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

I am totally on the edge of my seat. I'm seriously enjoying this LP and I don't have a preference on dungeon order. Keep up the good work.

I love this LP so much. Thank you for work. In the spirit of Christmas, I say you curbstomp the ever living fuck out of the Dark World, because you have truly paid your penance for whatever sins you've committed already.

I dunno how much of a curbstomp it'll be, but yeah, take the least-agonizing path.

I've got to concur with the general mood here - take the easiest path possible. However, as you do, be sure to let us know how doing things differently (or if there's a way the scenario designers intend for you to do things) differs in difficulty. But I can't help thinking that you're out of the woods. Surely there can't be anything of more jackassery than taking on Armos Knights with a toothpick or fighting Moldorm in Spikeville, right?

...r-right?

Take the path that gives you the most power as quickly as possible.

Easy mode.

But play it with your tongue.

Do all of the dungeons in ascending order of bullshit.

I want to change my vote to this. Half the fun of Parallel Worlds is hoping Euclid is done trying to top himself, and discovering he just keeps going.

I vote for this too, but with the caveat that if there's any way to make the dungeons substantially easier, you take it (unless it makes other parts even harder); I want you to show how much bullshit there is (in ascending order) even if you go out of your way to avoid it.

I'm going with this too.

Kick this game's ass. It deserves it.

I vote for ascending order of bullshit too.

God I love this LP.

I vote for whatever causes you the most pain.

I think we've already solidified my vote of ascending order of bullshit :P

I vote for you to absolutely destroy this monstrosity.

I have mixed feelings about this, but my vote is for curb stomping. You deserve your vengence

Well, this week I lucked into yet another special guest. This time, we have everyone's favorite skeleton, Beat. For one reason or another, he decided to join me for a fantastically boring overworld update and somehow it became magical. Thanks again Beat, hopefully I can get you to join me again sometime soon.

Part 17

Last time in the... Wait, Darkworld?



Things have changed. What was once a vibrant, young world has become dying, cold world. Things are dead here. There are skulls everywhere. This was a dangerous place that Gannon came across. This was a dark world.



One of the first things you’ll notice about the Dark World is that it is absolutely littered with Heart Pieces. All in all, I’m going to have five more hearts by the end of the update. In a way, this kind of makes up for getting gypped out of Heart Containers from the bosses. The only reason I say kind of, is because it feels somewhat like Euclid and Seph just went out of their way to make things more annoying and aggravating for the player. Also, I’m not going to bother showing off every single heart piece I get, just because I’m going to have enough bloat going into this update due to not remembering my way around.



For 500 Rupees, you can finally upgrade your shield to one that blocks fireballs. I’m still going to get pelted a ton, but at least I’ll be safe a quarter of the time. Also, this shop sells BEES.



One of the stranger easter eggs in LTTP was the trick with the Mario portraits. Basically, you just yank on them and you get twenty rupees for free. It’s not particularly difficult to get money, but hey, free.



The Kakariko village had changed. Gone were the happy times with the cosmically aware townsfolk and the surplus of fowl; in its place were snow and ice and demons that Gannon had never seen before. He had only been here for ten minutes and already he was tired of it. This was a bad world to be in.



MacGuffin quest initiate!



Gannon shivered the entire way through the deformed Kakariko Village until he found a curious looking barn. The frontdoor was seemingly fake and the sidedoor brought him straight into a miserably cold living space. Gannon had to heat the room up somehow, and only he knew the ideal way to do so.



*Kaboom*



I honestly don’t think there’s a legitimate way to get through this room without taking damage. Sure, I get that you’re supposed to wait until the floor tiles finish and leave you with a skull-shaped walking space, but come on. There’s no way that you can dodge the tiles and two beamos statues constantly firing lasers at you while avoiding the spikes. Hell, you could take multiple hearts worth of damage just attempting to do so. Because of this, I tend to just take the hit on the spikes just to be done with it.

Oh yeah, we finally got the Bow. We went through the entire Light World without it and killed two bosses which are vastly easier with the aid of arrows. At this point, it feels kind of pointless to finally have the bow again. We have a better alternative with the Hookshot, since it paralyzes your foes and kills others outright. Now only that, but a couple of the dungeon items are straight up more useful than the bow in combat anyways due to the way magic regenerates. It doesn’t help that you can only carry twenty arrows at the start instead of the usual thirty.



*Kaboom*2



It’s really strange how Euclid saw fit to hand out a few full heart containers for no reason. It’s not like these are particularly difficult to get a hold of. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about it. It’s jes’ a little strange, ya’ reckon?



Oh, huh. He doesn’t just sell Super Bombs like I had previously thought. I know that completion of the Ice Palace and Misery Mire unlocks them in LTTP, but the dungeons and dungeon order are all kinds of screwy around here.



In case you haven’t noticed, the Darkworld is constantly being assaulted by heavy snow and thunder. It’s a really cool effect they have going on here, but I think it’s adding to some of the hiccups I’ve been experiencing with my recording.





Hey, this DUDE WHO TOTALLY ISNT GANNON has a fairy fountain and a heart container hidden behind his wall. Neat!



Gannon was at a lose as what he should do in this cold, dark world. There was only one thing in the world that could give Gannon the faith that he needed to go on, and that was his vaguely described religion of some sort. He knew where the church was in his home world and he was glad to see it in the same place in this one. However, he noticed something that didn’t quite sit right with him.



This was a haunted place.

Also, a Magic Bottle! I’ve always sort of wondered what was so magic about these bottles. I mean, all they do is hold stuff, right? Nothing magical about that. Come to think of it, the blasted thing isn’t even a bottle, it’s a jar!

Oh yeah, and a heart piece. Whoop-de-doo



Remember when I mentioned way earlier in the LP that Euclid hacked in a legitimate way to disable layers? Yeah, that’s what you need to do here. How you’re supposed to know to do this, I don’t really know. This key, much like the key in the Halls of PAIN, is required to complete the game. People playing at home(why?), don’t forget to get this key. Trust me, you’ll save yourself a lot of grief this way.



Remember all the Eyegores and firestick in the Lost Woods in LTTP? Yeah, me too.



This place has yet another heart piece. That’s pretty cool, I guess. Better yet, it has the Red Boomerang. So yes, we finally have access to the Boomerang. Remember how it took 47 hits to kill the Armos Knights earlier? Yeah, it takes about 13 to kill them with the boomerang. Now, the reason why we skipped getting the Blue Boomerang is kind of a mysterious one. As it turns out, if you decide to do the dungeon “right”, you’ll end up with the Blue Boomerang before Armos Knights are even a twinkle in the game’s eye. By doing this, however, you completely screw yourself out of getting the Red Boomerang. It’s really up to personal preference on which Boomerang to take. I can totally understand people wanting to take it easy with the Armos Knights, but I much prefer the range of the Red Boomerang.



Whatever could this mean?



Well, let’s fast travel and find out!



Oh you’ve got to be kidding me...



EUCLID!!!!!! Here’s the thing about this area: For the vast majority of the time, the floor is actually invisible. Yes, invisible. You’re not completely screwed, however, as the floor glows red about 1/30th of the time. All you have to keep your precious hearts up is an occasionally blinking floor.

Now, the reason to go here is actually kind of neat. Impa's Ways works kind of as a hub so you can fast travel between four different locations. Two of which are on the overworld, and the other two lead elsewhere.

How deep does this rabbit hole go?



The Lava Isles are kind of dangerous. Lynels take about four hearts off your lifebar if they make contact with and their fireballs do the same. Do you see the glowy pebble things on the floor? Yeah, those act as spikes. You see the red crystals? Yeah, a lot of those are disguised anti-sword shooters. Really though, there isn’t much to show you here.



Other than this staircase that leads to the most inconvenient entrance to this particular cave. Why I decided to go this way for the screenshot LP, I’ll never know.



That’s not to imply that the caves themselves are any less dangerous. Seriously, eye lasers are terrible and this is probably the first one you’ll encounter. Get used to seeing these, because they’re pretty much never going away from this point on.



That cave takes us to here, which eventually takes us to...



Here.



Well this sure is something

Okay, so we get the Level 3 Sword. While it may seem kind of strange to get such a powerful sword this early into the game, don’t fret, I’m still playing Parallel Worlds. Whether or not the Level 3 sword is any more powerful than the Level 2 sword is debatable. Regular sword swipes straight up do the exact same amount of damage. Some people say that the spin attacks do more damage, but I haven’t been able to find any empirical evidence to support it. To make things stranger, sometimes it seems like it is more powerful and other times it feels pretty weak. I honestly don’t know what kind of madness Euclid and Seph did this sword, but it’s ultimately pretty fitting to the Parallel Worlds experience.



In my opinion, the Quake Medallion is the real reason coming here. I don’t really care for the medallions at all in LTTP. They’re kind of pointless items to begin with and apparently this is something I can see eye to eye with Euclid on. The wonder team took it upon themselves to give the Quake Medallion an alternate use: while it’s in your inventory, your magic regenerates at double speed. This one item makes both the Magic Cape and the Cane of Byrna infinitely more useful. Once again, this is still Parallel Worlds. Most of the seven dungeons were designed around either using one of the two invincibility items or being incredibly frustrated. I skipped the Cane of Byrna in the Halls of PAIN mostly to make the first few dungeons slightly more interesting, but I flat out need to get the Magic Cape if I plan crushing Parallel Worlds beneath my boot.

Also, one last interesting thing to note about the big fairy. Remember how throwing in an empty bottle in LTTP gave you a green potion? Yeah, that doesn’t happen here. In fact, the opposite happens. So yeah, don’t throw in any bottles filled with things you want to keep because there’s no guarantee you’ll get it back.



Back on through to the third portal in the Impa’s Way hub.



This is not the solution to this puzzle.



Ether is totally not awesome



Ughhhhhhhh



Well, like I said, this update is mostly just me getting hearts and other miscellaneous items.

I kind of neglected to show the entrance to this particular cave. It’s the the west of Parallel Gannon’s House. It also serves as a shortcut to the swamp area. This is pretty rockin’ cave to find. Hell, there’s even treasure to be had. How exactly are we meant to get to it, though?



Awesome, this is the second small key in the Darkworld. But now that we got that, I guess we have to save and quit to get unstuck.



I don’t think I know the right words to say here, so I think I’ll just say Arhdhfahsjk. That’s a word, right?



Meanwhile, between the two caves...



And I guess that’ll do it for this update. Sorry that is was a little sparse kids, working retail around Christmas kind of stole a lot of my freetime. Hopefully I’ll make up for this with the next update.

Oh, I guess that next update is right now. Welcome to the Dungeons that are going to encompass the next seven updates! I know you guys voted for me to do things in ascending order of bullshit, but that kind of doesn’t work here. Really, it’s pretty much just different flavors of bullshit more than anything else. I’m going to go ahead and spoilertag all the bosses and items. So yeah, just tell me where to head and I’ll go there. Clearest vote leader wins. If nothing looks clear, I’ll go ahead and choose. Don’t let me down here Tyrants.

I went ahead and did a preview video as well, that is if you're into that kind of thing

Part 18

Saria's Gardens



-Boss: Blind
-Item: Fire Rod
Saria’s Gardens’ biggest traits are: Beamos Statues, conveyor belts, Lizardmen, gigantic blocks you have to lift rhythmically, invisible spikes, game ending bugs, backtracking, pointless switch puzzles and Wall Masters. This is a pretty good starting point and it has one of the more immediately useful dungeon items. The boss is unchanged from LTTP, so that isn’t too absurdly difficult.

Rauru's Ruins



-Boss: Arrghus
-Item: Titan's Mitt
Rauru’s Ruins is effectively the water temple of the game. The main things you have to worry about here are: Raising and lowering water levels, complete darkness, two fiendish minibosses that are much more difficult than the actual boss, invisible floors, water bugs, and minor hookshot trickery. This is the first intended dungeon of the Dark World, but I think it’s kind of tough compared to some of the others. Still, it’s where I started on my initial playthrough, so it isn’t a terrible choice either.

Ruto's Fortress



-Boss: Mothula
-Item: Blue Mail/Tunic
Ruto’s Fortress is the puzzle dungeon of the game. In here, you pretty much only have to worry about sliding block puzzles and fire puzzles. Outside of that, it does have a really mean red herring puzzle and a pretty difficult miniboss. I absolutely despise this dungeon and kind of wish it wasn’t in the game, but oh well. For the most part, it’s a pretty easy dungeon and one of the better ones to start with.

Impa’s Ways



-Boss: Moldorm
-Item: Ice Rod
So yeah, the hub actually doubles as a dungeon. This one is kind of odd in that there are no enemies to fight outside of the boss. The main thing you have to worry about in terms of difficulty is a few tricky hookshot spots and some spikes. Outside of that, this dungeon is absolutely maddening due to the fact that it’s pretty much a teleport maze like you’d see in an Shin Megami Tensei game. To compound issues, you don’t get to use maps in Parallel Worlds, so odds are you’re going to get lost. This is probably one of the more boring dungeons to watch/read, but it does have my favorite boss encounter in the entire game. I personally vote for it just for that, but whatevs.

Darunia's Cavern



-Boss: Vitreous
-Item: Cane of Somaria
This dungeon is pretty much a direct reference to Zelda 1. The music to this dungeon is actually a brand new version of the Dungeon music from the original game and the conventions are straight up from the 8-bit era. That said, this dungeon is kind of bad. It’s slightly bigger than Level 9 and there are a ton of one way doors going on. Even still, I can't help but like it a bit.

Nabooru's Hole



-Boss: Helmasaur King
-Item: Mirror Shield
Well, I guess I lied when I said that the Dark World was 100% non-linear. It turns out that this dungeon requires Super Bombs to unlock and I’m not really sure what triggers them in the bomb shop. I guess I’ll have to let you guys know when that happens.

Sheik's Hideout



-Boss: Vitreous
-Item: Red Mail/Tunic and the Magic Cape
This is pretty much the best and the most ridiculous dungeon in the game. Everything you’ve come to know in Parallel Worlds is here, only more-so. There are upwards of six mini-bosses. There are several instances where you’re forced to take a hit just to get by. There are wall-mounted eye lasers plastered in half the rooms. I could probably sit here all day and tell you the ridiculous bullshit that crops up here, but I’ll leave some of it a mystery for right now. This dungeons should probably be saved for last and odds are y’all will agree with me.

Just to let you know, I got the Magic Cape when I went into Sheik’s Hideout. If you want to see how, just watch the video. I’ll make sure to explain exactly what happened later, but I flat-out didn’t think to screencap that. For that, you have my apologies. Anyways, voting time commence.

I think I like the order you've got them in already.

I'm Voting for Saria's Gardens, because BILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF CONVEYOR BELTS.

Also babbling about nonsense to the backdrop of Garrison's Zelda Video was great fun. I'd be happy to do it again.

Impas Way sounds non-horrifying. Except for the horrifying part.

But thats relatively non-horrifying.

So that.

I'm snickering madly at the thought of "Nabooru's Hole".

Either Saria's Garden (because you say its good to get the item there early) or Impa's Way (because, Moldorm... AGAIN. Seriously what can they do with that again.)

Also I have a question. In that picture of Sheik's Hideout, you are being blasted by two eye lasers from different sides of the room. How the hell do you get out of that?

You don't