BOTW: Magda’s Rage

Since last time, I’ve set off without any particular goals in mind. Sure, I wanted to find more shrines, treasure, and even Korok seeds, but I didn’t have any big goal in mind just yet.

I found a couple of shrines, including this one where I had to float on a platform held up by balloons, and maneuver around sharp objects.

A floating platform held up by balloons approaches some spikes in Zelda: Breath of the Wild.While back outside exploring, I spotted a big red dragon! I shot some arrows at it, but they didn’t seem to do anything.

A red dragon flies by in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.After fighting a camp full of enemies nearby, I spotted something glowing in the distance.

Something glows in the distance (Zelda BOTW).Naturally, I went over to check it out. It was Dinraal’s scale! This apparently fell off of the dragon! I previously learned that this is what I need to offer at the Spring of Power. So I headed there and offered the scale to the goddess statue. A new shrine opened up. After completing it, I traded in four spirit orbs for another heart container.

Later on, after recovering a memory near the Bottomless Swamp, I found a new shrine on a small island. The Floret Sandbar, to be exact. I walked towards the shrine, only to be interrupted when I stepped on the flowers circling the shrine.

Magda: Hey! What do you think you're doing?! You must not harm the flowers!This lady told me how she planted the flowers and watches over them 24/7 like an obsessed psychopath. Okay, maybe she didn’t use those exact words, but it’s true. A side quest began, and my job was to make my way to the shrine without stepping on flowers.

There is a maze-like path through the flowers that leads to the shrine. After stepping on flowers a second time (and being warned again), I decide to just use Revali’s Gale (the ability I learned from defeating Vah Medoh) to fly over them and reach the shrine. That completed the crazy lady’s side quest, and I went inside.

After completing the fairly easy shrine, I came back out. Since both the shrine and the lady’s side quest had been completed, I thought it was finally safe to walk on the flowers. I was wrong.

Magda: How many times do I have to say it?! Please treat the flowers with care! They're living things, you know!At this point, she was really starting to get on my nerves. So I stepped on those flowers again. I’d stomp them if I could, but she interrupts too quickly. Her reaction this time was quite different. At first, she looked depressed.

Magda, bent over: How do you not understand? Why don't you get it?But then she really lost it. She exploded in anger.

Magda, screaming: ARGGG!! NOOOOOOO!!She started running like crazy, trampling the flowers she’s so intent on protecting! This woman is psycho.

Magda, running through flowers: I worked day...after day...after day...to plant those flowers... Then you come and hurt them...over...and over...She then vowed to make me feel the flowers’ rage!

Magda, looking crazy and angry: ...the flowers' rage!!!The screen went dark and she beat me up! Really!

(footage not found)When the game faded in from black, I was on the ground, barely conscious, and with three hearts worth of health missing.

Link lies flat on the ground after a beating from Magda in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for Nintendo Switch.At this point, you’d think I would have learned my lesson. But no. I was angry now, so I took out my meteor rod and set her precious flowers on fire!

Link sets Magda's flowers on fire in Zelda BOTW.
“Fire is bright. Fire is clean. Efficient and divine.” – Toadies

Her reaction was surprisingly tame this time (perhaps the beating she laid on me reset her mood cycle). But seeing her flowers burn left me with a nice satisfying feeling (even if the flowers returned to health after her warning). So I moved on.

I saw a sleeping giant (a Hinox) and I decided to pick a fight with it. I used my meteor rod to shoot some fire at the Hinox. At first, he tried to stamp out the fire with his feet. But after I shot at him again, he quickly ignored the fire and started coming for me.

An angry Hinox on fire in Zelda BOTW.These giants may be slow, but they take a while to beat. But once I did defeat him, I teleported to near the Gerudo Highlands. I love the view from up here!

A nice view from up in the mountains.After a bit more exploring, I wrapped up my game for now. Next time, I just might try heading over to Hyrule Castle to fight Calamity Ganon. That should be fun. 🙂

Update: Here is a video of my encounter with Magda.

6 Things I Didn’t Remember About Super Mario Bros. 3

I’ve previously written about three memorable levels in Super Mario Bros. 3. But as I replayed the game recently for the first time in many years (on my NES Classic), I noticed several things I did not remember from my previous playthroughs. Without further ado, here is my list.

1. The Sky is Beige

This isn’t true in all levels, of course. Many levels do indeed have blue skies, while others have black (night) or even green skies. But perhaps the most common sky color in the game is this light beige you can see in this screenshot. It’s something I haven’t really thought about before.

The beige sky in Super Mario Bros. 3.

2. Green Buildings with Footprints?

World 3-7 has these large green…structures…that I don’t remember from previously playing Mario 3. As a fan of the color green, I do enjoy the look of these unique structures. But what are they? Buildings? Walls? Perhaps they’re just the homes of the enemies known as Spikes. But if so, why aren’t there doors or windows? And are those footprints all over them? Or is that wallpaper? 😛

Green structures in World 3-7 of Super Mario Bros. 3.3. Magic Doors

World 4 has always been one of my favorites. It is the giant world, so enemies, blocks, and even the scenery can be huge here. But what I forgot is that World 4-6 has magic doorways that let you swap between the giant-sized world and a regular-sized version of the same level. It’s a cool feature.

Animated GIF of the magic door in World 4-6 of Super Mario Bros. 3.4. Misplaced Pipe Maze?

World 7 is filled with puzzling pipe maze levels, and I remembered that fact quite well. But what I wasn’t expecting during my recent playthrough was to see was a pipe maze in World 4. The second fortress here in the giant world has a pipe maze that looks straight out of World 7. Oddly enough, I remembered this specific level quite well…I just didn’t recall it being in World 4.

A pipe maze in the second fortress of World 4 in Super Mario Bros. 3.5. Green & Black Cave

I was quite surprised when I saw these green and black triangle patterns on the ground and walls of a cave in World 5-2. Again, this is probably just me being odd with my color preferences, but I love the look of it. And I did not remember seeing it at all. But in my defense, this area looks completely different in the Super Mario All-Stars (SNES) version, and that version was a bit fresher in my memory than the NES version.

Green/black walls in World 5-2 of Super Mario Bros. 3.6. I Hate Lakitu

In Mario Kart games, Lakitu will count down to the start of the race, or tell you which lap you’ve just completed. In other games such as Super Mario 64, he operates the camera. So it’s easy to be fooled into thinking he’s a nice guy, or at least a neutral figure.

But in Super Mario Bros. 3 (and some others), he’s a major-league butthole. While flying around up in his cloud, he relentlessly throws Spinies at you. He throws them at varying angles, and they’re quite hard to avoid. And he just keeps going and going. I had forgotten how much I truly hated this jerk. This screenshot is from World 5-8, which particularly gave me trouble. But he’s in some other levels as well, unfortunately.

Lakitu throws Spinies at me in Super Mario Bros. 3.You can see me struggling with Lakitu quite in a bit in my new Super Mario Bros. 3 – FAILS video. Skip to 2:25 if you want to jump right to the Lakitu parts.

But even though I may have forgotten these details about the game, I never forgot how great this game is. After replaying it again, I can say it’s still my favorite Mario game (2D or otherwise), and it’s among my favorite games of all time.

Gerudo Town & Vah Naboris

After completing a shrine, I started my trek to the Gerudo Desert. Only women are allowed into Gerudo Town, but I found a tailor in a nearby marketplace that offered to make some women’s clothing for me. That’s right, you have to crossdress to get into town. 😛

Vilia, to Link, who is dressed as a woman: You look adorable!With the new outfit, the guards at Gerudo Town let me walk right in. I checked out the shops and spoke with everyone I saw. The residents and visitors are all female. Or at least that’s what I thought, until I saw a Goron inside! What’s he doing here??

Lyndae: Hang on... I thought men weren't allowed in this town... Why did they let me in?I went in to meet Riju, the Gerudo chief. She saw the gamepad Sheikah Slate on my belt, and figured out I was a guy. But she didn’t kick me out (or cut anything off) because she knew I could help beat Divine Beast Vah Naboris (does that rhyme with…Delores?).

Riju, the Gerudo Chief, in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for Nintendo Switch (also on Wii U).She told me to have a chat with her soldiers. But first, I saw an open door and wandered inside. It’s a classroom, but they’re not studying geology in here. This is a relationship class! What an interesting course. 😛 I bet the final exam is pretty hard.

Dina: What do you think of my lipstick? I think it'll bring me good luck!I already thought this classroom was rather weird…and then I saw the dummies.

The dummies lined up in the relationship classroom.Do they practice on these dummies? OMG. I’ve heard of crash test dummies, but this is ridiculous! And look at those faces…wouldn’t that be a turn-off? And they’re wearing gloves? I don’t even want to know why.

Before I saw anything even more disturbing, I left the class and went to talk to the soldiers. They told me that the chief’s heirloom (the Thunder Helm) was recently stolen, and they said it was taken to the Yiga Clan’s hideout in Karusa Valley. So I left Gerudo Town and headed in that direction. After looking around a bit, I found the hideout.

This area required some stealth, and also some…bananas? I thought I discovered Donkey Kong’s hidden stash of golden bananas when I reached this room.

A room full of mighty bananas in the Yiga Clan hideout in Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
OH! BA-NA-NA!

I’m generally not a big fan of stealth in games, and this area seemed quite tricky at first. And I did die a few times. I guess the moral of the story is to never mess with a Yiga’s banana.

Beware, fool, the eye of the Yiga.But fortunately, it didn’t take me too long before I cleared the area and defeated the Yiga Clan leader, Master Kohga. I then recovered the thunder helm and returned it to Riju (after completing a nearby shrine).

After chatting with her, the two of us were ready to head out for Naboris! After taking out the mechanical camel’s feet, I headed inside my fourth (and final) divine beast.

Once I reached the guidance stone inside, I gained access to the map and the divine beast controls. Rather than just turning one object (like a trunk or an entire ship), I had control of three separate cylinders. In addition, those cylinders have circuits that can carry electricity, to power different parts of the beast. This is the most complex of the four divine beasts, and I’d say it’s probably the toughest as well.

The map of Divine Beast Naboris in Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on Switch.Inside Divine Beast Naboris in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (BOTW).But after a while, I activated all of the terminals and then went on to fight the boss of the divine beast. Things were going well, at first. I knocked off half of his life meter in about two minutes. But then, he changed strategies. He’d speed in close quicker than I could find him, and zap me, causing me to drop my shield. This happened over and over again. And his attacks took big chunks of my health as well, so I was consuming a lot of food.

I was struggling, and it only got worse when the Master Sword ran out of power. Not only were my other weapons not as powerful, but his zapping me caused me to now drop my weapons as well! Shock resistance was not helping, either. He was kicking my butt, but I kept going even though progress was slow. Eventually I did beat him, even though I lost many weapons, shields, and food items during the fight. This was the toughest of the divine beast bosses, by far. I feel bad for anyone who headed to this beast first.

With all four divine beasts defeated, I could go on to Hyrule Castle and try to defeat Calamity Ganon. But I’m not in a rush to do that. So I worked on some side quests…including one where I bought my very own house in Hateno Village!

My house in Zelda: Breath of the Wild on Nintendo Switch.
Home sweet home. And I don’t owe Tom Nook a dime.

One of the homebuilders, Hudson, then set off to start a brand new village called Tarrey Town! I’ve been helping him out by supplying some wood, and by bringing in an employee (a Goron named Greyson) who can break apart large rocks.

Greyson: Hudson praises me a ton for breakin' these rocks. We're findin' some nice ore too!Greyson’s little brother also opened up an ore shop here. Tarrey Town is off to a nice start, but there’s more work to be done!

I then did some miscellaneous things. I had a fairy upgrade some of my equipment, I had Hestu expand some inventory slots, I worked on more side quests, I explored a bit, and I completed a couple of shrines. Even though I have no idea where I’ll go next time, I’m sure it’ll be fun.

And if you haven’t already seen it, here is my Breath of the Wild “Messing Around” video. It features some things I’ve mentioned in previous blog entries. That includes the hunting scene I dropped in on, jumping around shirtless in Ventest Clothing, pole dancing on a treetop, setting wolves on fire, and more. I hope you’ll give it a watch. 🙂