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Was Majora's Mask 3D a Bad Remake? (Continuation of my Debate with Vanguard333)


FionordeQuester
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9 hours ago, Jotari said:

Yes. When they see Shiro, as vanguard said, they will likely assume he is immediately vital to the quest and leave right away to help him without thinking to grab some eggs before getting out of the fortress. New players probably won't even know you need bottles for the Zora Eggs, likely assuming you will rescue them as a quest item at the end of the fortress which can only be reached by helping Shiro.

Hmm... Yeah, fair enough.  I'll just say that I like not having to go to Ikana Canyon, then 😛 .

3 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Good point about the frogs; I was planning on saving that frog sidequest for after I clear the temple for the first time, so that I know my way around and can just go right up to the miniboss that's a cursed frog.

Plus you can Hookshot the torches to bypass at least two puzzles, the Fire Arrows to light the flower, and to kill Gekko in two blows instead of three.

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Oh; I didn't know about that. I should say that one of the things I'm using is my memory of a playthrough my brother did for Majora's Mask over a decade ago, and he never got past the Great Bay Temple (it was always at the water temples that he stopped playing... completely coincidentally and for entirely different reasons of course). Thanks for letting me know about that; I had been wondering how you were supposed to reach that set of islands; I tried dolphin-jumping and eventually gave up...

It IS possible to do so, but...I certainly could never do it consistently.  Can't do it till after Gyorg anyway, IIRC.

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Speaking of NPC dialogue, it seems that the fisherman isn't the only person in the Great Bay with an... interest... in the Gerudo pirates that goes into the realm of stupidity; there's a Zora NPC near the hidden entrance to the Pirate Fortress, and if you talk to him as Zora Link, he will warn you away from the area as it's near the entrance to the Pirate Fortress... before then saying that he himself is fine where he is, saying that he heard that the pirates are all women and that they're supposedly very attractive, and admitting that he wants to see for himself... What an idiot!

I mean, he's self-aware, at least?  Does make me wonder what a Human + Zora hybrid would look like.  What would you call them, anyway?  "Zoran"?  "Hura"?

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1 hour ago, FionordeQuester said:

Hmm... Yeah, fair enough.  I'll just say that I like not having to go to Ikana Canyon, then 😛 .

Plus you can Hookshot the torches to bypass at least two puzzles, the Fire Arrows to light the flower, and to kill Gekko in two blows instead of three.

It IS possible to do so, but...I certainly could never do it consistently.  Can't do it till after Gyorg anyway, IIRC.

I mean, he's self-aware, at least?  Does make me wonder what a Human + Zora hybrid would look like.  What would you call them, anyway?  "Zoran"?  "Hura"?

Fair enough; it's not a change that's entirely good or entirely bad; it's change that has its pros and cons.

Okay... I probably won't make sense of what you just said there until I complete the temple.

Yeah; I heard that some platforms require dolphin jumping onto them in the original Japanese version of N64 Majora's Mask, and it would make sense if that was one of them and there originally was no motorboat to get there.

I was the one calling him not very bright; he didn't say that about himself. Anyway...

Considering all the famous Zora + human romances in the series, one random Zora NPC trying and failing to see the Gerudo pirates is the thing that made you wonder that? Not, I don't know, Ruto wanting to marry Link, Mipha wanting to marry Link, or a sidequest in Breath of the Wild involving an actual Human + Zora couple? Anyway, there probably wouldn't be any... hybridizing, so to speak; I suspect that any kids would probably be either a Zora, a human, or randomly one of those two options (as in some might be zora while others might be human).

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There hasn't actually been any Zora-Human hybrid in the series, right?

Personally, I see this sort of situation as just... coming up with nothing. As in, no matter how much times they have sex, a Human and Zora couple will simply never produce children at all. But well, I think they'd sooner go for adding a hybrid than saying the two races are incompatible.

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Well, I was just going through the Anju and Kafei sidequest, I had delivered the pendant to Anju, and after doing so, I went outside Clock Town to collect some arrows (not sure why I did so in hindsight since the only combat for the game will be within Sakon's Hideout, so arrows aren't really needed or useful in any way), then went back inside as it was getting close to Night of the First Day... and the game crashed after I walked through the entrance. I have never seen a Nintendo game released in such a state that it crashes three times on me (in fact, crashing once is already more than pretty much all Nintendo games I've played have ever crashed); did Nintendo just not know how to emulate a game like Majora's Mask for GameCube discs? Why is the emulator that they used unable to handle the game? And I know the problem isn't the GameCube, the memory cards, or the disc getting old; they all still work perfectly for literally every other game.

My only options are to keep playing this crashy version, buy an emulation of it on the Wii U that has dim lighting due to whatever it was Nintendo did when programming the Wii U's virtual console and start all over again after plugging in My currently-disconnected Wii U. Obviously, I'm going to go with option a, but I was really hoping it wouldn't crash this much. At least all I have to do is start over for the Anju and Kafei sidequest.

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Hmm... You know, I actually had this whole set of note written out for how to efficiently 6-Cycle this game on both "versions" of the game, even for guys that hadn't played the game before:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12IaanAiMEImplMezTBrrhUxzWU8J5HGxZSDwAZKm_A0/edit?usp=sharing

Partially trying to be helpful, partially because I want to LP the 3DS version of the game.  But now I'm wondering if the GC needs a section all to itself.  All these crashes!

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@FionordeQuester The thing is that the crashes seem to be random; the only thing they have in common is that the game has to process a lot more than usual all at once (going through the deku palace entrance at the same time as an NPC, pausing and unpausing while Link is undergoing the "fall damage" animation, and now entering South Clock Town through the gate at late 5-ish pm on the First Day while the countdown bell is ringing); I wonder if the emulator just has a limit to what it can process or something like that?

But, yeah; the only one of these crashes that I remember ever experiencing before was the deku palace one, and my siblings and I figured it probably had nothing to do with the game. This is the reason I created a thread about the GameCube version; I wanted to get a consensus on how bad the problem was.

To tie this back to the 3DS version, I guess it really shows that there isn't really an unequivocally good way to play Majora's Mask on consoles right now:

  • I doubt many have a perfectly-good N64 lying around, plus the game itself, and hardware has a lifespan, and if you don't still have one, getting one and all the adapters needed to connect it to a modern TV for just this one game is not practical.
  • A GameCube is more likely to still be around and intact because of just how robust the GameCube was, but the Collector's Edition version of Majora's Mask has the risk of crashing, and you still have to get adapters to connect a GameCube to a modern TV.
  • The Wii U virtual console version is cheap and has save states, but the Wii U did not sell well and all games on the Wii U Virtual Console had a really dark and dim lighting filter over them for whatever reason.
  • The 3DS remake is a remake and the changes it made are divisive within the fanbase. Not to mention, if someone wants to try the original version of the game for whatever reason (such as that they prefer to revisit old games as they actually were like back then, or they've heard all the original vs remake arguments and want to see how the original compares), this version is not an option.

It kind-of raises a good question in the future about remakes and preservation/availability: going forward, whenever Nintendo decides to port Majora's Mask onto a new console (such as the Switch), which version will it be: the original, or the remake? Is there room in the future for two Majora's Masks? This isn't really an issue for games like Ocarina of Time or Star Fox 64, where Nintendo will likely release every version of it in existence with almost every new console because they know each version prints money (with the one exception of Star Fox Zero). But for something like Majora's Mask, where you've got one set of fans saying the original is better, another saying the remake is better, and the game's name alone is not necessarily enough to convince Nintendo to re-release it; especially not multiple versions of it (adding to this is that Aonuma himself doesn't like revisiting Majora's Mask, to the point where he half-jokingly admitted in interviews that he didn't even want to remake Majora's Mask and he hoped all the fans campaigning for it would quietly forget the idea), it is a very good question.

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4 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

@FionordeQuester The thing is that the crashes seem to be random; the only thing they have in common is that the game has to process a lot more than usual all at once (going through the deku palace entrance at the same time as an NPC, pausing and unpausing while Link is undergoing the "fall damage" animation, and now entering South Clock Town through the gate at late 5-ish pm on the First Day while the countdown bell is ringing); I wonder if the emulator just has a limit to what it can process or something like that?

But, yeah; the only one of these crashes that I remember ever experiencing before was the deku palace one, and my siblings and I figured it probably had nothing to do with the game. This is the reason I created a thread about the GameCube version; I wanted to get a consensus on how bad the problem was.

To tie this back to the 3DS version, I guess it really shows that there isn't really an unequivocally good way to play Majora's Mask on consoles right now:

  • I doubt many have a perfectly-good N64 lying around, plus the game itself, and hardware has a lifespan, and if you don't still have one, getting one and all the adapters needed to connect it to a modern TV for just this one game is not practical.
  • A GameCube is more likely to still be around and intact because of just how robust the GameCube was, but the Collector's Edition version of Majora's Mask has the risk of crashing, and you still have to get adapters to connect a GameCube to a modern TV.
  • The Wii U virtual console version is cheap and has save states, but the Wii U did not sell well and all games on the Wii U Virtual Console had a really dark and dim lighting filter over them for whatever reason.
  • The 3DS remake is a remake and the changes it made are divisive within the fanbase. Not to mention, if someone wants to try the original version of the game for whatever reason (such as that they prefer to revisit old games as they actually were like back then, or they've heard all the original vs remake arguments and want to see how the original compares), this version is not an option.

It kind-of raises a good question in the future about remakes and preservation/availability: going forward, whenever Nintendo decides to port Majora's Mask onto a new console (such as the Switch), which version will it be: the original, or the remake? Is there room in the future for two Majora's Masks? This isn't really an issue for games like Ocarina of Time or Star Fox 64, where Nintendo will likely release every version of it in existence with almost every new console because they know each version prints money (with the one exception of Star Fox Zero). But for something like Majora's Mask, where you've got one set of fans saying the original is better, another saying the remake is better, and the game's name alone is not necessarily enough to convince Nintendo to re-release it; especially not multiple versions of it (adding to this is that Aonuma himself doesn't like revisiting Majora's Mask, to the point where he half-jokingly admitted in interviews that he didn't even want to remake Majora's Mask and he hoped all the fans campaigning for it would quietly forget the idea), it is a very good question.

It was on Wii Virtual Console too, though I don't know if it also shared the lighting problem (on one hand I assume it does because it's probably running the same was as the Wii U, on the other hand I assume it's not an issue, because Wii emulation was inexplicably a way better service than all subsequent Nintendo attempts). And also, obviously, that's not much good to the people that didn't buy it on Wii 10 years ago given that the Wii Shop is no longer in service.

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7 hours ago, Jotari said:

It was on Wii Virtual Console too, though I don't know if it also shared the lighting problem (on one hand I assume it does because it's probably running the same was as the Wii U, on the other hand I assume it's not an issue, because Wii emulation was inexplicably a way better service than all subsequent Nintendo attempts). And also, obviously, that's not much good to the people that didn't buy it on Wii 10 years ago given that the Wii Shop is no longer in service.

Thanks for pointing out that it was also on the Wii Virtual Console.

As far as I know, the lighting problem was exclusive to the Wii U. However, apparently, a lot of games did have graphical glitches and frame rate issues that were not present in their original releases, and apparently N64 games that used the rumble pak were not emulated to be able to use the built-in rumble feature of the GameCube controller (in contrast with the Zelda Collector's Edition, which has the player choose at the start if they want to use the rumble feature for Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask). This means that, if you're playing Ocarina of Time on the Wii Virtual Console, the Stone of Agony is a useless item and you'll have to look at a walkthrough to find all the hidden holes in the ground, and if you're playing Majora's Mask on the Wii Virtual Console, you similarly can't use the rumble to find hidden holes in the ground or anything like that and will likely have to use a walkthrough.

By the way, what did you think of my overall point?

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2 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Thanks for pointing out that it was also on the Wii Virtual Console.

As far as I know, the lighting problem was exclusive to the Wii U. However, apparently, a lot of games did have graphical glitches and frame rate issues that were not present in their original releases, and apparently N64 games that used the rumble pak were not emulated to be able to use the built-in rumble feature of the GameCube controller (in contrast with the Zelda Collector's Edition, which has the player choose at the start if they want to use the rumble feature for Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask). This means that, if you're playing Ocarina of Time on the Wii Virtual Console, the Stone of Agony is a useless item and you'll have to look at a walkthrough to find all the hidden holes in the ground, and if you're playing Majora's Mask on the Wii Virtual Console, you similarly can't use the rumble to find hidden holes in the ground or anything like that and will likely have to use a walkthrough.

By the way, what did you think of my overall point?

There's not much to say, your overall point rings through. Majora's Mask is not the easiest game in the world to play. I find even standard emulation pretty difficult, though my computer isn't the best anymore.

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3 hours ago, Jotari said:

There's not much to say, your overall point rings through. Majora's Mask is not the easiest game in the world to play. I find even standard emulation pretty difficult, though my computer isn't the best anymore.

I see. Thanks for the input.

I know almost nothing about emulation (what little I know is mostly about the legality of it and comes from discussions with some PC gaming acquaintances and, incidentally, from a Nerrel video), so I'll have to take your word for it.

 

EDIT: Well, I just completed the Anju and Kafei sidequest, and in fact I've completed the entire bomber's notebook now. All that's left now is the Great Bay Temple, a bunch of heart pieces, the Ikana Region, and then the moon.

I will say that the Anju and Kafei sidequest is rather sweet, and when combined with it encompassing all three days in the cycle, I can see why it is as famous and iconic as it is. That said, in regards to the timed mission involving getting to the other end of Sakon's Hideout with both Link and Kafei, while it is not as bad as I thought it would be based on its reputation (mainly because I read a walkthrough first), considering that failure means starting the entire sidequest over again, I can see why it is the most disliked part of the sidequest.

One thing that surprised me was that, when you talk to Kafei on the Second Day and he reveals himself to be Kafei, Tatl will express surprise and say that the Kafei they're looking for is supposed to be an adult, …regardless of whether or not this is the first time you've gotten this far in the sidequest. Since this was my second time going through this part of the sidequest (not including the time when the game crashed), Tatl should already know that this is Kafei. I know that this is probably due the memory limitations that they had when making this game, but it is still a funny thing to notice.

Another odd-yet-funny thing was Tatl saying, "They're lovers, but they look like a mother and child", mainly because I then thought: …How old is Anju supposed to be again? She doesn't strike me as a character old enough to have a kid Anju's physical age (then again, this is supposed to be a medieval society).

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6 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

([A]nd, incidentally, from a Nerrel video), so I'll have to take your word for it.

Don't worry, I won't rip into him anymore.  Did some research, and found that my opinion's softened a little.  He's not a clickbait video maker, nor a false fan of Majora's Mask—just a really passionate fan.  So passionate, he's made his own full-blown HD Texture pack for it...and formed his talking points more than two years before ever making the video:

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-what-are-your-final-thoughts-on-the-3ds-zelda-remakes.1184444/page-2

My opinion on the analysis still stands (that it's filled with misinformation and hyperbole), but...at least I know he was sincere.  You don't need to worry about bringing him up.

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One thing that surprised me was that, when you talk to Kafei on the Second Day and he reveals himself to be Kafei, Tatl will express surprise and say that the Kafei they're looking for is supposed to be an adult, …regardless of whether or not this is the first time you've gotten this far in the sidequest. Since this was my second time going through this part of the sidequest (not including the time when the game crashed), Tatl should already know that this is Kafei. I know that this is probably due the memory limitations that they had when making this game, but it is still a funny thing to notice.

Lol.

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28 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

Don't worry, I won't rip into him anymore.  Did some research, and found that my opinion's softened a little.  He's not a clickbait video maker, nor a false fan of Majora's Mask—just a really passionate fan.  So passionate, he's made his own full-blown HD Texture pack for it...and formed his talking points more than two years before ever making the video:

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/now-that-the-dust-has-settled-what-are-your-final-thoughts-on-the-3ds-zelda-remakes.1184444/page-2

My opinion on the analysis still stands (that it's filled with misinformation and hyperbole), but...at least I know he was sincere.  You don't need to worry about bringing him up.

Lol.

I wasn't worried at all; I was just remarking on the coincidence since we were talking about him earlier. In hindsight, perhaps I should've mentioned the dozen videos he's made on his HD emulation of Majora's Mask.

By the way, in regards to Tatl's dialogue on repeats of the Anju & Kafei sidequest, does the 3DS remake change that at all? In any case, I'm not sure what would be best to change it to, since Tatl wouldn't really want or see a point in giving away that they're time-travelling, but it still seems a bit odd to me.

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21 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

I wasn't worried at all; I was just remarking on the coincidence since we were talking about him earlier. In hindsight, perhaps I should've mentioned the dozen videos he's made on his HD emulation of Majora's Mask.

Nah, it's fine.  Actually it's good I found out for myself.  I went and found his Discord, so I could ask if he wanted to weigh in when the time came.  Show folks my rebuttal video is completely in good faith, and all that.

21 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

By the way, in regards to Tatl's dialogue on repeats of the Anju & Kafei sidequest, does the 3DS remake change that at all? In any case, I'm not sure what would be best to change it to, since Tatl wouldn't really want or see a point in giving away that they're time-travelling, but it still seems a bit odd to me.

Nope!  Dialogue is the same 😛 !

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23 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

Nah, it's fine.  Actually it's good I found out for myself.  I went and found his Discord, so I could ask if he wanted to weigh in when the time came.  Show folks my rebuttal video is completely in good faith, and all that.

Nope!  Dialogue is the same 😛 !

I see. Good that you reached out to him.

I see. Well, I suppose it is just a very small detail in the grand scheme of things.

 

Anyway, regarding Nerrel and his video, there was something I was hoping you could test regarding the Odolwa boss fight (it's something I can't really test since I don't have the 3DS version). Thinking back on both your footage and Nerrel's, I suspect that, while he was wrong about "[them taking] the old [attacks] away", he might've been onto something; he noticed some of the symptoms but gave the wrong diagnosis.

Nerrel's video shows him attempting melee attacks against Odolwa in the 3DS version that hit Odolwa in the legs but ultimately do no damage. Meanwhile, your footage has melee attacks hit Odolwa's legs and succeed in damaging/stunning him, and the one difference I've found is that, in Nerrel's footage, Odolwa is in his blocking animation, while in your footage, he is dancing in place.

Here's my theory: when they originally made the collision boxes and everything for Odolwa in the original version of the game, rather than give the shield a separate hitbox and have something like, "If shield is hit, attack is blocked and does no damage", they tied whether or not an attack hurts/stuns Odolwa to whether or not he does his block animation, regardless of where you actually strike Odolwa. In the N64 version, he rarely blocks melee attacks if you're careful; instead using his block animation more often against arrows and such, so this would be barely noticeable. When altering him for the 3DS version, they had the theoretically smart idea of increasing how often, and in how many situations, he will block an attack, but they didn't account for how his blocking was originally programmed.

In my experience in the GameCube version, he doesn't block frequently enough for me to really test this theory. So, I was wondering if you could please kindly do so. I think I might've actually mentioned this earlier, but made the mistake of assuming it to be the case, rather than merely stating it as a hypothesis.

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1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

I see. Good that you reached out to him.

Haven't yet—just when the time comes (if it does at all).  No point counting your chickens before they hatch, right?

Quote

Here's my theory: when they originally made the collision boxes and everything for Odolwa in the original version of the game, rather than give the shield a separate hitbox and have something like, "If shield is hit, attack is blocked and does no damage", they tied whether or not an attack hurts/stuns Odolwa to whether or not he does his block animation, regardless of where you actually strike Odolwa. In the N64 version, he rarely blocks melee attacks if you're careful; instead using his block animation more often against arrows and such, so this would be barely noticeable. When altering him for the 3DS version, they had the theoretically smart idea of increasing how often, and in how many situations, he will block an attack, but they didn't account for how his blocking was originally programmed.

In my experience in the GameCube version, he doesn't block frequently enough for me to really test this theory. So, I was wondering if you could please kindly do so. I think I might've actually mentioned this earlier, but made the mistake of assuming it to be the case, rather than merely stating it as a hypothesis.

I wasn't sure how to test that in a good way, so I asked this question on the speedrunning discord for N64.  Turns out, the answer is both "yes" and "no" at the same time.

Screenshot.png

So your theory is basically right, just minus the fact that the shield "technically" does have a hitbox...but only because "arrows bounce off" looks better than "arrows phase through him".

This also leads to a weird interaction with bombs during some of my practice attempts.  If you throw it too late, the blast will not only phase right through him...but it'll actually push Link back a bit, since Oldolwa's technically deflecting something (though it does no damage).  Not actively detrimental, but still looks janky.

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10 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

One thing that surprised me was that, when you talk to Kafei on the Second Day and he reveals himself to be Kafei, Tatl will express surprise and say that the Kafei they're looking for is supposed to be an adult, …regardless of whether or not this is the first time you've gotten this far in the sidequest. Since this was my second time going through this part of the sidequest (not including the time when the game crashed), Tatl should already know that this is Kafei. I know that this is probably due the memory limitations that they had when making this game, but it is still a funny thing to notice.

.

I never noticed that before. It is particularly amusing given you're expected to do the quest twice.

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Well, since I've gone ahead and officially retracted my negative stance on Nerrel...let's post another example of misinformation.  Turns out, Deku Link's water-hopping is even less nerfed than we thought it was:

 

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15 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

Well, since I've gone ahead and officially retracted my negative stance on Nerrel...let's post another example of misinformation.  Turns out, Deku Link's water-hopping is even less nerfed than we thought it was:

 

Interesting. I guess that goes back to what I said about Zora Link's swimming. How fast or slow it actually is doesn't actually matter much. It's how fast or slow it feels that will determine a player's emotional reaction.

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25 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Interesting. I guess that goes back to what I said about Zora Link's swimming. How fast or slow it actually is doesn't actually matter much. It's how fast or slow it feels that will determine a player's emotional reaction.

Right.  So if your only exposure is 3DS, you'd never think anything was wrong.  If anything, you might be surprised by how jerky Link feels on N64 (so you fall off hover pads).  But if you're coming fresh from N64, it's the 3DS that feels weird.

Btw, in case anyone's wondering why Nerrel had such trouble in his video, it's another case of him starting too close to the edge of each lily pad.  3DS Deku takes slightly longer to build up to top speed...but the lily pads are small enough that it still makes a difference.  Only a small difference, but a difference nonetheless.

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On 7/21/2021 at 11:45 PM, FionordeQuester said:

Haven't yet—just when the time comes (if it does at all).  No point counting your chickens before they hatch, right?

I wasn't sure how to test that in a good way, so I asked this question on the speedrunning discord for N64.  Turns out, the answer is both "yes" and "no" at the same time.

So your theory is basically right, just minus the fact that the shield "technically" does have a hitbox...but only because "arrows bounce off" looks better than "arrows phase through him".

This also leads to a weird interaction with bombs during some of my practice attempts.  If you throw it too late, the blast will not only phase right through him...but it'll actually push Link back a bit, since Oldolwa's technically deflecting something (though it does no damage).  Not actively detrimental, but still looks janky.

I see. I must've misread your statement.

Thanks. So, my theory was pretty much correct.

I guess I wanted you to test it because I also wanted to see if I was right about him blocking a lot more often in the 3DS version, as that seems to be the case based on the footage I've seen of the 3DS version and my experience with the N64 version. If that is the case, then, when combined with the fact that the blocking animation makes Odolwa invincible, it means that Nerrel was onto something but came to the wrong conclusion about what the problem actually was: 

In this case, they had the theoretically very smart idea of making Odolwa more actively defend himself and make the player have to be more observant, but because blocking makes him invincible, it resulted in players using tactics and methods that seemingly should've worked only to do nothing to Odolwa because he's in his blocking animation. All the attacks for beating him are theoretically still there, but the timing for pulling them off was made far shorter, and not in a way that is necessarily visually clear.

Combine this with Odolwa coming to a halt in the 3DS version if the player burrows into a deku flower, the large increase in deku flowers in the boss room, and the eyeball weakpoint on the back of his head, and it's easy to see how people mistook the problem as the game funneling the player towards the deku flower method. And it wasn't just Nerrel who came to this incorrect conclusion; I saw quite a few people before Nerrel's video ever went up that were under the mistaken impression that the deku flower method was the only way to beat Odolwa in the 3DS version.

Perhaps you should include this in your response video? It would add some nuance to your arguments, highlight the real cause of the problems Nerrel and others experienced when fighting 3DS Odolwa, and including footage of what happens if you throw a bomb too late during the boss fight sounds like it would make for a nice small bit of comedy.

 

On 7/22/2021 at 12:09 AM, Jotari said:

I never noticed that before. It is particularly amusing given you're expected to do the quest twice.

Oh, yeah; that is very true. You do need to do the quest at least twice to get all the rewards, as there's a different reward for if you give the letter directly to Kafei's mother or have the postman deliver it.

 

EDIT: Well, I just completed the Great Bay Temple. I even found every stray fairy while doing so, but, in a moment of complete idiocy, I forgot to deposit them back at their fountain before going back to the Dawn of the First Day; I'm going to have to complete the temple all over again, and I really didn't want to have to come back to the temple except to the frog sidequest, as this temple is a real pain.

Honestly, it's far from the worst water dungeon in a Zelda game, and a lot of the ideas are sound: navigation is hinted at through following the pipes, the places you backtrack to make a lot of sense, etc. But there is just so much... I believe the term is jank... to this dungeon; getting Link and the controls to do what I was trying to get him to do was an almost-constant pain. I had to shut the game off and redo the dungeon, not because I lost time from the puzzles being too hard to solve (they weren't; far from it) but just from how much time I lost swimming into walls or into exits I was not trying to go down due to the camera being terrible in cramped rooms (for the record, I did not collide with a wall while Zora swimming before this dungeon; not even when going through the Pirate Fortress), how many times I fell off a terrible platforming challenge (there are extensive platforming challenges involving Link's basic jump onto narrow and/or rotating platforms; I didn't play Majora's Mask to play a Mario game with terrible platforming controls; I came here to play a Zelda game: puzzle-solving, exploring, fighting enemies), from how many times the game wouldn't make an ice platform simply because my arrow hit the platform (despite the arrow already being submerged in the water) and the ice platforms then melting underneath me and forcing me to swim all the way back to the starting point of the room, and from the fact that I lost all my bottled-fairies to the first mini-boss simply because of how hard it was to lock onto him in the second phase and how there is too little space to actually avoid him when he's rolling around. There is a ton to love about this dungeon, but in my first run through it, I was completely miserable and couldn't enjoy it. The second time around, I was too preoccupied with actually just getting through it to actually enjoy it. Maybe I'll enjoy it this time around, but if I'm only enjoying a dungeon on my third time through it, when normally you only go through a dungeon once, then that's a problem.

The sad thing is that there are just so many little things that could be done to make the dungeon a lot more fun: increase the size of the room in which you fight Wart, get rid of unnecessary non-colored pipes in smaller rooms that do nothing but get in the way of swimming, make it easier to create ice platforms in water near actual platforms, etc.

Anyway, then there's the dungeon boss: Gyorg... I actually thought he was rather interesting. I liked how dark the room is and how it makes him hard to spot. Normally, I really dislike when I'm having trouble locking onto an enemy, mainly because it's usually the game frantically refusing to lock on to an enemy despite the mini-boss being the only thing in the room other than Link and being in full view of the camera (as happened to me multiple times during the mini-boss fights in this dungeon), but here, if you can't lock onto Gyorg, it's because you can't physically see him with your own eyes, and I liked that it made him something of an ambush predator. I liked that you could fight him entirely underwater at the risk of being eaten, or you could stay on the platform, try to find or anticipate him, and hit him with a projectile to open him up for a free hit from Zora Link's magic attack. Again, it made him something akin to fighting an aquatic ambush-predator. In terms of anything lacking, I'd say it would've been cool if there was a boss phase where you had to fight him completely underwater but you fought him normally as Zora Link (i.e. avoiding his mouth and ramming into him with a magic attack).

I heard that the 3DS version massively over-brightened the room and gave an underwater phase 2, but one where you have to dislodge mines into his mouth. Why not just add the phase but make it that you fight him normally? I understand the brightening though as an unfortunate compromise to account for being on a portable console (and thus the exterior lighting wherever the player is potentially being outside the player's control).

One thing I thought was odd was that ice arrows didn't seem to work on the water in the boss room. I tried it multiple times to create extra space for avoiding Gyorg's charging attack, and it didn't work. I find that rather odd considering it's one of the first things someone would think to do, and the 3DS version has the ice arrows work in the boss room (though how many people will notice since the water doesn't sparkle).

 

EDIT: I just went through the temple again, both for the frog sidequest and for the stray fairies, and I realize in retrospect that, aside from the Wart mini-boss, I may have been a bit harsh on the temple in retrospect; probably just a hundred little things put me in a bad mood or something like that. Even the room with the awkward waterwheel platforming isn't that bad.

Edited by vanguard333
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On 7/22/2021 at 10:56 AM, vanguard333 said:

I see. I must've misread your statement.

Ah well—that happens easily, to me as well.

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Thanks. So, my theory was pretty much correct.

I guess I wanted you to test it because I also wanted to see if I was right about him blocking a lot more often in the 3DS version...

Yeah.  I tried getting him to block close-range, but didn't have any better luck.  That's why I went to the speedrunners, since they know how to make hitboxes and all that become visible.

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In this case, they had the theoretically very smart idea of making Odolwa more actively defend himself and make the player have to be more observant, but because blocking makes him invincible, it resulted in players using tactics and methods that seemingly should've worked only to do nothing to Odolwa because he's in his blocking animation. All the attacks for beating him are theoretically still there, but the timing for pulling them off was made far shorter, and not in a way that is necessarily visually clear.

Combine this with Odolwa coming to a halt in the 3DS version if the player burrows into a deku flower, the large increase in deku flowers in the boss room, and the eyeball weakpoint on the back of his head, and it's easy to see how people mistook the problem as the game funneling the player towards the deku flower method. And it wasn't just Nerrel who came to this incorrect conclusion; I saw quite a few people before Nerrel's video ever went up that were under the mistaken impression that the deku flower method was the only way to beat Odolwa in the 3DS version.

I will say that, at least for me, I already knew about the "run circles around him" method long before the thread.  Saw him shield, tried seeing if he'd ever raise it, struck the moment he did, and BAM!  The rest was history!

But I can also see how the latter scenario would happen to some folks—especially since the Deku Flower method is the one shown by the Shiekah Stone.

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Perhaps you should include this in your response video? It would add some nuance to your arguments, highlight the real cause of the problems Nerrel and others experienced when fighting 3DS Odolwa, and including footage of what happens if you throw a bomb too late during the boss fight sounds like it would make for a nice small bit of comedy.

Oh, absolutely!  That way, I won't completely invalidate the feelings and pain of everyone who fought him, which is always good.

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EDIT: Well, I just completed the Great Bay Temple...Honestly, it's far from the worst water dungeon in a Zelda game...[G]etting Link and the controls to do what I was trying to get him to do was an almost-constant pain. I had to shut the game off and redo the dungeon, not because I lost time from the puzzles being too hard to solve (they weren't; far from it) but just from how much time I lost swimming into walls or into exits...how many times I fell off a terrible platforming challenge...from how many times the game wouldn't make an ice platform...the ice platforms then melting underneath me...and from the fact that I lost all my bottled-fairies to the first mini-boss simply because of how hard it was to lock onto him...There is a ton to love about this dungeon, but in my first run through it, I was completely miserable and couldn't enjoy it.

This temple's probably the bulk of the reason why Zora Link's swimming was adjusted like it was—he really was a lot easier to control in tight sections like those.  It's only too bad they had to put the magic drain on the Fast Swim, even if it was for consistency with the Goron Roll.  Good idea in theory, but terrible in execution.

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The sad thing is that there are just so many little things that could be done to make the dungeon a lot more fun: increase the size of the room in which you fight Wart, get rid of unnecessary non-colored pipes in smaller rooms that do nothing but get in the way of swimming, make it easier to create ice platforms in water near actual platforms, etc.

Indeed.  3DS did that last one with the sparkles (by putting them in locations you could be sure would work)...but thinking about it now, they should've just added in some Octoroks.  Would've looked much less tacky, that way.

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Anyway, then there's the dungeon boss: Gyorg... I actually thought he was rather interesting. I liked how dark the room is and how it makes him hard to spot...[M]ade him something of an ambush predator.

The ambiance is nice, I agree.  Probably my favorite part of the N64 fight.

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I liked that you could fight him entirely underwater at the risk of being eaten, or you could stay on the platform, try to find or anticipate him, and hit him with a projectile to open him up for a free hit from Zora Link's magic attack. Again, it made him something akin to fighting an aquatic ambush-predator. In terms of anything lacking, I'd say it would've been cool if there was a boss phase where you had to fight him completely underwater but you fought him normally as Zora Link (i.e. avoiding his mouth and ramming into him with a magic attack).

Me, I just found him too repetitive.  Fighting him entirely underwater was a bit too chaotic and inconsistent for me, due to the camera and the very small hitbox on his back.  The "arrow from the platform, dive, resurface, and repeat" method was the easier way by far...but also a bit dull.  

I also didn't have trouble locking onto him, but, I couldn't tell you what the difference was.  Hmm...

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I heard that the 3DS version massively over-brightened the room and gave an underwater phase 2, but one where you have to dislodge mines into his mouth. Why not just add the phase but make it that you fight him normally? I understand the brightening though as an unfortunate compromise to account for being on a portable console (and thus the exterior lighting wherever the player is potentially being outside the player's control).

I liked it—thought the mines were pretty cool and creative.  Probably also a better alternative to swimming around, given the camera can have a hard time with him swimming behind you.

I will also say that you don't have to detach the mines via the "swim into them" method.  You just have to go somewhat near him (but not too near), kneel down, then just magic shield a mine once he starts sucking you in.  That way, you can do it without ever losing sight of him.  

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One thing I thought was odd was that ice arrows didn't seem to work on the water in the boss room. I tried it multiple times to create extra space for avoiding Gyorg's charging attack, and it didn't work. I find that rather odd considering it's one of the first things someone would think to do, and the 3DS version has the ice arrows work in the boss room (though how many people will notice since the water doesn't sparkle).

Hmm...well, sparkling water for the entire arena might've been a little silly looking, but your point is still valid.  Still, someone discovered it somehow...Maybe there were guys that tried to Ice Arrow Gyorg, and stumbled upon it by accident?  Thought they'd use the dungeon's new item to freeze him, like they froze the ooze in the Gecko fight?

It's hard for me to tell whether it's too cryptic, or just the right amount of cryptic, so you got me on that one.

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EDIT: I just went through the temple again, both for the frog sidequest and for the stray fairies, and I realize in retrospect that, aside from the Wart mini-boss, I may have been a bit harsh on the temple in retrospect; probably just a hundred little things put me in a bad mood or something like that. Even the room with the awkward waterwheel platforming isn't that bad.

It's funny just how drastically experience changes things, eh?  Reminds me of the time I introduced Mega Man X to my friend, thinking she'd breeze through it like nothing...and then she can't clear a single stage in a half hour's time.  That day's stuck with me ever since...it's probably one of the single biggest influences to how I make my walkthroughs.

Edited by FionordeQuester
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12 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

Ah well—that happens easily, to me as well.

It can easily happen to anyone.

 

13 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

Yeah.  I tried getting him to block close-range, but didn't have any better luck.  That's why I went to the speedrunners, since they know how to make hitboxes and all that become visible.

I will say that, at least for me, I already knew about the "run circles around him" method long before the thread.  Saw him shield, tried seeing if he'd ever raise it, struck the moment he did, and BAM!  The rest was history!

But I can also see how the latter scenario would happen to some folks—especially since the Deku Flower method is the one shown by the Shiekah Stone.

Oh, absolutely!  That way, I won't completely invalidate the feelings and pain of everyone who fought him, which is always good.

I see. Yeah; speedrunners do seem like they would know about this hitbox stuff (though they evidently know nothing about when in-game timing is being sped up).

Waiting for him to drop his guard is definitely a good tactic. I'm just saying that I can see people striking the legs, it failing to work because of blocking invincibility, and thinking, "What just happened? Does the sword not work on this guy?"

I didn't even know that the deku flower method is shown by the shiekah stone; that definitely would also contribute to that mistaken assumption.

Exactly. You show that you understand where they're coming from and show that they're frustration is sound, just misdirected.

 

17 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

This temple's probably the bulk of the reason why Zora Link's swimming was adjusted like it was—he really was a lot easier to control in tight sections like those.  It's only too bad they had to put the magic drain on the Fast Swim, even if it was for consistency with the Goron Roll.  Good idea in theory, but terrible in execution.

Indeed.  3DS did that last one with the sparkles (by putting them in locations you could be sure would work)...but thinking about it now, they should've just added in some Octoroks.  Would've looked much less tacky, that way.

Possibly. that said, in a lot of areas, the zora swimming is perfectly fine. The more I think about it, I only really struggled with swimming in the two or three small, cramped rooms that had a lot of obstacles in them, where the camera would be what caused Zora Link to swim into a wall or obstacle. I didn't even find the central turbine room that annoying.

Personally, I just think smoothening the ice-arrow-platform programming would've gone a long way. One thing that I immediately found helped a lot was changing strategy from trying to make the ice platform path all at once to making an ice platform, jumping to it, then making the next one, as that at least guaranteed a much more downward angle that would make it more likely to make an ice platform that was close to the metal platforms without being too close. So, that's the reason I think just polishing the mechanic would've gone a long way, as it clearly does work, but suffers from being a bit rough in terms of its collision programming.

That octorok solution idea is also a decent one, and certainly better than outright giving away the optimal route, though I'm not sure if octoroks in all the places that ask for ice arrows would really worked. Some of those places are already cramped and/or filled with aquatic enemies.

 

29 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

The ambiance is nice, I agree.  Probably my favorite part of the N64 fight.

Me, I just found him too repetitive.  Fighting him entirely underwater was a bit too chaotic and inconsistent for me, due to the camera and the very small hitbox on his back.  The "arrow from the platform, dive, resurface, and repeat" method was the easier way by far...but also a bit dull.  

I also didn't have trouble locking onto him, but, I couldn't tell you what the difference was.  Hmm...

I liked it—thought the mines were pretty cool and creative.  Probably also a better alternative to swimming around, given the camera can have a hard time with him swimming behind you.

I will also say that you don't have to detach the mines via the "swim into them" method.  You just have to go somewhat near him (but not too near), kneel down, then just magic shield a mine once he starts sucking you in.  That way, you can do it without ever losing sight of him.  

Hmm...well, sparkling water for the entire arena might've been a little silly looking, but your point is still valid.  Still, someone discovered it somehow...Maybe there were guys that tried to Ice Arrow Gyorg, and stumbled upon it by accident?  Thought they'd use the dungeon's new item to freeze him, like they froze the ooze in the Gecko fight?

It's hard for me to tell whether it's too cryptic, or just the right amount of cryptic, so you got me on that one.

Yeah; the ambiance is definitely great. One thing I also thought was interesting was that it's introduction, like that of Morpha, does an underwater first-person cutscene from its perspective. With Morpha, I suspect that a lot players were probably originally expecting the enemy to be some kind of sea serpent or something for a number of reasons, only for it to turn out to be... an eyeball. With Gyorg, considering the temple had Wart as a mini-boss, I imagine at least a few fans saw that scene and thought, "Here we go; another eyeball boss" only to be shocked and terrified when the boss turns out to actually be a giant carnivorous fish. ...And then the 3DS remake went and gave Gyorg an eyeball in its mouth.

Side-Note: While it's becoming increasingly clear that the new eyeballs in the remake aren't the only way to kill most of the bosses, I will say that, visually, they just seem... weird, and not a "It's Majora's Mask" weird. I mean; the one for Goht comes out of his backside, which makes no sense, as his bombs come out of his backside (bombs coming out of his back made sense to me if only because, if they came out of Goht's rear, it would probably look like something else). With Goht and Gyorg in particular, it seems especially weird (and again, not a good weird) when the eyeball-popping-out animation happens. If the eyeballs were to visually better connect them to Majora's Mask, I honestly think the bosses I've fought so far already had plenty of visual connections (except maybe Goht): Odolwa has multi-coloured stripes all over his body just like those on the mask, and Gyorg has the same dark purple that's the mask's base colour.

Oh; the camera is definitely an issue if you try to fight him purely underwater simply because you're limited to the edges of the boss room and the camera likes acting up in cramped spaces;  agree about that. Not sure about the hitbox on the back thing, as I was able to hit him fairly consistently (when I didn't get eaten). As for the arrow tactic, I honestly thought that what it lacked in moment-to-moment action was made up for with effectively hide-and-seek: looking around for him, avoiding his charge attack, and either trying to find him and shoot, or try to wait for him to charge, lock on when he finishes his charge, and shoot. As I said, it was like fighting an ambush predator.

Oh; technically, I wasn't having trouble locking onto him; I was having trouble seeing him in the first place. Once I found him, locking on was no problem at all. That's what I meant; a couple of the game's mini-bosses and other enemies have made me go, "I'm looking right at him! Let me lock onto him!" But with Gyorg, I didn't have that problem because I had to find him first. Does that make sense?

I see. Yeah; I'll admit that it can be hard to spot Gyorg when he's behind you. But, I mean, he's behind you. I suppose the mines could be useful. Again, I just personally quite like the idea of fighting him through zora-swimming, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you have to be wary of Gyorg and the mines if you try that method rather than the underwater-dodongo method.

Possibly. I'd say it's probably too cryptic, especially since it's seemingly a change from the N64 version (as I couldn't seem to freeze the water in the boss room) that doesn't have any indicators.

 

59 minutes ago, FionordeQuester said:

It's funny just how drastically experience changes things, eh?  Reminds me of the time I introduced Mega Man X to my friend, thinking she'd breeze through it like nothing...and then she can't clear a single stage in a half hour's time.  That day's stuck with me ever since...it's probably one of the single biggest influences to how I make my walkthroughs.

Perhaps, though it was probably a combo of both experience, being in a better mood compared to my second attempt through the dungeon, being able to skip the Wart fight that I still consider janky and unrefined, and just having a greater awareness of what the game actually expects of me in each room (as I definitely was not expecting a platforming challenge involving jumping onto the narrow central pipe of a rotating water wheel).

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1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

I see. Yeah; speedrunners do seem like they would know about this hitbox stuff (though they evidently know nothing about when in-game timing is being sped up).

The site I quoted was horribly out-of-date—all us speedrun nerds knew that.  I should've known better than to quote it, if we're being honest 😞 .

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Waiting for him to drop his guard is definitely a good tactic. I'm just saying that I can see people striking the legs, it failing to work because of blocking invincibility, and thinking, "What just happened? Does the sword not work on this guy?"...I didn't even know that the deku flower method is shown by the shiekah stone; that definitely would also contribute to that mistaken assumption.

Indeed.

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Exactly. You show that you understand where they're coming from and show that they're frustration is sound, just misdirected.

For sure...especially since the "Halt your movement in water" video inexplicably got like, 280 more views than all the other videos combined—7 thumbs up and 9 thumbs down.  The drama might just start before the video's even made xD!

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Possibly. that said, in a lot of areas, the zora swimming is perfectly fine. The more I think about it, I only really struggled with swimming in the two or three small, cramped rooms that had a lot of obstacles in them, where the camera would be what caused Zora Link to swim into a wall or obstacle. I didn't even find the central turbine room that annoying.

Same for me.

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Personally, I just think smoothening the ice-arrow-platform programming would've gone a long way. One thing that I immediately found helped a lot was changing strategy from trying to make the ice platform path all at once to making an ice platform, jumping to it, then making the next one, as that at least guaranteed a much more downward angle that would make it more likely to make an ice platform that was close to the metal platforms without being too close. So, that's the reason I think just polishing the mechanic would've gone a long way, as it clearly does work, but suffers from being a bit rough in terms of its collision programming.

That octorok solution idea is also a decent one, and certainly better than outright giving away the optimal route, though I'm not sure if octoroks in all the places that ask for ice arrows would really worked. Some of those places are already cramped and/or filled with aquatic enemies.

Hmm...could be something to bring up with the Project Restoration guy, although he's already just made the Ice Arrows work in various places.  Oh well—guess we'll never know now.

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Side-Note: While it's becoming increasingly clear that the new eyeballs in the remake aren't the only way to kill most of the bosses, I will say that, visually, they just seem... weird, and not a "It's Majora's Mask" weird. If the eyeballs were to visually better connect them to Majora's Mask, I honestly think the bosses I've fought so far already had plenty of visual connections (except maybe Goht): Odolwa has multi-coloured stripes all over his body just like those on the mask, and Gyorg has the same dark purple that's the mask's base colour.

They don't add much, I agree.

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Oh; the camera is definitely an issue if you try to fight him purely underwater simply because you're limited to the edges of the boss room and the camera likes acting up in cramped spaces;  agree about that. Not sure about the hitbox on the back thing, as I was able to hit him fairly consistently (when I didn't get eaten). As for the arrow tactic, I honestly thought that what it lacked in moment-to-moment action was made up for with effectively hide-and-seek: looking around for him, avoiding his charge attack, and either trying to find him and shoot, or try to wait for him to charge, lock on when he finishes his charge, and shoot. As I said, it was like fighting an ambush predator...

...[Locking] on was no problem at all...I [just] had to find him first.  Does that make sense?

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.  I think that's a good way of looking at it!

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[C]orrect me if I'm wrong, but you have to be wary of Gyorg and the mines if you try that method rather than the underwater-dodongo method.

The kneel down method?  No, it's fairly easy I think, since he's right in front of you.  I suppose you have to be careful if the little guys suddenly appeared, but that's about it.  Perhaps I could show a video?

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Possibly. I'd say it's probably too cryptic, especially since it's seemingly a change from the N64 version (as I couldn't seem to freeze the water in the boss room) that doesn't have any indicators.

Mmmhmm.

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Perhaps, though it was probably a combo of both experience, being in a better mood compared to my second attempt through the dungeon, being able to skip the Wart fight that I still consider janky and unrefined, and just having a greater awareness of what the game actually expects of me in each room (as I definitely was not expecting a platforming challenge involving jumping onto the narrow central pipe of a rotating water wheel).

All very good points.

Edited by FionordeQuester
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15 hours ago, FionordeQuester said:

The site I quoted was horribly out-of-date—all us speedrun nerds knew that.  I should've known better than to quote it, if we're being honest 😞 .

For sure...especially since the "Halt your movement in water" video inexplicably got like, 280 more views than all the other videos combined—7 thumbs up and 9 thumbs down.  The drama might just start before the video's even made xD!

Same for me.

Hmm...could be something to bring up with the Project Restoration guy, although he's already just made the Ice Arrows work in various places.  Oh well—guess we'll never know now.

They don't add much, I agree.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.  I think that's a good way of looking at it!

The kneel down method?  No, it's fairly easy I think, since he's right in front of you.  I suppose you have to be careful if the little guys suddenly appeared, but that's about it.  Perhaps I could show a video?

All very good points.

Yeah, I remember; I was just referencing that for humour.

Maybe. Speaking of which, the reason that spin-attack hopping worked in the N64 version was that the spin attack increases Deku Link's speed; it might have been a good idea to test the spin attack on land to see how Deku Link's slow start in the 3DS version affects it.

Perhaps. Maybe the best solution would've been to add some kind of reticle when aiming the ice arrows not unlike that which the cryonis rune in Breath of the Wild uses; a neat little visual indicator of whether or not you can make an ice platform at the spot you're aiming at.

Huh; interesting. …I can honestly say that I was expecting you to defend the eyeballs; this is a bit surprising. Speaking of eyes, what's your opinion on the mini-boss Wart?

Thanks. Yeah; I can honestly say that I've liked all three bosses so far; they are very different from typical Zelda bosses. Don't get me wrong; I normally quite like the typical Zelda puzzle bosses; I just find that the most engaging of those ones for me are the ones that smarten up or are dynamic/flexible in some way, and I suspect that I'm far from the only person who thinks this given how many people really like Koloktos from Skyward Sword. These bosses have that without needing to have weakpoints: Odolwa is a flexible, frenetic and dynamic duel, Goht is a chase where he throws an increasing number of things at you to stop you with the more damage he takes (so there's the learning aspect), and Gyorg, the more I think about it, is probably my favourite aquatic boss so far in the series (or at least in the 3D games), though that admittedly isn't saying much; its competition is stuff like Morpha and Phytops (oh, and I'm not counting Barinade as there's no water in the fight whatsoever except maybe the jellyfish; it's an electricity parasite that you fight in a stomach).

No; I was referring to if you want to fight him by swimming around; if you don't want to use the mines, the mines are still there and will blow up if you hit them. Or do you have to use the mines to beat Gyorg in the 2nd phase of the fight?

Thank you.

 

So, today, I'll be heading for the Ikana Region. I know about some of the stuff that's in the region (like the girl with the cursed dad and how I can sneak into the house to heal him and get the Gibdo Mask after something happens involving the river, chasing Captain Keeta to get the Captain's Mask, and the infamous "guide Dampe through a graveyard on the Night of the Final Day for the last empty bottle" sidequest), but this is the first area where I am still largely in the dark about how to proceed... and I'd like to keep it that way today; this is the only part of the game where I don't already remember how to proceed from previous playthroughs as neither my brother nor I ever got this far; the one area where I can explore it and figure out where to go and what to do without having essentially a walkthrough in my head, so I'm going to explore it without looking at a walkthrough or any of that and see how far I get by being observant and looking around.

EDIT: Well, I can't say that the game was subtle about where to go or what to do. Fight all the Garos (who are pathetically easy to defeat by the way) and they pretty much give you the idea: get Captain's Mask -> get Song of Storms -> heal Sharp using Song of Storms to restore the river -> This somehow enables you to get inside the house that's surrounded by Gibdos, which is the place to then go to. Interestingly, Sakon filled in that part: if you refuse to let him see your sword, then L-target him and talk to him again, you basically get Tatl to buzz around him relentlessly (while glowing red) and press him for information about the area, and Sakon spills about how the house uses a river-powered music player to scare off the Gibdos.

Well, I got the Captain's Mask. The Keeta fight was interesting. The first time I went through it, I failed to catch up to him: I missed up hitting him with my arrows (which cost precious time) and I hit one of the fire walls just before it deactivated; throwing me backwards. Well, the second time, I loosed the arrows beyond perfectly, to my own surprise, and I caught up to him shortly after the second wall of fire (I should probably point out that I was wearing the bunny hood in both runs). So, the second run was a bit anti-climatic as I caught up with him a bit quickly, but that was from me doing everything pretty much perfectly (even succeeding in slaying both skeletal soldiers at once for every wall of fire) and I suspect that a third attempt would not have gone that well. That said, the actual fight part was more than I expected; he had almost as much health as an Iron Knuckle.

I also completed the mini-game involving the Poe Sisters and got the Piece of Heart, and I cleared two out of the three graveyard sidequests so far; just the Dampe one left. I also went back to the Oceanside Skulltula House and cleared the puzzle that involved talking to the Ikana soldiers there. EDIT: I also just completed the Dampe sidequest; it wasn't nearly as annoying as I read it would be, with the only annoying parts really being that it was unclear that the two platforms were levitating platforms for Dampe, and that I was under the mistaken impression that there were no wallmasters or floormasters in Majora's Mask.

Edited by vanguard333
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12 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Yeah, I remember; I was just referencing that for humour.

Ah 😛 .

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Maybe. Speaking of which, the reason that spin-attack hopping worked in the N64 version was that the spin attack increases Deku Link's speed; it might have been a good idea to test the spin attack on land to see how Deku Link's slow start in the 3DS version affects it.

As far as I can tell, it sort of increases along with the walk speed.  So a Spin Dash from a standing position will still be relatively slow, compared to one when Link has some momentum.  It's why for that video, I needed to be right on the backward edge of the lily pad to go as far as I did.

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Huh; interesting. …I can honestly say that I was expecting you to defend the eyeballs; this is a bit surprising. Speaking of eyes, what's your opinion on the mini-boss Wart?

Eh, the jerky way they move and inflate is a bit silly looking, and they don't serve any functional purpose.  They'd be the feature I miss the least.

Wart though...I actually liked him a lot.  I liked how there was both a slow but easy way (Hookshot spam) to beating his first phase, and a fast but risky way of doing it (Blast Mask + Bomb Throws).  His 2nd phase was actually pretty fun, once I got good at doing Quick Spins—I'd tag him as he dashed by.  Heck, even regular Spin Attacks might be good, since they make the camera pan overhead.

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Thanks. Yeah; I can honestly say that I've liked all three bosses so far; they are very different from typical Zelda bosses...Odolwa is a flexible, frenetic and dynamic duel, Goht is a chase where he throws an increasing number of things at you...(so there's the learning aspect)...and Gyorg...is probably my favourite aquatic boss so far in the series

Indeed.  They are pretty cool.

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No; I was referring to if you want to fight him by swimming around; if you don't want to use the mines, the mines are still there and will blow up if you hit them. Or do you have to use the mines to beat Gyorg in the 2nd phase of the fight?

Yeah, unless you make an ice platform and pelt him with arrows (has to be done before he sinks the platform), you still need to use the mines—some guys just dislodge them by swimming into them, rather than shielding from a kneeling position.

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So, today, I'll be heading for the Ikana Region...this is the first area where I am still largely in the dark about how to proceed...and I'd like to keep it that way today.

Will do.

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If you refuse to let [Sakon] see your sword, then L-target him and talk to him again, you basically get Tatl to buzz around him relentlessly (while glowing red) and press him for information about the area, and Sakon spills about how the house uses a river-powered music player to scare off the Gibdos.

Huh..forgot about that.

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Well, I got the Captain's Mask. The Keeta fight was interesting. The first time I went through it, I failed to catch up to him: I missed up hitting him with my arrows (which cost precious time) and I hit one of the fire walls just before it deactivated; throwing me backwards. Well, the second time, I loosed the arrows beyond perfectly, to my own surprise, and I caught up to him shortly after the second wall of fire (I should probably point out that I was wearing the bunny hood in both runs). So, the second run was a bit anti-climatic as I caught up with him a bit quickly, but that was from me doing everything pretty much perfectly (even succeeding in slaying both skeletal soldiers at once for every wall of fire) and I suspect that a third attempt would not have gone that well. That said, the actual fight part was more than I expected; he had almost as much health as an Iron Knuckle.

Yeah, he's honestly not that bad.  The decision to nerf him is the most baffling change out of all of them. 

I can only figure that most folks failed their first time, due to how suddenly he gets up and goes, but...I think they solved that just by adding in intro text ("Prove your worth and catch me while passing through my walls of flame", or something like that).

It's especially strange, given that all the actually tough mini-bosses (Igos du Ikana for example) are completely unchanged.

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[T]he Dampe sidequest...wasn't nearly as annoying as I read it would be, with the only annoying parts really being that it was unclear that the two platforms were levitating platforms for Dampe, and that I was under the mistaken impression that there were no wallmasters or floormasters in Majora's Mask.

Good!  People probably just find it dull, more than anything—I know I do..

Edited by FionordeQuester
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