in Honor of 5th Quest

[SUCCESSOR]

You just totally gave me an idea for a speed run attempt. :)

Are you going to share?

[Imzogelmo]

I think I will join in this challenge. I've played 1 & 2 lots of times, and 3 I tried but never finished. I seem to recall playing halfway through the 4th also. I'll probably start on it tonight.

[CJC]

Added a schedule to an earlier post
EDIT: The schedule has been 'spoilered' in the earlier post to maintain thread coherency, but is now irrelevant as Successor put together a better schedule.



I also have a few pointers for players who are struggling with the first two dungeons, provided in spoilers below
First Dungeon

Spoiler: show

The first dungeon is closer than you think. You can reach it from start by traversing five screens, and it is located in a dead-end. It is a good idea to explore before you enter the first dungeon, to find at least an extra heart container.
If you're still struggling:

Spoiler: show

This won't be fun, but farm the octoroks to the east of start to gather money for bombs and the blue candle. Use the blue candle on the southmost green tree (the one that makes the bottom end of the 'greater than' sign on that screen) in the screen directly south of the Red Woods fairy pond (somewhat near the north-west-south-west maze) to snag a heart container. Next, traverse the forest maze (the path is the same as before) and travel north of the exit one screen to reach the mountain south of the graveyard. Bomb the wall here (roughly in the center) to find a cave containing the power bracelet.
If you're feeling like getting in some extra credit, save 90 rupees and purchase a magic shield

Spoiler: show

There are a few places to do this, the easiest to find are the screen immediately west from start (there's a shop if you push one of the rocks after clearing the screen) or the former location of dungeon six (west of the graveyard). Do NOT pay the higher price for the magic shield, as the quest is riddled with Like Likes and money is hard to grind.

Then, brave the Lynel-ridden depths of Death Mountain to make your way to the North-West corner of the World Map. Here you will find two screens with arrows pointing towards each other. If you manage to clear the screen with the right-pointing arrow (since the Magic Shield can block Lynel sword shots), you can push down on one of the rocks and find a heart container cave. This gets you five hearts before the first dungeon, allowing you to acquire the White Sword before entering (I'll detail where to find the white sword in the Second Dungeon spoiler).

The First Dungeon contains the Magic Book, which is actually somewhat of a detriment later in the game (it makes the wand start fires, but since we'll be using the wand as a bubble-proof sword and fires hurt Link it will only get in the way). This dungeon has several rooms where you must clear all the enemies to advance. They're Goriyas, and you won't have the boomerang to stun them. You'll need to get used to waiting for them to throw their boomerangs and then sneaking up alongside them while they're stopped.
If you can't find your way to the boss:

Spoiler: show

Try pressing against the walls. You will have to use a pass-through wall to reach the path leading to the boss. It's also a good practice to adopt, since this quest uses a LOT of pass-through walls.

The boss of this dungeon is Aquamentus. The room has fire-shooters in addition to the classic first-dungeon dragon, so it might be painful with only three hearts. If you're having a lot of trouble, go back to the Overworld and fish around until you've got at least one more Heart Container.

Second Dungeon

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The Second Dungeon is quite near its first-quest location. Make sure you have at least Five Hearts before setting out, because you'll need to acquire the White Sword before braving this den.
The White Sword can be found:

Spoiler: show

very easily, actually. Go to the first quest location for the second dungeon, and you'll find a lake. Bomb the wall on the north end of the lake, directly in the middle, and the White Sword will be there.

The Second Dungeon is significantly easier than the first, especially because of the White Sword. The enemies are less aggressive selections, too. You WILL need the Candle before you enter, and you will want to grind money for the Blue Ring before you leave.
The shop containing the blue ring can be found:

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in a familiar spot... the waterfall near first quest's Fifth Dungeon. It requires 250 rupees, of course, five short of the max you can carry

The item in the second dungeon is the Bow. If you're having trouble finding it:

Spoiler: show

it is located in one of the key's teeth. You will need bombs to reach it. It's quite easy to find once you have the map, actually.

The boss of this dungeon is Gohma. You'll need the bow to defeat it, but it's the weak variation that can only stomach one arrow. Even with the fire-shooters this should be a piece of cake.

I'll go over the Third and Fourth Dungeon next week, when their deadline has passed.

[SUCCESSOR]

I'm sorry but why is your calendar starting before this thread/event even started? I also put Level 9 in it's own week because I am assuming it to be the most difficult and time consuming, to allow time to collect any extras that may be needed, or to catch up from previous weeks(say you didn't finish level 8 yet). Also people are busy and 5 weeks isnt too long a time.

[CJC]

I'm sorry but why is your calendar starting before this thread/event even started? I also put Level 9 in it's own week because I am assuming it to be the most difficult and time consuming, to allow time to collect any extras that may be needed, or to catch up from previous weeks(say you didn't finish level 8 yet). Also people are busy and 5 weeks isnt too long a time.

Because I used the calendar in my phone to get the dates; I wasn't looking at the thread start date. ...We only started on Wednesday? It feels longer than that.


But okay, I'll adjust the timeline. I was just worried five weeks would be too long.

[Orithan]

So I've continued along the overworld and got myself an extra Heart Container before I quit searching for the White Sword and completed Level 1. With 6 Heart Containers and the Book; I went into Level 2 for a bit and then grabbed the White Sword (with the help of the Wiki, I would have never found it by myself until after I would have discovered that the Whistle won't work there) and then completed it.
Next, I went straight into Level 3 and swept it clean (except for the room with the Boomerang, which houses an ridiculous amount of Blue Darknuts) and beat the boss with plenty of health to spare. I personally thought that the Lanmolas before the boss were tougher than the boss.

Currently, this is what I have:

Spoiler: show

• White Sword
• Magic Shield
• Bow and Arrow
• Candle
• Bait
• Bracelet
• Blue Ring
• Book
• 8 Heart Containers.
• 0 deaths (I can't believe that I actually managed to beat Level 3 with no deaths!).

[SUCCESSOR]

Because I used the calendar in my phone to get the dates; I wasn't looking at the thread start date. ...We only started on Wednesday? It feels longer than that.


But okay, I'll adjust the timeline. I was just worried five weeks would be too long.

I tweaked it and put it in the OP. Tell me what you think. I pushed up the dates a bit for people just starting and overlapped the last week of 3rd and first week of 4th.

[SUCCESSOR]

Spoiler: show

So I've continued along the overworld and got myself an extra Heart Container before I quit searching for the White Sword and completed Level 1. With 6 Heart Containers and the Book; I went into Level 2 for a bit and then grabbed the White Sword (with the help of the Wiki, I would have never found it by myself until after I would have discovered that the Whistle won't work there) and then completed it.
Next, I went straight into Level 3 and swept it clean (except for the room with the Boomerang, which houses an ridiculous amount of Blue Darknuts) and beat the boss with plenty of health to spare. I personally thought that the Lanmolas before the boss were tougher than the boss.

Currently, this is what I have:

Spoiler: show

• White Sword
• Magic Shield
• Bow and Arrow
• Candle
• Bait
• Bracelet
• Blue Ring
• Book
• 8 Heart Containers.
• 0 deaths (I can't believe that I actually managed to beat Level 3 with no deaths!).

Let's keep the details of our playthroughs in spoiler tags.

[CJC]

Looks good. I'll spoiler out my schedules so that they don't confuse readers.


On an unrelated note, if you haven't learned the Darknut Sword Exploit, Dungeon 3 is the place to try.



This is not technically a glitch; rather, it is a shortcoming of the original Zelda engine. While Link is stabbing he cannot be moved by enemy damage. This allows him to stay his ground while the darknut continues to walk back and forth. If Link were to stab in a direction the Darknut cannot approach from (such as stabbing downward when the Darknut can only approach from above or the right), he will ALWAYS hit the Darknut regardless of its orientation. Also, since Link becomes temporarily invincible when struck, this can be used to mitigate the amount of damage the Darknut can inflict.

TL;DR
Stand north of an unwalkable combo, face south, and spam the stab button until all the darknuts on screen are dead.

You will have to learn this technique by Dungeon 8

Spoiler: show

It features one-tile-wide hallways with Darknuts that cannot reliably be defeated any other way.

Special thanks to @pixcalibur for teaching me this technique.



Another trick that's helpful is the 'bubble shield' technique. When struck by a bubble, Link's temporary invincibility will give you enough time to navigate roughly one quarter of the screen. If you follow the bubble, you can cling to it and maintain this invincibility while you work your way around the room. This trick is especially useful when the Red and Blue bubbles come into play; if a Red Bubble takes away your sword you should cling to it until you can safely reach the Blue Bubble.

[ctrl-alt-delete]

Decided I'm going to buy a new laptop so I can start bringing mine to work to join you guys. Pathetic this was my idea and I can't even play along.