Oracle of Seasons high playthrough log 1/3

Link gets summoned by the Triforce to the land of Holodrum, where he meets a dancer named Din. Zelda foretold a curtain of shadow drawing around Din, and she instructed the nurse Impa to take Din to Hyrule.

Standard Zelda plot...
"You have a triangle on your hand, that means you have to help us."
Suddenly the bad guy Onox appears and kidnaps Din, who is actually the Oracle of Seasons, and the Temple of Seasons sinks into the ground.

Impa directs Link to go meet the guardian of Holodrum, the Maku tree... discount Deku tree.

The Hero's Sword is said to be hidden in the Hero's Cave

Got the Ring Box, not sure how to use it at this point... that's where the Know-it-all birds come in. Zelda always has these kind of characters, they're like an in-game NPC version of the instruction manual.

The Ring box holds rings, a special collectible that you can equip a few of to get some bonus buffs or other effects. A lot of the optional hidden treasures you can find in this game end up being rings.. or sometimes just restockable stuff such as seeds.

Found the Hero's Cave, a little minidungeon that contains the sword.

The Maku tree senses evil up at the Northern Peak, where the Temple of Seasons sank into the ground. To restore the power of the seasons, Link needs to collect the 8 essences of nature in Holodrum.

Level 1 - Gnarled Root Dungeon
Shaped like a spinning top or something...
The dungeons in this game feel very Zelda 1 styled. The cryptic old man hints, the diamond block pattern surround a staircase, the underground sidescrolling sections... it literally feels like a remake of a LoZ dungeon. It even has Aquamentus as the dungeon boss! Also the Twin Minotaurs miniboss is cool, kinda reminds me of an LttP boss..
Got the first essence, the Fertile Soil...

Seeds scattered across a bountiful lands are nourished in this Fertile Soil!

Found a portal that leads to this weird underworld area called Subrosia. All of the NPCs here are wearing mage cloaks.

Found some shipwrecked pirate skeleton in the desert...

I want to get back to all me mates and dig the ship free, but Cap'n said "Don't come back till ya find me bell"

I guess this is a sidequest for later...

A temple, like, fell into Subrosia! um... what's a temple? Subrosia is a secret place. I must return in secret without being seen.

This NPC dialog is great. And navigating this world is kind of challenging, like navigating a maze. The map doesn't help much.

Subrosia is a land beneath Holodrum, where the Temple of Seasons sank into... instead of water, this place mostly has rivers of lava...

Got the Rod of Seasons and the power to change the season to Winter... this opens up a new path. The Mako tree also spells out where you need to go.

Met the randomly appearing Witch NPC, Maple... if you bump into her when she appears, she drops a bunch of random collectables, sometimes including rare rings or heart pieces, but she'll try to pick her stuff back up before you get to it, and it's kind of a little minigame that depends a lot on the location where she spawns.

Level 2 - Snake's Remains... a dungeon shaped like a snake.
This is pretty tough for a 2nd dungeon, especially all the snakes and spike traps...

More classic bosses, Facade and Dodongo... got the 2nd essence, the Gift of Time.

Seeds sprout as seasons change with the Gift of Time!

Went back to the Maku tree and found Farore, the Oracle of Secrets... she's in charge of the password system that lets you unlock secrets that you pass from one of the Oracle games to the other via passwords.

Found the animal friend Ricky... this game kind of has a dumb annoying feature where you have to choose between one of the 3 animal friends to keep with you throughout the game, and Ricky is just the default one if you don't know about this ahead of time and don't get Moosh's or Dmitri's item before this point. Ricky the kangaroo lets you jump small gaps and punch stuff, Moosh the bear lets you fly across large gaps, and Dmitri the dodongo lets you swim through water and up waterfalls, and you can carry and throw him around with the power bracelet... Certain parts of the game are traversed differently depending on which animal buddy you have.

The Ricky path leads to the Spool Swamp, which leads to another Subrosia portal. Then there's some more Subrosia fetch-questy stuff, and then you get to the Summer part of the Temple of Seasons and gain the power of Summer...

Level 3 - Poison Moth's Lair... its first floor is shaped like a moth... its 2nd floor is shaped like a little hole or something.

Wow, the difficulty is getting pretty good now.

In water, it is invincible.

I had some trouble finding my way around, and remembering where all the staircases are and what they lead to.. the map/compass only tells you where the treasures/boss are, no other information.

The miniboss Calamareye is really fun, easy once you figure it out though... and the Mothula boss is just like in LttP.. I'm really enjoying how a lot of these bosses don't do the usual Zelda thing of being weak to their dungeon item.

Got the 3rd essence, the Bright Sun.

Young shoots grow quickly under the warm rays of the Bright Sun!

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