Clattertron

[dc]H[/dc]oly armadillos, the Fire Temple in Ocarina of Time is annoying. Invisible firewalls, narrow bridges, fire-covered bats, rooms filled with lava—I thought I would never finish the Fire Temple.

And I almost didn’t.

17^th Time’s the Fire Temple Charm

The most annoying part of the Fire Temple was getting the megaton hammer. As I said before:

 To get the megaton hammer, you must step on a switch, which drops the firewall around the treasure chest, and scurry across a skinny walkway—before the wall goes back up. A skinny walkway, mind you, above a freakin’ big hole.

I’m not the most agile when it comes to scenarios like this in video games. The camera in Ocarina of Time didn’t help much either—as it flew around like a drunk bat in the rain¹ while I ran down the walkway.

My Ocarina of Time sessions became solely devoted to me crossing the Fire Temple’s annoying, skinny walkway. Hours upon hours (well, more like minutes upon minutes, as I got frustrated pretty quick).

Seventeen tries later, I finally got the damn megaton hammer. Seventeen. What helped was turning the sound off [insert terrible joke about marriage]. After stepping on the switch, a ticking sound plays, which is only slightly more annoying than a Rebecca Black a capella album. As the switch nears its reset point, the ticking increases in speed, kinda like my blood pressure while running errands in an urban sprawl wasteland while caught in weekend traffic.

This, obviously, builds tension and made me hurry—which led to multiple drops off the edge.

With the sound off, the tension lessened, and I focused better. Frequently centering the camera with a push of a button helped too.

Ocarina of Hammer Time

The megaton hammer is a neat weapon. After all the hassle of getting the damn thing, using it to beat the lava out of Volvagia the dragon was incredibly satisfying. As much fun as the megaton hammer was to use, being done with the Fire Temple filled me with joy.

Poe Bustin’ Doesn’t Make Me Feel Good

Bottles are extremely valuable in any Legend of Zelda game, and Ocarina of Time is no exception. Bottled fairies saved my butt in the battle against Volvagia, and every extra bottle helps. I decided to give the Ghost Shop side quest a go to get the fourth bottle. That dedication didn’t last long though. Sure, bottles are nice and all, but chasing Big Poes on horseback got old real fast. I decided to skip any of the unnecessary side quests and focus on completing the game.

Ice to See You

The Ice Cavern was a nice break before another complex dungeon, and now Link owns a blue vest. It is strange seeing Link in something else besides green though. This part wasn’t too challenging, although it could be if you only have one or two bottles. Icy floors in video games are super-annoying, what with the sliding, but there wasn’t too much of that here. It brought back bad memories of sliding across icy floors and into pits of death found in the sidescrollers of my youth.

There are I nights I wake up, covered in sweat, screaming, “No! STOP SLIDING!”

On to the Water Temple

According to other gamers, the Water Temple is the most annoying dungeon in Ocarina of Time, perhaps even in all the Legend of Zelda series. Swell. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse than the Fire Temple D:

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1.  Animal Fun Fact™: rain messes with a bat’s echolocation.