Level Five - The Lizard

The fifth level of the first quest is one of those levels that offers a good deal of puzzle: you have to hop, skip and jump on one leg in order to find everything, and uncovering everything is much to Link's advantage as this dungeon hides the bomb upgrade.  Most future games would feature an upgrade to each numerical part of Link's arsenal, typically via fairy, but this one had old men augment your capacity...if you were willing to augment their cashflow.  Hyrule must be a capitalist society!  One way or the other, at this point in the game I am also getting a little tired of the dungeon paneling and the monotonous music that comes with every visit to the underworld.  Nothing much original in this soundtrack, although it was the basis for some grand orchestrations in the future.  A diamond in the rough, I guess.

Entrance Underworld Level V

There she goes, there she goes again~

So here we go into the fifth dungeon of the game, over half-way through it!  This dungeon only offers a little bit of challenge in the way of action in the form of darknuts and pols voice.  Darknuts have always been one of my most hated enemies, especially in this game: at least other games make it easier to penetrate their iron defense.  These guys are quick and only vulnerable from the back, and they like to face Link (obviously) from the front.  For some reason, they seem to be very skilled at turning just at the right moment.  I've always liked to employ what I call the "patience" strategy with them.  I'll wait in the doorway, fire swordbeams until the darknuts figure out what I'm doing, and then retreat into the doorway (because for some reason, these, and all other enemies with the exception of wizzrobes, are too numb to figure out that I'm still in the room).  A strategy that might be described as cowardly, yes but it's safe and effective...and I like to save my energy for the boss room.  The challenge of every dungeon in this game is keeping your energy for the boss fight, since the fights with the minor enemies will drain you quickly if you're not careful.

Listen to the old man...

Might you elaborate, old fart?  I've never seen, nor heard, of a digdogger before in my life...and are we talking singing, scatting, instrumentation, yelling, what?  So open ended...

Note how the old man gives you the answer to your mystery every time he speaks; but he never really even says anything because of interpretation.  Now, this dungeon hands you the most useless item in the First Quest: the Recorder.  It has TWO purposes: to weaken the Digdogger so you can defeat it more easily (it's not invincible without) and to unveil the entrance to a dungeon.  Nothing more frustrating than an item that outlives its usefulness after ten to twenty minutes of gameplay.  I think they could have expanded on the uses more (beyond just being a random teleporter).  I think maybe some of the puzzles in the later dungeons could have required the recorder...that might have been fun.

That's a fool's bet

You're damned right I'd like to have more bombs!!!

So finally we come to the Digdogger.  This thing looks like a frisbee on the screen and is arguably the easiest boss of the game.  You just toot your flute, and slice him twice.  Seriously.  Where's the challenge in that?  All in all, if it weren't for the fact that level five does force you to scout around and actually be clever about your rupees...one might say that it's almost as easy as Level I.   Of course, it doesn't help that at this time in the game, Link is of considerably greater power than he was when he first started.  (Those who don't buy the magic shield or blue ring, or who don't pursue at least the white sword are in for a tough ride.)

Hello floating eye...I mean, Digdogger!

What kind of monster did I just stumble upon...

 

Triforce of Wisdom Piece #5

Yes!  All of these small triangles are finally starting to look like a bigger triangle!  I'm so close to saving Princess Zelda and Hyrule, I can taste it!