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

great Let's Play! THANK YOU FOR ENTERTAINING ME WHILE I DRANK MY MORNING COFFEE. now go get the rest of that stuff!

p.s. don't forget to turn that chicken in Kakariko Village into a lady!!

no, you have use... Thunder I think it is, just to make him vunerable. That eats a little more than half my MP so I can't Heal my dumb ass. There's a pattern I think, but I hate memorizing them and usually try to out damage the boss in those situation.

Oh, ok yeah. I was maybe 11 or 12 when I last beat the game, so forgive my hazy memory. I just don't remember his pattern being that hard to discren and/or him being hard to dodge. Not like Jacquio in Ninja Gaiden whose pattern I only finally figured out this year (previously I'd always die to Jacquio and have to come back and defeat him with a ninja art).

Glorious, Papillon! Thanks for all the fun.

Hey now, guys, we're not done just yet. Now that we've beaten Ganon (and thus finished the Minimalist Challenge), it's time to go back and grab everything we've missed.



First off on the list is the fourth bottle, found in the south-east corner of the Village of Outcasts. Head over to where the Smith's shop should be...



...To find a chest with the key locked inside. I wonder how Link knew that? But in any case, without the key, there's no way we're opening this chest anytime soon. That is, unless there was another way. Maybe we could pick the lock?

Now what kind of person would know how to do that?



Why a thief, of course. And where else do you find a thief than in the Lost Woods? Unfortunately, with this chest we can't fit through the front door.



Of course, there's always the secret entrance. Geronimo!



It looks like he's not going to help us out here, but instead he refers us to an old friend of his. Time to head down to the desert now.



This is the guy. Normally he would just shoo us away if we ran up to him and broke that sign of his, but now that we know just who he is, it gives us a little, shall we say, leverage.



And voila! One open chest, which nets us our first bottle! That's one down.

Next on the list is the Tempered Sword that the Drwarven Smithies promised us. Time to pay them a visit and call on them for a favour.



For ten rupees, they'll temper our sword for us. Since we're pretty much rolling in money at this point it's no water off our back. In fact, let's lend a hand with our own hammer, shall we?



Hey now, who're you calling an amateur? Bunch of elitist jerks.



Well, I wouldn't want to get in their way, so I guess I'm off to waste time until they're done. I think I should be fine without my sword for a little while.



Fuck.



Shit.



Damn.



Forget it. Tempered or not, I want my sword back, damn it!



Oh hey, look. They're finished. You know guys, if you weren't going to take that long you could've just asked me to wait inside.



Oh well, at least we have our sword tempered now. And what a sword it is - the blue soldiers from before go down in a single hit now, up from two from before.

Next on the list is the final medallion, Bombos, which is found on top of the canyon walls surrounding the desert. And how do we get up there you ask?



By exploiting the terrain, of course. Though I wonder how Link managed to warp several dozen feet into the air instead of reappearing inside solid rock.



In any case, like before we read the inscription and summon the medallion down from the heavens, much to the dismay of that vulture flying by.



This is going by pretty quickly, isn't it? We're already three items down.



The next item is a bit more tricky, as there are two ways to grab it. The first way is to head inside here and purchase it from the merchant inside.



However, as you can see, it costs a king's ransom in gold to buy, putting a huge dent in our wallet. If you're a cheapskate like I am, you'll probably want to hold on buying it.



Especially if you can get it from a Faerie instead! Simply pick up an old Fighter's Shield from another merchant, toss it in...



And voila! Instant, free Red Shield. Saved us 500 rupees, it did.



You can also get free magic refills here as well. Convenient!

Next we'll be heading up Death Mountain to pick up the Cane of Byrna. Simply drop down from the summit and onto this outcropping here.



Looking at this room, you may be thinking, "there's no way you can grab that item without more health".



And you know what? You're right. Without a means to heal, we can't survive long enough to make it to the end of the shaft, so we'll have to hold off on it until we figure something out.



Next off, someone requested that we pick up the Good Bee. Head by the faerie fountain beside where we found the Ice Rod.



Pull out the Quake Medallion next and cast it to shake down the entire cave.



And there we have it - the Good Bee itself. Unfortunately, we don't have a net to catch it yet so we'll have to wave goodbye for now.



Last on today's list is the Red Mail from Ganon's Tower. As much as I hate to come back to the place, we're going to have to pick it up sometime.



Here are the three staircases, by the way. The left one leads to the chest, the right one leads to the same place but takes longer, and the middle one heads upwards. Needless to say, we're taking the left route.



Which, thanks to our upgraded equipment, doesn't take too long at all. Hell, the Silver Arrows alone are enough to kill anything in one shot.

There it is, the Red Mail. Now we don't have to worry about dying anymore!



Well, except on spiked tiles of course. Then again, it's not like we got a new pair of boots, right?



However, thanks to that bottle we picked up earlier, we have a means of surviving the dreaded trip. Head down to the medicine shop to fill up a bottle with a dose of the Medicine of Life.



See? Easy-peasy. Now invincibility is in the palm of our hands.



At least, until it wears out. Oh well, it's still useful in a way.

Edit: Before I forget, here's how you can grab the super-ultra rare Blue Shield:



First off, let a wandering Like-Like steal your shield, and freeze it with Ether before it can swallow.



Next, finish off the Like-Like, preferably with your sword.



Finally, pick up the shield for it to miraculously change into the rare, blue colour! Unfortunately, the blue only lasts for a limited time, so you'll have to repeat the method whenever you quit the game.

Next Time: Everything Else Part 2: The Many Locations of the Boomerang!

The ex-thief might be my favorite bit character in a game full of them. He just wants to start over, you know? So much that he sits beside a signpost clearly asking people not to ask him about any suspicious stuff.

Of course, then Link comes along and coaxes him back into his old habits, and the next time you see him, he's cracking open treasure chests again in the ending. It's almost worth it not to get the fourth bottle just so you can support his staying on the straight and narrow.

Huh. I always dashed at the Fairy statue to release the Good Bee. And then I'd trade it at the Kakariko plaza. Mwahahaha.

And I'd also get the Cape just for the Cane of Byrna. I forget: do you keep incurring spike damage as you lift the iron block barring the way to the staff?

Yup, you do. That cave is mean. I always use the Cape there myself.

There are other uses for the Cape, though! Specifically, passing through those horrible blue bumpers and making certain boss fights a lot easier.

I only ever got far enough to break the game. Since the keys are usable between dungeons you can bring keys from the 1st to the 2nd, and use them to unlock doors there...

Doors with no keys to replace them, since they assumed by the time you get these keys you can get more from the 2nd dungeon.

I never knew you could get free medicine of magic, or get yelled at for using your hammer on your own sword. Just shows how many little details they put in this game.

I know that in Zelda 2 you can use the fairy spell to skip locked doors, in case you do try to go out of order and end up without a key. I don't understand why they didn't include extra keys like the first game did (though Zelda 2 doesn't have money, so how would buy keys?). But you don't get that until Level 3, so can you get stuck before that?

If memory serves you can get the jump spell by feeling around in the dark instead of finishing the 1st palace and getting light. With that you can get to the second palace, and the layout allows you to break the game if you open the wrong door with one of the keys from the 1st.

How could having an extra key screw you over?

Well, no legitimate way. No big deal at all with an emulator, if you don't mind hoofing around rather than abusing the save-and-restart-in-better-location method.

Works on the Wii too, doesn't it?

I've never tried to beat the game in one play, but I know I've gotten 0s all the way through the light world before. I think my lowest total was like 7 games, but I might not have died in that.

Before anyone asks, no this isn't dead, no I'm not getting tired of it. I'm taking it slow now that the actual LP is finished so I don't steal the spotlight from the other guys.

Anyway, let's backtrack!



Our first item on the list is the Boomerang, which we neglected to pick up way back in the castle. However, since Hyrule Castle is now locked tight, we're going to have to find another way to obtain it.



Towards the center of Kakariko Village, there's a house with a sealed off wall in it that you can blow open. Normally if you already picked up the Boomerang, this chest would simply have a batch of arrows in it instead, but since we didn't, we get this baby instead.



Too bad it's not very good - it only goes about two or three feet forward before returning back to you. However, if you're thinking that "hey, there must be an upgrade somewhere", you thought right.



Going way, way back to the faerie fountain in the NE part of Hyrule, you can toss in the Boomerang in the same manner as the Fighter's Shield and Bow & Arrows to get a free upgrade. Amazing how much stuff you can get from being a clutz, huh?




Of course, you could bypass the whole thing entirely and simply grab this baby in the Village of Outcasts. This particular chest is where the boy who gave up Sahasrahla was sitting in front of in the light world, but any of the many chests in the village would've given us the same prize.



Much better. Now it's fast and has good reach! It almost beats out the hookshot... almost.



The Magic Mushroom is, literally, easy-pickings. Simply retrace your steps back to the Forest Grove to find it along your way.

What's it for, you ask? You'll have to find out later in the next installment.



There are really a lot of easy items this time around. The first bottle in the game can be picked up by this haggler here, for the low, low price of 100 rupees. Kinda cheap, especially compared to that price-gouging son-of-a-bitch that sold us the Flippers.



Yeah, you knew this one was coming up, didn't you? I have to admit, leaving this container behind was eating at me the entire game.

Now, what's next? Hmm... oh. Oh dear.

Yeah, back to Turtle Rock for the Mirror Shield now. Oof, just looking at this place is making me break out into a cold sweat.



Thankfully, with all the upgrades we got over the last two updates, the return trip is a breeze - most attacks bounce harmlessly off the Red Mail and pretty much everything here dies to one or two shots from the Tempered Sword. Our quest back here nets us the ever-useful Mirror Shield, which should help us deflect those eyebeams and the Lionel's fireballs now. The thing's gigantic too - I wonder how Link is supporting that thing's weight? On one arm, at that matter.



In any case, with as much fanfare as this update started, we find the second bottle, hidden away in the back room of the Kakariko pub. That's it for now - hopefully things will get more exciting with the next search.

Next Tiime: Everything Else Part 3: The Secret of the Two Mails!

Honestly, I had no idea that you had the ability to get the Red Shield or Magic Boomerang in any way but the Fairy Fountain. The more you know!

Huh, me either. I think I actually lost my red shield once in the dark world, so I bought a small shield and threw it into the fountain again! Silly, silly me.

I knew you could buy a Red Shield, but I had no idea you could get the Boomerang anywhere but the castle basement, much less find a pre-upgraded Magic Boomerang. Madness!

Can't wait for the next update. Getting the third bottle is about as interesting as the fourth, even though it's much less complicated.

The boomerang thing has blown my mind. I honestly didn't think I could possibly learn anything new about the game at this point, but I totally did not know that.

You have turned my world upside down.

Didnt everyone thorw every object into the fairy pools to see if anything happend, or was that just me?

Yes I even threw in my fippers.

Holy cow! I didn't know that you could get the magic boomerang from Outcast Villiage!

/late revelation

this thread, the gift that keeps on giving.

Oh, I most definitely did that. Was there an upgrade for the net? The mirror? There was only one way to find out!

What I didn't know, however, was that there was a way to get the Magic Boomerang without the fairy pool.

And I still don't believe it! There must be Photoshoppery afoot.

I did that when I was a kid, some things I threw in twice just to make sure.