davidcarlton
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Registered: 07/15/08
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| Posted 07/06/09 at 12:46 AM | Reply with quote #1 |
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| This thread is for your experiences in Snowhead Temple. |
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MoriartyL
Registered: 01/20/09
Posts: 295
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| Posted 07/20/09 at 12:09 PM | Reply with quote #2 |
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I've been stuck in the first room (at least, the first room with a challenge in it) for around 15 minutes now. That's because there are certain elements of controlling a Goron which I find very unintuitive, and the first time I'm expected to figure out these elements, it's in a room where if you fall you have to climb up a ladder and start over.
Tatl says that the way to get through the room is by spinning in place on a slippery surface. Makes sense to me. So I tried over and over again, pushing the analog stick as softly as I could while curled up, so that I'd just roll and not move. It took me a long time to realize that the reason it wasn't working wasn't that I had the angle wrong or the timing wrong or anything like that, but because it actually works the opposite way! If you push the analog stick all the way on a slippery surface, it won't move and you'll roll in place. But if you push it just a little, it'll move quickly. This seems (and feels) very backwards to me, but at least I know what I'm doing now.
When I figured that out, the surprises weren't done. After doing it a few times, I was able to get onto the ledge without accidentally falling off it. Then I saw a platform to jump to, so I ran toward it. Only to find out that Goron Link can't jump. I wish I'd known that.
At least no one else will make my mistakes now.
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MoriartyL
Registered: 01/20/09
Posts: 295
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| Posted 07/21/09 at 10:33 AM | Reply with quote #3 |
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Last dungeon, I said that the main theme was the Deku Flowers. I thought it was interesting that the dungeon would revolve around that, since it had been in the game for hours already, and I surmised that it was meant to feel like a finale for that kind of gameplay. My assumption was that each dungeon would be centered on a different species, each one wrapping up its gameplay, so that it would be an inversion of the formula used in Ocarina of Time.
It seems I gave them a tad too much credit. The Deku Flowers are still being used here, so they didn't mean to "wrap it up" back in the other dungeon and there's no formula-inversion going on here. Actually, I'm starting to wonder if they realized that the focus of the earlier dungeon was the Deku Flower rather than the bow-and-arrow (keeping in mind that the boss there was all arrows). Here we have a dungeon which doesn't use Goron Link all that much at all. You can barely pass through a room without having to turn human for one reason or another.
So anyway, this is another forgettable dungeon. (Literally: I didn't remember anything at all about this dungeon from the first time I played.) The theme here is fire arrows. (At this rate we'll have a third dungeon with ice arrows, and a fourth dungeon with light arrows. But that's about the most boring and obvious thing they could do, so I'll give them more credit than that and expect a more interesting item next time. Maybe something original!)
Fire arrows were in Ocarina of Time, but hidden away in a puzzle. I don't think they were mandatory, though I could be mistaken. In any event, they weren't used much. So the developers must see that as an opportunity.
They don't really find much to do with it. There are some ice monsters, which in Ocarina of Time could be killed by just about anything but here need to be killed with fire arrows. That's fine, I guess. There aren't many puzzles in this dungeon, I guess because they've already done a whole bunch of torch puzzles earlier and that's the standard thing to do with fire arrows. It's mainly just a maze to get around in. If you're not good with navigation, good luck. But if you are, there's not much to it. There's a neat puzzle toward the end, to get to the boss.
The boss itself is really fun. In a little bit of irony, it doesn't use the fire arrows. The first dungeon had more Deku-flying than arrow-shooting, and the boss used arrows. Here there's more arrow-shooting than Goron-rolling, so the boss uses rolling. Go figure. But it's nice. It's easy, but having to keep moving all the time makes it exciting nonetheless.
If there's a pattern emerging from these dungeons, it's that each one uses a human item (which you get a little bit in) and movement as one of the other species. Some of the enemies and puzzles will use one of the two, but most of them will just be generic fighters. And the boss can use either one, but not both.
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zackman
Registered: 10/21/08
Posts: 43
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| Posted 07/21/09 at 11:50 AM | Reply with quote #4 |
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| I remember that room from the first time I played Majora's Mask: my roommates would periodically walk by and make fun of me because I would still be trying to roll over that same gap and falling over and over and over.
It was much easier this time--the theme of the dungeons seems to be "hard enough for you?". Except that, like the dungeons in OoT: Master Quest, they aren't really harder, just more frustrating because there are more places to fall and more cheap attacks from enemies. The puzzles themselves are easier than OoT's Water Temple or Forest Temple or actually many other Zelda dungeons.
Hmph. I'm going back to town for a while.
One thing before I go: Snowhead follows the traditional two-stage Zelda dungeon design, where you can traverse a large part of the dungeon before finding the new tool (but using previous tools) and a second part after finding the new tool. In Majora's Mask the obvious tack is to have the previous tool be the newest mask. But I think in this case, the designers couldn't come up with many interesting things to do as a Goron, so most of the dungeon's complexity comes after you get the fire arrows. It's too bad, because apparently Gorons are immune to shallow lava, but not to deep water (and they can't jump), so surely some combination of that with fire arrows would have made for interesting mask-switching puzzles. |
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sparky
Registered: 07/14/08
Posts: 167
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| Posted 07/21/09 at 08:11 PM | Reply with quote #5 |
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As mentioned, I'm not particularly good at controlling Goron-Link, which is a problem in Termina because the typical laws of physics are suspended and it is possible to rebound from a wall with many times the velocity with which you struck it. Towards the end of this temple I proved this rigorously by falling all the way to the bottom five or six times, including one beautiful instance in which I made my way slowly across the snowdrift, then brushed the wall and bounced halfway across the room and fell down into the lava. You can imagine how pleased I was to realize I would have to go back down to reposition the elevator and make it past this juncture again.
Despite my rank incompetence, Goht wasn't very hard except for his long-range magic lightning. A surprising feature of this fight (to be repeated, I've discovered) is that none of the jars in the room contain any health. What they do contain is arrows, which seems odd considering the almost-certain failure of any attempt to shoot the big bull. And just what does a giant, frozen, mechanical bull have to do with anything? I've got no idea. Odolwa's design might have been iffy, but at least a tribal leader summoning bugs roughly jived with the jungle-like setting and the other dungeon inhabitants. Goht is totally disconnected from the temple and the other creatures in it.
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LouisF
Registered: 07/07/09
Posts: 117
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| Posted 07/23/09 at 05:22 AM | Reply with quote #6 |
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Boy did I have fun playing through this level... I don't know if it was the caffeine rush or a result of playing too much Tomb Raider in the last few days, but I felt the utmost jubilation at piecing this dungeon together and watching it all connect gracefully. Apart from the more complex geography (which I had predicted after completing Woodfall), what struck me was the quality of the individual rooms: starting with interesting and varied layouts, many of the rooms held their own challenge or mystery with its discrete reward, most often a Stray Fairy. This made clear to me that the Fairies were not simply added as an afterthought, but were carefully melded into the design of the dungeons and meant to be actively sought by the player. At the same time, I enjoyed how progressing through the level required consideration of the structure as a whole (for example, using the previously-negligible small room with an eye target as an elevator once the tower is raised: brilliant). It is easy to fall down but almost as easy to get back up once the terrain is already prepared, keeping the sense of scale and satisfaction provided by the upward movement while cutting on the frustration.
I felt that the navigation solutions were evenly spread between using the Goron and human forms. I did not stop to measure the exact proportion, but I felt that every item and ability was put to contribution and that the action was kept lively. There is even a small role for Deku Link, which may not seem very plausible in this environment, but at least reinforces the idea of a "collaboration" between species that others have suggested before. The boss fight, however, drove a point home very clearly to me: while it may be the Fire Arrows that awaken the guardian and initiate the chase, it is the Goron's rolling charge that is the star here. This is Darmani's fight, and Link is only there to finish what this poor fellow failed to accomplish in his time. What a pleasure, then, that the job in question consists of the most inspired and exciting battle of the game at this point, and possibly one of the best of the whole series. It truly is the icing on the cake.
Curing the swamp left me perfectly cold (the only visual change was the color of the water, and the Deku Scrubs still acted like ungrateful little brats), but saving the Gorons from their predicament felt warm in both physical and emotional manner. It is with real joy that I ran to the village to check on them, and discovered that the Elder had survived his frozen ordeal. I marked his words: "The Goron who makes calm decisions, yet boasts courageous determination and can take care of all shall be the patriarch", before following his advice to take part in the races and think my decision over slowly. Cue the Powder Keg episode...
To those who designate the Powder Keg and its ticking-bomb introduction as a cheap constraint imposed by the designers, I answer this: coming after an important development and building towards a lighter but equally enjoyable one, it is a brilliantly integrated narrative device that holds physical and metaphorical weight. The mad dash to the boulder is difficult and suspenseful for a reason, and resolutes the chain of events in a way that feels cohesive and deserved (but still optional!). The race itself, finally, is a stroke of low-key genius that accomplishes a rare thing: to feel like a reward while still offering a new challenge. It allows the player to fully experience the thrill of handling the Goron form at high speed, but surrounds this with playful music, muted crowd noises and a friendly air of competition that makes it feel part of the local culture. It is a blast through and through, and probably benefits from being locked behind so many layers.
And while we're on the subject of rewards, let's consider this: completing Woodfall opened up the challenges for obtaining the Mask of Scents, the Mask of Truth, as well as a Heart Container or two ; neat, but nothing to phone home about. Completing Snowhead opens up the much-discussed Powder Keg (and thus Romani Ranch), a new bottle (with valuable content), a powerful new sword, and even sets up the Don Gero subquest ; rewards that I believe, by comparison, hold much more value overall. I think this ludic pay-off complements the narrative extremely well, in that both are carefully intertwined, and that they give the player something tangible to bring back into the rest of the world. I also think that this element of "connecting" the chapters via new abilities is crucial to the experience of this game (and probably every Zelda title), but I will leave that for later...
Again, a long comment post, but only because I feel this part of the game is so inspiring.
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ILR
Registered: 08/27/08
Posts: 140
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| Posted 07/23/09 at 11:09 AM | Reply with quote #7 |
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Oh now we're talking. This is a well-realized dungeon that offers a constant stream of challenges that range from finding a way through a single room to manipulating the structure of the whole tower. There are logic puzzles (punching the slabs), item puzzles (use the magic mirror) and action puzzles (using the Goron ball). The only place where I ran badly into trouble was in the final approach of the boss room when you had to lower the raised tower by punching the mid parts out of the way. Thankfully Tatl did point this out after some trekking back and forth in the main shaft. Again, she didn't tell me exactly to go out and hit them but instead seemed to be thinking out loud what might be the purpose for the different colors on some of the tower blocks. The boss fight is somewhat strange. I'm not expecting any logical dungeon bosses from Zelda games so it's not that but I have a hard time seeing what exactly is his role in the misfortunes of the Goron people. Apparently the bull is the source of the recent unforgiving winter but when Link reaches him, he's encased in a block of ice, seemingly unable to affect anything. Has he been done in by his own schemes or is the Skull Kid the main culprit here? Nevertheless, after thawing and defeating him, things return to normal. Odd. Nothing wrong with the boss fight here, an interesting race and dramatically enough I was left with a quarter of a heart after it finished. In this dungeon, it struck me how iconic the Zelda soundscape is. The overworld theme is a well-known tune and doesn't need further promotion but all the little jingles that are played when you discover a puzzle solution or pull the correct lever have stayed the same over the course of the series and act as a nice encouraging factor that I'm on the right track. I especially appreciate the four-note jingle when you pull your instrument out in the correct place (in the Woodfall entrance, for example). The stray fairy hunt is another successful way to reward the relentlessly perceptful player. As a minor gripe, I'd rather see some transitional reward in 10 fairies or so. It's not like you just randomly run across them over the course of normal dungeon progression, at this point - or at least in this particular dungeon - you really have to look for them. |
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fleacircus
Registered: 06/16/09
Posts: 33
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| Posted 07/23/09 at 09:12 PM | Reply with quote #8 |
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Getting to a dungeon in Majora's Mask is often a puzzle in itself. Often you only need a song or a key item from the nearby exploration zone, but those zones also have optional things mixed in. So when you explore them, you wind up doing triage. What can I accomplish now that will open the way forward? What can I do but should ignore for now? What should I remember to come back to later? This process can be frustrating and messy.
But when you go into the dungeon you can forget about all that. The Zelda designers are good at making sure that when you get to a Zelda dungeon, you have the means to complete it. I've said before how I enjoy the feeling of transition to the self-contained dungeon puzzle domain, and I appreciate those little transitional "loin-girding" rooms that preface the dungeon. Though in this one, amusingly a bunch of white Boes will swarm you there.
If Woodfall is a starter dungeon, this is the real deal. The way the paths loop and weave back through the main shaft is fairly complex, but slowly you understand the route you need to take to ascend the central shaft, which is then modified by the fire arrows, and then shaken up greatly by raising the pillar. The dungeon is an impressive little piece of design.
It feels like an accomplishment to finally get up to the boss door (and how extraordinarily careful were we all on that last Goron jump?) and the reward is one of the best boss fights in the franchise.
***
That first Goron jump is quite a pain in the ass. The way you have to do it is actually perfectly intuitive, but the thing that makes it painful is the $#@! camera. It's a little hard to get Darmani out of a roll so they stuck a crate at the end of the jump to keep you from falling down the gap between the platform and the wall (which seems to be there just to make your life suck). If you smash the crate but fall off the ledge anyway, you'll probably discover that it's a good idea to leave the room and come back to reset the crate before trying the jump again...
I wish I'd kept track of my pass/fail percentage on that jump. It was probably about 50%.
Due to the structure of the dungeon you wind up doing this room quite a few times. I haven't played MM since it came out (and I only played through it once, then), and I've forgotten far more than I remember. But as soon as I entered the first jump room I said "OH FUCK NO NOT THIS ROOM".
Sadly I forgot about punching the discs out of the pillar which also made me run around the dungeon top-to-bottom checking everything. Fortunately I could combine this with searching for fairies, and boy were they devious about hiding some of them in this dungeon.
I seem to be doing dungeons in two shots. The first one I do as soon as I discover the dungeon, without resetting time, trying to grok the layout and get the key item. Then I reset time and try to complete the dungeon and get all 15 fairies in one clean sweep. It's been working well so far. |
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sparky
Registered: 07/14/08
Posts: 167
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| Posted 07/25/09 at 10:04 PM | Reply with quote #9 |
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So that first room with a jump seems to be a very interesting case, because a major cause of difficulty there has been mentioned twice now, that is, the gap between the upper level and the staircase at the far end. MoriartyL fell off there because he forgot Goron-Link can't jump, and rolling off that edge seems to be a pretty common outcome too. The presence of that crate suggests that the design team recognized the problem to some extent. If so, why not just extend the platform all the way to the wall? Of course, it might just have been that the problem was realized too late and it was easier to add in the breakable object than reprogram the room's structure. In that case, though, I wonder why it took so long to recognize the problem, and really, why the gap was put in originally. What is the ludic purpose of this gap? Does it signify a good intention gone awry, or a rookie mistake by Aonuma?
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LouisF
Registered: 07/07/09
Posts: 117
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| Posted 07/26/09 at 03:19 AM | Reply with quote #10 |
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I wouldn't know how to justify it... The only thing I can say is that I clearly remembered this jump from my first play-through and that I liked it, for some reason. The crazy little flips Link does in this particular game always feel great to pull off, and in my opinion it just makes navigation more dynamic and involved. Or maybe I'm just way more tolerant of arbitrary obstacles than others.
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MoriartyL
Registered: 01/20/09
Posts: 295
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| Posted 07/26/09 at 05:39 AM | Reply with quote #11 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by sparky
MoriartyL fell off there because he forgot Goron-Link can't jump
I don't think the developers thought it was a problem that players were falling off. The gap between the platform and the wall makes the roll more challenging, and they wanted to challenge the players.
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RapturousRaptor
Registered: 07/05/09
Posts: 26
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| Posted 07/26/09 at 03:19 PM | Reply with quote #12 |
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I can think of three purposes for the gap in the first jump room:
(1) Because human Link is necessary to make the jump to reach the stairwell, it indicates that Link's human form is preferred in the room that follows (a Real Bombchu in the area reinforces this, as it is best handled by running into it with Link's shield). This cues players to try their new-found ability (shooting Fire Arrows) in the room when they return due to having the original path blocked by the central column.
(2) The room itself teaches players about Goron Link's subtleties, among them:
--- that wooden crates can bring Goron Link's rolling to a stop (remember that Goron Link can barrel through snowballs, and it would be reasonable to assume that he could likewise barge through crates);
--- that Goron Link cannot jump across gaps without rolling off of a ramp (a lesson that lets players solve a future puzzle without having to learn this from scratch);
--- and that Goron Link can walk through lava (because he must do just that to climb out of the pit, and to retrieve a Stray Fairy later on).
That all of these lessons are optional further indicates that these lessons are of minor importance. Had lava-walking had greater importance, for instance, it would have been crucial to force players to learn it at some point (for instance, by making players execute a rolling jump to a platform filled with lava).
(3) Players who fall into the pit encounter the mystery of lava's presence in a temple most notable for its frigid cold; this marks the temple as distinctly unnatural at an early stage, and foreshadows Link's acquisition of Fire Arrows - a treasure that would otherwise seem incongruous to the temple.
I don't necessarily believe that this room fulfills its purposes elegantly - in particular, I tend to be skeptical when games do not call attention to their design elements at the first opportunity. But even with its imperfections, I am able to work out some of the room's goals - and that might count for something.
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RapturousRaptor
Registered: 07/05/09
Posts: 26
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| Posted 07/26/09 at 04:01 PM | Reply with quote #13 |
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And, with that digression aside, my thoughts on Snowhead Temple itself:
Snowhead Temple provides a division of labor between human and Goron Link, much as Woodfall Temple did. In this temple, though, Goron Link is the preferred form throughout the dungeon. Human Link is useful mostly for his Fire Arrows, items that serve, fundamentally, to clear a path for Goron Link - moreover, the result of using fire arrows is exactly what players would expect (unlike in Woodfall Temple, where shooting an arrow through a fire to a torch led to the water's purification in the temple). When the temple's primary challenge is to scale the tower, though, Goron Link's navigational options give him the advantage.
The primacy of Goron Link in the temple, as well as numerous secrets that the Lens of Truth reveal, indicate that Snowhead Temple presents an extension of the themes those abilities explored in the mountain village (seeing through the illusion of isolation, and the importance of rendering one's community hopeful and therefore useful). This occurs primarily in how Link utilizes Fire Arrows - their main function is to melt ice and light torches, actions that Link took to revive the Goron Elder and warm the Goron Village. Fire Arrows allow Link to take such actions without being rooted to hot springs or permanent torches.
Snowhead Temple, thus, exposes Link's capabilities as arising from their portability - it is not so much what human Link does that is important, but that he can do so wherever it is needed. The mobile nature of his quest, as well as the material aspects of his journey he carries with him as items and collectibles, allow Link to draw from a global selection of tools. In narrative terms, Link is becoming a microcosm of the world, through his tools, through his masks, through his ability to use his tools and masks at will. And he has been doing this all along, from his first steps as a Deku Scrub.
If isolation was the illusion through which Link needed to see to reach Snowhead Temple, it is the very local and temporal nature of space that is the illusion to overcome inside the temple (from which a false sense of isolation would spring). Why does this occur now, of all times, when this theme is present throughout the game? Because the game's core crisis is the necessity of putting off an insurmountable moment of truth (confrontation with the Skull Kid), which has kept Link and Termina locked in a perpetual present. Here, halfway through the main quest, Link's actions result in a lifting of that illusion - the mountain village does not merely become verdant once more, but moves into spring. We have, then, the first hint of a future for Termina - and this is an affirmation for Link, because that is precisely what awaits him should he succeed in his quest.
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MoriartyL
Registered: 01/20/09
Posts: 295
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| Posted 07/27/09 at 05:12 AM | Reply with quote #14 |
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Can we get all 15 fairies here without later items? I started collecting them, but then I saw a treasure chest which it looked like I could only get with a Hookshot so I stopped. Does that chest not have a fairy in it?
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sparky
Registered: 07/14/08
Posts: 167
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| Posted 07/27/09 at 07:53 AM | Reply with quote #15 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by MoriartyL
Can we get all 15 fairies here without later items? I started collecting them, but then I saw a treasure chest which it looked like I could only get with a Hookshot so I stopped. Does that chest not have a fairy in it?
All the fairies can be obtained with items you already have. You need to use the lens of truth for a lot of them, though.
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MoriartyL
Registered: 01/20/09
Posts: 295
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| Posted 07/27/09 at 11:27 AM | Reply with quote #16 |
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Ah. I would never have thought of that. Thanks.
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davidcarlton
Moderator
Registered: 07/15/08
Posts: 548
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| Posted 08/02/09 at 12:20 AM | Reply with quote #17 |
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| I was surprisingly tense in this dungeon, especially before I got the fire arrow. As with others, I died a lot on the first jump (and it might have been nice if the ladder had been shorter, though I guess that's fixed by the height difference between floors?), which put me in a bit of a bad mood; and then the dungeon's layout made it feel a lot less linear than the first one. I kept on seeing ice blocks, knowing that I'd have to come back, and being afraid that I'd forget and would end up missing one of the fairies and having no idea where it was. (The fact that there was an unknown number of fairies in the huge central room also made me worry.)
It got better after I got the fire arrow, of course. Even then, though, I wasn't completely at peace with the dungeon; I still fell off some ledges and had to backtrack, and the whole central column raising/lowering wasn't my favorite.
Despite all of that, though, on the whole I enjoyed the dungeon. Nice little puzzles, and it felt richer somehow than Woodfall. And I rather enjoyed the final boss: quite different from a normal dungeon boss, but I really like rolling around as a Goron, so I was perfectly happy to have a relatively non-violent boss fight that centered on that mechanic. (Especially since there weren't any fiddly jumps!) |
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Marceux
Registered: 04/15/09
Posts: 62
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| Posted 08/02/09 at 11:35 PM | Reply with quote #18 |
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Imagine if the boss fight had you going off jumps to hit a giant at a specific point? Like riding up a ramp, and flying straight into an eye or something? That would have been epic but probably not as fun since there would have been a layer of challenge I don't think the camera would have helped.
And that's probably why I love this boss fight so much. A stationary camera behind Link helps so much, and I'm not forced to Z-Target just to find out where the boss is placed. Later bosses, and Odolwa before, are such a pain because of the camera, and some of the puzzles suck because of this too. With Goht, I knew exactly where he was at all times, and where I was at all times. It was fun, a tad easy, but I enjoyed it.
Back on the camera though, and this is probably my main gripe. I was stuck in the room where you had to hit specific icicles, because I didn't know I had to use my camera until I realized that when I hopped on a platform, I was hit on the head. I had previously just heard the sound of ice crashing, saw a shadow at my feat, knew what was going to happen, and just dodged. I didn't see any way to get to other platforms so I just kept moving along, not finding the next obvious path or the hidden key to get past these obstacles until I've backtracked and went around in circles for a very long time. It wasn't until I was tired of the damn icicles falling on my head, and in a fit of boredom, decided to proactively get rid of them that I realized my biggest error in the dungeon so far. The second being trying to hit the fairy in the bubble, and realizing a wall was separating me and it that I hadn't seen before. I felt so smart when I figured these things out.
But then again, I felt so dumb with the icicles, not so much with the fairy. There was not intuitive way to learn what it was I was supposed to do, and the biggest clue where icicles that fell on my head, but I was so confident in my Zelda abilities, that I just dodged them and thought I didn't even have to look anywhere.
Hmm, it kind of plays with your head and how much you think you're in tune with the designers but really, there is a still a marked difference in how people think.
Also, once I opened up one of the entrances by shooting an arrow through one of the torches and melting the ice away (I don't think I was supposed to do it this way my first time, but I kind of had that arrow-through-fire mentality from the first dungeon) I realized I was probably going to get fire arrows in this dungeon.
Everyone kind of went over how much more expansive and bigger and better this dungeon was, compared to the first one, and I liked it a lot more too. I thought the soundscape was a little bit more... dead? We don't hear chants in the background, but rather soft and almost unhearable notes.
Best Part of this 3-Day Cycle (Spoilers):
I normally try to complete my dungeons, find all the fairies, and do the area preceding, in one, 3-Day Cycle. It's been working well for me so far, and I had a ton of time left after I had completed Woodfall (about half a day.) So I thought I'd try completing Anju and Kafei (I didn't know about some of the later requirements) as much as I could, and complete Snowhead at the same time. Bad idea, sort of.
So I talk to Madame Pomfrey and get the Romani Chatteau and the extra bottle, and I'm pretty psyched. I didn't know what the Romani Chatteau did, and at first I thought it'd extend my magic meter and not just give me unlimited magic for 3-days as I later learned through a gossip stone. So I drank it, and had this blue bar instead of a green one, and then I realized I couldn't complete Anju and Kafei... "Fuck!" I sigh, and then I run back to Snowhead, with little to no time left. Reminder, I was lost for a very long time inside the dungeon because of the damn icicles, and I was really close to only having about 5-7 hours left before the end of the cycle. I sped through as much as the dungeon as I could, only because I had Romani Chatteau, and I was shooting fire arrows absolutely everywhere. I practically solved 50% of the dungeon, and had my magic lens on at all times, and goron rolled everywhere, and it was super exciting. I finally got to the boss door, but I only had an hour left on my countdown clock, and I wisely decided to go back and save, and then re-do the dungeon, lose my Romani Chatteau magic... but those 5-7 in-game hours were intense and very fun.
Once you beat the boss, and meet the next guardian (this is the cutscene in which we find out they are guardians) I felt... at peace. Good section of the game. I feel sorry for those that dropped so soon. Sorry for the epic read.
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MarquisMark
Registered: 06/29/09
Posts: 35
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| Posted 08/03/09 at 03:15 PM | Reply with quote #19 |
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I split this dungeon up, essentially, into two parts: getting to the fire arrow, and getting to the boss. I am assuming this is the natural way to split the dungeon in half, but I had to do it more out of necessity - I didn't slow down time before I started, and I got close to running out of time.
The dungeon itself seemed very daunting, at first, particularly when I stepped into the main central room and looked up to find a whole bunch of paths that I knew I would eventually have to find a way to navigate. This awe was indeed tempered by the anxiety of trying to complete the dungeon with time running at normal speed.
I had trouble, as most have, with the "first jump" room, but not to the degree that it gave me more frustration than was due for the challenge of it. I spent more time in the little pit trying to sort out what to do about the two Stray Fairies in the room (I have yet to reach both, I'm not sure what I'm missing...)
I thought this dungeon was much more interesting than Woodfall Temple, for two very clear reasons - the level design was much more unique, and the boss fight was practically the opposite experience that I had with Odalwa.
I never had any clear trouble with any of the puzzles. My biggest frustration in Snowhead Temple was navigating the many rooms. Not so much getting lost, exactly, but with so many different doors and floors, it was easy to make a misstep here and there. The coloured door frames really didn't help, but I guess that's why they were there.
The mini-boss (is that a Wizzrobe?) was rather easy to dispatch, though I did manage to get myself frozen a time or two. Not forgettable, necessarily, but not as interesting as the Gekko battle in Woodfall. I guess the intention was to make the boss battle stand out, so the mini-boss had to be standard-issue.
There was a three or four day break in between when I got the Fire Arrows and when I resumed play to complete the dungeon. When I got back to work, I found that I was able to find my bearings and get to the boss fight fairly quickly. No longer did I have to worry about feeling like I would forget something (I had a similar sort of worry early on, davidcarlton), I just powered through with all the tools at my disposal.
When I finally rolled up to the temple's highest chamber I was relieved to enter and find a fresh take on boss battles that served as the highlight of the temple, and as a harsh foil to underline the poor construction of the Odalwa sequence in Woodfall. Fighting Goht was intuitive, fun, and challenging without being obnoxious, but most importantly it was something I'd never really experienced before in a Zelda boss. In my view, the implimentation of Goron Link was crystallized as being extremely well done upon the completion of Snowhead Temple. Potentially one of my favourite mechanics in the series.
All in all, a fairly big step up from the first temple, as I see it. Maybe as this dungeon was "the real deal" as fleacircus put it, I was able to enjoy it more, as a Zelda veteran, than the "starter dungeon" that was Woodfall Temple.
Now, I've got some catching up to do.
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MoriartyL
Registered: 01/20/09
Posts: 295
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| Posted 08/03/09 at 05:29 PM | Reply with quote #20 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by MarquisMark
I spent more time in the little pit trying to sort out what to do about the two Stray Fairies in the room (I have yet to reach both, I'm not sure what I'm missing...)
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MarquisMark
Registered: 06/29/09
Posts: 35
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| Posted 08/03/09 at 05:40 PM | Reply with quote #21 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by MoriartyL
Wearing the Great Fairy mask makes Stray Fairies fly right at you. So if you pop a bubble with an arrow, then wear the Great Fairy mask, that's enough.
Ah, the Great Fairy Mask. I had forgotten entirely about its existence.
I think I remember how to go about getting it. Foolish of me not to have done so sooner.
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MoriartyL
Registered: 01/20/09
Posts: 295
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| Posted 08/03/09 at 06:30 PM | Reply with quote #22 |
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Yeah, it's kind of essential if you're going to go after all the little fairies. Otherwise how would you figure out where the ones you were missing were?
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MarquisMark
Registered: 06/29/09
Posts: 35
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| Posted 08/04/09 at 09:43 AM | Reply with quote #23 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by MoriartyL
Yeah, it's kind of essential if you're going to go after all the little fairies. Otherwise how would you figure out where the ones you were missing were?
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