Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Master Quest (Part 3)

Don't worry, I have not forgotten about my quest to save Hyrule, even if real life has taken away plenty of time of late.

I've had plenty of time to get used to my adult body now, however, my biggest challenge remains the awkward GameCube controller. In fairness, some of the awkwardness is coming from the age of the controller itself. It tends to stick in a forward position, making aiming difficult and maneuvering slim edges VERY difficult.

But, I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself. To give you a sense of context, I've blown through the Forest, Fire and Water Temples, as well as mini-dungeons Bottom of the Well and Gerudos Fortress.

Surprisingly, I wouldn't call any of the three temples any tougher than their first-quest counterparts. Rather, they were all simply variations on a theme — with the exception of the Water Temple.

The Forest and Fire Temples are extremely similar to their previous incarnations, and if I didn't already think the first Forest Temple was a breeze, I would say this second one is easier than the first. The first version of the temple had a little more back-tracking, while this one had a couple more monsters, Six for one, half-dozen for the other. The only real surprise here was that I'd completely forgotten how to fight Phantom Gannon at the end of the temple, so it took me a while to get him to get out of those paintings of his.

One challenge at the start of the whole thing. Attaining that first key by lighting fires and shooting an arrow across the room to light torch number three proved devilishly hard. Still, that may have only been because, with the state of my GameCube controller, it took me a while to even figure out that shooting an arrow to light torch No. 3 was a possibility, let alone then taking the time to execute the move. But the rest of the Temple was pretty simple, and was the most similar to its' original counterpart since the Deku Tree dungeon.

The Water Temple, on the other hand, was very different from the original. Frankly, when playing through the original game on second and third play-throughs, the Water Temple was groan-inducing. I would cringe at the thought of how much tougher this "Master" Water Temple would be. As it turns out, the Temple was VERY straightforward this time around. Water-level changes were kept to a minimum, with very little back-tracking. In fact, the only problem was simply over-thinking. There are two small wings of the Temple which cannot be accessed until you already have the Boss Key, and they have very little redeeming value, only containing Gold Skultas. But the decoy existence of these rooms will make you think the Temple is more puzzling than it is.

Thus far, I would still call the "Master Quest" a must-play for any Zelda addict. But the game really has not been a challenge, just a variation on a theme. And so much has felt easier this time around outside of the dungeons, just because I've played the game so much. I currently wield Biggoron's Sword (possibly my favorite weapon of any Zelda game ever), and again wondered why I felt it was so tough to acquire 10 years ago.

But we will see. I'm about to head into the desert armed with the Eye of Truth, so hopefully Nintendo has a couple of super-tough dungeons awaiting me before I go after Gannon.