A Review of Weapons and Accessories from The Legend of Zelda

Wooden Sword - I like how Link starts his mission without any weapons at all, and has to make an effort, albeit extremely minimal, to acquire his first item. I can't help wondering, though: Wouldn't it be more interesting if he had to navigate his way past a few enemies without a sword, or even his first shield? Additionally, the sword's throwing function gives Link a great incentive to maintain full life energy at all costs.

White Sword - This comes a little too early in the game. At the very latest, Link acquires it after completing level 2, so only foolish players who enter level 3 without it get to see the blob-like creatures split into chocolate chip-like creatures. An ambitious Link can get the white sword before even level 1, making the first two labyrinths a little less than challenging.

Magic Sword - Appearing halfway to late in the game, this weapon is one of the best payoffs. It's significantly more costly than its immediate predecessor, requiring you to complete the first four levels and find all five auxiliary heart containers (or perhaps more levels and fewer containers for the player who has yet to learn all the game's secrets). It's well worth the wait, and after finally acquiring it, Link gets to use it in up to five more levels. And unlike the flawed timing of the white sword, the magic sword's heart container requirements mean that you must first deal with the large jumping bat creatures splitting into smaller bats before later appreciating the convenience of slaying them with a single thrust.

Magic Shield - The difference between the defensive utilities of the regular and magic shields is just right. The fact that the magic shield can be involuntarily taken away from Link should he find himself trapped inside the layer-cake looking creatures who first appear in level 6 gives those otherwise unimposing enemies an added terror level, as Link has grown to appreciate the increased protection his magic shield provides him.

Bomb - This weapon proves its worth from start to finish, equally functional in harming all but some of the fiercest enemies and facilitating access both to key hidden rooms in the overworld and through critical walls in the underworlds. The economy of this item is the best in the game. Unlike the arrow, they don't cost money to use, but Link's limited capacity (eight, to begin with) and the scarcity with which slain enemies offer them force Link to use them somewhat conservatively. The 100-rupee four-bomb capacity upgrades in levels 5 and 7 are both well timed, if a little costly.

Blue Candle - Another great multifunctional item in Link's arsenal. Though with its limited range and once-per-screen use, the candle isn't as useful in combat situations as in its other functions, providing access to secret rooms in the overworld and lighting darkened rooms in the underworld. The only problem here is that Link never has to navigate dark rooms, since they don't appear until level 4 and even the most clueless player has sought out the candle by this point. Perhaps it would have been more interesting to have the layer-cake creatures take Link's fire producing capabilities rather than his magic shield.

Red Candle - This is the most useless weapon in Link's entire arsenal. The candle's upgrade from blue to red simply means you're no longer restricted to one use per screen. It might have been marginally helpful in avoiding some early fumbling around when Link has to burn all those bushes to find secret money giveaways, etc., but by level 7 all you need the candle for is to light up dark rooms, which only requires a single use anyway. You can't even use it to create a protective ring of fire around you because you're not allowed to have more than two lit flames at any given time. Finally, the candle's lighting function and utility against enemies are both rendered obsolete in the very next level when the magic book grants the power of flame, long distance no less, (and also multiple times per screen) to the magic rod.

Letter - Along with the bow and arrow set, the letter is something of a tease, but that's not such a bad thing. More such items would make the game a little too frustrating, but the task of first acquiring the letter makes the potions appropriately more valuable to Link.

Life Potions - Given their high value, the potions should probably be a little more expensive, but their expense, restriction to two uses per refill, the limited number of shops that offer them, (and the prerequisite acquisition of the letter) place them among Link's most cherished items. My only question is why anyone would pay 40 for the one-use bottle when the two-use bottle is only 28 rupees more.

Boomerang - Its functions are three: Kill very weak enemies; momentarily stun other enemies; retrieve rewards (money, energy) from defeated enemies. While the later levels largely prohibit you from implementing the boomerang for either of its first two functions, the last can become crucial when you really need a heart or fairy but can't risk chasing it down in person.

Magic Boomerang - Though it's made available just after the regular boomerang, this weapon's release in level 2 is very well timed. The regular boomerang proves immediately useful, but its limited range quickly becomes frustrating. Endowing Link with a full-range boomerang does not risk making him too powerful too early in the game, as the boomerang only destroys the simplest of enemies, and fails to stun more advanced enemies.

Bow - Finding this in level 1 is a little disappointing if you haven't already stocked your quiver with arrows, but this and the letter are the game's only tease items, and I think their empty utility only makes Link appreciate later items all the more.

Arrow - In contrast to bombs, Link's capacity of arrows is simply the amount of money he has, as they cost one rupee apiece. The arrow is only more effective than Link's sword against a small number of enemies, striking a good balance between cost and effectiveness.

Silver Arrow - This is a pretty lame final weapon. It's a good idea to have a single weapon that defeats the final villain, but as an update to the regular arrow, it rivals the red candle in unimpressiveness, having the same per-arrow cost and being no more effective against non-Ganon enemies than the regular arrow.

Raft - You really want the raft to be cooler than it is. Of all Link's accessories, it's the only vehicle, but once aboard, you don't even get to control it. Water is rather underused in The Legend of Zelda, containing a single enemy and being generally off limits to Link. The raft merely gives you access to level 4 and one extra heart container.

Ladder - Inversely proportional to the raft in attractiveness vs. expected utility, the ladder is at once incredibly useful, especially against non-levitating enemies who can't climb onto the ladder with you. A possible improvement to the ladder's use might have been to contain an overworld item, say, the power bracelet, in an area completely sealed off by thin rivers, so that Link must acquire the ladder before he can venture into this area.

Power Bracelet - A precursor and later complement to the recorder, this facilitates much quicker movement around Hyrule, most notably to one site conveniently located directly below a lake with a life-replenishing fairy. Appropriately, Link has to travel quite far to get it, thereby demonstrating its obvious utility and convenience.

Recorder - Definitely one of the game's cooler items. (So cool, it was borrowed by Super Mario Bros. 3.) The recorder is used right away after its acquisition in level 5 to topple that labyrinth's boss, but once outside level 5, the recorder becomes incredibly useful in allowing Link to travel instantaneously to the entry points of all levels previously completed, as well as to finally reveal the entrance to level 7.

Bait - Another among many reasons (red candle, recycled level boss) that level 7 is just lame. The bait's supposed main function is to attract enemies, making their movements more predictable and thus easier to defeat or avoid. Good in theory, but in reality it's not worth bothering with, and the bait ultimately just amounts to a glorified key when you find you need to sacrifice it to reach the end of level 7, all the more annoying if you haven't purchased it yet.

Magic Rod - This is a great complement to the sword series, possessing attributes both superior and inferior to those of the magic sword. The drawbacks are that it is only as powerful as the white sword, and isn't effective at all against some enemies. But unlike the swords, the magic rod maintains its long distance effects even when you have less than full energy, which is often. The magic rod is also extremely helpful in the moments immediately after Link's sword is paralyzed by those shimmering spheres that show up increasingly often in later levels. The timing of its availability is also well-chosen, as it's the last real weapon Link acquires, and he has three and a half levels in which to brandish it.

Magic Book - While other series weapons (sword, shield, boomerang, candle, arrow) see increased gains in power, range or amount, the magic book updates the magic rod by granting it a completely different function: casting flames wherever it lands. Now the magic rod is even more devastating as a weapon, and you don't have to switch to the candle to light up rooms anymore.

Magic Key - Though the use of keys is a little backwards in Hyrule - "normal" keys can only be used once, on any door, and only "magic" keys can be reused - it's good for Link to first learn to ration his keys and later be freed from this burden. That said, depending on how conservative you are with your keys, the magic key can be one of the least exciting accessories in the game. The careful and thorough Zelda player examines all options before unnecessarily wasting keys, and can build up a surplus of as many as eight or nine by the time this is finally available in level 8.

Blue Ring - Here we see not only Link's weapons evolving, but Link himself. The blue ring is appropriately the game's most costly item, monetarily anyway. Part of the genius of its utility is that it cuts Link's damage in half, while picking up flashing hearts still replenishes his energy by a full container, now equal to four (regular) hits instead of two.

Red Ring - This ring, doubling Link's energy yet again, shows up a little late in the game, and it would be nice to see a red superhuman Link easily slashing his way about the overworld (an event only really necessary if you wish to refill your potion or stock up on rupees for arrow expenditures after unsuccessful attempts at level 9). But the final labyrinth needs some good surprises to offset the difficulty of its vast size, confounding navigational routes and plethora of challenging enemies, and with the silver arrow's previously mentioned disappointing qualities, the red ring fills the role of the final payoff before the game's (anti-?) climactic battle with Ganon.

Engrish

I saw this on a popular shopping street in Seoul. It's a rather extreme example, but bewildering text like this is everywhere in Japan and Korea. When I came across the awning pictured above, it wasn't actually as shocking as it could have been, because I had already seen this exact storefront on Engrish.com, a wonderful site that catalogues these hilarious phenomena.

How does this happen? Anything in English is COOL. So it's used everywhere in Japan and Korea, even though the vast majority of the target demographic can't understand it.

As mentioned above, http://www.engrish.com has all the goods in this department, but I'll list some more that I've personally encountered.

Yes, the first one is a dentist's office. Tomato Planning provides some kind of real estate service as far as I can tell.

Like with a lot of Engrish, often the interesting part to me isn't so much the grammar errors (tooth/teeth), but the attitude conveyed in the message.

This is a small desk organizer I bought whose sign reads "I will enjoy your space combining various items".

The robot in question was a fifteen-foot figure at a children's museum where many people have their pictures taken.

This cap makes a strong case, but is completely out of touch with the state of Japanese drug use, as far as I know. Penalties for even small user quantities of marijuana or cocaine involve significant jail time, and there isn't any legalization movement to speak of, making it that much stranger that I found this hat in a Sears-like department store.

I learned in Poland that you can't really expect people from totally homogeneous countries to grasp the complexities of American race relations, and I must admit, I'm not sure where I would start if I had to explain to this store's staff why they shouldn't have a rack labeled "black music".

DMZ, Part II

We also got to look out the bus window at the famed "Bridge of No Return" which POWs from both sides crossed during postwar repatriation. Seeing the actual bridge, both in picture and in person, isn't as exciting as you want it to be, or anything close to its depiction in Die Another Day.

At another stop on the tour we got to see, from afar, the closest villages on either side of the DMZ, both fairly ridiculous in their own right, set up for the sole purpose of creating a tantalizing image of what greatness lies across the divide. A pissing contest of sorts, this led to the creation of the world's tallest flagpole (525 ft.) and heaviest flag (600 lbs.) in the North Korean village, and years of loudspeakers blasting praise for the Dear Leader from one side and pop music from the other. Both of these villages have actual Korean names, (and both ending in "-dong", teehee!), but the American military has nicknames for them; the North Korean village is called "Propaganda Village", so that you understand it's merely a propaganda campaign, and the South Korean village is called "Freedom Village", so that you understand it's a well-meaning propaganda campaign. Inhabitants of Freedom Village are paid handsomely for their residence, though they are subject to a nightly 11pm curfew and other restrictions. According to our guide, Propaganda Village contains no residents whatsoever, other than people employed to turn lights on and off.

The strangest part of this tour came near the end when we watched a fifteen minute video summarizing the history of the DMZ. It attempted to depict the DMZ as an inspirational symbol of peace in the world, emphasizing, among other things, the variety of wildlife inhabiting it. The video began and ended with staged footage of a Korean girl first crying, then happily playing, near a dividing fence, and contained an animated sequence with a butterfly fluttering about, making park benches appear and dividing markers disappear. Having seen the military-manned and otherwise barren wasteland containing no wildlife and little more than still-active landmines less than an hour earlier with our own eyes, the people sitting near me during the video were just as "WTF" baffled by this as I was. I wanted to cry Orwell! Orwell! but even that didn't seem to fit, since the combination of timing and ridiculousness of the material left no chance of its intended audience taking it seriously.

As far as I can tell, the video had something to do with South Korea's intentions to forge closer ties with their Northern counterparts, as the President had just returned from a summit with Kim Jong Il in which they initiated a new peace declaration the day before I went on this tour. South Korean sentiment over this new friendliness toward the North is generally mixed. These guys, however, demonstrating outside a government building in Seoul, were decidedly against it:

Update!
This post was supposed to conclude with video footage of some really angry protesters I saw in Seoul the day before I went on this tour, but after several attempts I've given up trying to upload it. My apologies to any readers that actually made it this far. (Mom?)

Update!
Here's the much anticipated video. Upon rewatching it, I guess they're actually rather orderly protesters.

DMZ, Part I

North Korean guards at the Panmun-Gak Pavilion

I recently spent five days in Korea, for the purpose of obtaining my work visa at the Japanese consulate in Seoul (it's complicated). While I was there I went on a group tour to the DMZ.

For those unfamiliar or only vaguely familiar, the DMZ - which stands for the misnomer "Demilitarized Zone" - is a 4km x 240km area dividing North and South Korea. The area was more or less entirely shared between North and South until the tragic, yet awesomely-named "Axe Murder Incident" of 1976, during which two American soldiers were killed with their own axes, by North Korean soldiers, while attempting to chop down a poplar tree that was impeding vision between guardposts. After the Americans later successfully felled the tree during "Operation Paul Bunyan" the entire DMZ was divided down the center to prevent further, um, mingling between North and South. This dotted line bisects several buildings, sometimes used for diplomatic purposes, which we visited as part of the tour. So, while wandering past the midpoint of this building, I was arguably "in" North Korea. Here's a view from inside.

The encased flags are from countries that fought or aided the South Korean effort in the Korean War. The case now contains flags made of plastic, not fabric, because of an incident in 2001 when, at the exact moment President Bush was meeting with South Korean diplomats elsewhere in the world, two North Korean soldiers entered this building and wiped their feet and blew their noses with the South Korean and American flags, respectively.

I don't have any such interesting explanation for the matching Hawaiian shirts sported by my corpulent compatriots. Your guess is as good as mine.

Woodpiles

This summer I spent several weeks in rural/mountainous/forested Austria and Germany and I was really struck by the woodpiles, both the number and their variety of style and structure. My parents have two woodpiles, one of geometrically cut lumber, inside the garage, and one of logs with bark still on, in the yard along an exterior wall, braced at both ends by tall metal fence posts and wires. (They have a wood-burning stove they use to create a comfy living room atmosphere and drastically reduce winter heating bills.) I'd like to see my father take a cue from the technique employed in many of the woodpiles I saw (and the first several shown here), using cut logs laid perpendicularly so as to eliminate the need for end braces.