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

H..bwah? Man, it’s like this place wants me to leave.



With two rather large keys in hand, Gannon had decided that it was time to finally get out of this hellish den. On the way out, however, his eyes caught a glance of something truly frightening. It scurried along the water quicker than most heroes could see, but Gannon met the horror of it all face to face. This Water Tektite was out for his blood. Gannon was already fairly hurt, but he knew he had to act fast. Within an instant, Gannon stuck out his white sword and jumped headfirst into the beast. This would have been a killing blow had the blade actually made contact with the beast. It hadn’t. Gannon had been bitten and slowly felt his life drain from within him. He was going to die. Was this all he could accomplish? Had everything he had done thus far been in vain? He couldn’t give up, he wouldn’t! Try as he might, Gannon couldn’t force himself to move. It turned out that sheer willpower wasn’t enough to save yourself from a mortal blow. Gannon had died and his body would forever rot in the waters of the Nayru Bay.



“...”


“...Hey...Listen”


Suddenly, Gannon was alive again! It turns out fairies are useful afterall!



Gannon wasn’t about to waste the gift that the fairy had given him. He was revitalized and fully cognizant of the dangers that lurked within the depths of the dungeon. He dodged every one of them, including a tile that was half floor and half table. On his way back towards the staircase that had lead him to his former demise, he noticed a rather large keyhole sitting right in the middle of a large chest. For once, Gannon actually had the tools he needed to get on with his life Upon opening the treasure chest, he procured a Magic Hammer. He knew that this was no ordinary hammer, this was a specialty hammer made almost exclusively to whack some moles!



*WHACK*





The idea here is to lay down bombs until you find that Last Crusade moment that probably made you groan when you read that. I didn’t do that though. laying bombs is for chumps, I much prefer memorization.



DO NOT GET USED TO CRACKED WALLS MEANING THAT THE WALL IS BOMBABLE

Well gee, I wonder what’s behind this wall?

Oh shit, it’s time to get revenge on that red asshole who tried to clown us earlier. FUCK YES! I mean, these jerks took like what, three arrows to beat in ALTTP?



It’s really hard to convey just how terrible this moment is in screenshots. At first glance, it looks like an ordinary fight and you can see me laying the smack down on them throughout the screens. What you don’t see, however, is just how long this fight actually took. Each one of these Armos Knights takes exactly 47 swipes of the White Sword to defeat. Spread throughout sic of them, that’s 282 successful hits you have to land to get past these dudes. As one might imagine, it’s kind of hard to consistently hit these jerks that many times and keep your health up. So yeah, these guys try and wear you down. Not only that, but the room is specifically designed to piss you off. Compared to the arena you fight them in in ALTTP, this place is pretty claustrophobic. Not only that, but there’s this huge empty pit in the middle of the room. Each Armos Knight deals a half heart worth of damage on contact and the pit takes a whole heart. To make matters worse, the sole survivor of the six is going to turn bright red and go ballistic once he’s cornered. At best, the average person playing through Parallel Worlds is going to have four heart containers and one magic bottle at this point. This is very much a brick wall.

Oh, did I mention that almost all of this is self-imposed? Yeah, remember when I skipped the Blue Boomerang in the Guardhouse? That thing kills these chumps in just a couple of hits. These guys shouldn’t be the horror that they are. There’s a problem still, though. The Blue Boomerang is incredibly easy to skip. On my first playthrough, I skipped it, not because I wanted to, but because I didn’t know it was even there. There’s no indication that there’s another big chest in that dungeon unless you find it. The way the Hyrule Castle sequence is setup in ALTTP pretty much forces you to just keep on keeping on to get through it. There’s no real puzzle solving, just straight dungeon traversal. If you play the Guardhouse like you would the Hyrule Sewers, odds are you’ll miss the Blue Boomerang entirely. To make matters worse, the Big Item Key is actually in the middle of that non-puzzle that you can just walk straight through, so it’s even less evident that something else is going to be there. I’ll go over just why I skipped the Blue Boomerang later when it packs more of an impact. For right now, just know that these guys are jerks



I didn’t actually get the screenshot the moment it happened here due to shock, but I actually killed the last two Armos Knights with a single whirling attack and skipped the red knight phase. It was pretty awesome, but alas, it’s lost to time.



Nothing could have prepared Gannon for the fight he had just been through. Afterall, six heavily armed statues coming to life isn’t something that happens on a daily basis. It took him days to chip the statues away to dust and marble, but he had finally accomplished the task without meeting another end. At this point though, he was at his ends. He knew very well that a single wound would send him six fee under. Gannon had to be careful.



"Gasp!” Gannon said aloud. At the opposite end of the room that he had just entered, a gigantic moth stared Gannon down deep into the blacks of his eyes. It was a look of malice that he saw that day. This moth had murder in mind and the means to do so.



The moth shot lasers. Gannon dodged left and right knowing full well that a single hit would be his last. After a while, though, he spotted a fatal flaw in the Moth’s attack pattern. For whatever reason, Gannon had picked up on the fact that the Moth only faced South and that attacking from the North would be an advisable idea. It was a tactical idea, even.



As the moth exploded at Gannon’s feet, he knew that something good was coming his way.



LOL, NO HEART CONTAINER 4 U!

With his spoils in hand, he knew he had one elderly fellow to pay a visit to.





Next Time: Hey, let’s make a dungeon that’s completely pitch black!

Also, this marks the end of jpegs and a brand new era of PNG files. Hopefully the extra clarity will be appreciated.

Is the red boomerang really necessary? I don't recall using it much in LTTP, but I am a terrible Zelda player.

I gave this to Garrison before the update. I'm sad he didn't choose to include it. So I'm going over his head and posting it myself.



Also: Armos Knights! Whyyyyyyy?!?!?!?

Also, also: It sure would be nice to see what's in that Waterfall Cave.

The sad truth is that mibbit decided I didn't need it anymore and the image was temporarily lost. If you would like, I can go ahead and swap the image in the original post to this one.

I'll go through the Waterfall Cave as soon as it's humanly possible. It houses two heart pieces, so it'd be nice to go there anyways.

I can overlook all the other horrible design decisions in this romhack up until now, but this is just going too far. When you beat a Zelda dungeon boss you get a fucking Heart Container THAT IS HOW IT WORKS ARRGLEBLARRGHHALBLLLL

This LP made me dig out my LttP cartridge, just so I could treasure it for the brilliant, non-abusive game that it is.

Sooo...after the first two updates I thought I wanted to play this game (but didn't admit it). I've played a lot of LttP, and like to speedrun it cause I hate myself, so I thought, "nice, a new challenge!". Then the overworld map was featured in the last update, which is just so, nice. I mean, look at the design on the blacksmith's hut, it looks so good! But now, after that dungeon...not so much enthusiasm anymore. I mean, not only did that dungeon seem to involve copious amounts of swimming (note the the water dungeon in LttP involved almost no swimming, because the swimming mechanic is just not fun), but there were spinny fires and tiles and water bugs all over at the same time. What a crapfest. This game has some serious contempt for the player.

When I saw the swimming bits in Naryu's bay, my first thought was, "oh, this is one of those water-level changing dungeons, he just needs to go hit a switch and then explore all the lower-level dungeon we can see down there". But no. It's all arbitrary scenery and there is, in fact, nothing but swimming, bugs, firewheels, and completely inexplicable flying tiles which materialize from random bits of furniture and then are magically on your level even though you're swimming a level above them. This game, man.

And the Armos Knights... I normally don't have time for videos, but I happened to watch these. If you want to see true pain watch the vids of that fight. Oy.

(And then there's the fact that because of the cramped arena layout, some of the Armos patterns have them *stomping* on a pit of thin air. Ah, design.)

Except for the... well... sheer malice for the player that shows up constantly, I have to admit that this is a very impressive looking piece of video gamery.

I would want to play it. If not for the aforementioned malice, that is.

Oh dear God. That battle with the Armos Knights was...was...wow. You are a brave man. I don't even think Ganon takes 47 sword swipes to beat. (LttP Ganon, that is - I think our Gannon takes 1/2 sword swipe to beat, dying horribly when the wind from the sword swipe comes in contact with him.)

And, bizarrely, that battle with Mothula was actually *easier* than the LttP version, even considering the 1 hit kill bit here and the fact that you'd have a pretty nice kit of stuff when you got up to him in LttP. Seriously, that battle in LttP can go directly to hell. (Edge spikes, moving spikes, and a conveyor belt? The hell, Nintendo?) It's one of the very, very few bright spots in the otherwise horrifically bad game.

Of course, it doesn't even come close to making up for the Armos Knights alone - and I have an eerie feeling that there'll be a suitably difficult Mothula II battle as well...

I remember getting parallel worlds and getting almost through the guard house. I remember going "Well, this is interesting, but I'm not going to play the rest of it." After seeing the armos battle and no heart piece from boss destruction, I'm glad I gave up.

Thanks for informing me of the horror I avoided

That's pretty funny, especially considering that the red knight didn't seem to be able to stomp on the pit. Garrison kept trapping it against the side of it... great stuff.

That battle used to scare the crap out of me in LttP. I dealt with it as a kid by using the mirror to get the cape early. Now though, what a great fight! It's a beautifully chaotic dance of death that takes a wide focus on the entirety of the screen to beat. There are so many things to pay attention to, it's wonderful.

Moldrum is real frustration-time.

Seconded. Moldrum can die in a fire. "Hey, lets have a boss with random movement patterns that not only hurts you, he knocks you out of the ring so you have to start all over!" What the hell.

Think he's bad there? Try him in Link's Awakening where you have three hearts.

Actually, he's not that bad there since he moves a lot slower and you can hop over him.

On a related note, I'm playing through the Omega hack. Moldrum is in the palace dungeon. As you rescue Zelda. In the beginning of the game. And Mothula is the first dungeon boss, with fireball shooters and bouncing spikes. And still? Less painful than parallel worlds.

Just once, I'd like to see a ROMhack where the person who designed it didn't have the mentality of "longer equals better" and "harder equals better". Seriously, 47 hits per knight? Seriously? That's the antithesis of fun.

I think the biggest problem with ROMhacks is that the people who make them, make them for themselves. They often are already masters of these games and know all sorts of crazy-stupid tricks that Average Joe doesn't. This is not a good combination, as anyone familiar with the notorious Mario, Metroid, and Zelda ROMhacks can tell you.

ROMhackers of this sort don't want to make an interesting and appealing experience to extend the original game's value. They want to have a playground custom designed for them to show off their "skills". "Hey look, I've memorized this boss' pattern so perfectly that I can beat it without ever taking a hit! Even when it's 10 times stronger!" "Woo, I figured out how to jump over gaps by blowing myself up! I'm gonna make a huge puzzle out of that!" Fun for them, perhaps, but hell for the rest of us who have better things to do than learn how to exploit a particular game's engine to the utmost.

And an overuse of the creator's favorite enemy or obstacle. It was the same thing with the old Half-Life mods; three out of four would be slogs through masses of grunts. Grunts with grenades enabled, because instant death weapons are fun. The gargants and the Nihilanth, enemies who are nigh-invincible because the original game has them as puzzle bosses? Nah, throw two in a 10x10 room. You have a crowbar, right?

Part 10
Part 11

Last time in the ancient land of Hyrule: Gannon killed a giant moth and some statues and received the ultimate gift, a hammer. Due to a complete lack of thought, I neglected to show something off in the Screenshot LP that I did in the Video LP, so let’s get that out of the way first.



With a hammer at his side, boots on his feet, and a sapphire around his neck, Gannon had remembered something from his distant past. It seemed to him that there was something he couldn’t get before that he now has access to! He tried his house and he tried the Kakariko Village, but to no avail. Suddenly, that’s when it hit him, he had to go back to the Guardhouse.



Gannon was back in the place that nearly killed him and this time, he was well equipped. He could handle any situation that the Guardhouse threw at him and that included the Whack-a-mole traps.



Success!

Okay, time to go over the Mushroom. Basically, it’s identical to the Mushroom in LTTP. You take it over to the witch outside of the potionshop, leave the screen and come back and voila, you have Magic Powder. In Parallel Worlds, Magic Powder doesn’t stray too far away from LTTP in terms of its usefulness. You can use it to turn bubbles into fairies, and really, that’s about it. There’s something else you can do with it that becomes incredibly important to helping you out with the game. If you throw the Mushroom in the Fairy Pond, however, you’re treated to a lovely surprise. For your honesty, you’re rewarded with one of the medallions and that medallion has one special benefit, you’re magic is cut in half and regenerates faster. It’s so totally worth losing the ability to turn bubbles into fairies.

Let’s start this thing off proper then, eh



Gannon had always had a deep respect for the dead, after all, he was the one who put most of them in their graves. He had never heard of Din’s Catacombs and didn’t have the faintest idea of where to even head off. It was time for him to pay his respects to the dead and hope for one of them to be his muse. He sat there for days, with only soldiers and ghosts to keep him company. He was so very alone. Eventually, inspiration had struck him and he decided it would be a good idea to look around. After about five minutes, he ran into a building he had never seen before. It was a mausoleum. In front of this ancient and decrepit building, Gannon saw two high and protruding posts that must have blocked the way for centuries. It must have been put in place to keep the living dead from wrecking havoc around the land of Hyrule.



*Whack*

Gannon couldn’t care less about the undead. “If they decide to turn against man, then my blade shall turn against them!” Gannon loudly exclaimed.



Welcome to Din’s Catacombs. As soon as we set one foot in the door, we’re greated to a pitch black room with three Beamos statues and one of those fireball, sand swirly, wormy dudes. This is going to be a fun place.



Believe it or not, this is actually a Small Key. For whatever reason, this particular enemy always drops a Blue Rupee (It’s worth Five Rupees!) and the Small Key together.

Said Key is used in the room with flying floor tiles and we’re treated to a hallway with an oil lamp in the middle of it. Nothing bad could ever happen from here, right?



Gannon had set foot into a room with a deep, dark and foreboding presence. On the other side of the room, he could barely make out a small metal cube with a face out of it. “Unusual decor” Gannon thought to himself, “At least that’s the least of my worries.” As that precise moment, a fireball whirled towards Gannon’s head from that Unusual cube and hit him square in the head. “Owwie” Gannon screamed with all his might. That cry from pain set off something truly horrible. It turns out that the sand that lined the floor wasn’t a case of poor interior decoration after all. This sand was here for a sinister purpose. This sand housed worms.



Stupid Lanmolas, let’s try this again!



Dammit!



Okay, good. I much prefer my giant sandworms be explodey than alive.



This room really isn’t as bad as it looks. None of the Snakehead Statues shoot fireballs and the spike path isn’t anywhere near as ridiculous as they get in the late game.



My light ran out, so it’s kind of hard to make this out, but the entirety of the South and East walls are covered in cracks. In this room, only this bottom crack is real. I told you not to get used to the cracked walls, man. I told ya.



Hey, a Small Key!



OH GOD NOT THE WALLMASTERS! Also, you’ve got to love the broken color pallet. It’s classy.

Huh,what? I don’t remember what exactly killed me here and I guess whatever it was caught me by surprise since I didn’t feel the need to capture it eating my face. Oh well, that gives me the opportunity to mention a few things.



To the very east of Din’s Catacombs, there’s a cave in which to fill up your bottles with life-giving fairies. Take advantage of this as it’s the only thing keeping you from becoming Mark Soup.



Secondly, you have to fight the freakin’ Lanmolas every time you die. I’m not particularly good at this fight and it eats up a fairy every time I go through here. Hell, even in LTTP I’m not that great at this fight. Most of the time I just use the Ice Rod to give these dudes some punishment. For those of you not in the know, the Ice Rod kills a Lanmola in about two hits.



This time, let’s see what lies to the North.



Dammit.

Gannon had finally found the light, but unfortunately for him, the Monsters had found something much more efficient. These monsters held the power to manipulate time when they clustered together. Gannon had never seen so many creatures in one place and so many traps all moving at once. It was almost more than the world could bare. Surely, if anymore monsters were in this same space, the world would be torn asunder and the galaxies would collide.

Slowdown is a bitch and Euclid obviously didn’t give a damn about it. The slowdown gets so bad that the tails on Mini Moldorms don’t show up half the time. Oh, and they killed me.



Some call it fate and some call it instinct, but after Gannon cleared the room, he felt a burning sensation in his satchel. Hot, hot heat was escaping from his bag and burning his body to bits. He felt that if he didn’t do something to displace this heat, he would surely perish before reaching Parallel Tower. Luckily for Gannon, he had such an item and the room he was in happened to house four unlit oil lamps. “Burn, burn, burn” said Gannon as he immolated everything around him. Suddenly, as the last lamp was lit, the Planet itself began to shake under his feet. After the tremors subsided, Gannon felt he had accomplished something of merit. Fire is the ultimate answer.



Gee, I wonder where they got the idea for the expanding room? Oh well, time to see where this door leads us~



I don’t know, it doesn’t look that bad. Just a couple of spikes and everything is dark again. Man, this game is starting to look weak at this point.



Oh dear



Yeah, maybe walking into the Boss room in the middle of the dungeon wasn’t the best idea in the world. I’m starting to think that maybe we should hold off on the North for a while.



AGHHHHHH! GOD I HATE YOU LANMOLAS SO MUCH

Though the hands of fate reaches down at him both physically and metaphorically, Gannon wouldn’t have any of it. The passage was narrow and his mortal and immortal enemies wanted him to reside in the crypt permanently. Gannon avoided any and all danger that came his way.



Hooray! Well, seeing as we already met the boss, I think this probably the only Big Key in the dungeon. Time to go find us some real treasure!



Hey, it’s another bombable wall. Better yet, there are plenty of jerks in here for slayin’



Yay, treasures for us. This room actually has something like three Beamos Statues waiting to laser us in the face. The best part about it is that you can’t see them most of the time and the lasers are so fast that you can’t really dodge them. Basically, you’ve got to trust your luck here. This entire dungeon seems to love throwing things that are impossible to dodge at your while you’re in the dark. Hell, in one room in particular you can find Beamos Statues, Cannoneers, Spike traps, Flying Floor Tiles and Wallmasters. All this in one room of the dungeon. WHY DO YOU HATE ME EUCLID?

Well, with that out of the way, I guess there’s only one last thing to do.



The metallic hellbeast, Moldorm+, writhed in the center of the spike-filled room. Dodge as he might, Gannon had a hard time acoiding the cold, stinging sensation of spikes poking into his pink flesh. This room really hurt and Gannon couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor creature. This Hellbeast didn’t seem too bad, afterall, the least Gannon could do was put it out of its misery.



The poor creature could finally rest after what could have only been a weary lifetime. As it exploded as his feet, Gannon knew this creature too would leave nothing behind. Somehow he felt like he had been ripped off, but he fought those feelings to revel in his good deed. Gannon did something good that day and he needed no reward. As soon as he had come to the realization, The Goron Ruby fell from the sky and Gannon was one step closer to receiving the Master Sword.

Next Time: We collect hearts and junk.

Moldorm in a room with no holes?

How... uncharacteristically kind.

Ehh, believe it or not, it's actually more difficult without the pits. The fall each time gave you several opportunities to refill you hearts and try again. Typically you'd only take a hearts worth of damage during the whole fall. With the spikes, you're pretty much just fucked. What typically happens is you get bounced off his tail during an attack and land in the spikes only to have Moldorm consistently knock you back into them. He's no Armos Statue, but it'll do.

Yeah, watch the video Primey. You'll see realms of bullshit you've never even dreamed of.

That sound like that should be the name of the sequel to this game. :P

ahahahahahahahahawhy

This Moldorm fight is a jerk move, because most players will go in thinking the spin attack does double damage. It doesn't. And then you accidentally hit the body and get thrown to the spikes.

I'm starting to think that this is not a very good game.