LA Update – Anticlimactic Alternate Ending!

Hi guys. It's my birthday today.

I mean, um... that has no relevance to anything at all, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. Just because.

So, I'm ready to write another Link's Awakening post. I'm sure everyone's getting annoyed that I keep rambling about it, but it's my favorite game right now so SHUT UP. It's my blog.

Just under ten minutes ago, I completed my no-death run of Link's Awakening DX on the 3DS Virtual Console. I wasn't quite as moved this time by the sadness of everyone disappearing forever, but it was still pretty emotional for me. Later, you're going to hear ANOTHER rambling post from me about how incredible the music is. This is the first Zelda game to really make music an important part of the gameplay, something which even Ocarina of Time, "the greatest game on earth", decided to follow.

So, there's just a few things I wanted to touch on. This is my second playthrough of LA, and thus I was a lot better at it. A LOT better. I didn't die, right?

Right?

Well, no. Not exactly right.

See, I DID die once. And – as ashamed as I am to admit it – I CHEATED.

*gasp*

You see, the 3DS has "Restore Point" things where you can save your progress on the bottom screen at any point of the game and then return to that point whenever you feel like it. Meaning that if I create a restore point right before I die, then I can go back to the point right before I died and then NOT die. See?

Now, you know me and my hatred of walkthroughs and help like that. You know I want my accomplishments, such as this no death playthrough thing, to be indisputable. This definitely qualifies as making it disputable. Why do you think I didn't just start over the whole game once I died, as I was sorely tempted to do?

Because I SWEAR my death was a fluke.

This is how the beginning of the game went. I got through Mysterious Woods, through Tail Cave, and the Moblin Hideout, and so on, and I felt pretty good. I hadn't even come CLOSE to dying yet. Then I go to the second dungeon, Bottle Grotto, right? I went through the whole thing and I was STILL doing awesome! I couldn't help but think how easy getting this alternate ending would be. So I grab the boss key, and make a lovely restore point just a couple rooms back just in case my 3DS exploded or something (I'm not sure that a restore point would help there, but you know) and head in to the Genie's room.

Annnnnd I died.

I was so shocked. Utterly horrified that all of my work had been for nothing. I wondered what exactly I should do; I was still playing through this game for the Wiki, anyway. I was trying to get info on LA to add to pages, and the no death thing was just a bonus. Should I start over or what?

Well, though it pained me to do so, I chose to load up my restore point anyway. I was a few rooms back from the boss, so I solved the puzzle: whack the crystal and make the blocks go down, go left two screens, pick up the bottle and use Roc's Feather to jump to the other side of the pit, get the Boss Key out of the chest, hit the crystal, walk on top of the blocks to the right, then go right two more screen. Then you kill the Pol's Voices in the room and lift up this one bottle in the bottom right of the room to get a fairy to heal with, then a staircase appears and you enter it to get in front of the boss door.

I entered the door. I died again.

Furiously determined at this point, I did the things again – hit the switch, grab the key, kill the monsters, get the fairy, enter the staircase: AND I DIED AGAIN.

I was able to get to the second half of the Genie battle, you see. In that phase, though, he splits himself into clone-like figures, so you never know where he'll appear and where you can hit him. And his fireballs take a full heart of damage, so with my 4 hearts I could only make four mistakes.

Four mistakes is too few.

So, as you can tell from that long explanation above about what I needed to do before the boss, I remember it well. Want to know why that is? It's because I died SEVEN FREAKING TIMES and had to do all those actions SEVEN FREAKING TIMES before it occurred to me that I could make a new restore point right before the boss's room. And even then it took me forever – I died another four or so times before FINALLY killing that stupid, stupid, STUPID GENIE.

As soon as I did, I was OVERJOYED. I didn't even care that I'd broken my rule not use those silly restore things. I'D FINALLY KILLED THAT DUMB JERK, SO I WAS HAPPY.

Immediately afterward, I headed to Crazy Tracy's house to get some Secret Medicine. It works like a fairy in future games: it heals you automatically if you lose all your hearts.

And guess what? I still have that medicine.

In case you don't understand, I'm implying that I never died once after that Genie battle. If you assumed as much, you'd be correct.

After that, I went through the whole game without dying once, and without even using the Secret Medicine I bought way back before the third dungeon. I still had that medicine earlier today when I went to fight Nightmare the final boss, and I didn't use it.

I suppose you could argue, "Hey, you used the blue clothes, which gave you double defense!" And I suppose that's a valid point. If I hadn't had the increased defense from the Color Dungeon, then maybe I WOULD have used that medicine. But I still wouldn't have died. And I didn't get those cloth until after the third dungeon, so I went through at least one without any problems.

...SO WHAT THE HECK IS UP WITH THAT STUPID GENIE?

I really want to know! Is he a notoriously hard boss or something, or am I missing some obvious strategy that makes it easier to beat him? There's GOT to be something wrong with that guy! It can't just be me! I beat the WHOLE GAME without even coming close to dying, but that dumb Genie killed me at least TEN times! HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?

Well...

*sigh*

Yeah... I'm sorry. I honestly don't get it, though. But know this: I will never forget this day, Genie. And some day, far in the future, I'll replay Link's Awakening, and I WILL kill you. You shall never taste victory ever again, for I will forever remember your scheming and evil fireballs, and I will find a way to defeat you without dying. This is a new "thing", for me; it's just like how I'll never forget knocking over my Wii and restarting MM because I was angry at those ReDeads. Or, more accurately, I won't forget where to get bombs in MM because I was stupid and didn't realize there's a Bomb Shop in Clock Town. Actually, this closely resembles how I now know to not press any buttons when doing the Goron's part of the Moon in order to get the Fierce Deity's mask.

...Hmm. I was pretty stupid in Majora's Mask, wasn't I?

Anyway, I beat the game earlier and the no death ending that I worked so hard for was quite anticlimactic. Marin just shows up and she turns into a seagull. I knew that was what would happen, but I thought... I don't know. I thought it would happen in a more interesting way, you know?

Well, that Genie tale is pretty much the only interesting story from my LA DX playthrough. I can't think of anything else that happened that's worth telling on this blog. But that should be enough for now, right?
Have a nice day, everyone. Hopefully I'll come up with another post later this month. ^^