yesterday morning I finished playing through one of the best Zelda games ever made. I did end up finding all of the items available without too much trouble, though 7 pieces of heart still elude me. in any case getting all of the pieces of heart in that game is completely unnecessary because it really isn't that hard for the most part if you know what you're doing. There are a few annoying bosses throughout the game, for example the third boss that pushes you off the small platform about 4 out of 5 times he hits you, which gets kind of annoying having to climb back up just to be able to hit him a couple more times. None of the bosses are overly difficult really as long as you keep a few fairy's in a bottle handy at all times. There are a few instances in the game where you can skip ahead to different dungeons in the shadow world (you can completely bypass the third dungeon and go straight to the fourth, and if you have done the first four dungeons you can skip the fifth one altogether and do the sixth and seventh).
When I say the game is relatively easy however, I say this as someone who has played the game several times as a kid and kind of instinctively knows where stuff is hidden and where the power ups are. I had both the red boomerang and the second tier shield after beating the second dungeon in the light world as well as the flippers because I knew about the fairy fountain behind the waterfall that will power up two of your items for free if you drop them into the pond. The boomerang doesn't really help that much anyways but the shield is useful for some of the dungeons as it will block fireballs and most projectiles, with the exception of lasers and a few other things. The Ice rod is one of those items that at first seems useless to obtain until you get to the seventh dungeon in the shadow world, where it is necessary to have for the boss. If you missed it earlier on (which isn't too hard to do if you're a first time player who doesn't do much exploring), then you are pretty much screwed for that fight. There are also a few medallions that are scattered around the map, and they aren't too hard to find. Only two of them are necessary to beat the game though as both the sixth and seventh dungeons must be opened through using them but asides from that they aren't that useful as actual weapons unless you just don't feel like killing a ton of enemies on screen and want to waste some magic. The second of the three medallions I don't believe even has any use in the game, though I could be wrong so don't quote me on that one. Maybe it's used to get to one of the pieces of heart I'm missing but I doubt it.
The fifth and seventh dungeons are by far the hardest of the dungeons in the game simply because they are essentially more of a 'choose the right path" kind of dungeon. the fifth dungeon gave me some troubles because I missed a key somewhere and ended up spending a good amount of time running through all the rooms trying to make sure I didn't miss it stupidly somewhere, which I ended up doing because I didn't look under one pot in a room filled with pots, because there was also a switch to open the door to the next room under a pot that I was looking for and once I found that switch I pretty much stopped looking under pots assuming that if I needed a key it would probably be in a chest as most of the other keys in the dungeon were. I never was a fan of ice based dungeons or levels in games anyways since you alway slide around everywhere and it really just makes it a pain in the ass to get to your destination or fight off monsters. Sure it's challenging, but it's also annoying.
The seventh dungeon is a real pain in the ass simply because of the fact that it really eats through your magic meter if you have no idea where you're going and haven't found the cave in the light world where the altar is so that you can summon the bat who cuts your magic cost in half. that upgrade is essential for the seventh dungeon, unless you feel like carrying two bottles filled with green potions. I managed to actually go through the seventh dungeon without any green potions simply because I had the magic upgrade, though I really cut it close in the boss, so I wouldn't recommend being an idiot like I was and barely having enough magic to kill the boss. This dungeon is also annoying because there is one room that contains the compass that is basically a death trap if you don't have the mirror shield, or forget that the magic mirror also teleports you to the entrance of dungeons and end up dying like a dummy, which I did several times when I was younger so I just avoided that room entirely when I played through it yesterday and then remembered the thing about the mirror. Oh well, the compass isn't that great anyways. it really serves almost no real use in the game since most of the time you can look at the map and the boss room is 90% of the time the room you haven't been in yet, with the exception of the fourth dungeon where the boss only appears in the room if you lure a specific npc into the light that you can flood in through the ceiling with a well thrown bomb.
Getting back on topic, there is another annoying part in the seventh dungeon that can and probably will be lethal if you're low on health as you will almost always take a hit in this one part. The part I'm referring to is the room that has around 5 chests with an eyeball over each one, and one of those chests holds a key for a door that leads to the path to the boss room. You will likely have the mirror shield by the time you're in that room but the room is designed in a way that there's one main path going down the middle of the room with side paths going to the chests, so the second you turn around you're likely gonna take a hit in the back by the lasers and die unless you go back to the beginning using the mirror, but then you would have to go through some of the more annoying moving platform mazes that are on the way to the boss room, so the game really screws you over there. of course if you have a few fairies you could just take the hit and use one to revive yourself and then book it to the boss, but if you dont' have any then you're really screwed and it would make the dungeon that much more annoying. The dungeon is already annoying enough in that it drains your magic meter a good bit and has a few floating platform mazes that are a real bitch to navigate because the paths for these platforms do branch out but you have to press the button to move in that direction at the exact time that your character passes over that point or you miss it. This can get really annoying if you're not that great with timing it. The spinning flaming balls of death also don't make it any easier as you'll probably take a few hits anyways going through it no matter what path you takes, but then having to play around with those finnicky turns can really cause damage to pile up, hence why you would probably be nearly dead for most of the second half of this dungeon since the room must be traversed to get to the second half of the dungeon. I'm just thankful that there is a few healing things I believe before the boss room and some magic refills as well. The boss itself isnt' too hard, if not a bit annoying because the ice head will turn the floor to ice, hence I recommend you kill it first before it puts too much ice everywhere, making the main heads attacks hard to dodge. in comparison the fire head isn't too bad, and the side heads of the boss are a throwback to the first boss in the original Zelda game that had heads with a similar design style. With the exception of those two dungeons though, the rest are pretty bearable, though the sixth dungeon does have a really mean part before the big chest where you really have to book it there before the platforms start falling away or you have to leave and go back, which will likely take a few tries for even experienced players to get right since there is literally no time to spare from the second you run into that room, there's not even time to use the boots so don't even bother.
On a final note, the boss of the game I believe is impossible to kill without the silver arrows, which you get from the fairy inside the pyramid in the dark world, but to get to the fairy you need the pink bomb, which you can only get from the bomb shop where your house would be in the shadow world, and it's only available after you beat the seventh dungeon I believe. Also, you cannot jump off cliffs with that pink bomb or it detonates and you have to buy another for 100 rupees, though money shouldn't be an issue in the game since you should probably be maxed out on it by the time you even enter the shadow world if you've done some exploring on the overworld and bombed the cracks in the walls in various places. However, you wouldn't know to get the pink bombs for that in the game unless you listened to the rumors that random npc's in houses and caves give you, or talked to the fortune teller in the shadow world. So yea it would suck if anyone went to the boss without those silver arrows because they'd basically have screwed themselves over pretty badly, kind of like how in the first zelda game if you missed the silver bow in the dungeon you couldn't beat ganon.
Anyways I'll probably go look up the locations of those last 7 heart pieces now and find them since I don't feel like pointlessly wandering for 5 hours looking for them when I've pretty much already essentially beaten the game. Next up I'd expect either a review of mario 1-3 and super mario world, or a review of Final fantasy 4. I've played through the first two mario games already and technically beat the third one, but I beat the third one cheaply by using the trick with the two flutes in world 1 so I'm gonna actually re-play through it and do it properly rather than skip straight to world 8. as for Final fantasy 4 I'm gonna completely re-play through it from start to finish on an emulator rather than continue from the end of the game on my PSone since it's been pretty much a year since the last time I played it. So stay tuned for those upcoming reviews.
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