Storming the Gerudo Fortress

This part of the game is awesome, if only for the fact that the music in Gerudo Valley is awesome.  This is also the only real part of the game where we are required to use stealth.  See, the carpenter here is complaining that his workers went off the fortress and got themselves captured (well, serves them right, doesn't it?) and he wants us to help them.  Of course he does...well, we end up getting captured even trying to get near the collossal structure, and we need to sneak around the place like a thief ourselves in order to find and save four carpenters so the bridge can be built and more importantly, so that the Gerudo can show us some respect.  This is one of the harder parts of the game because this structure is very complex and very easy to get lost in...and getting lost when there are guards who will arrest you on sight isn't exactly a good scenario.

After we've done this, though, we can enter two new domains: the archery contest and the training grounds.  I go for the training grounds first, which involve a series of relatively simple puzzles in order to get keys.  After getting seven of those keys (which is all we can get, we haven't been to the Spirit Temple and can't explore the whole thing) we go through a maze of locked doors and find our way to the Ice Arrows...an item which serves us no real game-advancing purpose, but they're still pretty cool.

On the other hand, the archery contest is a major pain in the butt!  You need to get a score of 1000 and then another score of 1500 on horseback knocking down targets which consist of jars and a few stand-alone bullseyes.  This is one of the hardest feats in the game because Epona rides fast, and getting a straight shot on horseback is hard.  My strategy was to divide the course based on what I needed: use seven arrows on the jars, two on each end target, leaving three arrows each for the big targets by the jars.  The passes?  On the first pass, hit the jars and try to hit two shots on the last big target.  Then, on the second pass, get the rest of your shots in a more calm fashion.  It took me so many tries to finally get this...but the reward?  A heart piece and the biggest quiver!  Well worth it, I must say.