Waking the Wind

(Apologies in advance for some of the pictures with “waves” in them – it was the result of the video splitter being hooked up funny, and I got it fixed after several pictures early on.)

Yes. It’s here. The second Zelda email series!

Except… it’s not quite an email series this time. As evidenced by the surrounding webpage, this series is going to be told through the use of a blog! It makes things a lot less frustrating than using email, is able to be edited afterwards (no more “NO, READ THIS ONE!” stuff!), and can be found on any computer with internet access by typing in thezeldaemailblog.wordpress.com into the URL bar.

Also, I now have a capture card, so all of these pictures are generally going to look a whole lot nicer than in the last series!

(If you never read the first series, reading this About page would probably be helpful.)

So let’s get started!

Yeah, that would probably be nice.

So after setting up a save file and naming my character (yes, I did name it Jared – I’m keeping with the more personal style, even though it is an online blog) I watch the introductory movie. It seemed to be somewhat of a retelling of Ocarina of Time and somewhat not to me. Anyway, after that, we get to first scene of Windwaker!

Well, I thought it was Windwaker. Buuuuuut….

OH, CRUD!!! IT’S 1984!!!!

Oh, okay. Whew.

After that initial scare, I’m introduced to my character and my little sister, Aryll. She seems like your typical (if not stereotypical) little sister – loves you to death, but kinda bugs you at the same time.

So she goes on about how she likes the spot and all, until asking an interesting question:

You know, usually when someone asks you that, it’s because there’s something important going on that day. And often, they ask because they think you don’t remember what that important thing was. And unfortunately, they’re often right.

So from there, it’s up to you to minimize the damage of not knowing what important day it is as much as possible. You could try to shrug it off, being all “Eh, I dunno, what sis?” You could pull the give-her-a-funny-look-and-go-“Uuuuuhhhhhh” until she gives the answer. Or I guess you could explode about how you’ve been too busy to really know. “YOUKNOWHOWMANYCUCKOOSI’VEHADTODOMESTICATEINTHEPASTTWOWEEKSDOYOUREALLY
THINKI’MGONNAREMEMBERBLAHBLAHBLAH…”
Then again, that’d be an awful excuse, partly because that would make him dang terrible at domesticating Cuckoos. I have yet to see a Cuckoo that doesn’t have a Imma-kill-you-if-you-even-think­-about-touching-me brutal dark side to it.
That, and there aren’t any Cuckoos on this island. Oops.

So anyway, our hero doesn’t quite look like he remembers a whole lot of anything right now. Spin the Wheel of Fortune, Link. (No, not that one, certain reader.) What day will it be? What is your prize?

SWOOSH!

Clickclickclickclickclickclcikclick-click-click-click, click; cliiiick.

Bankrupt. For life.

“for a while now…”

(Five hours pass by)

*sitting in chair, staring forward, eyes bloodshot and wide-open, looking angry*

“DANG NAB IT, WHERE’S THAT JARED BEEN?!?”

So to avoid my grandma have some sort of Not-So-Great Attack, the game gives me control for the first time.

In control!

Right after gaining control, I enter the first house I come across to find what looks like a rupee stash a guy’s hidden under his bed. His, ahem, one rupeestash that he’s hidden under his bed…

Regardless, it’s a stash, it’s a game, and it’s my first rupee, so…

I’M TAKIN’ YOUR STASH!!

“Yeeeah, whaddup. Took a green Rupee.”

So I got my first Rupee from that. But I soon realize that the actual stash was yet to come:

A key item box? Already?!

Not quite. Turns out it’s…

20 Rupees!

Okay, so 20 Rupees. Er, 21. Not bad for being right off the bat.

Feeling a little bit guilty for being such a thief, I left the unoccupied house and took a look around. I jump across some rocks for a yellow Rupee, worth 10 Rupees, and caught this cool picture of the island on my way back:

Really makes me think of Destiny Island from Kingdom Hearts. (Didn’t I compare Ocarina of Time to Kingdom Hearts at least once in the old series, too?) Not a bad thing at all, though, since Destiny Islands is one of my all-time favorite settings from a video game, hands-down.

So first this was 1984, and now it’s Kingdom Hearts? What’ll it be next?!

Next I come across this guy who wants a pig… as a pet. Well, his wife does, anyway. He tells me how to sneak up on it, which I casually ignored/half-understood, and proceeded to walk up to it.

Of course, yeah, it runs away, but I quickly get it in a corner. With nowhere to run, I was sure to get the pig!

…Only not quite. Trust me, I pressed that A button a whole lot of times, and not once did I pick up that pig. Ugghhhh…

So I chase it around a bit until it runs into the water. Being a much faster swimmer than the pig, I easily got on some nearby land and snatched him up, running him back to the guy.

But there was no A button “give” command, or anything else of that sort. Confused, I set down the pig, thinking he might take it…

And he does nothing!!

Talking to him afterwards rewards you with directions on how to catch the pig. Wonderful.

From the look on his face, it seems our hero is also dumbfounded with this predicament. Man wants pig. Man cannot see pig. Yeah, sounds like a problem.

Nevertheless, I run over to the pig again, thinking maybe I can round him up without having to run him into the water again. As I run by, I get bothered by the elderly man sitting on the balcony of his house, who tells me to L-target him. “Not right now,” I say. “I’ve got a pig to catch!”

Catch pig again. Try to give pig to man again. Fail.

So getting the pig for the third time, I try something different. Not knowing what in the world to do, I notice a ”Throw” command when you have the pig… So I L-target the elderly guy from earlier and try tossing the pig up to him.

I thought it would’ve gone a whole lot further than it did… O_o

Dang it. Well, that didn’t work.

So I try and run over quickly to pick up the pig before it runs off again, and…

OH CRUD YOU!!

So his conversation basically turns into a mockery of how I couldn’t figure out what the heckto do with the pig. Great. Thanks, mister.

From there, I decided to give up on the pig and all the craziness it entailed for awhile, and run over to my house. I tried checking the mailbox on my way there.

A talking mailbox. Yawn.

I go inside to find grandma.

She seems much calmer now. Chances are, the millisecond I opened the door, her face changed instantly from the “AAAAGGGHHHH WHERE THE CRUD IS THAT GRANDSON OF MINE AAAAAGGGGGHHH!!!” face to the “Hello! I’m dear ol’ grandma!” one.

Likely when I leave, I’ll shut the door to vaguely hear hardcore heavy metal music playing in the background…

She gives me the “Link from the past” garb (hehe), and I don the green pajama-y looking things. Okay.

And immediately after, Grandma gives some of the backstory as to why this particular birthday is so special:

Well, it doesn’t seem Grandma is very genre savvy.

Grandma, you’re at the beginning of an adventure game. What does that mean, you ask? Well, if there’s peace now, it won’t be lasting for very much longer.

That, and… for crying out loud DON’T JINX IT!!!

Anyway, I did a bit more exploring around the island.

I bumped into this kid:

No comment.

This girl who strangely reminds me of Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender, even though they don’t look too similar:

“…I’ve got a bunch cactus juice in here for Grandma’s secret Rock-and-Roll-lifestyle addictions!”

And finally…

ANIMAL MAN’S WIFE!!

So I go and catch the pig and give it to her. 20 more Rupees!

Returning back to the other guy and speaking to him causes him to say this:

Ugh.

Only thing that could have made him seem more ridiculous is the Sonic Adventure theme “Open Your Heart” blasting out as soon as those words finished scrolling across the screen. I invite you to listen to the song while staring at this picture, imagining him channeling some sort of power-energy fire that surrounds him with his outstretched hands.

Here’s the song to get you started:

If you’re having difficulty with that, let me help you.

…Oh, crud to it.

Anyway, I go back to the watchtower to talk to Aryll again.

This will likely erupt into a “I said one day!” “No you didn’t!” fight tomorrow, but nevertheless, I’m willing to take what she’s offering.

And what she’s offering is:

Okay, a “happy birthday.” That’ll be hard to give back tomorrow. But also…

My first item – the telescope!

So now, thanks to my sister, I’m going to look around the island and admire thewhoawhoa, whoa. Hold on. There’s something wrong here.

Aryll told Link to close his eyes and hold out his hands for the gift. Assuming that he actually did close his eyes for the gift, Aryll would have had to hand him the gift herself.

While we may never know whether he actually did or did not close his eyes due to the convenient camera placement, what it looks like is that he closed his eyes, heard Aryll say Happy Birthday… then instantly opened his eyes, said “MINE!” and took the telescope.

Wow Link! You’re such a great person!
(*…Might Guy comes out of nowhere and gives him a big hug that crushes his backbone*)

Anyway, I look through the stolengifted telescope.

First, I came across some sort of Geogre Washington-Mount Rushmore rock thing.

Then, of course, I look at the mailbox, see the mailbird, hear Aryll calling for me to look up in the sky, and see this other giant bird drop this girl from the sky. And she’s falling head-first…

KINGDOM HEARTS, ANYONE?!?!
(KH Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JATCsxW2fwo)

So now it’s up to me to get a sword and save Sor- I mean, this girl. I do the training section with sword-trainer-person-that-I-can’t-quite-remember-the-name-of (and get surprised at how many different sword strokes there are in the game and how different ones might be required at different points), and get…

The sword!

That was a whole lot more straightforward than I recall it being in Ocarina…

Next, I run through town and talk to people – everybody’s talking about the fallen girl in the forest. Well, everyone except the talking mailbox:

Some things never change.

Like Hardcore Grandma. She’s still putting on that innocent, sweet, grandma-y face every time I open that door:

Secretly, you’re thinking “Tear ‘em up, grandson!!”

Anyway, with my newfound sword, I start to trek to the top of the mountain and enter the forest. On my way, I find this guy:

He wants a free lawn mow.

I’ll show him a free lawn mow.

Lawn. Mowed.

He stares dumbfounded by the awesomeness. It might soundlike, “Wha, WHERE’S MY GRASS?!,” but he’s actually in awe.

With that, I got on a roll:

DON’T MESS WITH LAWN-MOWER LINK!!

I saw the sign earlier that said they’d purposely closed off this road up to the forest with trees due to an out bridge. (By the way, I cut it down. Good memories…) What I didn’t know, though, was that missing one plankmeans “out bridge”…

Seriously, THAT’S an out bridge?

I take a measly step (okay, hop) over the hole and run into the forest.

It looks… foresty…

I walk in, and am met by a bit too much grass for me to go Lawn-Mower on…

Yeeeeaah… Forget it.

After that disappointment, I take on some of my first enemies, find a log stash of 20 Rupees, and find the girl hanging from a tree.

Eh, okay. This is different from Kingdom Hearts.

The tree branch snaps, and she falls to the ground. Having defeated all the monsters, she’s safe!

If I’d been given the same decision to save her a few minutes down the road, though, I may not have as willing to take it… why? Well…

She…

Is…

A…

JERK!

Yeah, I’m not the biggest fan of Tetra. She irks me.

So while I ended up getting a bunch of girls fighting over me in Ocarina, I start Windwaker with an annoying one who hates my guts. And while the Zora girl was kinda creepy-irksome in Ocarina with her whole “We’re getting married and having this many kids and yada yada yada!” thing, Tetra’s… Tetra’s just dumb. That’s what I’ve got to say.

So yeah, I skipped a bit ahead there, but immediately after leaving the forest, my sister gets kidnapped.

So that kinda stinks. Crud you, Tetra.

Of course, she tries to blow it off by saying it’s not her fault. To that, we get the help of the postman:

While the mailbox may not be that awesome, I’d like to give the postman the temporary title of “The Stinkin’ Kick-Butt Awesome One.” Anyone who tells off Tetra that good deserves some sort of title in my opinion. Tellin’ off annoying jerks, one jerk at a time. Yeah!

However, what he had to say got me thinking. JUST long eared girls? Picking specific features like that? …Great. This doesn’t sound familiar.
So instead of Big Brother or the Heartless, we’re actually facing the Fourth Reich. O_o

Anyway, I get prepared to leave, Grandma gives me one more Grandma-y talk from the bottom of her rock-and-roll honest-to-goodness heart, and I say goodbye to people.

You know what, dude? Of all people, I thought you would know! You’re doing the motion now! You’ve gotta OPEN YOUR HEART!! (YEAH, YEEEEAAAAHHH!!!)

The kids sure didn’t want to let me go – they tried their dang hardest to follow me around wherever I went, just right behind me! Sort of like CPU sidekicks. Like Donald and Goofy. Like in Kingdom Hearts. Yeah…

The dang kid is even pretending to have DONALD’S STAFF!!

I take back what I said – this IS Kingdom Hearts. (Well, apparently a new version where instead of the Heartless, you’re fighting The Party and Hitler Jr… Wait a minute…)

Finally, I go and see if anyone’s occupied the Rupee stash house since I last checked it… and nope. Nobody. However… the one Rupee stash is replaced every time you leave! Who keeps hiding one Rupee under their bed?!

It keeps coming back!

But nevertheless, among all these things, I board the ship, and sail away to the rescue of my little sister.

And like Destiny Island and Sora, Link won’t be back to the island for awhile.

Well, according to Tetra. And then again, we all know how much I trust and respect Tetra.

End of Post #1.

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Bonus Pictures!

Here we have Link, preparing for his first dive…

Pet rock?