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[ywkls]

Part 17

 

The flashbacks with Marin were the inspiration for the next quest in this series.

During development I changed to a tileset which better resembled Game Boy aesthetics.

I thought of doing another with Farore, but decided that wasn't necessary.

These same cutscenes take place in the other game.

That Target Practice mini-game is heavily weighted in your favor.

 

There are exactly 10 blue keys and 10 blue chests in the world.

The one with a Crystalline Flame was added because I moved one boss to be a final challenge.

 

Did you know? Lost Fairies don't appear in dungeons.

They do continue to follow you, though.

 

The puzzles with the torches are random every time.

This prevents you from memorizing the solution.

They do tend to last longer than intended but at least you can tell when they're solved.

 

All fire powers are disabled while underwater.

This makes some parts of the level much harder since many enemies are weak to fire.

Diving is disabled due to bugs with how ZC detects it which I was unable to overcome.

[ywkls]

Part 18

 

Some of the water in Nayru's level 6 is actually scripted.

This was done due to bugs in how layered borders and normal water interacts.

 

Solving that puzzle from the wrong room is permitted.

This obviously would be confusing.

I guess that it's a good thing you didn't need to know what it did to progress.

There's no penalty for getting it wrong so you could theoretically brute force the solution.

 

There are a ton of keys in the Derelict Galleon.

You can get all of them before taking either path.

Half are used on each one.

 

The third arrow upgrade is my favorite.

The sheer power of homing arrows cannot be underestimated.

Many of my personal strategies for boss fights involved using it.

 

Is it just me or is it funny that the fairy you saved only had to travel two screens away to get back?

Collecting all 10 Lost Fairies and returning them is one of the requirements for accessing the post-game.

[ywkls]

Part 19

 

Those puzzles with the lava flow were scripted by Moosh.

I added the lava effects. 

They're one of my favorite new features.

 

In case it wasn't obvious, this is a fire dungeon.

The firebars are made by Russ because mine weren't very good.

Thus we have lots of lava, fire shooters and all manner of burning obstacles.

 

It is possible to do this dungeon first.

So you could have learned to do the shuffling targets puzzle here.

 

The mini-boss is intended to be Ingo, from Lon Lon Ranch.

The Bombos Medallion is designed to be extremely over-powered.

Many enemies, even bosses; are weak to it.

I often used it rather than deal with the enemy hordes.

 

I tried to space out the defense upgrades in this quest better than before.

The same was true of the offense upgrades.

[ywkls]

Part 20

 

Rauru is one of the first bosses to use more advanced attacks.

He's actually quite weak to Bombos.

 

Crystal Volvagia is by far one of the tougher of these bosses.

This is due mostly to his defenses and health rather than attack prowess.

Having the 4th rod upgrade would have made this far easier.

 

In case it isn't obvious, I really like the underwater areas.

This entire sequence prior to Nayru level 7 is stretched to be much longer as a result.

 

Did you know? The location used for Nayru level 7 was very hard to reach in Oracle of Ages.

In fact, you were required to use a linked game to reach it.

I'm very fond of how both level 7's are designed even though Din's is more prone to bugs.

[ywkls]

Part 21

 

Ethereal Depths goes a long way to show my love for sideview dungeons.

The power of Fall Breeze is literally indispensable within.

It's actually disabled on sideview ladders because that tends to break them.

The background tiles are courtesy of Russ and Moosh, I believe. 

The enemies were based on designs by Moosh.

Those ghosts can be damaged while invisible but they just take more hits to die.

 

The decision to make the Water Boots temporary is the basis for the whole dungeon's design.

Believe it or not, I know what caused that glitch with swimming in midair.

The same thing is true when you lost the ability to swim.

Can you tell that this particular patch was not rigorously tested?

That one spot you drowned was really weird.

I've lost track of how often this has broken.

As it so happens, I just released an update that fixes this permanently.

It isn't advised to update midway through a run, though.

 

Water boots are disabled outside of the dungeon.

This is to keep you from swimming everywhere.

The only other place you'll see them is the post-game.

 

Whenever I designed the three medallions, Ether was one of the hardest to do.

I really like how it worked out, even though it doesn't really freeze enemies.

By the way, everyone misses that one key for whatever reason.

[ywkls]

Part 22

 

I wish that there was an easy way to make it where those orange warps don't appear until you get the chest.

Unfortunately, there isn't without significantly changing the rooms.

 

The route around Din's level 7 is very convoluted.

Each room is on the mirror side of the other floor.

 

Having Winter's Chill in your arsenal will make many foes easier.

That and the Seed Shooter are quite indispensable.

 

I can't believe that glitch. 

Thank goodness I dealt with it now.

Also, I do like the fact that the scripted map did show where to go even if that didn't help much.

 

Evil Nayru has all of the powers it is possible for you to have obtained before her level 7.

She is a bit more adept at using them, though.

The character afterward is indeed meant to be Ghirahim.

 

Nayru's level 7 has a lot of callbacks to Zelda 2 in the enemies.

It also has a lot of unique over/under shenanigans going on.

It's probably my favorite regular dungeon in terms of appearance.

 

Those lines showing the current are actually a fairly recent feature.

This helped to ease a lot of confusion in this dungeon.

I do need to work on adding more shortcuts to my quests.

 

The Ball and Chain is quite overpowered.

It is quite good at mowing down many foes.

This is especially useful in this dungeon.

[ywkls]

Part 23

 

Nayru's level 7 is very puzzle light.

This is due to the navigational complications involved in getting around.

Many of the rooms in the dungeon had Water Wizzrobes before.

These were removed due to not being able to fight them.

 

Watching this actually helped me fix a few issues with the map script.

The exclamation points mark secrets.

Those stairs you bypassed weren't marked for some reason.

 

I made some waterfalls one-way for various reasons.

They're not really shortcuts, though.

 

Back when this quest started production, the Sword of Fate was going to be the level 5 upgrade for Link.

I liked the idea and kept it, but as the Hammer equivalent.

 

Some of those messages about the current were made before the lines showing where it was were added.

As a result, they're somewhat redundant.

 

The Giant Darknut was originally intended to be one of the Crystalline Beasts.

However, I had trouble getting his sprites to look right and so placed him here.

He's quite weak to the Ball and Chain.

[ywkls]

Part 24

 

The fairy queen will give you a reward if you turn in all the lost fairies. 

This is one of the requirements to access the post-game.

 

The challenge offered by your doppleganger is available during the post-game.

You must have accessed it and completed the fairies sidequest along with the Farore's memories to participate.

Complete this along with Din for a reward.

 

That Masked Rito in Skyloft is the most powerful of these optional bosses you can face before the end of the quest.

Good job taking it down! I have confidence you will be able to complete this sidequest.

That one cave with the Masked Monkey is often overlooked.

 

At the very least, you found several of the spots where you can take care of sidequests.

This will make cleaning up the ones which remain easier.

 

That one dungeon in the water is in the post-game.

It's one of two challenge dungeons which open the way to the true final dungeon.

 

When WInter's Chill said it freezes some water what it meant was very rarely.

This is mostly used for one or two puzzles in level 8.

 

Getting hopelessly lost does seem to happen rather frequently in my quests...

[ywkls]

Part 25

 

That Masked Zora fight is one of my favorites,

It really shows off the power of the Ball and Chain.

It's designed to work well against many foes.

 

In contrast, the Masked Korok is probably the weakest of these fights.

I was really scraping the bottom of the barrel when trying to devise some of these.

 

Once you have turned in all ten letters, it will be possible to take on a secret boss.

This will give you a powerful reward.

 

That Crystal Flying Bomber is prone to long teleportation sessions.

It's otherwise not very hard.

It's also the last of them.

By turning in all of the flames to the altars, you unlock the ability to open the path to a secret boss.

This can be faced after getting the item from Din's level 8.

 

If you do complete all of the sidequests, then the way to the post-game is unlocked.

This leads to the true ending of the quest.

 

Din's level 8 went through a number of iterations before reaching its final form.

I kind of feel that its theme matched Nayru's level 8.

Each of these dungeons has 3 floors.

The theme of Din's is switching the seasons.

The first floor is spring on the left and winter on the right.

The second is spring and the third is autumn.

This also required the creation of a special palette just for this dungeon.

 

For most of this area, I would often either ignore the enemies or blow them away with medallions.

This behavior is heavily encouraged by their weaknesses.

[ywkls]

Part 26

 

I can't entirely explain the logic behind all of these stump spots.

Especially because there isn't any in some cases.

 

We all knew that with a winter theme, ice block puzzles would return.

These are about the same quality as my earlier ones.

 

The triumvirate of Medallions is complete!

The Quake Medallion is easily the strongest of the three.

Many foes fall to it.

 

I'm probably going to add a sign there advising to use Winter Chill.

Many people seem to forget about it.

 

That puzzle where the blocks change direction was something I discovered during the creation of this quest.

It actually doesn't use any scripts to work!

 

During the creation of the dungeon, I found that some rooms hadn't been used.

This resulted in the creation of the path behind the locks with the warp.

[ywkls]

Part 27

 

That one bombable wall seems to catch many players off guard.

You actually noticed it, but still didn't exploit it.

Perhaps I should add cracks on the other side of the wall as well.

Good job spotting that cleverly obscured Quake spot!

 

Those stumps are somewhat temperamental.

I had to add special programmed to center you on them when you switch areas so you didn't get stuck.

This is why some have you face different directions than others.

 

It was discovered that all of the bosses for the dungeons with the Medallions are weak to them.

Ambi is especially weak to the lightning bolts Quake makes.

 

That sprite at the end is meant to Hilda.

This bit of lore is part of my overall plot for the series.

 

Making the Labrynnan Library have a past/future gimmick is a natural extension of the themes of the quest.

Enemies in each era are different and past actions change future regions.

 

All of the new sprites for Zelda 2 enemies were custom made by request.

I tried to have as many unique foes as I could.

Some were cut due to scripting issues.

 

Floor shapes are not necessarily relevant.

I generally went with whatever felt right.

After a while, you've done everything; really.

 

You get the item here relatively early,

This was originally going to have to be switched like the Iron and Water Boots.

However, a different method was later adopted.

The object you couldn't pick up was actually supposed to be examined,

[ywkls]

Part 28

 

The two halves of that first block puzzle you ran into are mirror images of one another.

You also get to see more of the over/under mechanics of the dungeon in this part.

Some of the puzzle choices were made due to inexplicable bugs.

 

The trouble with large enemies is they take up more space.

There's no real easy solution to this dilemma.

 

When first devised, the ice power would have switching spots like the magic boots.

It was decided to make this permanent and add more puzzles for it.

I used the mouse to switch powers because I ran out of other buttons.

 

The crumbling statue is indeed a one-time gimmick from another dungeon.

I'm not surprised you don't remember because it was level 1.

 

So, for those interested that pit glitch was related to the script which sends you back to a previous screen if you jump into water from offscreen.

Not sure why it dumped you outside the dungeon, but it's fixed now.

[ywkls]

Part 29

 

Would you believe that the puzzle you got ejected from was the first of this kind I built?

It incorporates elements from several other puzzles, hinting at what is to come.

 

In addition to the damage boost, the 4th arrow attack goes through enemy defenses like butter!

This doesn't work on shields, however,

 

The boss of level 8 underwent several revisions before I settled on this one.

It's not particularly hard.

 

With the items from all of the dungeons, it is now possible to finish all sidequests.

Doing so will open the way to the post-game.

If you fail to accomplish this before defeating level 9. there's no reason to worry.

You won't be locked out of any content by doing so later.

 

The book spot in town is the route to the final post-game dungeon.

You'll have to come back there much later.

The Quake spot outside Veran's Castle is for the boss you can face after turning in all of the Crystalline Flames to altars.

 

The Black Tower is quite easily the most complex dungeon in this quest.

Getting all of this cooperation stuff to work was fun.

Though it's never seen before, there's a feature which this shows off.

If you had a character left on a screen where you needed help from the other world to progress, they'd appear during the cutscene.

 

Some rooms don't allow mirror warping.

This is because there were bugs if you could do that while a normal warp was in the room.

 

Due to an oversight on my part, your partner doesn't show up correctly when you cross worlds.

This was supposed to take place but I thought another script was handling it.

My favorite mechanic of the dungeon are the switches you both have to press at once and this bug ruined it.

[ywkls]

Part 30

 

It should feel weird that you don't see Nayru in those crossover screens.

This was an essential feature I forgot to make sure still worked.

 

Those boss refights are actually made to be slightly harder than before.

Not all of them are buffed, though.

In a few cases I had to recreate the sprites due to palette changes.

 

That one puzzle has warp spots because of the presence of actual warps.

Those tend to mess up how the Magical Mirror script works.

 

I can see how it would be possible to overlook what you did.

There are simply so many alternate paths inside the Black Tower.

Remembering which ones you've visited before can be very hard to do.

The layout has been extremely carefully crafted where you must get all keys.

It's also not possible to have extras left over.

[ywkls]

Part 31

 

I considered having updated Dark Oracle fights but decided not to.

This was mostly to not having any good place to put them.

 

In case it wasn't obvious, I went to a lot of effort to make the Black Tower as complex as possible.

This means lots of keys, partner puzzles and places to crossover,

 

If you're wondering why the blocks you push which change directions are strange colors, blame ZC.

It doesn't like to cycle to another combo which has a different CSet,

 

I can see why you might think that the tower might be nearing the end when you did.

All I can say is that there's a trend in my quests to make the last dungeon as long as possible.

 

One of the things I really liked about the second half of the tower is just how often you're forced to work on the wrong side of the mirror.

This made navigation even more tricky.