Regarding the Duel with Zelda

I have been informed that there will be two ways to win this battle, with two separate endings depending on which way you choose. The easy way would simply be to beat the living daylights out of Zelda, but the more complex way involves bouncing light off of mirrors (So that the arrow doesn't hit her) and healing her with it.


The second method is very intriguing, and I had a few ideas about how to work the mirrors.

• There are 4 mirrors. They all begin near the edge of the screen, but with space around them for Link to circle them.
• When a golden arrow is fired at the mirror, it bounces off and a ball of light spawns, which travels in the opposite direction of the Arrow's source. These balls of light heal Zelda if they hit her.
• The mirrors have a 'sword' flag on them, and can be turned by a strike from Link's weapon. This is essential for aiming the light that they reflect. Each strike would turn the mirror 45*, or 90* if diagonals do not work.
• The mirrors are push-blocks, and can be moved freely in a 4 by 4 square tile near their starting position. They cannot move outside of this tile for the purpose of preventing getting stuck during the boss fight. If this isn't possible with a turning mirror, let me know.
• If the ball of light flies from one mirror and hits another, it reflects again. With a certain angling and puzzle setup, this can be used to trap Zelda in a cage of light, making the battle much easier.
• Certain obstacles will be in the 4 by 4 squares the mirrors can be moved in. Some of them are destroyable, while others must be circumvented.

This is all designed to give the player a choice between a battle boss and a puzzle boss. Of course, it would be a lot of things going on in one screen, which could prove difficult to produce.
Still, that's my two cents and you're all free to tear it all apart as you please.

Hmm...

* Golden Arrow =/= light arrow. While the Golden Arrow can fight chaos due to it containing the essense of the ∆ of Courage, it isn't necessarily a light-elemental weapon. So...
* During the battle, Zelda will be surrounded with Nayru's Love. Maybe instead of that Golden Arrow/light ball business we just use good old wand blasts? (Note: you'll need to actually have the wand before you can do this.)

Well, the Golden=Light arrow wasn't my idea, ShadowTiger mentioned it in chat with me earlier in the week.

My major concern was with the function of the mirrors, as it is set in stone that there will be mirrors in the battle.

Indeed. There *will* be Mirrors used, and there *will* be a Light Arrow. Zelda more than likely won't be working with Nayru's Love, Farore's Wind, and Din's Fire, as those are the "Good" magic elements that she employs. Keep in mind who she's being taken over by. It's an evil force.

Part of your objectives will be to keep Zelda alive, rather than defeating her outright. You have to do this by healing her, regardless of the actions that she's taking to destroy you in her corrupted state. The light arrows hit the mirror, and the arrow portion of it shatters against the mirror, leaving only the light aspect to be reflected against Zelda. It'd heal her. If you just shot her with the light arrow straight, ... well, ... being hit by an arrow really hurts, and the arrow persists. It doesn't get absorbed. You'll have to figure it out by yourself.

Think of it like Cave Story. You can fall into that pit to get the Booster, or you can figure out a way to not even have to, and get the booster 2.0 later.

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Zelda more than likely won't be working with Nayru's Love, Farore's Wind, and Din's Fire, as those are the "Good" magic elements that she employs.

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Well, Zelda is either surrendered or controlled, right? Not possessed or anything. So she wouldn't really know any new spells as a result of this. And just because the spells bear the goddesses' names doesn't mean that a chaos-controlled Zelda isn't allowed to use them.

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The light arrows hit the mirror, and the arrow portion of it shatters against the mirror, leaving only the light aspect to be reflected against Zelda.

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There's a continuity break here: I remember the final battle of The Wind Waker, and I recall that a Light Arrow is reflected by the Mirror Shield in its entirety - both physical and magical component.

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Think of it like Cave Story. You can fall into that pit to get the Booster, or you can figure out a way to not even have to, and get the booster 2.0 later.

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Also like Cave Story: there should be no saving after the battle. If there's two endings, we don't want the player stuck on the "wrong" one.

Which reminds me, here's another idea I have to bring forward. It's about the two endings. I think it'd be interesting if each ending to the Zelda battle led to different endings of the entire game, rather than one ending leading to Game Over.

This post contains an idea that I like: the opening of NeoFirst begins with an unseen narrator telling how their friend saved the world. And, at the end of NeoFirst, the narrator finishes the story.

• Here's one way it could end: If you slay Zelda, you get to take her corrupt Triforce of Wisdom and unite the corrupt Triforce. However, when you defeat Menace's first form, Zelda's ghost appears instead of King Dim's, and she tells Link that it's too late to save the Triforce, and he should stop fighting Menace, because it is still impossible to destroy him. However, she says that just as the Triforce-powered Golden Arrow can temporarily open portals in the Temple of Shadow, so too can it temporarily close portals in the Temple of Light. What's more, the complete Triforce is powerful enough to destroy the portals entirely. So, Link can run away and use what little is left of the complete Triforce's power to destroy all of the portals at the Temple of Shadow, thus sealing Menace in the Sacred Realm. [Or something. This may need working out.]

So instead of fighting Lord Menace's second form, there's an old-fashioned escape sequence back to the Temple, whereupon Link is forced to go back through all of the light/dark warps once each, destroying them as he goes. Maybe the last one has a surprise custom miniboss of some sort in front of it, just to round things off.

Then we get the ending sequence, and the book, and the unseen narrator laments that this is not the optimal ending: the complete Triforce can now never be unsealed, Zelda is dead, and with her the royal line of Hyrule is extinguished. The narrator says, though, that most importantly "she was my friend... and because of her, the entire world has survived." It thus becomes evident that the "friend who saved the world" mentioned in the introduction is Zelda, and the narrator is Link himself.

• However, in the best ending (which we have already discussed) the narrator is Zelda, who talks about how, with the power and guidance of the complete Triforce, she has driven the monsters from Hyrule and returned to her rightful place in the Castle - and that Hyrule is slowly being restored to the glory of her grandmother's age. "But had it not been for my friend ... I would never have returned from those depths of chaos and despair* - nor have ever forgiven my father."
Thus the story literally becomes the "Legend of Zelda".

*Word choice may vary.

EDIT: Added to the Plot Tracker topic.

My thoughts on this...

3 endings...

Ending 1 as you described, Link kills Zelda and her ghost purifies the Triforce enough to enable it to pernanently destroy the portals. Link escapes, trapping LM in the Shadow Realm forever. His story finishes with something along the lines of, "...and to this day, I still wonder if there was something more I could have done, something *else* I could have done to save her." This hints of a second ending.

Ending 2 has Link save Zelda from the darkness and he fights and defeats 2 of LM's forms. After the second win, Zelda uses the power of the completed, purified Triforce to put a hold on LM (like Zelda did in OoT). After this, another escape sequence, closing portals (but not destroying them this time). Just before they go to close (and destroy) the final portal, LM appears, starting a monologue of how the royal blood has thinned so much over time that its power is pathetic (which is why he broke the hold earlier than Zelda predicted). To save the kingdom, Link rushes at LM forcing them both back through the portal, and yelling at Zelda to destroy it once they are through. She briefly struggles mentally about trapping Link on the other side forever and finally decides to merely close the portal in hopes that one day, Link can come back. Flash forward. Zelda finishes her tale with something like, "it may have been selfish to put my wants above the needs of my kingdom, but he is my friend. How could I possibly condemn him to the same darkness from which he saved me?"

Ending 3... Zelda is about to put a hold on LM, telling Link they should flee. Link stops her and says that the battle must end here. So, Link fights LM's final form. Just before he dies, LM makes a comment about how "even I answer to a higher power". He dies and another portal opens. This portal takes Link and Zelda outside of the Shadow Temple into the main Shadow Realm. After a little bit, they come upon the Queen of Shadows, who wields a trident that is similar or the same as (possibly even a more powerful version of) the one that Ganon has. Each point is tipped with a Dark Triforce (Chaos, Insanity, and Apathy perhaps). Some stuff is said (working on this part) and the battle ensues. Once Link wins, they race back to the portal they arrived from and use the power of the Triforce to make it send them home. Still working on the ending for the tale from this point. The third ending needs a lot of work, but that's a basic story for it.

Thoughts?

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Originally Posted by Dark Nation

Ending 3... Zelda is about to put a hold on LM, telling Link they should flee. Link stops her and says that the battle must end here. So, Link fights LM's final form. Just before he dies, LM makes a comment about how "even I answer to a higher power". He dies and another portal opens. This portal takes Link and Zelda outside of the Shadow Temple into the main Shadow Realm. After a little bit, they come upon the Queen of Shadows, who wields a trident that is similar or the same as (possibly even a more powerful version of) the one that Ganon has. Each point is tipped with a Dark Triforce (Chaos, Insanity, and Apathy perhaps). Some stuff is said (working on this part) and the battle ensues. Once Link wins, they race back to the portal they arrived from and use the power of the Triforce to make it send them home. Still working on the ending for the tale from this point. The third ending needs a lot of work, but that's a basic story for it.

Thoughts?

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The main Shadow Realm should be eerily quiet, with little to no music, and the only visibility should be a bubble of light centered around Zelda, who follows Link from this point on to the end of the game.

After wandering around for a while in the darkness (Make the player work for it!), they encounter the embodiment of all of this darkness, Lady of the Night. She'll be the queen of shadows, and she never steps into Zelda's bubble of light. Like you suggested, she'll wield a trident with the three segments of the Evil Triforce tipping it (The names you picked are fine).

This battle should be a game of hide and seek. You have to go around the screen trying to find Lady of the Night, who will freeze for a few seconds when you catch her in the light and then leap back into the shadows.

• Occasionally, she'll hurl the Trident through your bastion of sun, which will hone in on Link unless he strikes it with his sword.

Other attacks may include:

• Dark lightning (Hurts Zelda, unavoidable)
• Shadow Spikes (Come out of the ground in front of Link, hard to dodge when you're moving)
• and Eternal Darkness (Put's out Zelda's Light, inflicting 3 hearts damage to the both of them. Can be blocked by using the Candle.)

If either Link or Zelda dies in this fight, it's game over. Still, if the player does win, then the escape scene can proceed just as you described it.
Also, I propose that Zelda still be the narrator for this ending, just for the novelty. Maybe you could allude to Link being nearby, but it isn't necessary.

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Originally Posted by Dark Nation

Ending 1 as you described, Link kills Zelda and her ghost purifies

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Actually, I've already got it down that the only thing that can remove the taint of Chaos from the Triforce is the three Golden items. Otherwise they'd surely have done it already.

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Ending 2 has Link save Zelda from the darkness and he fights and defeats 2 of LM's forms. After the second win, Zelda uses the power of the completed, purified Triforce to put a hold on LM (like Zelda did in OoT).

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Well, since Lord Menace is made of chaos, the complete Triforce's divine order ought to utterly annihilate him. This is pretty much a focal point of the story. The reason Menace is able to seal the three pieces in the first place is because they start the game separated.

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To save the kingdom, Link rushes at LM forcing them both back through the portal, and yelling at Zelda to destroy it once they are through.

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Ah! Symmetry!

...unfortunately, I don't see a place where this can happen. If Zelda is alive, King Dim's ghost brings Link the two Golden items he has (so that the Triforce can be unsealed). If she's dead, King Dim's ghost can't find them, and he doesn't appear. See the Plot Tracker.

Unless... nah.

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Just before he dies, LM makes a comment about how "even I answer to a higher power".

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Well, he does, but the higher power he serves is Chaos itself. As in the ancient Greek concept of Chaos. And I don't think even our duo is fit to slay an entire force of the universe. So, no surprise final boss. (If anything, Lord Menace's second form serves as the surprise final boss.)

Also, I was sort of thinking that Lord Menace wouldn't ever speak. He's made of primordial Chaos, and thus wouldn't really be enamoured with any concept of self, or of theatrics.

Maybe the Lady of the Night could be a halfway point boss in the Shadow Temple or Dark World?

EDIT: To tell the truth, I don't really like the idea that Lord Menace can be, or is, permanently imprisoned in the Sacred Realm. Technically, Lord Menace begins the game imprisoned (of sorts), with the desolation of the Temple of Light preventing his full escape into Hyrule. Hmmm....

What about reversing the order a bit? Instead of the "final" battle being against LM, what if it were against the Queen of Shadows? When Link defeats her, she hints of a more power, truly final boss, LM.

Also, a suggestion for the intro story: "The following story is a tale of friendship, betrayal, and sacrifice..."

Link's story ending (where he kills Zelda) contains something along the lines of, "In the end, she begged me to end her life in order to save her kingdom, the land and the people that she loved. My intentions were much more selfish. I could not bear the thought of her being transformed into a twisted reflection of her former self. She was my friend and I betrayed her. I sacrificed her life in order to save her from the darkness. To this day, I still wonder if there wasn't something more I could have done... something *else* I could have done to save her." The wording and pacing may have to be adjusted or changed, but it's a start.

As for Zelda's ending: "He asked me to destroy the portal to keep that monster from returning. The last thing he asked me to do... and I couldn't. I know I betrayed my kingdom by putting my friendship with him before my duty as a princess, but I don't care. He is my friend. How could I possibly condemn him to the same darkness from which he saved me? Still, how could I betray a kingdom which he sacrificed himself to protect?" Again, the wording could use a little work, but the idea is there.

Thoughts?

hmm...maybe this "Queen of shadows" could be Sarai returned again from the depth of the abyss. and when you beat her, she possesses Zelda? that would provide some irony, as it would almost repeat what happened to king Dim...

just a thought.

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Originally Posted by Aegix Drakan

hmm...maybe this "Queen of shadows" could be Sarai returned again from the depth of the abyss.

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I'm emphatic that Sarai (whose ultimate goal was domination) would have no business with the forces of Chaos (whose ultimate goals are destruction.)

Besides, it takes a sacrificial summoning procedure to restore one of the dead to the full power of the living. The ghosts of King Dim and/or Zelda, meanwhile, only briefly return from beyond the veil under their own power.

darn, I thought I was onto something.

then nevermind, I guess. :shrug: