Through the looking glass? Let's Play The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past!

Well whaddaya know. A super bomb? For me? Oh, you shouldn't have! I hope this does the trick...



I guess I just set it here, and... wait, a timer? Shit.



RUN!!



*BOMB!*



We made it inside! I wonder what I should throw into this mysterious pond... well, since I don't need this crappy bow anymore, I guess I could toss it.



...Which results in us meeting what is perhaps the ugliest faerie I've ever seen. I don't think I should've tossed anything...



Never mind, I... guess we got something useful?



Well, now that my curiosity is sated, I guess we can go about beating that Ganon guy. Down the piggy-hole we go.

You could say we "porked" the wrong guy to mess with! Hahaha, I kid, I kid.



And the battle for the Triforce starts in earnest! Phase one begins with Ganon warping around while throwing that Trident of Power of his. Since it tends to home straight for you, you're best bet is to let it get close, then move to the side so it passes by.

Note the use of a spin-attack - a quirk of coding prevents nothing more than rank 3 sword attacks from damaging him, and he's hard-coded to be immune to hammer strikes. That means that the only attack in our arsenal that can get through is the spin.

However, an interesting thing about Ganon is that it isn't the power of the strikes that matters - twelve strikes from any level of sword is usually enough to force him to go into the next phase, health be damned.



And what an annoying phase it is. Now he's hiding himself into corners while summoning fire keese to attack us. With eight in all and each capable of taking off four hearts, we have to finish this round as fast as possible.

Except... we can't. Once he's started spinning, those fireballs form a protective barrier around him, making excess attacks suicide. Your best bet is to try and get a spin attack in before and after he begins forming his attack, targetting his leg since it's the only part uncovered during the spell.



Once we hit him twelve more times, Ganon begins stage 3, firing off fire keese in a spiral while knocking down those panels around us.



Note that if you don't think you can win, you can jump down to the floor below and head back outside to heal. However, it also forces the battle restart as well, so use it only as a last resort.



If you don't have the Silver Arrows, be sure to stop by Sahasrahla/Zelda/whoever this is for a clue. But since we already have them, we should get back to the fight.



This should look familiar to anyone who's played the first game. Ganon warps around in the darkness while trying to knock you down with even more fire keese. In order to continue the attack, we'll have to light these torches and break his spell.



Once the light returns, Ganon pauses for a bit, then resumes his attack. If you hit him during this phase you can stun him as pictured, then hit him with a shot from the Silver Arrows. However, he's more resilient than his previous appearance, as it takes four shots in all to take him down squealing.

After a brief bit of pyrotechnics, a silence settles on the room.



And there we have it. Minimalist challenge: complete. Now to grab the last item we'll ever need.

This is the first time we've seen all three, isn't it? I mean, the first game we only grabbed the Triforce of Power, and the second involved Courage.

Though I seem to have forgotten how... chatty this thing is. Then again, we never really learned about why Ganon took over the dark world, so...



Oh, it seems it's finally finished. Time to grab it and make a wish.



C'mon, babes and booty. Don't let me down...!



YES.



Oh, wait, it's just everything going back to normal.

...nuts.

Man, I hardly even remember the guy anymore. He was that hermit guy, right?



Like hell they do. I conquered this place back in the third installment.



I'm not sure being chased around by the angriest character is considered "making a friend"...



Wait, where the hell did that shield come from? I swore I dropped it back in the dark world.



At the low, low price of 500 rupees! Poor men need not apply!

Zora Television, over the waves to you~



Dancin' dancin' dancin'.



That's right, LttP remake. TWINS, not triplets. Take that!



Technically that's an ocarina.. oh forget it. I gave up when they called the recorder a "whistle" back in the first game.

Is it the tri-force? Ganon looks suitably piggy and evil! Thanks for the run you're making me want to play through this entire game... Curse You!

Edit: Awesome run! Congratz on doing it with hardly anything! Great thread!

Why couldn't we have gotten the Silver Arrows from her instead? Sigh.



I wonder what would have happened if I didn't rescue that other dwarf? Hmm...



Wait, is that... is that scarecrow waving at us? Weeiirrd.



Transmogrifers~ Faeries in disguise!

Transmogrifers~ More than meets the eye!



Yeah, you better enjoy using that Bug-Catching Net for now, since I'm coming back later to take it from you.

Link: stealing from the childrens since 1992.



Jesus, this guy's STILL lost? I guess not even the Triforce could help his sense of direction.



You may be all huffy now bub, but just be lucky I didn't unwish you for that mugging a while back.





Cue credit roll.

Technically, these numbers are disproportionate, as it includes the number of saves made along with game-overs. Not to mention the fact that it doesn't specify the number of deaths in Agahnim's Tower or the Pyramid of Power. Here's the real breakdown:

Castle Dungeon: 0 Deaths (0 from Boss)
East Palace: 0 Deaths (0 from Boss)
Desert Palace: 1 Death (0 from Boss)
Mountain Tower (of Hera): 0 Deaths (0 from Boss)
Castle Tower: 0 Deaths (0 from Boss)
Dark Palace: 1 Death (1 from Boss)
Swamp Palace: 0 Deaths (0 from Boss)
Skull Woods: 4 Deaths (3 from Boss)
Thieves' Town: 6 Deaths (6 from Boss)
Ice Palace: 2 Deaths (1 from Boss)
Misery Mire: 8 Deaths (4 from Boss)
Turtle Rock: 21 Deaths (8 from Boss)
Ganon's Tower: 4 Deaths (0 from Boss)
Pyramid of Power: 11 Deaths (11 from Boss)
Number of saves made: 13

Total number of games played: 71



And that's all she wrote. Thanks for following along everyone, and I hoped you enjoyed the thread!



But wait, there's more? That's right, Let's Backtrack is going to begin with a four-part collect-a-thon series before finishing up for good, going for the items in this order:

-Part 1-
1] Bottle 4
2] Tempered Sword
3] Bombos Medallion
4] Red Shield (w/ glitch)
5] Cane of Byrna
6] Good Bee
7] Red Mail

-Part 2-
8] Magic Boomerang
9] Boomerang
10] Magic Mushroom
11] Bottle 1
12] Heart Container 1
13] Mirror Shield
14] Bottle 2

-Part 3-
15] Bug-Catching Net
16] Bottle 3
17] Blue Mail
18] Magic Cape
19] Golden Sword
20] 1/2 Magic Meter
21] Quiver Upgrade
22] Bomb Upgrade

-Part 4-
23] Heart Pieces 1-4
24] Heart Pieces 5-8
25] Heart Pieces 9-12
26] Heart Pieces 13-16
27] Heart Pieces 17-20
28] Heart Pieces 21-24
29] ????

Thanks again to everyone who's followed along so far, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the series!

The first half of the credits roll always got to me. The series' theme is okay, I guess, but the quiet melody before that is amazing.

So, the "Games Played" means the times you died/saved within a dungeon? I always wondered, because I think have a save with "zero games" and I was all like, "Whut?" when I saw that. I never really bothered looking it up on GameFAQs, either.

Let me be the first to say: Um. EW!

It counts how many times you've saved period - dungeon or overworld, it doesn't matter. Which is annoying, since there's no way to get 0 games without playing it all in one go, and that gets tedious very fast.

What are you talking a-

...!!!

WHAT HAVE I DONE!?

Aaah, I see. I'll check that file, then. It was either zero or one, but I've never played LttP in one sitting.

And, um... ew. I just didn't want to say anything...

Isn't that impossible? If you could have NOT rescued him, wouldn't you have not done so?

That's why I said I wondered.

But by the powers of double negatives, this means he WOULD have rescued him, which he did and...

Not that the little bastard has any right to do so, what with running away every time I approached him.

You got to see the completed Triforce in the ending for Zelda 2. Not that many people got that far.

Also: Beating Ganon's last phase with one heart? Geez man, you're good.

I like how most of the scenes depict the good things that resulted from Link's wish, but then some of them are just totally arbitrary and don't imply much of anything.

"THE RETURN OF THE KING"

All right!

"YOUR UNCLE RECOVERS"

Yes!!

"THE LOST OLD MAN"

Aweso--wait, what?

You can actually catch that guy!

PapillonReel, show us how to catch that guy!

People beat Zelda 2? I don't think I ever got past the second dungeon before I lost interest.

As a kid, I left my SNES on for several days straight for just this purpose. I turned the TV off, and put something in front of the SNES power light so my mother wouldn't notice.

I still have that save file, too. Of course -now- I need a minimalist run save to accompany it...

... I got to the third?

Very well timed upload from scans_daily:
Hot LttP Comics Action

This thread's been vicariously thrilling for me, as I've never got further than the Ice Dungeon due to lost saves, lost cartridges, broken harddisks, etc. Although looking at some of the later stages, I'm almost glad I didn't have to. I'm perfectly happy to let someone else suffer on my behalf, though. Good job, PapillonReel!

That compilation is sitting on my bookshelf at home, right next to the Super Mario World one. I've got all the individual ones in the old NPs, but they're in boxes underneath my stairs.

I think I gave my copy of that comic to a friend as a gift. I might rummage through all my boxes and see if I'm wrong, though.

That was fantastic stuff PapillonReel. Of course, now I'm having to play it again. Which doesn't help with my backlog at all.

Thanks for the game, papillon!

Hells yeah! As a kid, it was a great accomplishment. I think I had some sort of guide for it, but I'm pretty sure I didn't know the trick about kneeling in the corner and slashing to make the final boss fight super-simple.

And great run!

The WHAT trick? Oh wait that's not ThunderBird, where my save state on the VC version is stuck at.

No no, Thunderbird is a bitch. You do know that you can use... Spell... I think at the beginning of the fight to take half his health away, right? Otherwise, just use Jump magic and whack him.

I really don't remember him being that hard, but I was a kid back then and had nothing better to do with my time than to keep trying over and over again (although I really have no memories of Thunderbird taking me many tries to defeat).