'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe

Look - an arrow! Clearly much more important than the raging tentacle monster 😅

Anyway, I've just reached Lanayru in Skyword Sword (one day I'll complete the blog series, promise!) and took on the dragon's Lightning Round challenge because why not. It went surprisingly well:



I think that's the first time I've actually obtained that in Skyward Sword, and I reckon I've earned that after that boss rush. One boss in Skyward Sword is physically hard work, let along eight of the blighters in a row!

To be fair some of them are complete pushovers by the time my sword's been upgraded to the Master Sword, and with the reflexes and skill that comes from being 30-odd hours into the game. Others... aren't. The biggest difference is between Imprisoned take 1 and Imprisoned take 2 - the second incarnation is tougher, faster, and cheats by climbing up the side of the pit. So of course Lanayru left that one to the end, and of course that battle went right down to the wire. On reflection that was the only truly difficult battle out of the lot, as the Imprisoned battles were the only ones with a hard time limit and the first incarnation I swatted in a minute or so (the powered up Master Sword makes a lot of difference!).

And as proof that Zelda games continue to surprise me no matter how many hours I put into them, Koloktos (the giant corrupted six-armed chakram-throwing Buddha-like statue at the top of the Ancient Cistern) apparently can summon cursed bokoblins. I've never seen it do that before!

The amount of physical effort needed (motion controls are hard work!) reminds me of fighting those three Darknuts at the bottom of Twilight Princess' Cave of Ordeals. Actually, no, that's harder - Lanayru gives you a moment to collect yourself between each boss, and even within the battles it's sometimes possible to slow down the tempo for a moment, but those Darknuts don't let up for one moment.

Right, where was I in Skyward Sword?

( Temple 4 )

"This place needs a name. Yeah... A name fitting for this rugged, adventurous wilderness. From now on, we'll call it... Grooseland!" (cue sad trumpet)

Silly Groose. And for a moment he looked like he was going to do something smart for a change.

( Skyward Sword 2013: interludes )

Ah, Lanayru desert. The land of quicksand, electrifying enemies (zap! ouch!), and weird questions regarding time.

( En route to temple 3 )

Did you know that if you hit the giant gems in the walls of Thrill Digger, rupees come out?

Nope, neither did I until earlier today when I happened to sit on the chair by the Thrill Digger guy. See, Skyward Sword is full of stools and chairs in various places, and while they might appear to be just eye candy they actually come in quite handy. The first trick is that if you sit and wait a moment, you will regain all your health. That's incredibly useful in Hero Mode, where hearts are unobtainium.

The second trick is if you sit down next to someone, they'll talk to you. Sometimes it's just saying hello, sometimes it's total randomness (like the Thrill Digger guy explaining just why he's balancing on his tail), and every so often it's a useful little snippet like that rupee one, or a hint as to where something is hidden.

And then some are just placed to let you admire the view, like the bench right at the top of Skyloft behind all the houses. Sit there, and the camera pulls back to show you the whole of Skyloft.

I like games which have interesting things to discover, little rewards for pausing and looking around instead of hurrying through. Metroid Prime (especially the first of the trilogy) was excellent at this sort of thing - there was an incredible amount of things you could scan there beyond the creature details and log books. The extra scans were pretty much anything from the useful (one log tells you about the Metroid vulnerability to cold) to the amusing ("Metroids are not pets. Metroids are not for target practice") to the we're-all-doomed (there's one with the Space Pirates fairly panicking once they realise you're merrily waltzing through their base) to the mundane (a log hidden away in a secret cave at the top of Phendrana's Edge merely reminds personnel to check their life support equipment). And that's just the Space Pirate ones - there's just as many about the Chozo and their ruins, and even odd tidbits about the environment around you (scanning the little red flowers reveals that they're prized as a delicacy). None of it is at all necessary for a game to be good, and yet it adds just that little bit extra that makes it much more enjoyable.

Is it just me, or do the robots in Skyward Sword look rather like those in Laputa: Castle in the Sky?

Okay, okay, I know the Skyward Sword ones are cute little waist-high robots while in Castle in the Sky they're 10' tall with frickin' lasers on their heads, so there's perhaps a little difference in height there...

And wouldn't you know, but it is now tomorrow!

( Skyward Sword, second temple )