Bring Potions, Boots, and Bombs! Let's Play The Legend of Zelda: Parallel Worlds

Garrison might already be in too deep now, everyone. There's nothing we can do for him.

The crazy thing is, in the commentary I recorded with him last night, I mentioned the need for an intervention, lest we find garrison's disfigured body slumped against his computer, the Parallel Worlds game over screen deeply burned into the monitor.

I fear I may have given the game ideas.

Tool-assist up to where you were, I won't think less of you.

If Garrison manages to finish this LP, every other unfinished LP has no excuse.

NO EXCUSE!


love you guys.

Okay, it took me a couple hours, but I'm caught up to where I was before my computer crapped itself. Hooray for me.

Wow, that is some dedication. Hope it wasn't too painful for you.

Don't worry guys, every great LPer has this curse that makes their hard drives herp derp in the middle of a project. This just means Garrison is a true LPer now.

Whelp, I guess the time has come to prove that I'm not completely full of shit about bringing this baby back. So here, here's a video. You'll have to forgive how grainy the image is, the loss of my harddrive meant that I had to redownload my video straight off of youtube. Aside from that, Photobucket is stuck in jerkmode, so the screenshot portion of the LP will have to wait until that stuff is done.

Stupid computers.

Gah, same here. I swear I could leave the thing running overnight and it still wouldn't be done.

Man we totally discussed insane clown posse in a video about zelda.

This fact fills me with joy for no good reason.

If you don't mind me asking, what is the storage setup of your computer like? If you had multiple drives, then the data on the ones your OS wasn't installed on should have been retained fine. And if it was just the OS that crapped out, then the data on the main drive could be fine as well.

You may just need to put the HD into another computer, either through physically installing it inside or by getting a drive enclosure and turning the old HD into an external drive.

Right, I just watched the video - even though it's ostensibly a tribute dungeon, it still left a bad taste in my mouth. Possibly because it took all the good about Zelda 1 which LttP capitalized on (exploring new places, using your items in new ways), flushed it down the toilet, and left only the bad parts of Zelda 1 (searching for the one fake wall you needed to press against.)

My *cough* favorite part here is that your 'reward' message is that you should ignore the previous message. Right. First off, it's ambiguous as to what the previous message is, considering that they can be accessed in any order. I guess they mean the previously numbered message?

But that pales in comparison to what the other implication of this message is. Remember when you triumphed over that grossly unfair dungeon which you'd just gotten through by the skin of your teeth? (True, I don't know which one it is, but it applies to all of them, so...) Yeah. Your effort there was completely in vain. So any previous sense of accomplishment felt has now turned to ash.

Compare this to Princess Zelda's message which is known to be useless from the time you receive it since you already heard it at the beginning of the game, and you have both the ghosts of Christmas Past and Present telling you you suck. If one of the remaining messages is to ignore the next message, then we have the trifecta - any progress you have made, are making, or will make is worthless!

Dear God. I'm getting all Tim Rogers here. Why are you still doing this, Garrison? Do you have some sins to atone for or something?

Wow, have there really been 24 videos? And I've watched them all.

I'm amazed by how fluent you are with this game and how few fairies you end up having to use.

Hey, here's the video that I posted a couple days ago.

Not only did my good friend Beat join me for the video commentary, but he actually went to the trouble of writing the vast majority of this update. Sorry for the two month delay, but we're heading straight into the endgame!



And so gannon awoke from yet another nightmare, haunted by strange statistics and file data. Would these nightmares ever cease? "Maybe" thought Gannon, "Maybe that's why I'm on this quest. To find inner peace".

Then Gannon decided that was bullshit. I mean seriously. Inner peace was totally lame. Gannon was here to save the world fromt the tower and the tower that ran paralell to it somehow. He didn't have time for serenity and wisdom. He was here to push blocks and stab monsters.



On this glorious day, Gannon had determined that he would push the blocks and stab the monsters of Darunia's Cavern. To do this, he went straight to Impa's Ways. "This is good and logical" he thought to himself. Certainly not roundabout and moronic at all. And so he jumped through about 15 different teleporters to emerge in the depths of hell.

"The fact that Darunia's Cavern is in hell is also good and logical". Gannon told himself. He had to believe it. The tenuous grasp he had on his sanity was beginning to slip.

Welcome to Darunia's Cavern!


The big deal here is that the entire dungeon is pretty much the worst tribute to the original Zelda ever. All the room layouts are identical to rooms in Zelda 1, sans the enemy groups of course. There's a problem with this though, Euclid couldn't design a dungeon to save his life. The main gimmick the player is going to notice immediately is that pretty much every rooms is blocked by shutters. In Zelda 1 fashion, you can only open the shutters by either defeating all the enemies on the screen or by pushing a block. There's all kinds of problems with this, but I'll get on to those later. For right now, just remember that this isn't a Zelda 1 tribute in LTTP, it's a Zelda 1 tribute in Parallel Worlds.

Also, the dungeon music from Zelda 1 was hacked into the game, so there's another reason to watch the videos too if you haven't been already.



Gannon immediately noted that this dungeon was, among other things, totally lame. He thought briefly of his long lost love as he pushed a block one space south in order to advance east. He had often revisited these bittersweet memories, and always came to the same conclusion

"Goddamn restraining orders".

Several rooms later Gannon was surprised to see a group of Armos Knights, with absolutely ridiculous amounts of HP dancing in formation. Offended by this blatant attack on his firm fundamentalist sensibilities, he admonished them and their sick moves they only way he knew, by turning invisible and hitting them with his sword hundreds of times.

"This too, is good and logical" he said through muffled sobs. "Truly I live in the best of all possible worlds".



Upon slaying all the joyously dancing knights, who only wished to live and love in peace, Gannon was blessed to discover a big Key! "Oh Happy day!" he gleefully proclaimed! Now I can open a box in this nightmarish labyrinth!

He wondered for a moment if there could be such a thing as a box that didn't require a key. Then he laughed at the very folly of the idea. Surely all boxes in all dungeons must be opened with keys! The very concept of one that could simply be opened was nothing short of insanity!



"Then Gannon phased through an iron door with his incredible super powers and spoke to the spirit of love, tragically trapped within an abandoned skull. The spirit of love was most impressed by Gannon's splendid appearance, and blessed him with more love. "One can never have too much love!" the spirit of love happily proclaimed.

"Tell that to the judge, Gannon mumbled under his breath. And once again his thoughts returned to restraining orders.



So obsessed with his past tragedies was Gannon that he barely even noticed that the Armos Knights had revived, and resumed their hypersexual dance moves.



And thus, falling into a deep depression, he walked through the next few rooms aimlessly and without purpose. Almost as though his actions were being narrated by some cosmic spirit that had just stopped giving a damn.

It's okay though. Those rooms were probably really boring anyways.



Come to think of it, oppressive boredom seemed to be something of a theme in this nightmarish dungeon.



Well, that and total BS, as the razor traps were glad to demonstrate. Equipping his officially licensed harry potter cloak of invisibility, Gannon made a beeline to the single pushable block that was right in the path of a giant death blade.

"I'm glad this single pushable block looks exactly like every other block that cannot be pushed!" said Gannon. "This is the sort of challenge that people actively enjoy!

And he was right.

-INTERRUPTION!

So here's a thing that people should probably know about not only this dungeon, but the LTTP engine itself. The way the game works is that it stores a set number of rooms in its cache memory, to temporarily keep whatever progress you make in between the individual rooms intact. This is a good thing! In Parallel Worlds, however, this feature is actually somewhat of a nuisance. What happens here, is that Euclid didn't exactly put together the shutters well, and as such, they close everytime you re-enter the room. Here's the problem though, the triggers for the shutters don't reset. So what happens is you end up trapped in certain rooms and need to teleport out. If you want to go backwards, you actually need to go through four entirely different rooms just to dump the cache and reset the block puzzles and proceed. What I'm trying to say is that this game is bullshit and it makes me want to die.



And thus, Gannon was able to gain the Cane of Somaria! A strange disembodied voice instructed him that it would be very helpful, but only if he made proper use of it!

-INTERRUPTION!

Fun fact about the Cane of Somaria: It isn't at all useful in the dungeon itself! Another Fun fact: The Cane of Somaria is one of two of the dungeon items needed to complete the game. This dungeon is a mandatory visit, but you don't need to complete it to finish this atrocity.

Gannon was honestly getting sick to death of these stupid voices giving "Helpful" information. He missed the innocent days of his youth, when the voices merely told him to kill, or Freestyled off beat for hours on end. "Truly those were my halcyon days" he tearfully reminisced.



The next two rooms were so completely unremarkable that Gannon barely even noticed them. "I'll bet if a cosmic being was to observe this room, he would find it just as dull as I have," Gannon mused. "He would probably even call up one of his buddy cosmic beings, who would probably ignore the going ons in favor of babbling about internet subcultures and bad musical groups."

"Nahh" Gannon muttered. "That's just silly".

The next room was such total bullshit that Gannon didn't even feel the need to think about it in oddly descriptive terms. He was sure that whoever saw it would figure it out pretty quickly.



Though for some unknowable reason the final pattern on the floor brought to his mind images of top hats and monocles.

"How curious!" he remarked.




And so Gannon continued his amazing journey through an oppressively brown, highly boring dungeon, where the only way to solve a puzzle was to push one unmarked block.

"My Goodness" he said to himself. "If it were not for the absolutely unholy amount of lasers in these rooms, and the constant mortal terror they put me in, I would have to declare this dungeon the absolute worst so far. And lo, it was.

He also wondered if there was any reason for there to be so many hundreds of thousands of lasers in a fantasy setting. Not that high-powered energy beams in a world where all combat is based around swordplay was strange or anything.

Not strange in the slightest.

"Goodness gracious!" said Gannon, seeing the room that consisted of single pathway with an unavoidable laser trap. "Thank the three goddesses and the Parallel Tower that is probably magical that I shall never have to walk down that most definitely lethal hallway!"

"Yes," he happily said to himself as he walked through a room with a spinning fire trap and an almost insultingly easy puzzle. "I am perfectly safe, and will be that way forever!"



OH TRIFORCE NO WHYYYY OW THE PAIN



WHERE IS IT WHERE THE HELL IS IT AAAAAAAAAGH



FINALLY



And so Gannon triumphed over the room of death. He celebrated his victory by going into a room of death that was slightly less bullshit.

But not by much!



"Golly!" thought Gannon to himself. "It's almost as if this temple was made with the current trend in video games relying too much on brown color palettes in mind!"

"What the hell is a video game?"



Gannon was not sure why this slug was so important, but the moment he saw it, he knew he had never met a slug more crucial.

This slug mattered. It was somebody.


The next two rooms felt oddly familiar. Almost as though they were exactly like rooms he had been in before. Just like every other room in this abominable hole in the ground.



Compared to the last laser hallway find the block challenge, this was a walk in the park! Gannon Laughed merrily, and sang a happy song

Kick in the door, then I yell, "DON'T MOVE!"
C.O.'s is like, "yo, who the fuck is this dude?"
I give ya a little hint, it's the Soopamanluva
Took the shotgun from him, then I shot that fucker



Threw it to Hurricane, she like "Yea, let's do it!"
Snatched up a reporter that was here to interview her
Raised up one of his hands, put a bullet through it
Took off his Franck Muller, so Daily News know the time it took to rescue her...

Oh hey a chest.

This is some serious bullshit.

Where was I? Gannon thought to himself. "I know I was doing something important before this. Something that made this walk through life bearable... Of course!"



I did whatever I could to get by
Slang dope, jack people, hands in the sky
When you livin' on the edge, yeah homie it's a high
You get caught up in the drama and eventually you die





Livin' in a hard world, some are livin' lies
Son you better wise up and open up your eyes
Shit it never easy homie people will connive
Better have a hustle, if you mean to survive



Gannon was so caught up in spitting ill rhymes, he completely lost track of where he was going! Unable to advance any further, he sadly resigned himself to his fate.



Nobody said he had to do so with dignity.

*HEY GARRISON I JUMPED AHEAD HERE IF YOU HAVE STUFF TO SAY ON THE STUFF I SKIPPED GO NUTS.

Gladly, my skeletal friend. Beat skipped over retreading through the same rooms over and over again because I screwed up the cache and got stuck. If there's one thing you can count on with Parallel Worlds, it's quality.



At long last Gannon discovered the exit. "Finally!" he said. "At last I can defeat this labyrinth's fiendish boss and advance in my quest to... Uh..."

Gannon was so preoccupied trying to remember what exactly his motivation was that he barely noticed the magical floating invisible tiles.



But tiles mattered not! At last he was approaching the lair of the fiendish boss! Steeling his soul, as he walked across the bridge that spanned the unfathomable chasm, he prepared for the very worst. Surely a place this fiendish would contain a truly terrifying creature! Perhaps a mighty flame salamander or the great titan of the earth!



Or... a bunch of eyeballs.

Gannon sighed heavily. "An eyeball? Really? I fight my way through this entire maze of catacombs and all that's waiting at the end is a huge eyeball and his freaky baby eyeballs? I'm gonna write the cave owners association about this because this is just totally unaccepta-"



"OW ARRGH MY FLESH"

Fun Fact: For whatever reason, Vitreous' first lightning attack actually changes the color pallet of the dungeon to match the color of the Misery Mire. Kind of neat, but that's about it



"ARGH WHY ARE YOU RED OH GOD THE PAIN"

Victory!

Gannon was so excited to be rid of the abomination, he didn't even notice that the floor had turned green.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Made in hell ...I made a deal. “A deal with the devil” , as a lot of people would put it. A magician known as Ganon wants to come along with us. To the Parallel World with us. I let him secretly tag along, but I tell him nothing about the clues. He said to me “It' for the good of this world, one extra helping hand helps a lot.” I just hope none of my fellow travellers reads this before out departure... My clue is number 4 and it says to ignore the previous message. Of course this doesn't mean to ignore my recording! This ends my recording. Good luck solving the secret of the Parallel Worlds.

Gannon pretended to listen to the crystal half-heartedly. As he faked concentration, he realized that he probably didn't have to. It was just a recording, right? I mean, he hadn't checked his e-mail in months. Wasn't this sort of the same thing?

He would have to think about this later, perhaps at some point in time when he didn't live in a fantasy setting and e-mail was a thing that existed.



And so, striking a jaunty pose, Gannon strode back out into the fires of hell. Hoping to never, ever have to experience a dungeon that awful again.

Thanks again to BEAT for the wonderful update! We're down to the final two, Zelda fans!

See y'all shortly!

That sums up half of Parallel Worlds pretty much perfectly. To sum up the other half, replace "less" with "more".

It was a lot of fun to write! I hope everybody enjoyed it!

I believe it's because it caches two "rooms"...which are two screens by two screens, in order to allow for bigrooms, as in LTTP. Not quite sure on it.

This is a simple reason: the flash is obviously itself changing the palette, and the hacker(s) never bothered to change which the game then "reverts" to afterwards.

Shiek's Hideout. Let's do the "first dungeon" last.

Rauru. Save the worst for last.

You are truly a dedicated LPer, Garrison, to put up with this not once, but TWICE. Personally, I think too much playing of Parallel Worlds just pushed your computer to suicide. You can trust me on this, I have a degree in computer psychology!

Anyway, I vote Rauru's Ruins. Sheik's Hideout sounds the most interesting, so I'm in agreement with you that we ought to save it for last.

I read this: "He said to me 'it' for the good of this world" two or three times which had me Not that the rest of it makes much sense, either.