Zelda Extreme Challenge Five: The Magic Wand and the Snake

Here's where things get terrifying, because we're going to take on some of the most annoying and difficult enemies in the game.

Of course, we need to stock up on rupees and bombs first since the Lizard basically tapped us out of both.

And here's our first Lynel sighting. These guys aren't the hardest enemies in the game, but they can kill us quickly and are going to be hard to avoid when we have to pass them.

The bait also doesn't affect them, but we manage to sneak past them and head up into level six.

Here they are! The Wizzrobes, bane of many Zelda players' existence. One magic shot from the orange ones will kill us with three hearts and no rings, and the Blue Wizzrobes' lack of hitstun can make them hard to survive. Not to mention the only weapon other than a sword that can hurt Wizzrobes are bombs...

We absolutely had to force a bomb drop in this room if we want to make it through this place.

My trick here is to kill two or three Keese from near the doorway, and then leave the room before a stray fireball or Keese can hit you. Lather, rinse, repeat until the room is clear.

Miraculously, we manage to survive our first encounter with Blue Wizzrobes and only lose half our bombs! I entirely credit this to a Darkwing Duck speedrun I watched the other day where he says that Blue Wizzrobes can't see you if you stand on the line between two tiles (but can still randomly walk into you).

And we get a random bomb drop from the Wizzrobes in this room to help us out.

I feel bad that the first time I played the first quest, I used a guide, so I can't really say whether or not these clues would be useful or not.

I will shamelessly kill the Orange Wizzrobes and then reenter the room to turn a blue one orange. It's the best way to save bombs.

And we managed to get the magic wand without any casualties! I was shaking a bit at this point.

Now we have another long range weapon as strong as our Bow, but without wasting rupees. I don't think there are any enemies the bow will hurt that the magic wand won't, except Gohma and Ganon, so we might just tuck that thing away for most of the rest of our playthrough.

If we didn't have to kill every boss in the game, I would happily leave this three-headed Gleeok alone. But for the first time in years, I'm taking the three-headed Gleeok on.

That was shockingly easier than expected... Unfortunately, I run out of bombs while fighting Blue Wizzrobes in a room shortly after this. Since I don't have any way of killing enemies that drop bombs in this labyrinth, I guess we'll save and quit here and come back later.

Now that we have a Gleeok-killer though, we can take care of our unfinished business in level four!

There's not too much that happens in this labyrinth aside from the first return of Manhandla. I manage to take him out with one lucky bomb. I've also never noticed until now that the Snake and the Dragon have the same color scheme.

I suppose this quote would probably have been helpful for finding the next labyrinth. It's a shame I'll never have that experience myself.

We've already taken on a three-headed Gleeok, how tough can the two-headed one be?

I walked into Gleeok just as I killed him, and survived. If I remember correctly, I read once that his body does 3/8 hearts worth of damage. So... I have 1/8 hearts right now. Talk about a close call!

Here's the completed map of the Snake. It kind of upsets me that they don't show secret rooms on your own personal map.

But I go back to enter it just to show that I have.

And now we have five pieces of the Triforce! I think next time we'll take on level seven, or possibly go back to finish up levels five and six.