The Legend of Zelda - Part 3: Here Today, Goron Tomorrow

The Plot
Having met Princess Zelda, we were sent over to the Gorons in order to collect their gift from the gods.  This involves us going through a new village, Kakariko, which I find completely uncompelling, and luckily can pass through without much effort.  Well, except for being killed by chickens once, because that's what you do in Kakariko village.

These ropes sure would be easy to navigate, if the camera didn't suck.

When we arrive at Goron City, it's very quiet.  They're all very hungry, and not that welcoming.  Apparently, their supply of super-tasty rocks has recently been disrupted by a herd of Dingdongos which moved to town.  Incidentally, a brown man of the desert recently came by and offered to help them out... for a price.

After wandering around the city itself, you learn where the village elder is, and playing the royal family's song, he lets you see him.  I am again confused as to how this song is a secret, if everyone recognizes it.  Apparently only fairy-boys and royalty are musical.

It's funny because it's true.

King Goron needs a Snickers, because he is in absolutely no mood to greet messengers, not even from the great Hyrule kingdom.  We offer to slay these Dingdongo creatures for him, in order to save his people, but he just pouts a lot and tells us to go away.  I show him my super-official signed-by-Zelda credentials -- no reaction.  I play him the 'secret' tune of the Royal Family -- he perks up for a second, then returns to his ennui.  Okay...  So, at this point it's obvious that we will need to convince Mr. Grumpypants to give us access to his cave, so that we can earn his trust and steal earn his god-gem, but he's in no mood to let us.

I wander around the village, completing various tasks and puzzles, hoping that one of them will provide a clue as to what we should do next.  After about an hour of this, I turn off the game, because I'm bored.  I contemplate googling the solution, but that seems like giving in, so I leave the game for a few days.

"Oh look, exactly where I left off!"

When I log back on, I wake up in the Kokiri Forest.  My first thoughts are "Well, it's going to take me a while to get back to the Gorons."  So I decide to talk to my fellow Forest people.  They all chum it up with me, and tell me that my best friend Saria misses me, and I can find her in the Lost Woods.

I guess I didn't have to wait long to find out what those Lost Woods were about after all (I traipsed through them in Part 2 thinking they led to Hyrule. They didn't).  I make a quick pit stop in the woods to show off my amazing talent to some weird Skullkids.  They're blown away by my performance, and give me a Piece of Heart.  This is my second Piece of Heart; I collected my first one at Lon Lon Ranch, and they're typically given as minor rewards for quests.  If you collect four of them, then you permanently get another heart (life) for your character.  I currently have 4 hearts, so this is a pretty big deal at the moment.

Hi Saria!  Oh, you want to play too?
What's with you people and ocarinas?

Come on, have a heart.  Play with us!  Maybe just a piece of heart?

This picture is definitely from the woods.

With the Skullkids out of the way, I make my way through the labyrinth that is the Lost Woods.  Well, it would be a labyrinth except that I've done this before, and Mr. Owl came by and told us to just listen for Saria's music.  I meet up with Saria and she tells me that my flute ocarina is magical.  She also misses talking to me, so she teaches me a song that allows the two of us to talk, no matter how far away we are!  Cool, I guess.

I'm tiring of these woods, so I decide to figure out how to convince the Gorons to let me steal their gem get into the Dodongo cave.  Back to the mountains I go!

Hey!  Listen!  Somewhere along the way, Navi decides to tell me that maybe their king is just sad, and he needs to be cheered up -- I could play him a song, or something.  Ahh.  I see.  If only I knew some sort of magical song for cheering people up.    On a hunch, I play Saria's Song for him, and he proceeds to breakdance in his lair.  He can't help but dance his sorrows away.  Literally.

After an awkwardly long dance, he finally tells us that he's feeling much better.  So much better, in fact, that he gives me a Bomb Bracelet, which allows even puny people like Link to pick up bombs and throw them.  Also, since he's going to die without delicious Dodongo rocks, he's going to allow us to risk our life in order to clear out the cave of those pests for him; if we succeed he'll give us the stone.  Good thing if he starved to death I couldn't just take it off his dead body.  Actually, I might not be able to, since he doesn't seem to wear any clothes -- I don't want to know where he keeps it.

This "Cave" looks more like the inside of a dodongo.

Mr. Dodongo, you look like you could use a date.  A date with destiny.

Without too much more fuss, I make it into the Dodongo Cave. This is our second dungeon, and it's filled with bombs and lava. The enemies here almost universally employ one of those two elements in their attacks. One particularly annoying bat actually destroys your shield if you let it touch you. This is a problem because the targeting system and camera can be quite clunky at times. I lose my shield about two-thirds of the way through the dungeon.

Luckily, the cave is relatively straight forward, and I make my way through it and face the Goron's trouble; Infernal Dinosaur: King Dodongo.  He's big, he's mad, and he's not going down as easily as our last boss.  Luckily, I've played a few Zelda games before, and met a few not-King Dodongos in the cave leading up to this fight.  I quickly spot some bomb plants growing, and hurl them into his gaping mouth.  King Dodongo does not look to kindly on this, and tries to roll over me, catch me on fire, and otherwise do nasty things.  Unfortunately for him, I've got a destiny to fulfill, so I quickly dispatch him.  In his dying breath he's nice enough to provide a portal back out of the cave for me.  What a guy; I almost feel bad for murdering him.  Almost.

I'm so happy, I could eat a boulder!  (because I only eat rocks)

Easiest two-man scam ever.
Ganondorf: "Give me the rock, or else DODONGOS."
Link: "I'll save you from those Dodongos, if you give me the rock!"
King Goron: "Okay!"
(I may have just finished reading American Gods.)

With the Dodongo defeated, the Goron Village returns back to its dusty lifestyle it loves so much.  Bombs and Ale for everyone tonight!  The Goron King lives up to his end of the bargain, and gives us the Red Spirit Stone as our reward.  I feel a bit like Jacob stealing Essau's birthright, but I try not to complain too much.  I mean, it is the world we're saving, right?  The Goron are so happy to have food that they even tell me where I can find the last of the God-Stones.  The Zora, water dwelling creatures to the East, keep it.

My Thoughts:
This was not a particularly enjoyable segment of the game for me.  I enjoyed exploring the Goron Settlement, but the camera often got in my way.  If I set the camera to a side, it will start to realign itself as soon as I start moving, making it needlessly difficult to navigate the wires on the top of the settlement.

My complaint, however, is with the Saria's Song plotline.  This is a problem because there is not plotline to it.  I was hoping to hear from Navi (never a good sign), so that she might tell me how to approach the Goron King, but that never happened.  Only when I finally gave up in frustration did the solution present itself.  Who makes a game in which the expected solution is to wait for the player to turn off the game for a while, and give them the answer when they return?  I was never provided with a prompt to return to Kokiri Forest.  This is bad design.  As a concession, the plot from the forest and onward was actually well laid out.

The actual Dodongo cave was a mediocre dungeon.  Entering rooms can be disorienting at times, and I found myself accidentally back-tracking a few times.  The fire-bats which burn your shield are a great idea, but the targeting and strafing system does not work well, so it's very easy to accidentally walk into enemies without realizing they are there.  I don't mind taking occasional damage because of this, but I do find myself taking unnecessary damage.  This particular dungeon was not compelling or interesting enough to make up for these issues.