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writingpages · 2 months ago

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crossing the threshold

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Summary: crossing the threshold signifies that the hero has finally committed to the journey. he is prepared to cross the gateway that separates the ordinary world from the special world. the crossing may require more than accepting one’s fears or a map.

Rating: T

Ships: Yuesi Fudo/Aki Izayoi

Warnings: canon typical violence, all the warnings that come with calamity ganon

Epona is taking the lead on the journey - Yusei isn't sure where he's should go. With two main objectives - regain his lost memories and free the Divine Beasts - he should know exactly where he needs to go. Instead, he felt lost and overwhelmed. With how big the world around him is, he isn't certain how long it'd take him to do either of those things. In fact, he isn't sure where he is supposed to go next. She is leading him, and he decides he's comfortable with that. Hours seemed to slip by, until Epona suddenly comes to a stop - a cliff drop off with no where to really go next.

Yusei glances down and saw a Guardian Stalker glancing around. His heart kicks into overdrive, and at first he thinks he is dying. Perhaps the Guardian Stalker has seen him. Except... he isn't dead and it can't have possibly seen him. It takes him a while to try to reorient himself - and yet... it still feels like there is ice in his veins and he is unable to regulate his breathing. The closest feeling he could use to describe how he felt was fear - he is genuinely afraid of what this beast could to do to him. He slides off Epona, pulling away from the cliff as he tries to catch his breath. How could he possibly calm down when the reason he died was still wandering around?

He doesn't even know if the one that had killed him is still roaming about or if it's one of the many defective ones laying about. What makes him spiral even further was the hull of the ones that laid about. What had the sort of power to destroy a mindless soldier, designed to continue killing no matter what? It is fear that is starting to choke him, and he needs to fight back against that. He needs to remind himself that as scary as it is, he needs to keep moving forward. He sees another person in the area, and it is enough to ground him. He heads over to the man, intercepting him to warn him about the Guardian Stalker.

"Ah, another traveler," the man says before Yusei can say anything. "I am a merchant. Can I interest you in anything?"

"Ah, er, I have some topaz that I was hoping to sell," Yusei replies, thrown off by the merchant's cheerful demeanor. Was the man like the Yiga Clan and this was a trap? Or perhaps the merchant really was unaware of the Guardian Stalker in the area?

"Ah, my wife would like that," the merchant says, considering the offer. "I can give you 180 rupees for it. Sound fair?" Yusei nods, and they make the trade. "You know I'm selling as well."

"What are you offering?" The man explains his wares, and after a brief negation, Yusei purchases three fortified pumpkins and two hearty truffles from the man. It was then that Yusei remembers the reason he had approached the man in the first place. "There's a Guardian Stalker in the area."

The smile slides off the man's face as he realizes that they were in a dangerous position. "We should leave the area. Now. Thank you for your warning, kind traveler. Stay safe."

The man runs off quickly, and Yusei is grateful he'd came across the man when he had. Who knows the danger he could have found himself in if Yusei hadn't come across him when he did? It is possible that he could have wound up dead. That, in itself, is a helpful reminder what he is doing here - what he is supposed to do. Everything came down to the people of Hyrule and that is enough to sustain him. He could do this. Night had fully hit, and Keese are now flying about. As he heads back to his horse, he winds up attacked by them, and they force him off the cliff in attempts to dodge them. He grips at the cliff, adrenaline sustaining him from hitting the ground. He gets shoved off again, and he pulls out the paraglider in hopes of lessening the impact.

As for the Guardian Stalker - he hopes that it did not see him. He couldn't even begin to imagine the timing on parrying the laser back it like Anzu claimed he used to do. However he used to it was gone - replaced by nothing more than wisps and buzzing. He glances around, trying to figure out where he is now. There is a ruined building next to him - he isn't certain if it was simply age or the Guardian Stalker nearby that destroyed it. Either way, there was a lot of implicit horror in the mere existence of those ruins. A shimmer catches his eye, and he takes it in. It is circling around a ruined well and the building, and a strange tinkling sound coming off it. He swears he hears laughter, and he steps into the path. A Korok smacks itself against his boot, and whines "ow" as it stares up at him. "Mr. Hero!"

Yusei frowns. "What are you doing out here?"

The Korok giggles and doesn't answer his question. Instead, it points to something in the distance - and Yusei examines what it could possible be pointing to. A strange light was glowing in the dark and he realizes very quickly what it is - a shrine. "Mr. Hero should go over there!"

Before Yusei could ask any further questions, the Korok vanishes before him. He isn't given long to muse over this, as a sparking Keese makes it way to him. Instinctively, he stabs it before it could attack him. He isn't sure what it would have done to him, but he was glad for his instincts either way. He examines the land further - it was flooded with handfuls of tall grass that poked out. He isn't sure how far the shrine is, but he figures he might as well make his way to it. He scopes it out every few feet, seeing the Lizalfos in the area. He is certain he could sneak his way in without the creatures spotting him. At least, that's what he'd been certain of.

However, the Lizalfos spots him and Yusei is forced into the offense. It doesn't take long, however, and Yusei emerges from the battle victorious. He heads into the shrine, more annoyed that he was forced to fight than anything else.

The shrine, however, was a difficult one. Magensis was required to move some strange items in a deep pool. Scooping it out with the use of it was irksome as it kept sliding out of the metal plate. When he finally manages, he lets out a breath of relief as he heads into the next room. Immediately it is clear that he needed it for the next room, and he sighs as he heads back to the other room. He retrives it with maganesis, and wonders what this sort of puzzle could possibly prove to anyone. Why did they need him to jump through hoops to obtain these spirit orbs? Who is watching? Either way, he solves the puzzle and notices there is no chest in this shrine. So not only was it a waste of his resources, he got nothing but the spirit orb in return. Either way, he is grateful that the monks at least have the decency to restore his vitality.

Exiting the shrine, a glimmer of light in the distance catches his eye - another shrine. Considering his Slate hadn't started buzzing to alert him to the shrine, it can't be close. He wasn't expecting just how far it was, however, once he scopes it out. The map implies that it would be most like a day's walk, and he is starting to get exhausted. He has been up for longer than he normally is, and figures he might was well see about a stable soon. Thinking of the stabel reminds him about how Epona is currently up on a cliff that he slipped down from... and it was raining. It would be too slick to climb back up in this rain. He wasn't sure how to get her back, but figures he might as well reach out to the stables. He looks through the pictures he's gotten with a sigh, trying to figure out if he recognized any of them.

And then he spots one detail: the Dueling Peaks in the distance in one of the photos. The photo was of a lake, overlooking some ruins - so wherever it was, it was a place already in ruins one hundred years ago. It seems close to the Great Plateu... and well, he still needs the map for Central Hyrule. It was as good a place any to start when tracking down his memory. He might as well head to the Dueling Peaks stable first. So he taps the shrine near the stable, and feels the strange feeling of being compressed into a tiny ball, then shattered, then reassembled at the shrine. A wholly unpleasant experience he isn't sure he cares for. He swallows hard, shaking off the feeling as he heads to the stable.

"Hi, Tasseren, I'm back."

Tasseren grins. "Glad to see you're still safe," he says, nodding. "How can I help you, sir?"

"Please, call me Yusei," Yusei says, feeling an instant involuntary shudder at being addressed so formally. He didn't know who he is, but he knew he is not a man who enjoys formalities. "I was wondering if it'd be possible to board Epona with you guys for a bit."

"Not a problem at all."

"I did leave her kind of far out," Yusei admits, furrowing his brow. "She was on a cliff last I saw her, and I wasn't able to get back to her."

Tasseren has a mysterious grin as he winks. "Not an issue. Wait there." Tasseren walked off, and Yusei waits. It isn't even ten minutes later when Tasseren comes back. "Praise to the Horse God, your horse is in our care. We will have her at the stable safely. Is there anything else we can help you with?"

Yusei shakes his head, amazed at their ability to track down a horse. "I'll be back for my horse in a bit. There's something I need to do first."

The "something else" was getting a better view of where he thinks the memory might be - all the way from the Great Plateu's tower. The tower was the highest that he could think of, and it allows him to glance over all of Hyrule. Far in the east, past the Dueling Peaks, he now knew there was a sea over by there. There were more mountains, and at least two settlements. To the west was a strange bird circling around in one spot, and more mountains. If he looked to the south west, there were strange mountains in the shape of steps. To the direct south, a jungle. And finally, to the north, the castle with the beast that he was destined to face. The entire kingdom was foreign to him - and he suspected that it would be even if he did have his memories.

He scopes out down towards where he suspects the memory might be, and instead he spots two people in a fight with some Bokoblins. He never was able to resist helping a stranger in need, so he paraglides down to spring to their aid. The Bokoblins are more annoying than they are a genuine threat to him. It doesn't take long until the monsters are taken down, leading him to now stare down a very angry redhead. "Um, hello, no one asked for your help," she said with her hands on her hips, glaring at him. "I know that my big brother Jounouchi thinks that I can't take care of myself, but like, I totally can." She sighs, shaking her head. "Whatever, thanks, I guess. Here."

She shoves a sneaky mushroom skewer into his hands, still glaring at him before turning away from him. "What Shizuka means to say is that we are very grateful for your help, even if we could have handled it ourselves," Jounouchi says with a genuine laugh. "Thank you so much for keeping my sister safe."

"Whatever! You helping us doesn't mean we're going to help you find any treasure," she says with a stomp of her foot. "With all the monsters around, it totally scared off any other treasure hunter. Where there's monsters, there's treasure." Shizuka takes a deep breath, composing herself. "Tell you what. Since you helped us out, I'll give you a free tip: don't go near Hyrule Castle. Everyone agrees there's a bunch of good treasure probably hiding in that destroyed castle, maybe even some good weapons from the long dead guard. But those Guardians that swarm the castle make it a near suicide mission to go near it!"

"Really," Yusei asks. "Has anyone ever fought one and lived?"

The two siblings exchanged a glance before the two of them laughed. Not exactly the most promising reaction. "Once a guardian catches you in its sight, you don't have long live," Jounouchi says, rolling his eyes. "Seriously, man. I get that it's a tempting hunt, but listen to my sister. There's no point in going to the castle. I heard even if you manage to sneak past the Guardians, the entire place has the strongest monsters you've ever seen. Some say ghosts haunt the place too. Ain't nothing worth your life, dude."

Except there might be something worth his life in there. If one of the pictures is to be believed, a piece of his memory was in there. Princess Aki herself is in there, battling against Calamity Ganon - someone he had risked his life for one hundred years ago. If he'd been willing to risk his life then, why not now? He doesn't care about the treasure and he didn't even care about the weapons - he cares about the possibility of books in there that told him more about his past. He cares about the potential memories he could unlock in there. And if ghosts haunt the palace, it didn't matter because he is certainly haunting Hyrule himself.

He isn't sure where he is going now. The green and gray of Hyrule pulls him through it, as if he is being led by some invisible force through the wild. The rustling of animals, the scene of dew on the grass, and the clear air coming off the trees. The wind rustles through his hair, and Yusei closes his eyes, taking it in. He feels the crunch of leaves underneath his foot, and when he opens his eyes, he is staring down the exact view in the photo. He looks around, and at first, he thinks nothing will happen. And then it feels like he is falling through time: a memory as if he was in that moment.

Princess Aki talked to herself, muttering under breath something about how they needed to go to Goron City. Yusei wondered if he should speak up, but it felt like there was a weight on his chest. Anything he wanted to say died in his throat before he could even open his mouth. He knew why he had done this: the pressure to be the perfect soldier. A perfect soldier doesn't contradict their leader, even when they're certain that they were wrong. One thing that struck him was how heavy the sword on his back felt - had it always felt this heavy? Did he always feel this uncomfortable when he was in his tunic and chain mail? All he knew was that he couldn't show any discomfort. He was several feet behind Princess Aki, and even still he felt uncomfortable.

She suddenly stopped, and turned to stare at him - and he was stunned to see there was a barely contained rage. Except then... he wasn't surprised by it. His past self's feelings of resignation, of awareness, of expecting this warred with his current self's shock. "They say the sword that seals the darkness has a spirit that dwells inside it," Princess Aki said, an odd look on her face that he couldn't read then, but his current self could full understand: there was pain. As if she was suffering then. "Tell me, hero, can you hear it?"

There was a twinge of mockery upon the way she said "hero" and Yusei had bowed his head. He had nothing to say in response - he couldn't hear it then, and he couldn't hear it now. Whatever she asked him to hear, he couldn't possibly do it. "You were planning on going to Goron City, Princess," he said quietly. "Should we make our way there?"

"I told you before, I don't need your protection," she said, stomping her feet as she turned away from him. It was obvious: she hated him. She hated him so much that she didn't want anything to do with him. In this one memory, he remembered how she was always sneaking away from his guard and telling everyone how he was bad at his job for it. "Seriously, just go back to the castle. I can get to Death Mountain on my own."

"Princess, I really think -"

"Oh, now you have something to say," she snarled, starting to jog and forcing to pick up his pace to keep up with her. "Leave me alone! I can take care of myself!"

The memory ends, and Yusei blinks in confusion. He doesn't understand it. He puts the Slate away, glancing towards the castle. Does she still feel that way about him? His entire world feels off kilter, and he knows there was only one person who could answer what this meant: he needs to speak with Lady Asuka again.

#myfanfic #faithshipping #faithshipping: au #5ds: au #series: the hero's journey #series: crossing the threshold

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loz-furbies · 6 months ago

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Oracle of Ages & Seasons Zelda

Nintendo can't make up their mind if the Oracles Link is the same one from ALttP or not and I suppose the same applies to Zelda. Personally I think that sure, let's give ALttP Link more adventures, but if I were to draw a compilation of all individual Zeldas I'd probably make ALttP and Oracles Zeldas separate characters since they have different enough designs. In the end I don't think it matters though and I seriously don't believe Nintendo cares either.

I played Ages first so this is based on her presence in Seasons linked game, not sure how different it is to the Ages counterpart.

Design

Speaking of character design, this is yet another time for me to bitch about the promo art and sprite not matching (fear not this will end soon as we move away from the pixel games). But seriously, why give her cute hair buns in the sprite if you're not going to use them! And more importantly that would be a unique Zelda design at least, because her actual look is one of my least favourites in the franchise. Like sure she's perfectly cute and there's nothing particularly stupid about the design either, but it's just so derivative. This is just the adult OoT Zelda design except in a younger art style and ALttP Zelda's cape. It's not an interesting or memorable look, and it also makes it harder for me to decide if this is a new character or not (and how to draw her). Like looks-wise it's clearly a different girl, but since there's grounds for the Oracle games to be ALttP sequels it's just so confusing.

Alright, moving on!

Character

This time Zelda does get a moment of being a bit more assertive than usual. She's told to stay safe during a crisis, but instead she shouts that she's going anyway and runs off to give a rousing speech to the villagers. But for the most part there's not much to Zelda outside her typical shtick of being the nice princess who gives exposition.

In the end credits we see every character once more, but Zelda's part is just that she looks at the stars alone at her castle while smiling happily, and while she looks cute, I don't get a lot out of that.

Role in the story

Story-wise Zelda doesn't get to do much. She's the one who sent help to foreign lands after she saw a vision of their downfall, so she takes a very active part in that, but it's all offscreen and ultimately her plan to evacuate the oracles doesn't even work. She then comes to visit herself, and her most notable contribution is to encourage the villagers. And sure I can take that, it's set up reasonably well that she becomes a symbol of hope to them (for GBC storytelling standards at least).

In the grand finale she gets kidnapped as usual, this time so that she can be sacrificed to revive Ganon, and there's nothing interesting to that.

Relationships

Aside from the character design, the biggest reason to consider that the Oracle games are not an ALttP sequel is that Zelda doesn't appear to recognise Link at all and introduces herself as if it was the first time they met. I'm willing to chalk this off as video game jank and it's more of an introduction to the player (for example Impa and the animal companions who you meet in both Ages and Seasons also don't appear to recognise Link in the second game you play in a linked game). I think it also makes more sense for Link to be the friend of the royal family since the game starts with him just sauntering to the Triforce unimpeded.

Not that it makes much difference because Zelda and Link don't have much of a relationship, even if Zelda spends most of the game not being kidnapped this time. However the game does end with Zelda giving a little kiss to him (and him getting all lovestruck about it), and I think it's cuter if they have some history together already.

Impa is also in the game, but she and Zelda don't have much to do together outside the standard princess-and-caretaker stuff. Zelda doesn't get any meaningful interaction with Din or Nayru either.

#legend of zelda #oracles of ages #oracles of seasons #oracle games #zelda #character review #meta

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freya-howlett · 2 years ago

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So, now that I finished totk, I'd like to share my insight of the game overall with y'all. Fight me or agree with me, I'd like to know other people's opinions

PROS

The soundtrack is amazing. Zelda has always been about awesome music and this is not the exception. The soundtrack plays exactly what the environment was to convey. You're exploring the sky islands? The music is then calm. You're in the depths? the music will help you shit yourself. Going even more down, looking for Ganondorf? coolest music ever, full of mystery.

World exploring. I feel like this time totk forces you to explore the world, in botw you could directly go to Ganon and beat the shit out of him with a stick, but definitely not here at all. You find yourself needing bombs so you'll have to look for caves, then you need Sundelion, so you have to go to the sky. In a certain way, I hated that for the first days because I was trying to finish the game as soon as I could, but now I appreciate it.

We have our first disabled Link! At least until the end. It was nice to see him different for once. It'd be cool if he had stayed that way.

World development. In botw, you have this whole piece of land that's mostly monsters and ruins, but in totk things have changed after the calamity disappeared. We have more people around who're in contact with each other. The places don't seem as lonely as before and even people help Link. And, did you notice there's less trees? It's a nice detail, since there's new buildings made of wood everywhere.

Fusing mechanic. Tbh, I didn't love Fuse at first, but then realized how useful it can be.

Link's clothing. There's more clothes available bc they used the botw DLC clothing, which is cool! And the new designs are... slutty.

Zelink. No one can tell me otherwise. All the signs are there, bitches!!!!

CONS

Overall, it doesn't feel like a sequel. And I hated that. Nintendo keeps giving preference towards new players and in this case, it's not worth it. I dare to declare that at least 80% of people who purchased totk played botw and knew exactly what they were getting. This especially has to do with the point below.

There's no mention of the Champions at all, the Sheikah technology is missing, and where tf are the Divine Beasts?? I get that, yeah, maybe the Champions shouldn't be thaaaaaat important anymore, yet what about everything else? Where's my Sheika Slate????????

We were promised a dark game and this isn't it, not at all. Maybe I'm tripping? But I remember clearly on the first years of development people mentioning this game would be dark like Majora's, and going back to the first two trailers I could actually see it was kinda the case. However, with the last trailer, I made a bet that they probs rejected the idea and I was right. I'd like to have something like Majora someday again.

The introduction of a new race out of nowhere. The zonai.... they weren't my piece of cake at first. It seems cheap for me, I'm not sure. I don't know if they intended to introduce something, anything, from them since botw but ended up scraping the idea, but overall the whole experience I have of them from both games is that they took the zonai out of their asses and were like "yup, we got this!"

The end was TOO happy. Like I mentioned before, I'd rather Link have his arm cut. Purah can make another one if Rauru really wanted his arm so bad. Zelda transforming back was okay, but what I didn't really get was why did Sonia and Rauru didn't turn her back before????? They instead waited until Link fought his ass hard, lol.

I hated that Zelda was thanking ME at the end instead of Link. Don't look at me, bitch, look at your boyfriend! This has to do with this other post of mine about how Nintendo can't let go of Link being an avatar despite they themselves providing depth to his character.

I may edit this longer but rn I'm out of ideas and I'm at work, lol.

#legend of zelda #the legend of zelda #zelda #tears of the kingdom #loz tears of the kingdom #zelink #totk spoiler #totk spoilers #link #zelda totk #loz zelda #princess zelda #zelda tears of the kingdom

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blackstarchanx3new · 1 year ago

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FSR Rambles 11 big brain moments

Immediately going from Gannon's rant we wake up...SOMEWHERE.

That iconic triforce symbol glows on Shadow Link's hand.

Uh oh.

Ganondorf rants to himself smth he says during the Twilight Princess manga.

Hello Ganondorf! :D

Alright let's dissect the shit Ganondorf says real quick.

Panel 1: He's talking about Link, obviously. Who unlike Ganondorf and Zelda (Sometimes...Twilight Princess Zelda outright calls OOT Zelda herself/her so...) doesn't/never seems to remember their endless reincarnation....Which I have some THOUGHTS ON WHY but we might get to that when it's more relevant. Just keep it in your back pocket that Link never remembers "His" previous adventures.

Ganondorf's the same Ganondorf from OOT in Akira's manga series, we dunno how much FSR Zelda currently knows about her endless reincarnation because she has the soul of Hylia in her,

Panel 2: Shadow Link has never seen Ganondorf in his human form. That's established with his lines of confusion. He clearly RECONIZES him either through his presence or voice though.

Panel 3: Ganondorf ignores Shadow's question to keep rambling.

"I even thought...Two can play the split ourselves in pieces game..."

He's clearly referencing the FIRST time a Link used the four sword, as there's a previous hero of the Four Sword mentioned at the start of the FS Manga. (That's my interpretation since there's two different four swords games, SOME people think he meant the Minish Cap Link but...I disagree strongly with that shit ngl and I think the ONLY reason that idea exists is because we never got a manga for the first Four Swords game but the SEQUEL for whatever reason...? As minish cap Link was a child when he went on his journey and looked NOTHING like the OOT style adult hero we saw in the "Flashback/story" scene in FS. I'm like 99% sure it was referencing the hero from the FIRST Four Swords game because the four swords manga we HAVE is based on Four Swords Adventures from what I can tell?)

Either way, in FSR he's refencing THAT Link as the reason why he...split himself in pieces.

"This game of ours gets boring after awhile...We have to make new rules...invite new players, mix things up..."

So, this is why he used Vaati. Vaati was the "New player"

Technically an old player brought directly into the Triforce gang's bullshit as Vaati used to be a solo villain from what I understand removed from Gannon.

Shadow Link could ALSO be a part of these "New players" he's talking about.

Either way Gannon's view on the endless cycle has seemingly shifted to a "Game". A game he wants to win, obviously.

If you want a reason why he'd try taking this outlook: Dude's coping hard, he keeps losing. Looking at it like a childish game makes him retain SOME sanity he's shed after getting his ass kicked so many times. As he clearly shed a LOT of his humanity to become the pig form in the OG manga without ANY PROMTING Usually that's like, a second phase of the fight Something's different about Ganon in FSA compared to usual.

Panel 4:

Ganon muses he didn't think "A part of him" would play "Their" side.

He's obviously talking about Shadow Link at this point aiding Zelda and Link. But the dread of what Gannon's saying hasn't truly set in yet.

Panel 5:

So in Twilight Princess, Spoilers Gannon just like, straight kills himself when he feels he's losing. Man is a massive piss baby.

He does something similar here. "CAN'T KEEP ME IN A SWORD IF I END MYSELF HAHAHAHA" - Gannon.

But...There's still a part of Gannon around...As he passes the Triforce of power (Something he admits he cannot stand in Twilight Princess, if nothing else BECAUSE it ties him to Zelda and Link who have Wisdom and Courage respectively.)

So while not outright CONFORMING FSR Link and FSR Zelda HAVE the Triforce, it's heavily implied they do. Zelda at least, had it on her hand earlier in the comic. (With an outdated design of her haha but it still counts here. Haven't been any major ret cons as of rn in FSR and I'd mention any if they do come up hah)

Ganon not so subtly references the conversation Vio and Shadow had about the Triforce where Shadow admitted he wanted it to make his wishes come true.

Which just, with current context really puts into perspective that little desire of his.

Also, it's even FUNNIER that he says he wants to touch the Triforce...While being all over Vio. Who has a piece of the Triforce of courage.

Yes that was intentional and yes I was laughing my absolute ass off while drawing/writing those scenes...I was shaking that I couldn't mention that for so long lmfaooooooo.

He's a part of Gannon. Of course he wants the Triforce.

Shadow still looks like he's comprehending shit. I mean this is a LOT to take in. All this time he assumed he was NOTHING but Link's shadow. But NOW we know he's not only Link's Shadow, but a part of Gannon as well.

Ganon congrats our little man.

He gets to wield the title of the Demon King AND the Triforce of power! :D HOW LUCKY...HE GOT TWO THINGS HE WANTED! :D

BEING THE KING AND THE TRIFORCE!!!

Oh...Shadow isn't a fan of that. Especially at Gannon's prospect that he should destroy Link.

Lines that are hilarious with this new context go brr:

Haha- Well he IS A KING-

Vio just look to your left.

"I've done infinitely worse in past lives pal-"

Literally this entire scene has new meaning with how VISERIALLY ANGRY he is at the prospect they just gotta do what they have to because "it's what we're supposed to do".

Shadow Link's behavior in general in current day in FSR is just, makes much more sense with the context he KNOWS he's a part of Gannon.

His desperate urge to be nice, seemingly TOO NICE?

Well, he's trying to reject the idea he has to destroy the heroes and wants to be helpful and good.

Translation: "I don't have to be Gannon if you don't have to be Link"

Also smth you'll notice in the Gannon talks to Shadow pages: Shadow's eyes are red the whole time just like when was talking to Vaati.

Shadow's ending state in FS was a form of torture and you can't convince me otherwise.

He's in misery.

Fucked up thing to note: Shadow link feels he deserves to suffer.

We're not given his full thoughts on WHY but we can either assume because of his actions in the FSA manga OR because he's Gannon.

That's just sad.

Link's catatonic like usual.

Shadow likens Link's state to a corpse that's rotting which is, disturbing.

Unlike Gannon, he isn't getting any pleasure watching the Hero rot away mentally.

Oof. Yeah. What good's the Triforce of power when you can't use it to save someone?

You'll notice Shadow defaults to waving to get people's attention. What else can he do?

Link notices and touches him.

Which again: We know from Shadow's brief breakdown in the temple this isn't something he did a lot.

We can venture to guess from these pages, Link was usually just, not there mentally a lot of the time to notice Shadow Link and he wasn't filling the gaps because Shadow couldn't talk, because Link went mute after awhile.

Either way Shadow cherishes the times where Link acknowledges him.

If you go back and read the pages where Shadow's talking about his time with Link the main thing he talks about is how LONELY he felt.

He doesn't actually talk about Link's behavior in a negative way per say...Mostly that HE was lonely.

Like from the wording he isn't exactly BASHING Link for ignoring him, just expressing how it made him feel in the moment.

And from here we can see Shadow understands just how poorly Link was doing.

He wants to hug him-

Shadow wants to be comforted and to comfort but can't do or get either.

Poor dude is suffering.

Shadow dissects his feelings.

Vio's promise struck a cord with this dude for a lot of reasons, partially because Gannon as we know from Twilight Princess REALLY wanted Zelda to join him/another Triforce user to join him cobbled with Shadow Link himself loneliness and inability to trust his teammates led to Vio's promise of ruling the world basically made him explode with joy lol.

Gannon's literally always playing this "Game" alone. Shadow Link is lonely from his own experiences and from Gannon's. He actually doesn't MIND the idea they're all gonna be spending eternity together forever, he just doesn't wanna be locked in fighting them lmfao.

Art notes: Shadow's eyes look like Gannondorf's eyes in page 207 the "I want to be close to you Link" panel.

Zelda and Vio/Link have had a positive affect on Shadow Link as a person, so instead of 100% hating them like Gannondorf does he has a mixed bag of emotions towards them.

Another art note:

Page 208 Shadow's eyes look like the Malice eyeballs from BOTW/TOTK

Shadow Link interprets his own feelings as him wanting to be close to Zelda and Link/Vio due to his own loneliness. He's the new demon king and he doesn't want to further their fated connection through hatred alone.

Shadow's further thoughts on being Ganon and the affects it has on his behavior going forward are for sure going to be present so if something wasn't brought up here/expanded upon, it probs will later.

Something to note is Shadow's KNOWN he's a from of Gannon for 7 years and HASN'T Told any of the gang yet...Which is interesting.

Not like he could SAY that before and they've still only been separated for a day but still.

More art notes: The way they're structured in 208, is in the shape of the Triforce. Shadow on "Top" representing the Triforce of power, Zelda to the left representing wisdom and Link to the right representing courage.

It is interesting to note how Vio and Link are interchangeable in Shadow's mind at least in this instance...

From his further thoughts in 209 it's implied he's SPECICICALLY talking about Vio, but Link is still pictured...So Hm.

So it bares repeating Vio booked it to Shadow Link the second he saw him because of their unfinished business hah.

Further idea:

Shadow doesn't purely means "Vio's here" as the "dream" he's talking about.

He has a physical body again after 7 years. He's not a prisoner to his own mind anymore and has the ability to affect the world around him.

He was completely stripped of agency and ironically enough "Power" for 7 years.

Like Vio, someone he loves being there is nice too but I don't wanna understate how important Shadow's relationship to Link himself is either.

As in the series so far Shadow's blatantly done the things he stated he wishes he could have done for Link in the pages previous TO Vio because, he has the ability to now.

Basically: We don't need to shoot down Shadow's 7 year long relationship with Link just to bolster Vio and Shadow's.

Stalker lmfao.

So it's interesting to note he CRIED from Shadow's memories.

Weird moment for Dark Link. It's odd he even cried at all. He has an actual personality outside of just batting people's anxieties and fears back at them after all.

He himself seems rather calm but if you notice, his chest eyeball looks deeply emotional over it.

Question to ask: Is he crying from joy or sadness? Or some third thing?

Did he even realize he was crying? He didn't wipe his tears away.

You'll note, instead of just purely calling Shadow "the traitor" as he did earlier, he switches to calling him his title + traitor lmfao. "Treacherous demon king" he changes his language to be more accurate to his new information about Shadow Link.

Another thing: Dark Link isn't INTERACTING with Shadow Link here like he did with Vio. How he approached it was purely as a spectator.

He's not mentally fucking with Shadow here.

Which shows an odd sense of, genuine interest about Shadow's past that didn't exist earlier with Vio when he purely only said things to make Vio break down.

HE was watching those flashbacks with us and soaking in the information. He has a better understanding of Vio AND Shadow because he can see from BOTH their perspectives as you noticed...and Vaati's.

But that cute little fact isn't important rn.

And with all that word vomiting we will pick up again another time.

#four swords returns #four swords returns au #fsr rambles #loz fsr au

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breathlesslink · 1 year ago

Text

Chapter Nine — New Phase

t.o.c ; << | >>

Link could have been back earlier, but he needed a minute.

Nothing could have prepared him for the Divine Beast. He expected fighting, but puzzles? He didn't think he'd also have to use his brain instead of just his brawn, but that made some sense since the shrines were also predominately puzzles.

The small underlings of Ganon's weren't difficult. Just little sentries, designed to look like mini guardians. The creature of malice that had defeated Mipha, however, was different.

She called it 'Waterblight Ganon', a small manifestation of his power sent to destroy the Champions and claim the beasts as his own like he did the other Ancient technologies. Link could see how a monster like that would be difficult to beat.

After Vah Ruta traveled her way to a spot to aim her beam at Hyrule Castle, Link took a break.

He sat on the grass next to the Beast, staying there long after Mipha's spirit had disappeared.

His chest felt heavy. Grief was already a strange emotion— he'd known that from when he lost his parents. But to grieve someone you don't remember meeting? He didn't even know what he was grieving. Mipha was apparently a close friend, consoling him on the days when Zelda became a bit too much to handle.

He remembered her, but only a bit. He knew that he knew her. He knew that they were close, but that was it. To learn that she had crafted the Zora Armor he wore because she wanted to marry him—

The Zora Armor.

You would think it looked so cool. He had to get back and show you. He knew you would love to hear about what happened.

Link groaned and stretched, sore from the fighting and dreading the trek back to the Domain. But he was excited too, to see you again and tell you about everything that happened.

———

A delicious smell wafted through the openings of the inn as you and Kodah worked tirelessly over the cooking pot, countless servings of seafood paella being churned out as word of Vah Ruta's defeat began to spread.

Zora's noticed her return to her original place high above the Kingdom hours ago, but Link had yet to come back. You tried to ignore the anxiety that rested deep in your stomach and focus on the dinner in front of you, but you couldn't help but watch the front of the Domain as you helped serve the Zora citizens their feast.

"Staring isn't going to make him magically appear, you know." Kodah teased. You rolled your eyes.

"I'm just a little worried. Vah Ruta has been fine for a few hours now. What if he's so injured that he can't make it back?"

"I think you're full of blubber." Kodah scooped another serving of paella for a Zora in line. "You of all people know that he's supposed to defeat Ganon. Do you really think he'd let something like this get him so easily?"

Considering he almost died before, maybe.

But you didn't want to say that, so instead you shrugged, tossing in another batch of shrimp to the pot.

"I put my full faith in him. But he's still Hylian at the end of the day. He's mortal. Might not be dead, but he could be hurt."

"You say you don't doubt me, but it sure sounds like you do."

There was a beat of silence as you processed the third voice that joined the conversation, and then your ladle fell to the ground.

You whipped around, unable to contain the smoke that stretched across your face as you rushed towards Link. He had a grin of his own, but it quickly faded into a look of surprise as you practically tackled him to the ground in a tight hug. Link took the brunt of the fall as you landed on top of him, but if it hurt he didn't show it. Instead he hugged you back, his arms sliding around your waist and squeezing. His cheek rested on your head.

"What took you so long! Are you okay?" You pulled away only a few inches to inspect him, but seeing as though he seemed fine you returned to your spot under his chin.

"Just needed a breather. Solving a bunch of puzzles and fighting an entity that's just a mini Ganon takes a lot out of you.

"And I bet the puzzles were harder than the fight." You snorted.

"That's just rude." Link playfully shoved you off of him, sticking his nose in the air. He didn't deny it. "What is that smell? I'm starving."

As if on cue, his stomach rumbled. You laughed and stood up, offering your hand to him. Link took it and hoisted himself up, the task a bit more difficult with how tired he was.

"Kodah and I made a huge seafood paella dinner for everyone to celebrate. We made sure to make enough for you when you came back."

"Oh my goddess, really?" Link's mouth watered as he watched you scoop a serving for him. "You're the best thing to ever happen to me."

You slightly flushed, but ignored his comment in favor of making your own plate and informing Kodah of your departure to eat with Link. You led him to a more secluded area, away from the crowds, figuring that he'd had enough of the socialization for a while. You certainly had.

You watched as Link took a tentative bite of the paella before diving in. You couldn't help but laugh. "You're gonna choke if you don't slow down."

"You go do the shit I did and then tell me that again."

"I would, but you said I'm not allowed." You joked, playfully pouting.

Link rolled his eyes. "Right. And after experiencing it, my rule still stands. If anything, it stands even stronger."

"Really? It was that bad, huh?"

"Uh, some parts were." He put down his utensils for a second. "It's draining, that's for sure. I, uh, saw the old Champion."

"Mipha?" Sidon had given you the rundown after returning from Link.

"Yeah. I remembered her. It sucked, but in like a different way than usual." You stayed silent, so he continued. "Like, obviously I knew her and was close with her. So I should be grieving her death, right? Except, I'm not because I don't remember her. So I only feel guilty now, because I feel like I should feel worse about it and that makes me feel even worse but in a different way. And it doesn't make any sense but—"

Link's rambling was cut off as you laid your hand on his. His eyes shot up to meet yours, the calming aura reflecting in them helping to soothe him a bit.

"Link, your circumstances are one in a million. There's a lot of things that should have happened, or ways that things should be, but guess what? It didn't happen. You've got to navigate an entirely new life— you're still in the same body as 100 years ago, but everything is different now. The land, the times, even you seem more different than how you described how you used to be. You told me that you never talked, but now you're so talkative.

Maybe 100 years ago you'd grieve properly, but even then is there even a right way to grieve? Everyone handles it differently. You feel guilty for not remembering her, right?"

Link nodded, averting his eyes in shame. You squeezed his hand.

"From what you do remember, do you think she'd want you to be sad about it? Or do you think she'd want you to just think about the happy times you can remember?"

"Definitely the happy times." He had a far-away look in his eyes, probably playing the few memories he does have of Mipha in his head. "She was always about being strong and looking on the bright side."

"And she believed that you fit her mindset so similarly that she wanted to marry you! You, of all people. Marriage material? I don't know about that—"

"Hey! I'll let you know I'd make a perfect husband." Link huffed and sent a grin your way. "It's not like I would've married her anyways. When I remember her, I get the feeling that I loved her as more of a sister than anything. I didn't even know about the Armer being made."

"And what cool armor it is." You laughed.

You'd brought up the marriage subtly, wanting to get Link's input on it without him teasing you for caring so much. When Sidon told you of Mipha's story, you questioned whether Link returned her feelings or not. You hated to admit, but you were definitely a little jealous. Not in a romantic way, of course.

In more of a "You're my first friend in a very long time and I don't want anyone else to have your attention" kind of way. Yeah. You had one more question to curb your jealous curiosity for the day, though.

"If not Mipha, what about Zelda? Isn't it like a fairy tale come true for a princess and her knight to fall in love?"

"No," Link laughed and shook his head, as if it was some absurd idea. "Zelda hated me up until a few days before Ganon attacked, I'm pretty sure. Plus, she was into some other knight at the castle. That's another reason why she was so mad that I was her knight and he wasn't."

"Oh come on." You felt better, but now you just wanted to tease. "There's no way a guy like you wasn't drowning in women."

Link flushed, and you bit back a laugh. "N-no! I told you, I didn't even talk to anyone! I was so focused on being a knight, and then being the Champion, I didn't have time for anything else."

"You for sure had women eyeing you. There's no way you didn't. You're too handsome for that."

Link continued to flush. He'd mentioned many times before that in the past, the burden of protecting Hyrule kept him stoic and quiet, but you had to tease him. His social skills were never entirely up to par.

"Stop messing with me." He finally let go of your hand and grabbed his utensils again to finish the paella. "What did you do when I was gone?"

You looked at your plate for a split second, trying to make a decision on what to say. Link would be so upset if you fought a monster alone, but you would like to think he'd also be proud.

You remembered moments before the fight, when the Yiga member taunted you from the trees. He beckoned you back to Gerudo under potentially false promises of knowing your brother's location.

"I just healed. Rested and went on a walk or two to keep my muscles from getting stiff."

"That's it?" Link didn't sound convinced. "Very unlike you to actually listen to Doctor's orders."

"Yeah, well," You paused for a second, trying to think of literally anything to defend yourself. Sometimes, telling the truth is the best lie you could create. "I just didn't want to hold you back from any more of the journey, so I wanted to get better as soon as possible."

Nobody ever said it had to be the truth of the current situation.

"Oh please," Link waved his hand, "I'd carry you on my back across Hyrule if I had to."

You didn't have a solid response to that and you were nearly certain Link was unaware of the feeling he just gave you in the pit of your stomach. You needed to change the subject.

"How long do you think it'll be until we reach Gerudo?"

"I was planning on hitting Elden next since its closer. Any reason why?"

Bad change of subject.

"Uh, I just miss my family there a bit. But if we're going to Elden first, I can wait. No worries."

You wouldn't show that it was indeed major worries, but perhaps when Link was off fighting the Divine Beast on Death Mountain you could scout another Yiga soldier and make them give you more information. It didn't feel right doing all of this behind his back, but you were feeling more and more desperate to reach Hiro with every passing moment, especially now that you knew your next move.

You always worked best alone during the little missions that the Yiga had sent you out on. It was taking all of your self-restraint to not just up and leave now to find Hiro, but you also felt a sense of responsibility towards Link. Like it was your own personal mission to protect him from the Yiga and any other threat that may come to him during his mission.

You knew the minute you realized who he was that your old way of life would no longer work. You needed to adapt and find new ways to solve your issues in your new phase of life.

Your new phase with Link by your side.

#botw link #breath of the wild #breath of the wild x reader #link x reader #daruk #fanfic #revali #urbosa #mipha #zelda #botw link x reader #loz link x reader #botw #botw x reader #loz #loz x reader

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marenwithanm · 10 months ago

Note

Oh!! What headcanons/plans do you have about Wood's family? And/or Who was the hardest to design?

Hi thanks for the ask! I don't really plan on going into Wood's family and such during the actual comic, so I'm happy to lore dump it all right now 🤣 he's probably the one who I've thought the most about for this question, because there's literally nothing to go off of. Also I got another ask for question 9 (which is asking about all of the links families) so I'll go into my thoughts on the other Link's families there.

So Wood was a normal kid you could find anywhere, living in a small village. (I can't decide if I want that to be on the outskirts of Hyrule or not even in Hyrule in the first place). He had parents who worked hard to provide for him and his little baby sister. His dad was a wood worker, and made the little play sword he still carries around (so Wood is quite attached to it. Sure would be a shame if it were to, oh I don't know, snap in half one day 😈) One day, while he was out playing, Ganon's armies raided the town. It went a little something like this:

Wood survived, of course, but the head trauma combined with the emotional trauma left him with spotty memories. He's been wandering around since, mostly just trying to stay alive in the monster infested wilderness. Until one day, he runs into the Princess's nursemaid, Impa, and is tasked with saving the land of Hyrule.

So basically Wood did have a family, but he can't really remember that fact beyond some blurry faces and a feeling of warmth. In between the first game and Adventure of Link, I think he spends some time trying to remember where he came from, and maybe even finds the ruins of that village, but that's a story for another time. It does make his fight against Ganon a bit more... personal than he first realized 🤣

Aaaaanyways, onto who was the hardest to design. I tend to stick pretty closely to the base designs of the Links (which is part of why I think other ppl's links meet aus are so cool how do y'all come up with such neat designs????) but if I had to chose someone it would probably be our ✨Mysterious Figure✨. But I can't talk about him yet so second hardest would probably be Rock. There are two toon links in Little Links (wind waker and minish cap), and I didn't want either to just look like the stock toon link design.

(plot twist, this one is neither minish cap or wind waker link, its spirit tracks link! and unless you're a mega nerd and notice that the line art being colored is a spirit tracks thing (and maybe the belt being grey and the shield design, there's really no way to tell lol. So, you can see why I wanted to stay away from that)

Ocean was easy, just put him in his outset outfit and you're done. But Rock was a bit harder since he doesn't have any alternate outfits in game. I ended up going with a blacksmith apron and long sleeved shirt and pants in the toon link colors. I like his design, but I do sometimes worry he isn't recognizable as Minish Cap Link on his own. But to be fair to me, the only way you can recognize Minish Cap Link even in offical art is with Ezlo on his head and I can't exactly do that here since its before everyone's adventures, so I think I did just fine. As for everyone else's designs I really just took their offical art and in game designs into account. Like Pinkie's red shoes are just from alttp Link's sprite

Ocean has a bracelet because he has one in wind waker and I extrapolated from there.

I do kind of wish I had done something fun with Wood's eyes, since his loz 1 sprite has dual colored green and brown eyes, but oh well its too late now.

Also, sorry this answer took so long, I wanted to include a bit of art but its my spring break right now so its been a hectic (but fun) week

#little links #loz #link #links meet au #not comic #ask #wood #rock #boot

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clockwise-works · 9 months ago

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Idk if you've answered these yet, but 17 and 22 for the ask game?

Thanks for the ask Sky, and don't worry I don't think I've answered these ones! And sorry for the late answer, these one's genuinely had me thinking at work lmao

17. There should be more of this type of fic/art

This one is a... little difficult to answer. In terms of fics, I generally only stick with the Mipha/Link tag, and once sorting and curating it to my liking I can honestly say I so very rarely run into fics I don't like. It's the same with art, granted I'm a little more general with my art. Like yeah I love Miphlink and Mipha art, but I also like general non ship Zelda art, Sonic, Kirby, Mario, Pikmin, you can show me art for something I've never engaged with and I'll probably like it! Line technique, coloring styles, backgrounds, even ui and video game menu designs get my brain going!

So in terms of stuff I think there should be more of, as in there's grossly not enough? I guess I'll go with Miphlink fics that involve ALL the champions + some extras like Impa, Purah and Robbie, the Brigade members. Don't get me wrong, I love lovey dovey "the two idiots are together, watch them fumble until being together", but the one's I really love? I love the fics that include the other characters, give them their own arcs and dynamics with one another, AND the miphlink is there but not the "central focus" of the plot, if that makes sense. Like, it can be a pivotal part of their individual arcs, to allow themselves to express and accept love, but in the grand scheme of things there's OTHER arcs and plotlines going on! I love ALL the Champions, I love pretty much most of the characters! I wanna see Miphlink sure, but I especially love seeing Daruk like overcome a fear of harming people, pulling from his fear of dogs. I love seeing Revali learn to be more open and humble, more confident in his EMOTIONAL strength and not just his technical strength. I love seeing Zelda finally learn that people DO care about her, that she IS loved and can love in return in which THAT gives her at least a step towards unlocking her power.

I don't know if that made sense, hopefully I did. And I'm hopefully not dismissing the fics that ONLY focus on the Miphlink, like I said I eat that up! It's just that I really do love groups with MULTIPLE dynamics and relations and arcs, and oh it just so happens the two childhood best friends happen to love another and are happy and together, but in a semi lowkey way where they focus on one another, but also the other plotlines :)

22. Your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores?

This, once again, is a little hard to answer since as of now I've only played through the Wild Era of games, So I'm not super knowledgeable of the Zelda canon. I know the general stuff, but the more minute stuff? A little harder for me to answer.

I guess I'll be biased and say that people sometimes undermine Mipha's strength. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not fully convinced she's the strongest Champion when you have Urbosa who literally wields a Zora's weakness, and Link, who's quite literally "built different", but a LOT of people make the gap between her and her peers a little too wide. Especially considering that out of ALL of the BotW characters, the only one's who have canonically defeated a Guardian are Link, King Dorephan, and Mipha herself.

It is stated in game during The Champion's Ballad DLC that each Champion underwent Divine Beast Tamer Trials, and are the exact same one's that Link undergoes in the DLC. That means Mipha has canonically taken down FOUR Guardians at the same time, three flying ones and one ground mounted one.

Now, there is the argument that the Guardians may have been of lesser aggressive programing then the one's Ganon overtakes, but given that the one's Link fights in the DLC don't actually glow red, they aren't taken over by Ganon much like the one's in the shrine, meaning Mipha fought them at the EXACT same capacity Link did.

Another argument that could go against this that I'll address is Age of Calamity. In that game EVERY playable character can take out even the strongest of Guardians, and while I'm willing to believe some characters like Daruk, Urbosa, and maybe even Revali can take them, I think this falls more into gameplay mechanics to ensure every character has the overall same capacities, and therefor no character is at an utter disadvantage if a mission has Guardians. I approach this the same way as the flurry rush, in Canon I think only Link can actively do that move, as it is his special trait, but every playable character can do it mechanically just so they all have the same general controls. You cannot tell me in canon characters like Yunobo, Kohga, and Purah and Robbie can perform the EXACT same micro second dodge that Link can.

So, my little canon detail a lot of people overlook? Mipha's a LOT stronger than she appears. And while people who gravitate towards preferring her like the Mipha fans here and on Reddit may agree, most sites, which reminder YouTube for example has a MUCH larger userbase than us, most people tend to place her as the WEAKEST Champion. And I just can't agree.

...Maybe I'm just salty that I saw a YouTube poll of her being in dead last in terms of strength...

#thanks for the ask homie!#lovely skyloftian-nutcase #this one was a lot of fun to think of!#also sorry for all the words yall #I had a good amount to say

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game-boy-pocket · 2 years ago

Note

How has Ganondorf evolved throughout the series?

Well there's a lot of youtube channels that can show you that exact thing i'm sure. But I take it you want that in my exact words. But that will be a long one so buckle up... for that we need to go back to 1991. Back in those days, we only thought of Ganon as some kind of evil wizard pig. We didn't know he was originally a human. But A Link to the Past comes along and reveals that Ganon used to be called Ganondorf, and he was the leader of a gang of thieves.

Now, Ganondorf didn't appear in a Link to the Past, he was only ever mentioned by name... or was he? Because my theory is that he actually is in the game, going by a different name. That name being Agahnim, the human antagonist with an unusual skin color ( light blue in this case ) dressed in desert clothing, who earns the trust of the king, betrays him, is defeated by having his magic reflected back at him, is only able to be damaged by the master sword, and Ganon refers to him as his Alter Ego... as you pay attention to the history of Ganondorf, this makes a lot of sense.

Ganondorf would appear under his real name for the first time in the prequel to a Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time. Here he's the King of a gang of thieves who live in the desert ( which supports my Agahanim theory ), he has an unusual skin color ( green in this case ) who swears fielty to the King ( I guess we're not supposed to know he's the king of thieves yet? Or maybe this is one of those cases where the english translation doesn't cover some things, as i'm learning is so often the case ) who betrays the King ( where have I heard that before ? )

Anyway, Ganondorf makes quite an impression every moment he's on screen in this game, and even when he's not, as Ganondorf is the one responsible for all the happenings around Hyrule, you'd think the Zoras or the Gorons would warn the King of Hyrule or something but I guess they were too busy with their own problems, and Ganondorf is still playing softball, until he follows Link into the sacred realm to claim the Triforce. He's a pretty brilliant manipulator in this game, he continues watching Link until the moment he reveals Princess Zelda's whereabouts. He grows in power after the 7 year time skip, and ruthlessness as he's cusing problems in Hyrule that are now much much worse. I think he's still pretty sane here because he's not outright destroying Hyrule, he's keeping people alive as long as they don't oppose him. He's even having the likes of Lon Lon Ranch raise his horses. Also he gets a really cool design change after the 7 year time skip, it's a detail I really like that not a lot of people talk about....

oh yeah... and you defeat him by sending his magic attacks back at him...... where have I heard that before?

Anyone who beat OOT knows how it ends. Ganondorf is sealed away in the sacred realm and Link is sent back in time 7 years... but the power of that seal fades away over time. Ganondorf returns, and Hyrule is flooded.

Aged, tired, and desperate, Ganondorf takes up shelter in an abandoned Pirate fortress, clinging to what little relics of Hyrule he has. and gathering any monster forces he can reach, he sends his new pet bird, the Helmaroc King, to kidnap any girl in the great sea that they can find, in hopes that one of them will be the descendent of Princess Zelda, who would carry the Triforce of Wisdom. In a pretty unusual twist in the Zelda series, this Ganondorf remembers events from the past game, being sealed by the sages, name dropping the "Hero of Time", the title given to Link in Ocarina of Time. And he also opens up about his motives for obtaining the triforce. Jealousy and suffering. The harsh desert that was burning hot in the day and freezing cold at night was a living hell for Ganondorf and his people. He opens up to Link and even promises not to kill him despite holding a nearly unconsious Link in the air by his arm. This is very unusual but very interesting. He also comes so very close to getting exactly what he wants... the Triforce. Unfortunately, he does the thing a vilain shouldn't do when this close to victory, and he monologues. The King of Hyrule yoinks the triforce and makes his own wish before Ganondorf can touch it.

His defeat at the hands of the Hero of Time has cracked his mind just a bit, but he still manages to keep a pretty cool head up until this moment, where he just snaps. This battle kind of takes away the magic attacks. Those are still in the game, but is now mostly given to his phantom Ganon form. I kinda wish they kept some kind of magic attack in the final battle instead of just giving him sword and that's it.

Well Ganondorf gets a nice new pair of cement shoes at the end of this game. Or rather, cement everything. It's a fan favorite version of Ganondorf, and for good reason, it's probably the best.

Ganon is once again mentioned in name only in Four Swords Adventures. Supposedly he's not the same one from any of the prior games. Who really cares at this point. But in this game he is a younger Gerudo, possibly not yet the King of the Gerudo, who decides to break into an old tomb to steal some sort of powerful trident, presumably the weapon that changes him into the pig beast Ganon.

A quick side bar to talk about Ganon.... his origin seems to change from game to game and it kind of bothers me. We didn't know Ganon had a human form in the NES games but after a Link to the Past, it was assumed he became a pig demon because the Dark World changes humans into a form that reflects their heart... but then ALTTP had a prequel game, Ocarina of Time, where Ganon is just some kind of form he can take using the power of haltered. And the most recent example I know of just treated Ganon as a different entity than Ganondorf? It's so dumb and confusing. Anyway, back to Ganondorf.

In Twilight Princess, we're lead to believe there is a new Antagonist. A guy in black robes with a freaky metal helmet named Zant... but no, it's really more of a Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine situation, with Ganondorf being the Palpatine to Zant's vader... except Zant doesn't get a dignified redemption moment at the end.

We learn half way through the game that Ganondorf was the leader of a gang of thieves who was captured and sentenced to justice... and if you pay for a special collectors eidtion book, we learn that he was brought to justice for plotting to betray the King and steal the triforce, because the Hero of Time and Zelda ( as children ) warned the King about his plot before he could do it... this is... a very stupid way to handle connecting Twilight Princess's plot to Ocarina of Time, by simply not doing it until after the fact. But it is what it is... anyway...

Ganondorf is executed and sent to the Twilight Realm, where so many people were banished, they formed a society. But hatred and resentment lingered in the Twilight Realm, and Ganondorf was nourished by the power of that hatred and grew into a god...who made a deal with Zant, and escape back into Hyrule... or something, idk, the story is kind of wacked. Ganondorf is not as wise in this game because he didn't learn from his experience in Ocarina of Time, he was defeated earlier in the game.

Here, his magic is back.... kind of... he takes control of Zelda's body, and has a battle with Link very similar to Ocarina of Time. You have to reflect the magic attacks back at him... then he tranforms into Ganon,which is a bit strange to not save for last. Ganon, in this game, is very bestial. A quadruped, and more like a hybrid of lion and boar. It kind of reflects Link's tranformation into a wolf... then you have a horseback battle with him, then he falls off his horse like a nerd, and monologues again to save face, then comes at you with the same sword he was executed with, which left a gaping hole in his chest. It's pretty cool, but I have to admit, I really prefer magic weilder ganondorf to swordsman Ganondorf... you kill Ganondorf, who dies standing up, there's some cut dialogue that implies he will reincarnate for all time, which would have been better in my opinion than what they do next...

Side note... Ganondorf is so ugly in TP... especially the HD version.

Anyway, Ganondorf would not appear in a ( canon ) Zelda game for some time after that. Instead we get Akuma from Street Fighter as a final boss. Some big bad generic demon man who is just evil for the sake of evil, and exists at the beginning of the Timeline ( even though we already got a "origin of all monsters" story ) and HE is the one who says a reincarnation of his hatred will follow Link and Zelda's successors for all time, which I feel really robs Ganondorf of his agency and I hate it. I love Ganondorf as a character and this has done serious damage to him for me.

Anyway... there was also Hyrule Warriors but I don't remember the story of that game, something about a horny witch making the multiverse happen or something. Ganondorf had Super Saiyan 3 hair and I didn't like it... moving on.

Ganondorf was not in Breath of the Wild. I had my own theories about that. But Tears of the Kingdom threw a monkey wrench in that. I have not beaten the game yet, but I am getting the impression that when I do finish it, I will be left with more questions than answers.

Ganondorf in TOTK appears to be back to his old tricks of gaining a King's trust and then betraying him, but he's also not even trying to hide that he is in fact evil. Oh and also he's a mummy who can project an giant image of himself in front of the heroes to monologue, like Shredder in the Super Nintendo TMNT game. That's pretty sick... but the problem I have with this is that Ganondorf shouldn't exist in this game... unless I treat it as a different continuity than the main series... at least I think this will be the case... again, I have not beaten Tears of the Kingdom yet, but I am pretty sure I already know everything I need to and it's not going to solve my conundrums in a satisfying way, and I am just going to have to fix this broken mess myself. I will have to get back to you on all of this later.

But for now, that's my take on the evolution of Ganondorf.

A mater manipulator magician driven by a mix of jealousy and greed who aged into a desperate forgotten swordsman king, then turned into a generic evil overlord who was always destined to be an asshole, and now he appears to be a crusty old power hungry king that, I guess wants to actually destroy the world rather than rule it? I'm still unclear.

I really think he's not as appealing as he use to be, but I still like him.

EDIT: My god I sound like an idiot and I have made too many typos and grammatical errors and just generally poorly structured this whole thing, I can't be bothered to go back and fix it all.

#long post

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a-pale-azure-moon · 2 years ago

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I've barely scratched the surface of TotK and I can feel my brain wanting to disappear down the Zelda rabbit hole. I am desperately trying to keep at least half of it in my writing brainspace but damn is it hard. There's so much temptation to just plop down with my Switch for the next eight hours and forget about everything else.

Anyway, I'm still very early in but I'll put my ramblings under the cut just in case.

-I know the popular joke was that TotK is just "$70 DLC." Obviously it is not with all of the new content, but it genuinely feels like I'm playing BotW again, only with new tools and new places to discover. And I don't consider that a bad thing! I spent almost 300 hours playing BotW and still wished there was more I could do (aside from hunting down all the Koroks because screw that), so I'm happy to be revisiting this world and exploring it all over again. Though I won't lie that I miss having all the gear and upgrades I had by the end of BotW. I'd forgotten how easy it is to die in stupid ways early on.

-Holy hell is there so much to explore. Maybe too much. Even with the nudges the game gives you, it's really hard to know where to even begin once you leave the Great Sky Island. I haven't even done any of the main dungeons yet; I've just been wandering around looking for shrines and seeing what's changed. It's even more daunting knowing there's stuff in the sky and in the depths to explore as well.

-The Depths freak me out. I've only been in there once and I'm not eager to go back until I'm stronger. Never been a fan of dark places in video games; you never can know what's lurking there, waiting to ambush you.

-It's nice to see all the familiar NPCs. Bumping into Purah and Robbie right away made me smile.

-It's also nice to see that Hyrule's been rebuilding since the end of BotW, but that evidence of the Calamity still exists (Castle Town especially). It makes the world feel that much more organic and real.

-That opening sequence was choice. Like, the approach to Ganon's lair, with the increasing gloom and the ominous music, literally sent shivers down my spine. Good shit.

-Ultrahand is amazing and I've only just begun to really play with its powers.

-To whomever at Nintendo designed the Gloom Spawn/Grabby hands/Nightmare Fuel, I hate you. May all your bacon burn for the rest of your life.

-I miss the Bomb runes SO MUCH.

-What happened to all the Sheikah technology anyway? I totally get dismantling all the Guardians considering they were the scourge of Hyrule for a long time, but did the towers and the Slate just...stop working?

-I'm fascinated by Rauru (and no, it's not just because he has Dimitri's voice, though I won't lie that it makes him that much more appealing, lol). So, we know that's his right arm that Link is "borrowing," and all of Link's new powers specifically come from that arm. And that same arm was keeping Ganon sealed away for....some length of time I'm not aware of yet, but I'm guessing it was awhile. And the new shrines are implied to contain fragments of Rauru's power as well. Just how powerful is this guy? Also, the reveal that he's the first King of Hyrule too (and married to a Hylian woman!) just makes things more interesting.

Also, also, look how adorable he is! I want to pet his ears and brush his hair! But I also want see him go ham at some point because the game sure as hell implies that he's god-like and I'm here for it.

...But it'll probably also make me sad because he's well, dead now and it's likely because sealing Ganon away cost him his life. =(

(I'm still reeling that Rauru's voiced by Chris Hackney, and it's even more wild with Matt Mercer being the voice of Ganon. How is it that the VAs of both of my FE husbands wound up in this game? Thanks for making sure the brainrot never ends, Nintendo!)

#legend of zelda #totk #totk spoilers #my ramblings #totk rauru

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rawliverandgoronspice · 2 years ago

Note

Thoughts on TOTK Ganon's appearance?

A lot of them!! Some would say: too many!!! Too much!! So much so that I was almost starting to turn this ask into a TotK early review, so I'll simplify my answer a little.

I have not finished the game yet, but I have seen the memories and a good chunk of it, but my opinion is therefore incomplete and subject to lapses in judgement/hasty positions. Also, my opinion on this is kind of a buzzkill and I already made people depressed and bummed out by explaining it, so I'm putting it under the cut to avoid hurting the good time of people who might not want to think about this/might disagree on this description alone (and I understand, since it's an opinion that also depresses me!!! I wanted to like everything!! I wanted to be blown away!!).

I think this Ganondorf is like OoT Ganondorf redux, but with even more problems than OoT Ganondorf, somehow??? which is honestly a flex at this point.

(I love OoT Ganondorf to be clear, but the flaws are pretty undeniable and you have to navigate through a lot of bullshit to get to the good parts)

Between the green skin that lacks any proper justification in the context of the game (I say this because I always hear "oooo but it's because he's a demon/undead" and uhhhh no, it's not because of that apparently), the fact that he's half naked but we're never ever meant to conceive him as a human person in any way but merely as a constant physical threat... Like I'm certain the famous Ganondorf Designer did their utmost to give him justice and there is an obvious attention to details in his design, and I'm not blaming them or anyone in particular for the Nintendo treatment --but it does add up to something quite uncomfortable in his characterization regardless. Even the fact that his face rigging is extremely flimsy and makes his emoting feels super strange bugs me (I heavily suspect it's because it's way less soft anime and structurally very different from any other face in the game, especially around the jaw, and so they had to do a custom rig and had to work around its limitations --it's all speculation, and I am always here for Unsettling Ganondorf Faces, but it kinda felt accidental and not intentional like in WW or TP). He's at once a lot and really not much. I find his characterization beyond barebones. Even Twilight Princess Ganondorf had more to him than this (like the man was fascinating in comparaison, show me a guy claiming to be chosen by the goddesses while sitting on a throne next to the decapitated statues of said goddesses any fucking day over what we got here)

I like the mechanical aspects he introduces; the gloom is cool, the hands that grab you are amazing, the bosses are such cool callbacks --and he's just causing messes and putting parasites in things!!! You go girl. I do love that he's having his little puppet Zelda run around causing hijinxes, that's very fun of him and my favorite part of his character in this game so far, tho I don't know if that even counts as him --and I'm not 100% sure what that even says about anyone?

But here's the thing: nobody (beyond * arguably * Rauru) seems to be allowed to have a character arc in this game, so it's hard to come up with anything to say since he's the sole cause of conflict while being almost completely motivation-less. I don't think anyone is written particularly competently honestly; it just shows more with him because a Ganondorf who's not well written reverts back to Ganondorf at his most generic expression of a baddie imaginable, with a side-serving of, quite frankly, really questionable orientalist themes that I see little excuse for being handled the way they were in the year of our lord 2023. Like I'm kinda shocked not to see more people calling the racism for what it is, because it's... pretty blatant. But that goes beyond Ganondorf and that's the whole game, and I said I would try to keep my scope limited, but!!! I will screech about imperialism eventually!!!

The other aspect of that discussion, which is inevitable, is how much does TotK erase everything that came before? I'm sure there are some amazing Zelda theorists out there who will find a way to reconcile all of this, but for now, I get the sense that Nintendo wanted to get away from their messy timelines (fair) and reinvoke some of the old songs for a new audience, and in doing so scrubbing the slate clean. My problem is not so much that they wanted to do this (even if I think BotW's solution was, strangely, much cleaner and more respectful of their own history), but what they introduced instead: and, in Ganondorf's case, he's kind of reduced to a parody of himself --one that is so unbelievably unsympathetic and impossible to relate to and also responsible of his own oppression and also not oppressed since he attacked first!! and also oppressive?? (I made A Sound when I heard the line about Rauru talking about "the last free gerudo village falling" bitch!! free according to whom??????)

Removing a lot of the Goddesses/Triforce thing (so far, maybe it will come up) also does this conflict zero favors in my opinion, as it makes everything and everyone's actions much less fated and an expression of self-determination/resilience over their predestination, and much more uhh political in a bad way, while still borrowing the aesthetics of divinity to justify its own mind-numbing moral simplicity.

I don't know. Maybe the third act reveal will really surprise me and make me reconsider my position, but it would take a lot to scrub off all the dedicated efforts made to flatten Ganondorf to his lowest possible denominator (him and his people honestly my follow-up to the gerudo post will probably be Oops! All Salt) for the sake of the most brazenly imperialistic and feudalist Hyrule to date and its really weird and uncomfortable reimagined origin story.

So uhhh, Thoughts Bad! I guess thoughts bad. :(

(Matt Mercer did a great job with what little he was given tho, and so did every voice actor)

#tloz #ganondorf #totk #totk spoilers #tears of the kingdom #totk critical #gerudos #asks #thoughts #thank you for the ask!!#I truly adore a lot of things about the game!!#the narrative is not a part of it #I find it so... cheerfully oppressive #my brain is really going overdrive over trying to figure out what bothers me so much about this story #so thanks for the outlet and sorryyyy #it's a rant #like a proper one #but I kind of feel insane to see fellow game writers not criticize any of this??#like it's not at all a part of the conversation?#and it's not even the only thing I want to criticize about the narrative design #HOWEVER this is not at all a condamnation of anyone who do enjoy him or feel creatively compelled by his appearance here #I'm sure there are things to do that are cool and powerful #just like there were in OoT #but I just don't see an excuse for Nintendo itself to be so careless in handling these themes in 2023 #(again: the company not the individual devs)#(I've BEEN THERE --not in Nintendo but AAA-- I know the pain of complexity being rejected and rewritten as its opposite)

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mashounen1945 · 1 year ago

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1st time playing the Super Metroid + Zelda 3 combo randomizer

I actually did this a few months ago, but only talked about it on Discord. I'll copy-paste a sort of "liveblog" I did there.

[If anyone else wants to play it, go to https://samus.link/ to generate a randomizer seed from the ROMs of both games. If you wanna play the specific seed I played, the seed's number is 1045710512.]

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So... Here are the settings I used:

Super Metroid logic: normal.

Requirements to open Ganon's Tower in Zelda 3: all 7 crystals in the Dark World.

Requirements to open Tourian in Super Metroid: all 4 bosses.

Morphball location: randomized.

Goal: defeat both Ganon and Mother Brain.

Requirements to leave Ganon vulnerable: all 7 crystals.

1st sword location: randomized.

Keysanity: off.

Also, there are these other settings, which are merely aesthetic and don't affect gameplay or the item shuffling of this seed:

Link is replaced with Shantae.

Samus isn't replaced but her suit is replaced with the one from Metroid Dread (and her gunship gets a purple paint-job so it resembles the one from that game as well).

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Welp... Got a Power Bomb magazine (Is "magazine" the right word in this context?) where the Morphball would normally be, so I can only go to Hyrule now.

That sure was a good start. /s

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I'm not doing very well in Hyrule either. Got arrows and lots of magic, but no weapons to use them with, no sword out of Link's uncle, and no lamp. And in the path to Zelda's cell, the key for one of the doors was replaced by a Missile magazine for Samus.

I might be softlocked.

Now, I know there's a distinction between Normal Logic and Hard Logic: Hard Logic means the seed will require some advanced techniques to exploit glitches (short-charging the Shinespark, for example); Normal Logic will require, at most, basic stuff such as Mockball. But there's another setting, separated from whether to choose Normal or Hard Logic, which is whether or not to activate Keysanity: this randomizes keys as well as the normal items in Zelda 3. I thought I had turned Keysanity off...

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I started to look for stuff outside of Hyrule Castle. I already found an Energy Tank and a Reserve Tank for Samus and money for Link in that room behind Sahasralla in Eastern Palace (I was lucky one of the soldiers dropped a bomb, which I could use to break a wall meant to be broken with the Pegasus Boots provided by Sahasralla), but these ain't very useful for now.

I could enter Eastern Palace now as well. I wouldn't beat the boss there, but I could open some of the chests and see if I get something early.

Oh, fun fact: the name "Sahasrahla" is written in Japanese kana as "Sahasurāra", which is also the Japanese name for the 7th chakra, Sahasrāra.

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Also, I've just found out those signs in Hyrule hit really, really hard when you throw them at people.

I had to use them because I didn't find any of the swords yet. Someone else mentioned this:

"Zelda 3 wasn't designed with Sword-less in mind. It's not like you can skip it in the standard game, like in Zelda 1. It only has it as a consequence of the tutorial."

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I'm starting to realize what kind of Pandora's Box I've just opened.

I enter Eastern Palace...

1st chest I open?

A Big Key.

2nd chest I open?

Gravity Suit.

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Found one of the Mitts (the grey one), and the Screw Attack. Now these might actually be helpful.

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Space Jump acquired. It was inside the Swamp Ruins.

Still no Morphball, though.

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There is one place in Crateria where, in order to reach it, you need either the Speed Booster or a combination of Space Jump and Screw Attack. It's the one with all the worms and the lava going up and down. In the Chozo statue at the end, I found the Fire Rod. At least I have a weapon in Zelda 3 now, even though it depends on magic.

Also, I got a couple of Super Missile magazines in Zelda 3. IIRC, the path from Crateria to the Wrecked Ship requires one Super Missile to open a door, and then Space Jump with Gravity Suit to get easily through that area with the giant pool that is supposed to require the Grapple Beam.

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Never mind, it also requires one Power Bomb to open another door.

The same goes for the door that takes me from Crateria to Red Brinstar.

Back to Zelda 3, I guess.

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I take it back, I remembered something: there are a few blocks on the path to Green Brinstar that normally are destroyed with Morphball Bombs. But they can also be destroyed with Screw Attack. Which means I can enter Green Brinstar now.

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I've just remembered how good the music for Green Brinstar is. It also reminded me of one pretty big coincidence: it sounds like the music for Collision Chaos in Sonic CD. More precisely, Green Brinstar's music has a melody very similar to that on the North-American soundtrack's music tracks for Collision Chaos (especially the Present version), whereas the instruments sound a lot like the ones used for the Past music of that same level (not the melody, though, since the music tracks for Past versions of all Sonic CD levels are made from the Japanese soundtrack's melodies).

King Meteor Studios made their own "North-American Past" remix of Collision Chaos. Leaving the slightly slower tempo aside, it has a lot of Green Brinstar vibes indeed:

youtube

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Found Hammer and Hookshot in the "pink" part of Green Brinstar. The Hookshot in particular was very accessible, it didn't need Space Jump.

I also beat Spore Spawn.

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I decided to explore Death Mountain (albeit I had to go through the tunnel to Death Mountain without the lamp, which I had never done before) and try to get into the Tower of Hera. In one of the few chests of the tower, I finally found the Morphball, so now I could come back to planet Zebes and clear some stuff there. Especially because I had found the Ice Beam in the Chozo statue after Spore Spawn's room, but I had gotten a soft-lock due to not having Morphball and I had to reset it back then.

I also got the Book of Mudora in one of Death Mountain's caves. Although I'm still swordless and some tombstones with items require both the book and at least the Master Sword (I don't know what they'll give me here, but in the normal Zelda 3, two of those tombstones give you the Ether and Bombos medallions), entering Desert Palace only requires the book AFAIK, so I could go there once there's nothing left to do in Super Metroid.

Lastly, I beat Tower of Hera's boss with the Hammer (that boss is still just as annoying as in the original game), and I saw the Spazer Beam where the Mirror would normally be. I can only reach that place by going through the Dark World, which requires the Moon Pearl.

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Just as expected, getting Morphball alone already unlocked a lot in Super Metroid.

The Chozo statue that normally gives you the Morphball Bombs (and then reveals itself as a Torizo and tries to kill you) gave me the Magic Cape instead. I'm not sure how useful the Magic Cape will be for me here: almost half of my weapons require Magic, so I already need to be careful and use it with lots of moderation.

There's a part of Green Brinstar that everyone on YouTube uses to demonstrate the Mockball; behind that, there's a Chozo statue with an item, then another two items behind that. One of those two hidden items was the Pegasus Boots, which in turn unlocks quite some stuff in Zelda 3.

I entered Red Brinstar, but after exploring a bit, I went to the Wrecked Ship from there. If I had stood on Red Brinstar and gone further down there, I probably could have gone to Kraid and beat him only with what I already had.

I've also beat Phantoon and explored almost all of the Wrecked Ship (the only part left of this area requires the Speed Booster to go through) and its surroundings, where I found the Ether medallion. In Zelda 3, freezing enemies -either with Ether (pun not intended) or the Ice Rod- and then killing them with the Hammer makes them drop Magic refills, so getting this item partially solves my little Magic Scarcity Crisis. The one big downside of this is that I'll have to try not to waste uses of Ether in rooms with only one or two enemies.

I'm in the upper areas of Maridia now. To nobody's surprise, getting the Gravity Suit early makes this place much less of a nightmare to explore. On the other hand, my lack of the infinite supply of normal Morphball Bombs is starting to become a problem, as I have to very much manage a finite supply of 10 Power Bombs and I'm finding more and more places where I need to do a Bomb-Jump and those few Power Bombs are the only thing that lets me do that for now.

I've not even set foot in Norfair yet. I guess I could, but I'll leave that for when I get the Varia Suit and I can explore all of Norfair in one go. I know there are ways to beat Super Metroid without getting Varia, such as the Reverse Boss Order run, which explicitly requires entering Norfair and beating Ridley without Varia... but I'm still not enough of a True Gamer™ to pull it off.

And yes, I'm still sword-less. I was also shield-less for quite a long time until I got the basic shield in the Wrecked Ship.

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I'm exploring Maridia right now. I didn't notice at first, but that place is huge.

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I can't do much more in Maridia for now. About 40% of the region is still inaccessible, because either it requires Speed Booster (like that room with all those "under-developed Metroid larva" things, and another point where I saw the Silver Arrows) or the door is grey and can't be opened at all.

On the good side, I did the Gate Glitch for the first time (Yay!) and got the Blue Boomerang... which isn't a lot, especially when I already have the Hookshot.

There are items in Maridia that require some sick tricks (like jumping, going into Morphball and t h r e a d i n g t h e n e e d l e in a hole for the Morphball near the ceiling... with crumbling blocks below) and I don't have the patience to try to pull them off right now, but those items ain't even important: a red rupee and Heart Pieces (quite a lot of them).

There are also the Silver Arrows, which are locked behind a Speed Booster wall apparently, but that doesn't matter for now because I don't even have the Bow.

I'll go explore what's left of Red Brinstar and beat Kraid while I'm there.

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Something particularly frustrating regarding the beam cannon: I have the Ice Beam... and nothing else, not even Charge Beam.

So I shoot the Ice Beam, hoping that it freezes an enemy. And it does, but only after ten or more shots.

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Something related to this: I heard that, at least in the Metroid titles on the GameBoy Advance (Fusion and Zero Mission), when the beam types stack, not only do they combine their effects but they also have additive attack power; Samus's fully upgraded beam cannon can already do much more damage than the beam cannon at the beginning of each game because of the minimum damage it does per shot, even if the enemy is a major boss such as Mecha-Ridley or Mother Brain, to whom the Ice Beam doesn't freeze and the Plasma Beam doesn't repeatedly do damage multiple times with each shot.

I also heard that, in Metroid Dread, enemies have specific weaknesses to one beam type or another.

Back to Super Metroid, since each Plasma Beam shot can go through enemies while damaging them, thus inflicting several times more damage than the shot itself (unless it's a major boss such as the aforementioned Mother Brain and Mecha-Ridley in Zero Mission), it has a... unique effect on Crocomire when firing a fully charged shot at its open mouth.

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Kraid... eradicated (see you in Metroid Dread, I guess).

I think I'll go back to Hyrule now. Once I'm there, I might find a way to enter the "eastern" areas of Maridia (the ones I couldn't explore yet) from Zelda 3, perhaps even fight Draygon.

There are 4 doors in Zebes and 4 in Hyrule that work as portals between both worlds here. The locations of all these doors, along with which door in Zebes connects with which door in Hyrule, are not randomized. But I don't remember the exact location of every portal; I remember one that connects Crateria with a house in central Hyrule near Link's house (which I found at the very beginning of the playthrough), and there's another one in eastern Maridia that I only know about because I saw it in Maridia's map but I still don't know where in Hyrule it leads to.

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Also, in Kraid's Lair the eastern part of Red Brinstar after The Tube (you know which one...), there's a room that can only be entered after killing Kraid. What do I find there?

An Energy Tank.

Which was already there in the original game, IIRC.

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Okay, I decided to enter Norfair anyway, despite not being able to get very far yet without the Varia Suit.

On one hand, where the Ice Beam and the Hi-Jump Boots would normally be, there were just a Normal Missile magazine and 10 Arrows.

On the other hand, right before the Hi-Jump Boots' room (where I have to run a race against an orange Zoomer or something), I found a Power Bomb magazine. With the one I got as a "reward" after defeating Kraid (because it took the Varia Suit's place), I have a maximum of 20 Power Bombs now.

Besides, right after entering Upper Norfair from Red Brinstar, there's a Save Room and another door... that turns out to be another portal to Hyrule. More exactly, a portal to Death Mountain. So now I'll start doing stuff in Zelda 3, starting from there.

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After exploring a bit, I've beaten the boss at Desert Palace. I had already made some progress there, but I couldn't go fight the boss until now: the Big Key was behind the only door I hadn't opened, and the one key that would let me open that last door was on top of a column and required the Pegasus Boots.

I have the Mirror but not the Moon Pearl, so I can only do brief "incursions". In one of them, I got the Spazer Beam (to be precise, I found it where the Mirror would normally be).

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There's something weird I found upon watching some streamers play this randomizer:

Does anyone here see anything strange in this screencap?

It's not really important, since it doesn't affect the actual gameplay at all. But it still baffles me: this doesn't happen with the Spazer Beam in the original Super Metroid, nor does it happen with any other item (neither the ones for Samus nor the ones for Link) in the randomizer.

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I finally got the Moon Pearl. Now I can explore the Dark World as much as I want. I also got the Red Shield, which can at least reflect some attacks.

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So... Now that I can enter the Dark World with no problem, I went to its version of Kakariko Town (I think it's called "Thieves' Town") and entered the dungeon below the statue. The first chest I open? The level 1 sword, called "the Fighter's Sword" in the randomizer.

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I had to leave the dungeon at Thieves' Town for later. I was dying so much, I couldn't progress much there. Also, I still don't have the Bow, and I'd like to be able to shoot the 40 arrows I've hoarded so far.

So I went to the witch's hut to get a blue potion (I'd gotten one of the Bottles earlier), and when entering the Dark World again, I decided to explore outside of the dungeons.

And I'm getting some important items: Zora's Flippers, the Ocarina, and Half-Magic.

I'm not sure what exactly Half-Magic is for, though. I heard there's only one place in the entire game where it really makes a difference: in the Dark World's version of Death Mountain, there's a cave with its floor covered in spikes; I can either get enough Heart Containers and tank the damage, or use an item that grants me invicibility (either the Magic Cape or the Cane of Byrna), which will require a lot of magic.

Other than that, I guess I could just... get all four Bottles, save money to buy 4 blue potions and get by with that.

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Two different people told me this about Half Magic:

"It's a funny moment in-game when you get it. Also, it lets you super-spam the Fire and Ice Rods."

"It's a nice quality-of-life detail but you don't really need it for anything."

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Zora's Flippers will be very useful when I get back to the Light World: on the way to the Zoras' Waterfall, I saw the Titan's Mitt on the other side of a river.

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Thieves' Town boss, defeated.

Is it just me, or the only way to defeat this boss is to "out-DPS" them? Both here and in the original game, I've beaten it by running into them and damaging them faster than they could hurt me. In the original Zelda 3, I tried to preserve my health so I could fire sword beams (which I don't have yet in the randomizer because... well... no Master Sword) and attack from a distance. But that pair of flying heads kept shooting and the red shield didn't stop all their attacks, so I lost the sword beams very quickly during the fight. The arrows were too slow as a long-range weapon in comparison to the sword, so I just... rammed into the boss and started slashing. The old-fashioned way of using a sword, you know?

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Some answers I got from people on Discord:

"That boss is unique in that it takes equal damage from all sword sources. So the best method is to poke it, despite that normally making your damage lower." "Doesn't he just take a set number of hits, basically?" "Three per head, for a total of nine."

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Let's do a recap of what I've got until now.

In Super Metroid:

5 Energy Tanks and 2 Reserve Tanks.

Ice and Spazer Beams.

Gravity Suit.

Space Jump.

Morphball and Screw Attack.

100 normal Missiles, 30 Super Missiles, and 30 Power Bombs.

Grapple Beam.

In Zelda 3:

12 Heart Containers, plus 2 Heart Pieces.

40 arrows and at least 18 bombs (I don't know what's my bomb capacity right now, I know about the arrow capacity only because I've hoarded those 40 arrows without a Bow to shoot them with).

Half Magic.

Level 1 Sword and Red Shield (which is level 2, I guess).

Blue Boomerang.

Hookshot.

Magic Powder.

Fire Rod.

Ether.

Lamp.

Hammer.

Shovel.

Ocarina.

Bug-Catching Net.

Book of Mudora.

1 Bottle.

Magic Cape.

Mirror and Moon Pearl.

Titan's Mitt, Pegasus Boots, and Zora's Flippers.

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When generating this randomizer seed, I had chosen to shuffle what each defeated boss would represent and unlock. Here's what I've found out:

When I killed the boss at Thieves' Town, according to the game, I actually got the blue pendant, the one from Desert Palace.

Earlier, when I did the same at Desert Palace, I got one of the crystals as a reward instead of that dungeon's pendant.

When I defeated the boss at Death Mountain, I technically killed Kraid.

When I actually killed both Kraid and Phantoon, officially I defeated another two Dark World bosses, thus being rewarded with another two crystals.

The three crystals I've got so far are the 1st, 3rd and 4th ones, which correspond to Dark Palace (Dark World's Eastern Palace), Skull Woods (Dark World's Lost Woods), and Thieves' Town.

According to the maps of Zebes's regions, Ridley is in Maridia, taking Draygon's place. Meanwhile, Ridley's place in Lower Norfair is taken by a red crystal.

Two of the seven crystals are shown as red in the randomizer; to be precise, it's the 5th and 6th crystals, which correspond to Ice Palace and Misery Mire (the lake/swamp in the Dark World that replaces the desert in the Light World). Those are the two bosses I need to kill in order to get the big bomb and go grab the Golden Sword (or whatever it's been replaced with).

According to the map of Hyrule's Light World, Phantoon is still kicking in Eastern Palace. Meanwhile, the map of Hyrule's Dark World says that:

The green pendant (Eastern Palace) is in Skull Woods, and the red pendant (Tower of Hera) is in Turtle Rock.

Draygon is still waiting in Dark Palace.

The crystal in Turtle Rock was sent to Swamp Palace, the one that was originally there was sent to Ice Palace, and the red crystal in Ice Palace was sent to Misery Mire (which means Misery Mire's red crystal is the one replacing Ridley).

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Before I continue with this, have a little PSA:

If you wanna try this randomizer out someday (or if you wanna play any randomizer, for that matter), completing the original versions of both games at least once before playing the randomizer should be enough. No need to learn all the ins and outs of each game, or overly complex speedrunning tricks or very advanced sequence-breaking techniques or glitches.

Games Done Quick has its own series dedicated to randomizer runs, "Random Number Generation". The people playing games for that section often remind viewers that randomizers are for players "of any and all skill levels", not reserved or restricted for True Gamers™, and it's okay to play them with only a minimum of knowledge and experience in their respective original games.

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Now I've just gotten the Cane of Byrna: it was in Misery Mire, inside one of those two rooms at each side of the entrance to the dungeon. The other room is the portal to Lower Norfair; to be precise, that portal leads me right behind the Golden Torizo room.

The portal connecting Lower Norfair with Misery Mire is here. It doesn't expose me to that area's high temperature, but instead leads me to a room with an energy recharge station. I could try to go to the Golden Torizo's room (a bit further down and to the left), fight it, get whatever is hidden in that corner the Torizo drops itself from, and get the heck back to the recharge station. But with only 7 energy tanks (5 normals + 2 reserves), I don't feel confident enough.

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Yes, there is a Chozo statue between the portal and the Golden Torizo's room. And I did go down there to see what it had.

One rupee. I almost died for one rupee.

Anyway, Master Sword... acquired.

In the northeastern corner of the desert, there's a place that can only be accessed by warping to the Dark World, walking to that corner, and warping back to the Light World in that spot. There, in the cave below a light-green rock, the item turned out to be the Master Sword.

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I couldn't do anything else in Misery Mire, so I went to explore Ice Palace. Also, I've just got the Tempered Sword.

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The Ice Palace boss is down. I also got the Cane on Somaria.

I'm starting to get less and less stuff from the places I explore, and I'm kind of running out of places to go as well.

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I managed to beat the boss at Dark Woods, but I didn't get any new items. Many places in Hyrule where there should be an item only have a red rupee instead. Also, I had forgotten how much of a headache that dungeon is: those "falling hand" things that grab me and take me back to the beginning (I know they're called "Hand Masters", but I'll just call them "Za Hando" from now on), a new kind of mummy that's more resistant than the others, and the entire dungeon having a confusing design in general. And there's the boss itself, with the giant conveyor-belt floor and the spikes moving independently from that floor. I could kill that overgrown moth only by spamming the Fire Rod (I was pretty close to running out of magic, due to having only one bottle to carry blue potions), and I had only one heart at the end of the fight.

After that, I tried to get into Dark Palace and get the only pendant left. But there's an enemy that can only be killed with arrows, and the door to the boss doesn't open until that enemy dies; this is the same as in Eastern Palace, where I opened all the chests but I can't fight the boss yet.

On the other hand, while exploring Dark Palace, I got Plasma Beam. Which is... nice, I guess. For now, Plasma is useful as an alternative to Spazer and not much else. I can't fire charged shots yet, so I'm still unable to truly exploit the qualities of Plasma Beam (one-shotting Crocomire, for example), and I still don't have the Wave Beam, which I still need for a few puzzles (a door in the "pink" part of Green Brinstar, which can be opened with the beam cannon but only from one side).

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Forget what I said earlier, now I'm making actual progress. I just wasn't looking in the right places.

Two of the bottles were in Death Mountain: one was in the mountain's caves, in the Dark World, and the other one was in the Light World but had to be acquired by using the sword and the book on that gravestone to the east of Tower of Hera (I think it's the one that would normally give me Ether).

That reminded me of the gravestone at the entrance to the desert (the one that would give me Bombos in the original game), which requires going through the Dark World. That 2nd gravestone gave me Varia Suit, so now I can either go back to Zebes or stay a bit more in Hyrule.

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A while ago, I was like "I'm gonna stay in Hyrule. Swamp Palace should be available already, maybe I can get something there." One minute later, I found the Charge Beam.

Best. Decision. Of this entire playthrough.

Now I can use Power Bombs as ammo for those s i c c tricks with special beam attacks (though that'll not be a reasonable way to manage my still very limited supply of Power Bombs).

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And now the boss at Swamp Palace is dead.

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This randomizer seed kind of likes to mess with me via the rewards for defeating a Zelda 3 boss.

There are two rewards. One of them is the pendant or crystal assigned to that dungeon (or the corpse of a Super Metroid boss in this randomizer, I guess); as I said earlier, randomizing this is optional and I had turned that on when generating the seed, so I knew what I was expecting in that regard. The other reward, awarded to the player before the dungeon's pendant/crystal, is some other item; just like everything else here, this item can be almost anything other than small keys (randomizing those keys is optional, and I had turned that off).

After defeating each boss in this seed, I've often been rewarded with a "dungeon item", either the Map or the Compass. This time, after defeating the Swamp Palace's boss, I was rewarded with the 3rd "dungeon item": the Big Key.

Also, I hadn't found the Map anywhere else in Swamp Palace, so I'm pretty sure it's in the giant chest that requires the Big Key.

Now I'll go back to Zebes. I still don't have normal Morphball Bombs, but with what I've got for Samus so far, it should be enough. I might even be able to defeat Mother Brain already.

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Before going back to Zebes, I did one last quick search through Swamp Palace. Just as I thought, the Map was in the chest locked by the Big Key.

But there was also one normal chest I hadn't opened yet. That chest had the last of the 4 Bottles.

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I've just got out of Norfair. I had entered by "cheating", going through the portal from Misery Mire.

Many important items were in Norfair this whole time: the Speed Booster in a room at far-eastern Norfair that requires the Spring Ball, the Spring Ball in a room very close to where I needed it to get the Speed Booster, the Golden Sword hidden in a pool of lava near the entrance to Norfair, and the Blue Mail at... some point between them, I don't remember. On the other hand, I still don't have the Bow.

I also found the normal Morphball Bombs (finally...). Turns out they were behind Ridley. So yeah, I had to fight Ridley.

I won, but it seems 12 Energy Tanks (3 of them are actually Reserve Tanks, though), 40 Super Missiles and 150 normal Missiles might not be enough to beat him, not to mention that I can't avoid ramming my face into a boss as part of my "strategy" to defeat them. The only way I managed to survive was by shooting all the normal Missiles first, then shooting all the Super Missiles after them, so Ridley turned red but didn't have enough time to kill me with the stronger attacks on his "angry phase".

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I've just finished exploring Maridia. Draygon is dead, and thanks to the Speed Booster, I've got the Silver Arrows, which I had already seen earlier. Still no Bow, though. There are a few locations in Brinstar and the Wrecked Ship that I couldn't access until now, so I'll look for items there.

Also, the portal in eastern Maridia connects to the South-East of Hyrule's Dark World; more exactly, the entrance to a cave, to the east of the lake where the Ice Palace is. In that same spot of the Light World, there's the 8th arrival point available when using the ocarina to move around Hyrule (those arrival points for the Ocarina Boy's Bird).

I'll have to go back to Hyrule eventually, anyway. Due to the "boss shuffle" thing, according to this randomizer seed, Draygon is in Dark Palace, and I couldn't fight the boss there yet.

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I forgot to mention a few things:

In Norfair, I found the two medallions left (Bombos and Quake).

In Maridia, I found the Mirror Shield. It took the Plasma Beam's place, behind a door that remains locked until after you beat Draygon.

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Welp... I'm pretty much done with the Super Metroid part of the randomizer for now. I found the Red Mail, but not much else, so I still don't have either the Bow or the Wave Beam. There's one item I haven't checked yet, but it's behind that one-way door in Brinstar. It'll be so cruel (but not unexpected) if it turns out the Wave Beam is behind that same door and can only be acquired by using the Gate Glitch (which is even harder here, since this door is high above the ground). Now I'm back in Hyrule, trying to defeat all the remaining bosses there.

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I began to explore Turtle Rock, and during the boss fight, I realized something else: both the Fire Rod and the Ice Rod are needed to fight the boss.

I still don't have the Ice Rod, and I thought Ether would be a good replacement since it has the same effects.

...

Guess I'll die.

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Okay, I've just defeated the boss at Misery Mire, so I have all 7 crystals now because of Boss Shuffle. Now I can grab the big bomb and get the item that took the Golden Sword's place, and I might be able to fight Ganon already.

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Well, Plan "Big Bomb" didn't work: I just found an Energy Tank in the Golden Sword's place.

On the other hand, I've unlocked Ganon's Tower. I hope any important item left is in there; right now, Bow and Ice Rod are all I'd really need, since I can enter Tourian and kill Mother Brain without Wave Beam.

Also, I remember seeing someone beat Ganon without shooting arrows. They had to slash Ganon with the sword... like... 50 times or something. I could try that since I've got no Bow but at least I have the sword at max level.

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After learning some advanced variants of the Wall Glitch (which was for nothing, because the one item left in Zebes was just a Missile pack) and also the Mimic Clipping (which isn't very useful anyway) and revisiting everything in Hyrule, I finally found out where the important items left were located this entire time:

The Bow was in the "c-shaped house" at northeast Thieves' Town, which means it was totally available ever since I was able to enter the Dark World.

The Ice Rod was in the cemetery to the east of the Sanctuary, in a room hidden below a tomb on the northeast corner of that cemetery. Until a few minutes ago, I only knew of a similar secret room below a tomb on the northwest corner of the cemetery.

The Wave Beam had to be acquired by completing a task, the one where you have to find a purple chest in the Dark World (in the Dark World's version of the twin blacksmiths' house, to be precise), warp to the Light World with it, and bring it to some moustache guy meditating in the middle of the path between the ruins and the desert. I had completed that task in my 1st playthrough of standard Zelda 3, and I still remembered there was a purple chest, something important in the Dark World's version of the blacksmiths' house, and that guy meditating, but I had completely forgotten the connection between all those things.

Anyway... Now I can beat the randomizer with no problem.

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Every boss in both Super Metroid and Zelda 3 has been defeated.

(Also, after gathering the three pendants, I went to Lost Woods and found out the Red Boomerang was the item that replaced the Master Sword in this randomizer seed)

Now I could go beat both games' final bosses in any order I want. There's only one noteworthy difference gameplay-wise between defeating either Ganon or Mother Brain first: if I beat Mother Brain before Ganon, Super Metroid's escape sequence only has a countdown until Samus crosses the door that takes her out of New Tourian and into Old Tourian, which makes the escape less anxiety-inducing. From that point onward, Samus can either go back to her ship or keep exploring Zebes since it's not gonna explode (or the player can warp back to Hyrule to fight Ganon).

There's this tradition (at least on Games Done Quick) of leaving Mother Brain for last. But I'll go kill Mother Brain first, I'm not really in the mood to deal with the entire countdown.

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Since I've got most items and I can go beat both final bosses, I decided to try some of those glitches with the mysterious VAR Beam (which is just Spazer and Plasma Beam activated at the same time). But then I saw that Hi-Jump Boots are required to get the VAR Beam in the first place, and I can't do any of those glitches without that.

Oh, well... I guess I'll beat the game(s) without doing any weird experiments.

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Okay, to be precise, the VAR Beam (along with all the other glitches that are based on it, like Murder Beam and Space-Time Beam) requires the Hi-Jump Boots only for the option to appear on the "Boots" section of the pause menu.

I also saw a glitch to be able to move during the entirety of the Mother Brain boss fight, even when the controls are supposed to be temporarily turned off (the scene where "The Baby" sacrifices themself for Samus and she gets the Hyper Beam). Unlike more advanced stuff such as short-charging the Shinespark, this glitch seems to be rather easy to do.

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And now this randomizer seed has been beaten. Finally.

I had forgotten about the funny lines Randomized Ganon can say at the beginning of the battle.

"Thanks for dropping in, the first passengers in a hot air balloon were a duck, a sheep and a rooster."

"I feel like we keep ending up here. Don't you? It's like deja vu all over again."

"JOIN ME, HERO, AND I SHALL MAKE YOUR FACE THE GREATEST IN THE DARK WORLD! OR ELSE YOU WILL DIE!"

"IMPA SAYS THAT THE MARK ON YOUR HAND MEANS THAT YOU ARE THE HERO CHOSEN TO AWAKEN ZELDA. YOUR BLOOD CAN RESURRECT ME."

"Don't stand don't stand so Don't stand so close to me Don't stand so close to me back off buddy"

And then there's the Essence of the Triforce saying nothing but "L O L".

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The results:

(Now, I wonder what's up with that digit on the hundredths of seconds of the total time...)

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