondorf’s teeth in have been a part of the pantheon of the Greats. Few games in the series have been treated as outright terrible, and those that have… well, I’ve never owned a CD-I console, so I don’t need to worry! Indeed, aside from the occasional mechanic introduced in a somewhat clunky manner (the finicky Wiimote controls in Skyward Sword being one oft-cited example), what we get when buying a TLoZ title is generally a strong product, offering solid gameplay backed by an enthralling story.

I’ve already covered a few titles in the series so far: I grew up with A Link to the Past, which I’ve owned on both SNES and Virtual Console (Wii), and that title is also frequently in fans’ Top 5 when it comes to ranking the games. Slightly lower on many lists but still an impressive title in its own right, Twilight Princess was covered in the early days of this blog. Today’s game, though, tends to top most of those hypothetical “Best of Zelda” lists, sometimes in a heated competition with a more modern entry in the series, Breath of the Wild for the Nintendo Switch.

THE defining entry in the franchise: Ocarina of Time, released originally for the Nintendo 64 on November 23rd, 1998 in North America, with a remake available with stereoscopic 3D published for the Nintendo 3DS on June 19, 2011. The latter is the version I’m playing today. Maybe if I had hurried I would've finished this review to coincide with the release of Tears of the Kingdom...

I might take a little less time discussing the story, as though I’m actually discovering it now as I play the game, I assume most people know the main beats.

The fairyless Kokiri

The young Link is the only Kokiri, a group of elf-like people of the forest, without a fairy. He is plagued by nightmares of a man on horseback over a Hyrule on fire. One day, the protector of the forest, the Great Deku Elder, sends Navi, a little fairy, to retrieve Link and send him on a quest. The other Kokiris rejoice in seeing Link with a fairy, but he has no time to waste. He finds a sword and purchases a shield to go on his way, and leaves to meet the Elder.

Okay, okay, sheesh! Give me a minute!
I've got seven years to save the world...
P.S. Screenshots here come from the playthrough done by
Gamer's Little Playground.

Navi is useful as a living crosshair.
As an expositor, not so much.

The mustachioed tree explains to the young hero that it has been struck with a mysterious ill by a man on horseback. It asks Link to venture into it and defeat that ill. This is the first dungeon, and as is tradition for the series, feels very much like a tutorial showing the ropes and what to expect afterwards. You get your first projectile weapon (a slingshot and Deku Seeds) and the first enemies that you must defeat using those, including this dungeon’s boss, Gohma, a giant spider. It needs to be stunned with them before it can be wounded with the sword. Puzzles-wise, most here involve collecting wooden sticks from the monster plants, lighting them on fire and burning spider webs to open paths.

The Great Deku Tree is indeed a much better
expositor. Alas, he's not portable.

After defeating Gohma, Link gets the ever-present Heart Containers, adding one full heart to his life, and is teleported back outside the Great Deku Tree. The elder thus explains the mythos to him, about the three goddesses (Din, Nayru and Farore) who each had a hand in creating the world of Hyrule (the land, order, and life) and a trait (Power, Wisdom and Courage); and upon their departure, each one left behind a triangle containing the very essence of that trait. The three, put together, form the Triforce. The man on horseback, who seeks such might, must be stopped. The Deku Tree entrusts Link with the item it refused to hand over to the dark warrior, Kokiri’s Emerald, one of three spiritual stones that our hero will need to collect. The old tree tells Link, in its last breaths, to go see the Princess of Destiny… Zelda, at Hyrule Castle. Link leaves, obtaining the Fairy Ocarina from his best friend Saria on the bridge going to the outside world.

Search for the red stone

Man, those guards are bad at their job.

Hyrule Field is huge, and was an impressive sight when this game originally came out in 1998. Nowadays, it feels barren and empty. There’s a lot of places to go, but heading there takes a while. Seeing the skeletons pop out from the ground at night must’ve been scary at the time. Our first stop is the Castle Town Market, which leads to Hyrule Castle. Unfortunately, the royal guards are everywhere and will throw Link out on sight, so we go through a proto-stealth segment to reach the castle and, afterwards, the garden in which we meet Princess Zelda.

After she explains more lore regarding the Temple of Time (also accessible from Castle Town) and how it ties with the Triforce, she shows Link the man she feels is after the mighty artefact: Ganondorf, whose look screams “I am evil, don’t trust me”, yet the King seems to think this is a genteel, dapper fella! She asks Link to collect the other two spiritual stones, which will open the sacred realm. Link is then taken out of the castle by Impa, who trusts the Princess’s instinct and, as a bonus, teaches Link Zelda’s lullaby for his ocarina.

I arrived as fast as I could, but there was a middle-aged guy
blocking the way. Took a while to wake him up.

Dude's got some sick moves.

After a detour by Kokiri Forest to also learn Saria’s song, this quest takes us to Kakariko Village, next door to the castle. By showing proof that we’re on a quest, we have a guard open the path towards Goron Village, up in the mountains. The entrance to the second dungeon, Dodongo’s Cavern, is blocked by rocks, so we need to go through the Village. The Gorons are troubled because their source of food is in the Cavern. Wait; they eat rocks, and they can’t eat the rocks blocking the way? Whatever. The Gorons’ leader, at first grumpy, has his spirits lifted by hearing Saria’s song and gives Link a power glove that lets him pick up and throw Bomb Flowers.

Some Lizalfos in there, too.

Thanks to a Bomb Flower located higher on the mountains, we blast the dungeon’s blockade away and go in. Bombs and lava together in the same place sounds like a recipe for disaster. This time around, both the Deku seeds and the bombs are necessary. Bombs? Yeah, we find a bag to carry them. Turns out it’s better to use them against the boss, the King Dodongo, than the Bomb Flowers in his arena. Upon the giant beast’s defeat, we are yet again taken out of the dungeon, thanked by an authority (the leader of the Gorons, in this case), and given another spiritual stone. If things keep going this fast, I’ll be home before dinner!

How ‘bout that blue stone, now?

King of the Zoras: Large, in charge, and fishy.

Our third plot trinket is found in the domain of the Zoras. This opens a fair few number of new zones, including Lake Hylia, in which we find a message in a bottle. Ruto, the princess of the Zoras, is trapped inside Jabu-Jabu, a large yet peaceful creature living in their domain. This is enough to get Link to meet Jabu-Jabu on order of the King of the Zoras. Activities here involve fishing or diving for Rupees (which, for the latter, earns Link an upgrade allowing him to hold his breath longer, and dive deeper, as a result).

Not a particularly pleasant place.
Not a particularly pleasant company, either.

We bring a fish to Jabu-Jabu and get sucked in. Just the thought that we’ll actually be swimming in dirty belly water… Yuck! This third dungeon is peculiar in that we not only rescue Ruto, but also end up carrying her around, because Missus does not want to get out. Missus wants to be lifted and taken to various parts of the dungeon, where she’ll be used as a stone for pressure plate puzzles. Want a cushion for that royal entitled bum too, Missus? This is how we find out that a parasite has taken control of Jabu-Jabu, and Link needs to kill it. This involves killing the parasite’s tentacles, which are electrified; we find a boomerang to deal with that.

Nothing quite like beating up a parasite!
Though usually it's figurative, not literal.

Per Zelda tradition, the boomerang is mandatory to beat the mini-boss, Big Octo, which was a lot more bothersome to me than the actual boss, Barinade. If only Ruto wasn’t complaining the whole time, too! People like that character? She’s unbearable! On the plus side, we find the Zora’s Sapphire, which is what Ruto was also looking for within the beast, claiming it to be an item she would only give to her future husband. Well, she’s fallen in love with the hero who saved her, so I guess that counts. Well, too bad! We got a world to save here!

Link returns to Hyrule Castle only to see Impa fleeing with Zelda on horseback, with Zelda tossing an item in the moat. Following next is Ganondorf, who asks Link if he saw the two galloping away. He leaves, and Link retrieves the item; it’s the Ocarina of Time, a magical instrument! Sorry Saria, looks like I got a better musical instrument from someone else. With the item comes a vision of Zelda teaching Link the Song of Time.

Hero of Time

The ancient legend, the sword in the stone... Fun fact, in some
alternate language editions, the Master Sword IS mistakenly
labeled with the name Excalibur.

This new song opens the Temple of Time’s secret room, containing the Master Sword. Link grabs the sword, is engulfed in light… and in comes the silhouette of Ganondorf, thanking him. Turns out, this was the worst thing to do, as it also opened the door to the Sacred Realm where the Triforce is hidden, allowing the Gerudo to walk in and achieve his evil goals!

I am old enough? I don't feel it!
I lost seven years of my goddarn life!

When Link comes to his senses, he’s in a room of the Temple of Light, inside the Sacred Realm, where a sage named Rauru is talking to him. Discussing Link’s screw-up, Rauru explains that there is still a way to stop Ganondorf – Link must find the other six sages and rescue them, and they in turn will seal Ganondorf away. There’s only one problem; he is too short to wield the Master Sword, the only weapon that cdould defeat this evil. As a result, time has jumped forward seven years. Link is no longer a scrawny ten years old Kokiri kid, he’s now a scrawny seventeen year old with enough force to actually use the magical sword. Those seven years, however, gave Ganondorf plenty of time to corrupt the land. This will make finding the Sages difficult.

Yeah, I'm aware. Thanks for telling me where they are, though!
The other guy in the temple forgot to tell me. Also, you look
really familiar for some reason.

After this discussion, when Link comes to in the Temple of Time, he encounters a mysterious ninja by the name of Sheik. I don’t need to say who this is, do I? It’s one of those open secrets of gaming, like Samus Aran’s identity under the armor. If you’ve played a Smash Bros game past the first, you already know. Some would say that the 3DS version hides the twist even less, since it’s so well-known. The ninja instructs Link on the location of the five temples he must free from evil in order to awaken the sages, and that he should first look in Kokiri Forest for a girl he knows… However, Sheik instructs him to seek some items in Kakariko Village beforehand, which he’ll need to even enter the temple.

An aside before we resume the quest

It took me a moment to get in the “groove”, so to speak, but now I’m sold, this game is fun. Really, the one downside is that since it’s on the Nintendo 3DS with its short battery life, the game is to be played in short spurts. Thankfully, you can always save when pressing Start, though you’ll respawn on restart depending on where you are. Hyrule as child Link? In your Kokiri home. Hyrule as an adult? In the Temple of Time. If you save in a dungeon, you’ll respawn at that dungeon’s entrance, so you don’t have to do the whole trek back to resume the exploration-, combat- and puzzle-heavy areas that dungeons already are.

Bonus, the Ocarina is always accessible.

I seldom played the original Ocarina of Time on an N64, but it feels to me as though the bottom screen’s functions in this version help make the game a little less of a headache, at least when we reach a point where we switch items in/out of our main buttons regularly. Here, A and B are used to attack with the sword and do acrobatics, X and Y are used for items set to those buttons like, say, the bombs or bow or whichever else, and there are two extra buttons on the touch screen for quick-access inventory items. I’ve always felt from personal experience with my GBA SP and prior DSes that the L and R buttons on handheld consoles were weaker and more prone to breaking, so I was worried in a game like OoT where targeting is frequent and necessary (with L), but there is an option in the menu to change how targeting works; by holding the button down or by just pressing it once.

Adult Link refuses to use Young Link's little toys,
even though some would save him some
headaches. Similarly, most tools found as Adult
Link are too big or heavy for Young Link to use.

On the plus side, a field this big means we get to ride Epona.

While I’ve always loved playing games for this blog, this first time into Ocarina of Time, I’m kind of speeding through because it’s taking me so long to write the review, and it’s unfortunate. The deeper into it I go, the more I realize the greatest quality of Zelda games; exploration shouldn’t be rushed, especially in these big worlds. I had already played through Twilight Princess before reporting on it, way back in 2014. And I grew up playing A Link to the Past, so covering it was no issue. I was well-acquainted with both games before writing about them. But with Ocarina of Time? I feel like I’m missing out on a lot of stuff. Further reading into the game reveals so many interesting elements, especially in regards to exploring both “eras” and how they interact… I intend to beat this game to properly report on it, but I can definitely see myself replaying through it someday at a slower pace in order to catch up on what I've missed.

Oh, and that “3D” part in the title? Well, like most titles on the 3DS, you can toggle on/off the stereoscopic 3D in the top screen, but, much like most games from the console, I just play it without the function. It’s distracting. Especially while discovering a game for the first time. I mean, the effect is cool, I won’t knock the console for that – but not my thing, as far as gaming is involved.

New temples as an adult

Waking up in the Temple of Time to see the lively Market
infested with ReDeads... that's a huge shock.
I hate this future, I want my money back.

Stupid wolves, always in the way of dungeons!
....Okay, they're the first ones I see, but whatever.

Five temples to find across the land? Sure. We can do that. The Hookshot, obtained in the Kakariko Village graveyard, is needed to even enter the Forest Temple in search for the second Sage. And what a trip that temple is. A bad trip, I would dare say. At least we get the bow and arrows out of it. The temple is made more difficult in that we have to find and defeat the four Poe Sisters, whose lights are needed to call an elevator towards the floor where the boss resides. My enduring memory of this dungeon is the presence of Stalfos, skeletal knights with shields and some actual knightly tactics in combat… as well as a room in which three have to be defeated. Yeah, we’re in the tougher part alright; this game isn’t pulling punches anymore.

These knights are a real pain in the ass.
No joke here, they just are. I freaking hate them.

Painting Traveller VS Hylian Sniper with Bow.

Anyhow, with the boss’s key in hand and the four Poes beaten, we step down towards the end of this cursed dungeon and fight the boss, Phantom Ganon, a ghostly Ganondorf on horseback who attacks by coming out of paintings, and who must be sniped with the bow (or, like in my case, if you run out, there’s also the Hookshot). In the second half, the phantom ditches the horse for a Zelda classic: A wizard playing tennis with balls of energy against a Link equipped with the Master Sword, and being noticeably worse than the hero at parring the shots. Ganondorf isn’t joining Wimbledon anytime soon.

With Phantom Ganon defeated, Link rescues the second Sage, who happens to be… Saria! And she gives him the second medallion. We also get some additional reveals that Link is not actually a Kokiri but a Hylian, explaining why he grew up while all the Kokiris, Saria included, remained children, elves of the forest that they are.

Guess I should expect other people I've known as a kid
to turn out to be Sages, then. ....Malon, maybe?

Well, I know what to expect now. The quest is on!

…Let’s continue this in Part 2, shall we?