The Clan of the Cave Bague

As I was saying……

The strange thing about Zelda games is how they all, regardless of which title it is, manage to get me totally drawn into them. It’s just happened in the Wind Fortress when the plot has suddenly (as happens in Zelda games) gone veering off at a tangent. The appearance of a certain object at the end of the dungeon brought a lump to my throat.

In the Fortress of Winds, I came across the Mole Mitts which gave me the usual Zelda “Excellent! Bogus” feeling – Excellent, I thought, I can now get to that room in the Dungeon that I just know the boss key is in. Bogus, I immediately realised, there are now three million other places on the world map that I know I can now get into and I’m going to get lost. It’s all about the exploration, and especially about that point where – as at the end of the Fortress of Winds – you discover all is not as it seems and the world is a much bigger place.

Also, the dungeon boss in the Wind Fortress is a stunner, even by Zelda standards. They’re usually pretty entertaining, but this particular chappy (who may be a little familiar to people who have played Wind Waker (Wind Fortress – geddit?)) actually made me laugh out loud at one point, and it’s very rare that an end-of-level boss has that effect on me.

MOLE-MITTS GET!

More later…….

BOW GET! I’m not officially in the Fortress of Wind, after much squelching about in a muddy bog of doom. Found a novel way to gubb some Big Iron Blokes by miniaturising myself and then, well, popping inside and switching them off. Fab.

So, this evening’s bounties consisted of: One pair of boots of incredible quickness, one particularly smelly mushroom, one bow and loads of arrows.

I have the head-cold of doom and I can barely see :-/ Bloody typical – I’m too lurgied to do much in the way of moving and I can’t see well enough to play games. Bah.

FIRE ELEMENT GET!!

That’s the fire cave dungeon – one dungeon down, three million to go. Minish Cap is everything that’s ACEBEST about Zelda – interesting dungeons, tricky timing bits, and hugely entertaining bosses. All in a handy little pocket sized unit. Fab

The fire cave has it all – floating about on hurricanes with your little hat, zipping about in mine carts in a most comical fashion, and – NEW TOY – a flippy thing for flipping. ACE.

This game caused my DS and I to have a bit of a falling out. You see, it’s really really good. So good, in fact, that it tends to get played in extended sessions. It was during one of these sessions (climbing the mountain) that I discovered that the DS – while a great little console – is bloody uncomfortable for anything other than casual use. Or it may be the way I hold it. Anyway, after a lengthy sabbatical, I’ve started again and got as far as the Fire Cave.

As LoZ games go, the Minish Cap is quite unusual as the developers (not the usual Zelda gang) have taken a few liberties with the mythology. There’s no tri-force any more for one thing. What there is, however, is a race of teensy wee people called the Minish. Via the use of a magic talking hat (no, really!) link is able to shrink himself down to their size at various parts of the game. This adds an interesting layer to puzzle elements, not to mention a good deal of to-ing and fro-ing. But that’s Zelda for you.

Much though I loved “A Link to the Past”, Minish Cap really does benefit from the Wind Waker graphical style. The gameplay is, of course, pure Zelda, and if you’ve played one you’ll know exactly how it goes

Well, Mac OS 10.4 is out – so what’s it like? In a word, lovely. One minor hiccup is that my SpeedTouch 330 USB ADSL modem no longer works but as it’s a huge resource hog at the best of times this isn’t a great loss.

Spotlight is the thing that’s grabbed me the most – particularly as integrated into Apple Mail – the ability to make smart folders is such a great thing. I’ve been running it for less than a day and can’t live without em already

Also, Ecto (the blogging client I use for make these entries in Movable Type) has been updated with the new Tiger-tweaked look and feel, and it fits in with the rest of the OS beautifully.

So – only been running it for a day or so but a big thumbs up all round. The performance feels a lot better but that may be because I’m no longer running the horrible SpeedTouch thingy.

On iTunes: The Cheese Alarm from the album “Jewels for Sophia” by Robyn Hitchcock