Chapter 11: Turtle Rock

So here we are, the final dungeon of Link's Awakening (not counting the Wind Fish Egg, of course).  It's hell to pay, too...much like the last dungeons of every Zelda, this place is massive...and this is also where references start to become more directly tied into the games.  For instance, while the rest of the dungeons were unique and had little to no reference to Hyrule, this is the last dungeon and shares name and external structure with the last dungeon of A Link to the Past.  I love the synergy!

Either way, we start off this venture battling a giant tortoise that serves as the door to Turtle Rock.  That was...interesting.  Purpose of which is unknown, I guess it's better than saying "hey, the instrument of the siren is in HERE!"

One way or another, the puzzles of this dungeon couldn't be called too difficult by any means: they're about to get far more difficult in the later titles.  However, one way or another, they're not simple either: this dungeon includes some new elements and because of its sheer size, it's no picnic.

Thanks to the invention of button-mashing, the boss, Hothead, turns out to be a pushover...you just spam the magic rod at him and he goes down fairly quickly.  The only thing one has to worry about is the lava that's constantly being jetted out at you.  Like the other nightmares before him, Hothead warns you and calls you foolish, except he's more violent about it, telling you outright that he will kill you so that you can't wake the Windfish.  Yay.

Well, the Thunder Drum is now in our posession...counting the last instrument of the sirens.  We are now almost ready to wake the Windfish...we need to finish trading a few things and etc.

The trading aspect of this game for an essential item adds a deeper dimension as well as more gameplay (something I like).  Also, you have the option of when you continue on the trade quest, though you need certain items to advance, you don't need to beat even the seventh dungeon...all you need is the face shrine's prize and you can complete the quest, the final reward of which is the magnifying glass, telling us the solution to the Wind fish Egg's maze (and giving us access to the boomerang, something else Link must have dropped when he landed here).

So trading done, and all of the pieces of heart in hand (they lowered the number that a game usually has...you get far less heart containers in total by the process of the game, probably because they figured with all the necessary side-quests the player didn't want to be overly bothered by the optional side-quest of survivability, right?  Wrong!) we are ready to climb Mt. Tamaranch and put an end to this dream world, tainted by nightmares.