UPDATES - Last Update: 10:18 PM PST
11:35 - Nothing quite like waking up in the morning with a stabbing pain in the right side of your neck. I can't quite turn my head all the way to the right, so I'm pretty excited about that.
Anyway, I woke up a bit early this morning and have been banging away at the latest Temple of the Ocean King. I forgot to mention that I got the hookshot in the last temple, so that did make getting around a smidge easier. I guess the one thing to note is that once you figure out the solution for each level of this temple, it's not terribly difficult or time-consuming to do them again, but it is a bit tedious. New section was a pretty good pain. Guards who can teleport, lots of moving alarms, and one particularly rough timed section that would basically be impossible without bombchus. Gotta love those bombchus. Parts of this game are definitely on the easy side, but this temple can get pretty sadistic at times. Once I made my way through, I got the northwest seachart.
My updates from here on out today will probably be a bit more scattered and less specific, one because I'll be playing in more scattered fashion (errands to run, and such), and because I kinda don't want to give away too much of the endgame. So keep an eye on the blog, but don't be refreshing every eight seconds hoping for an update. Because it ain't comin'!
12:24 - Northwestern waters have a lot of rocks and pirates and unpleasant sea creatures. There are two islands, one of which is initially inaccessable. There's an item on the island you can access that will get you to the other one, but this island's pretty puzzly, so you'll have to do a bunch of running around before you can get that item. It's got kind of a Lost Woods sort of vibe going on toward the end. Again, gotta love the ability to write notes on your map. So, yeah, worked my way through that, and now I'm off to the second island.
2:49 - Made it through what I think is the last temple before my last trip to the Temple of the Ocean King, that being the Sand Temple. Just getting through this island to the entrance of the temple took a bit of doing, so you can just imagine how the temple itself was. One very trap-happy temple, with some evilly tricky puzzles. Boss fight was even a little on the tough side, but I eventually prevailed...after taking a quick break halfway through to go get a few groceries. Anyway, I've got what should be the last metal I need to get the phantom sword. Time to sail out to the blacksmith's island and see if I'm proven correct.
2:54 - As I was writing that, the Niners just got scored on again. I'm really glad I had Zelda this weekend, because if I were forced to actually pay attention to this game, I'd be super-depressed right now. Really, REALLY looking forward to the Pats/Bengals game tomorrow.
3:27 - Yep, that's all I needed. After handing off the metals to the dude, I waited for a bit, had another encounter with the female pirate, then went back and got my sword. It's missing a handle, but after travelling back to the main island...well, let's just say that it was taken care of. Don't want to spoil the sequence. As of now, I'm going to take a lunch break and eat a sammich. After that, I'll be tackling the Temple of the Ocean King for what I believe is one final time. And I swear to god, if the big twist at the end is that you actually have to find eight more seacharts within the temple and collect a bunch of triforce shards scattered throughout the ocean, I'm going to have an aneurysm.
10:18 - Oh, yeah, I beat it by the way. No spoilers, no big flowery gushy descriptions of what happened. I will simply say that it ends well with some satisfying fights. And that last trip through the Temple of the Ocean King actually wasn't half bad. All told, I think it took me about 14-15 hours to bust through it, and I know I didn't find all the uncharted islands or sunken treasure, so there's definitely more to do. Also spent some time playing online against international folk in the multiplayer. I can't say it's spectacular, but it's not bad, either. I kinda dig the sort of pseudo-Pac-Man vs. thing it has going on. It's kinda neat, and it's online, which is cool.
I actually beat it hours ago, but I've been collecting my thoughts (and also doing more dishes, going for a walk with the lady friend, watching the season finale of Rock of Love [best/worst/best again show EVER]), and just getting myself prepped to write the review tomorrow. Want a sneak preview? If I may out and out steal a joke from Jeff here...
Look for the review tomorrow.