Game Center CX Season 14 – Back to Contents
#110
The Masterpiece Concludes!? – "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time"

Chousen

When we last left Arino, he had just completed the Water Temple in Nintendo’s ultra-classic Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, leaving him with two more magic medallions to collect before facing the evil Ganondorf.

As before, time on the show is limited, so we jump straight to Arino’s next destination, the Shadow Temple, where he uses the Din’s Fire ability to light a circle of torches all at once to open the main door. Inside, the Lens of Truth item is used to reveal hidden doors and passageways within the temple.

Arino soon steps into a strange room with a bunch of long arms sticking out from the ground. When he gets close, bam! One grabs him, and in walks Dead Hand, a miniboss. Arino struggles to wrest himself free from the auxillary hands, but he unfortunately dies. Second time’s the charm, though, and his reward is a pair of Power Boots.

The Power Boots allow Arino to cross invisible bridges, which he does to enter another room farther ahead, and then dies in there due to the giant scythes slowing rotating around the room. He gets back at it, though, and enters a narrow passage with large fans that push him back when they activate, and often right into a group of blade traps. He struggles for a couple of tries, but eventually gets out of the hallway and into the next section (though, really, he could have just worn the Iron Boots, y’know?).

After that, Arino hops onto a spooky boat with a Triforce mark on it. He plays the Scarecrow’s Song on the ocarina, and the boat begins to float away to the next destination. But before it docks, a couple of Stalfoses ambush Arino. When those are gone, the boat stops at the getting-off point, but Arino has but a second or so to jump off before the boat plummets itself into oblivion. He doesn’t make it, and follows the boat into nothingness. When he reappears, he has only one heart’s worth of health left.

Arino takes the real ocarina given to him by AD Katayama and toots another improvised ditty. Katayama rushes to the scene and gives Arino a tip to get his health back. By playing the Scarecrow’s Song at a certain spot near the boat, a scarecrow will appear on a faraway platform that has some extra hearts to collect. It’s only a couple, but it will have to do.

The boat docks, then leaves without Arino this time (good!), and he continues forward, nabbing the Boss Key, and then making it to the lair of said boss. Arino falls down another hole and lands on what appears to be a giant drum — and indeed, it belongs to the giant hands of the boss, Bongo Bongo.

Bongo Bongo wastes no time grabbing hold of Arino and tossing him across the drum, and Arino wastes no time madly slashing at the hands, with little success. However, when a hand squeezes Arino especially hard without stopping, that’s what kills him. He’s booted back to the fan hallway, and must make the trek back to the boss.

On the second try, Arino uses fire arrows to hit the hands from afar, and it mostly works, until the hands clench up and fly right towards him. Another death grip does him in. On the next try, Bongo Bongo flies his whole body, big red eye and all, towards Arino, and Arino just stands there and gets killed — he tried to slash his sword, but it didn’t work out.

Arino’s spent nine hours on this second day, and is still struggling to defeat the boss. After a few more deaths, he simply backs out of the palace and goes back out to Hyrule, collecting two fairies in bottles that will resurrect him instantly upon death. Arino retursn to the palace for the 15th encounter against Bongo Bongo. He screws up and accidentally casts Din’s Fire, which immobilizes him and simply has BB push him off the edge of the platform. He dies, but of course, the fairy is ready to rescue him.

He gets back up with full health, and is quite determined to see this fight end. BB charges at Arino again, and this time, the kacho expertly fires an arrow straight into the big red eye. BB collapses, and Arino follows with a few sword slashes. He keeps it up for a second go, but BB was too far away that time, and escapes. Arino is squeezed for a bit, and now has only two hearts left. He’s killed, but the second fairy brings him back up.

Arino expertly dodges the hands as they try to squash him, but again hits BB from too far away. Unfortunately, with too much pressure on him, Arino gets caught by a hand and is squeezed to death. Rather than saving, Arino just resets the game, putting him back at this last save point, with both fairies, so there’s a lot less backtracking to do.

This time, it has to be nailed down. Arino does his usual pattern — hit the hands, then strike the eye. Rinse and repeat. Arino gets a few more extra sword slashes in on one try, and by the next, despite being knocked off the edge, he finally kills Bongo Bongo with just one more slash.

One more medallion/temple is left, so we jump ahead to the Spirit Temple. It’s located inside the Gerudo Village, where Ganondorf is from, and Arino must sneak past the Gerudo guards to make his way there. He tries, gets caught and thrown in the brig, but a helpful man breaks him free. After that, he heads up to the archery range, where he must get his trusty horse, Epona, and do some drive-by arrow shooting. But just as he gets on the horse, he’s handed the clock.

It’s nearly midnight, and the game’s not quite done. However, tomorrow is when they go to film a TamaGe segment, and after that, Arino has a chance to get back to the game. He accepts, and turns in for the night. The next day, at 7:00 PM and right after Arino visited the arcade for the next TamaGe, he sits down at his station, giant Rilakkuma doll in tow (a prize from the arcade, you see).

ADs Katayama and Ito are waiting for him once again, where Katayama explains the events that he played through leading up to tonight. Using Epona, Katayama completed the target practice game to get an extra Heart Container. Following that, he went halfway through the Spirit Temple to grab the very useful Mirror Shield. Now, with only a handful of hours to complete the game, Arino must do his best.

He starts right at the door to the miniboss, a hulking knight named Ironknuckle. None of Arino’s attacks are working, but he can lead Ironknuckle to destroy the surrounding pillars and reveal extra hearts. Eventually, Arino pulls out the Megaton Hammer and gives Ironknuckle a good slamming. The knight is defeated, but the person inside is Nabooru, a Gerudo womanwho was under control of Twinrova.

It’s a straight shot to the boss fight against Twinrova themselves, so Arino rushes right in. One witch shoots ice power, the other fire. Arino has arrows that deal those same powers, so he obviously starts slinging some fire arrows at Kotake, the frost witch. Unfotrunately, Koume blasts him with a fire beam from off-camera, killing him. A leftover fairy puts him back in the game, though, and Arino continues to track the sisters around the small platform and attempt to get in a hit or two.

Anticipating Koume’s flames, Arino ducks and draws his Mirror Shield. It indeed reflects the beam, and Arino can direct the shield to point the beams somewhere else — like right at Kotake.

After doing that a couple of times, the witches get angry and merge into one "sexy" super-witch. The witch moves to the outer platforms, tossing more ice and fire balls at Arino. He’s a bit disoriented, and eventually dies from failling to escape an ice ball. And then, sadly, he’s bumped back to the start of the dungeon… and half of which he hadn’t seen, thanks to Katayama.

We jump ahead to the second boss attempt, where he is more aware of what’s going on, and realizes that the shield can "store" charges of the elemental beams that can be fired back later. Doing so stuns Twinrova, leaving her open to attack. Arino jumps over to the outer platform… and misses. Jeez, kacho!

After that, it’s a lot better. Arino blasts Twinrova with a big stream of fire, then runs in and starts whacking away. She gets up, he runs away, then does it again, and one more slash finishes it. Could the end actually be near?!

Arino makes a beeline for Ganon’s Castle. One of the first puzzling rooms inside is a dash for silver rupees — getting all of them deactivates the door lock. Another room later on gives Arino only a minute to collect more silver rupees. He does it with five seconds left, and then hits the exit door with just one remaining. Whew! Following that, Arino watches as the six sages reappear and help create a bridge that leads into the castle proper.

Arino finds a room with a helpful Deku Scrub, which lets him load up on magic potion. With potion and two fairies, he’s prepared for anything… well, many things. Some time later, deeper inside the castle, two Ironknuckles meet him in a room, and they kill him once, but after that, he fells them both with a fair amount of speed.

At last, Arino reaches the boss room, though it’s a bit anticlimactic, as there’s a larger part that has many pots with restorative items for him to collect. But soon he enters the main chamber to face Ganondorf. With much bravado, the evil mastermind begins floating in the air, and the battle begins.

Ganondorf fires large balls of energy towards Arino that he must bat back with a sword slash — if he doesn’t, a large chunk of health is taken away. Unfortunately, his timing isn’t nailed down, so he dies from one, and then again three hits later. With the fairies gone, Arino gets a Game Over once more.

Practice makes perfect, of course, and on the third encounter, Arino finally gets into the groove, and bats the energy ball back and forth until Ganondorf finally flinches and gets hit. Once Arino hits him twice, he immediately pauses and equips the Light Arrows to try and finish him off. It doesn’t really work, and when Arino runs up to slash at Ganondorf, he immediately gets back in the air. Arino panics and runs away.

Ganondorf continues tossing energy balls, and Arino lands another hit on him. This time he has time to run up and slash away, and so he does. But then an energy ball slips by and hits Arino, leaving him with one heart! Now fully panicked, Arino misses the next energy ball too, and dies. So close!

Several more deaths occur, and Arino’s been at this battle for over an hour now. It’s not until the ninth attempt that he finally whacks Ganondorf enough times, and the king of evil reels in apparent defeat.

Princess Zelda joins Arino on top of the castle, but the danger has not subsided. Now the two must escape the crumbling castle within three minutes. Arino follows Zelda back down the castle, and inside, he must defeat a couple of Stalfoses before opening up the gate that leads outside (some other enemy rooms were conveniently edited out here).

Zelda and Arino make it outside, but it’s there that Ganondorf rises again, and transforms into the demon Ganon. The final battle begins! Arino immediately shoots Light Arrows at Ganon’s head, which succesfully stuns the beast, but leaves Arino wondering what to do next. Seconds later, Arino notices the bulbous weak point on Ganon’s tail, and runs to attack it. In his panic, he fails to even hit it, and before long, Ganon kills him.

Continuing the game forces Arino to do the castle escape sequence again, but it’s a quick trip back to Ganon. Arino stuns Ganon and then runs up and hits the tail with the Megaton Hammer. It’s working, but Arino still has to stay on his toes. He narrowly avoids Ganon’s wide sword slashes, and before you know it, he’s struck Ganon enough times to make the beast collapse.

But before the fight began, Arino’s sword was knocked away. With the force field removed, Arino rushes back to grab it, and the second phase of the fight begins. The process is the same, but Arino has the more effective sword now. He seems to have this in the bag, as he has mostly-full health and plenty of ammo. Again he expertly dodges Ganon’s attacks.

With another arrow fired that drains his magic points, Arino rushes up to the tail once more. With one more sword strike, Ganon is felled again, and Arino watches as Zelda uses her magic to stun Ganon, and then Arino/Link turns Ganon into pork chops. That’ll do it! After technically three days, Arino closes the book another Zelda game.

To Catch a Catch Copy

Once again we join in with the tagline-guessing fun. Arino fell way behind the former ADs on the scoreboard, with the other two scoring 3 correct points each. The first mystery game touted "hilarious injuries," or something like that. Arino guesses Dr. Mario, but that’s wrong. In fact, Nakayama and Tojima’s guesses are all wrong, too! Arino starts grabbing for other games, but it’s only one guess per person. Kibe tells them that the tagline belongs to Field Combat, Jaleco’s goofy military-themed shooting game.

Next up, a game that simply stated it was "II." Certainly it must be a sequel, then. Arino guesses Super Mario 2, but nope. Tojima’s wrong, too. Nakayama picks Arkanoid II, because it has the different Roman "II", and whaddya know, he’s right!

The next game advertised itself as a "great action-adventure." Not much to go on. Arino grabs Adventure Island, and tries to rationalize it beyond it just being called "Adventure," but he’s wrong once more. Tojima picks Super Monkey Daibouken — wrong. Nakayama goes with the Adventure of Valkyrie, but he’s also wrong! The heat is really turned up. Turns out it’s Mighty Bomb Jack. In the end, Nakayama leads by one extra point.

Game Collections: 1991: March – April