Kobayashi Malon: The 0-Cardio of Time

I got tired of trying to get full RetroAchievements sets for Mario games so we're making a lateral switch to Zelda. As with Mario, these are such well-loved and super scrutinized games that you can't help but assume the achievements conceived for any given Zelda, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time especially, would be both insane and exciting to chase after. Like, something that would conceptually change a playthrough to the same degree as a randomizer (which I have plenty of experience with too).

The most notable achievements for OoT, at least in difficulty terms, are the achievements that require you to take the three hearts you start with and never upgrade them by collecting the full containers after a boss or the pieces scattered around dungeons and the overworld. This makes the early game hard enough but turns the late game into a nightmare without that buffer to let you tank hits, and there's a bunch of tough boss-specific achievements on top of that health limitation just to make things extra interesting. Some achievement sets are built to guide newcomers through all these classic games, pointing out secrets and tricks or providing general direction without too much in the way of spoilers, while others are meant to give veterans a challenge that's a little beyond what the vanilla experience offers. Some, though, just want to see you suffer while playing your favorite games. I believe that's what we're doing this time. Should be fun?

As with other recent subjects of the Kobayashi Mario/Malon series I'm only going to highlight the achievements that make an appreciable shift in how you're meant to approach the game and its bosses, dungeons, and other hurdles. Less so for those given out for standard milestones and typical progression; I certainly appreciate their existence as little motivators but there's really not all that much to say about them.

Blind Explorer

"Complete the Game without getting any Map or Compass, without skipping any medallion, and with 3 hearts only"

The big one. The three hearts aspect is the real challenge here though denying yourself the maps and compasses not only makes dungeons a little bit more awkward to get around (if you haven't played them to death like I have) but you also have to be careful not to accidentally open the wrong big chest: the only "safe" one in any given dungeon is the one with the dungeon item inside, like the bow or boomerang. The "no skipping medallions" clause is just there to stop folks shortcut glitching their way to the endgame: this has to be done legit. Given every boss also has their own achievements, though, there wouldn't be any point in skipping them to get this one faster (unless you messed up somewhere and had to redo, of course).

Being limited to three hearts is a rule that greatly exacerbates the difficulty curve as you progress; it's nothing for the three kid dungeons but the later adult ones are already more complicated and have enemies that hit harder, so you end up leaning on your supply of fairies more often. When you get to the Iron Knuckles in the Spirit Temple or Ganon's Tower, things start dipping into OHKO territory fast, and that's not even factoring in some of these boss fights with their bonus conditions making those fracas extra intense. Still, this is what a good achievement set should be: not just challenging but challenging in a way that makes you rethink all your tried-and-tested strategies in previous runs.

Spider Net

"Defeat Queen Gohma before she can retreat to the ceiling"

The first of the special boss achievements is no joke, despite Gohma herself traditionally being something of a pushover. You essentially have to one-cycle Gohma here and to do that you need some serious firepower. This involves taking advantage of two bugs often seen in speedruns: that the jumping attack of the Deku Stick does way more damage than your little baby sword and that the crouching stab replicates whatever the damage value was of the last attack. So by stunning it with the slingshot, jump-attacking it with the Deku Stick, and quickly chasing that up with two rapid crouch-stabs you can do the sufficient amount to win the fight but that window of vulnerability is very short so the execution has to be close to perfect. Fortunately, it's a very quick walk (or a couple falls, really) from the entrance to the boss chamber if you need to redo the fight over, which I did a lot.

Money Solves Everything

"Bribe the guard in front of the gate to gain entry to the courtyard"

Troublemaker

"Anger a guard inside of the castle"

Just screwing with the guards at Hyrule Castle when you go to meet Zelda after leaving the forest. The first is something you can do to skip that first gate after you've collected Malon's egg from her (it costs 10 rupees and effectively saves you no time). The second involves shooting into the castle from Zelda's courtyard area, which causes a guard to show up and start yelling while throwing bombs at you. Fun tricks not many know about and despite having no skill requirements they're eminently missable. I love learning about shit like this: I figure a good RA set should at least run down all the more attainable Easter eggs.

Walking on a Tightrope

"Open any chest in Goron City's boulder room without destroying the entrance blockade"

Another missable. This just involves getting to the boulder room via the precarious route across the ropes at the top of the village, hence the name. It's void for the whole run if you blow away any of that row of boulders on the top floor, though. That would suck.

Bombalicious

"Defeat King Dodongo before he breathes fire without using Bombs from your bag"

Dangerously Delicious

"Defeat King Dodongo before he breathes fire without using Bombs from your bag or taking damage, with 3 hearts only"

Every boss from here on out has two achievements attached to it: a tough challenge for a normal playthrough and an even tougher one compounded by only having three hearts (Gohma's the exception since three hearts is all you'll have by that point of the game regardless). The struggle here is to get the timing right on the bomb flower and avoid getting hurt by the roll he does, which you'll want to trigger because you can't have him breathing fire before you have a bomb in hand. After that first stun you just use the same Deku Stick trick as above and can one-cycle him, though that is obviously the easy part. These two boss achievements overlap completely, which means you'll earn the first just by going for the second. Later boss paired achievements won't be quite so accommodating.

Stocking Nuts

"Purchase a Deku Nuts upgrade in the Lost Woods"

A Horrible Face

"Obtain the Deku Nuts upgrade from the Deku Scrub Brothers in the Lost Woods"

There are achievements for every item stock increase upgrade (besides the mana bar) but the two Deku Nuts ones are missable due to some inscrutable glitch related to the Biggoron's Sword trading side-quest. It was recommended to do the Mask of Truth trade SQ first so you can get both of these Deku Nut upgrades safely before chasing after that big dude and his pointy products. Glad I read up on it first. Glitches are always a double-edged sword: you learn the good ones from watching speedruns but forget there's usually just as many that can kill a run dead.

Rolling Thunder

"Defeat Barinade without getting hit"

Race Against the Clock

"Defeat Barinade in less than 1:51 with 3 hearts only"

This was about the point where the run went from intriguingly hard to obnoxiously so. Barinade is an annoying crapshoot at the best of times thanks to it launching a bunch of jellyfish around at the speed of sound while sporting an incongruously large hitbox, so implementing both a time trial achievement and a no-damage fight achievement was someone's idea of a sick joke. Naturally, you shouldn't expect to earn both simultaneously: you can pop one and then go get the other if you don't accept the post-battle rewards and just reset. The time trial is marginally harder due to having to be very quick with the Deku Nuts to destroy all the jellyfish the moment they spawn, though the no-damage run was just as intense as you'd think it was if you're at all familiar with this jerkass parasite.

(This is also the point where I started dropping Farore's Wind just prior to every boss chamber to alleviate the busywork needed to reach it again for each boss attempt. You find that spell in the nearby Fairy Fountain around Jabu-Jabu and it's a godsend for these boss achievements.)

Last Breath

"Receive some news from a dying guard in his final moments"

One last missable guard related achievement. This was something I only found out about the last time I played this game, but if you go into Hyrule Town after Zelda's dramatic escape from Ganondorf and circle around into the alleyway you find a dying guard who gives you some exposition before croaking. He's strangely out of the way, given how many oblivious people are between him, the castle, and the drawbridge out of town. I feel bad for this dude knowing that almost everyone who plays this game missed his final message; then again, maybe it's the case he never actually dies if no-one's around to observe him doing so?

Drunken Master

"Lower Phantom Ganon to 1 HP by using only the Bow and Bottles"

Dodgeball

"Defeat Phantom Ganon without healing and with 3 hearts only"

These two are tough to pick up at the same time but you don't actually need to defeat him the trigger the first one, just drop him to 1HP. If you do that then reset the fight you can then focus on the other, or even just finish him off with the sword if you haven't healed yet and grab both. Toughest part of this battle is the second half where you play fireball tennis with him—hence the stipulation of using bottles; a well-known and probably intended glitch that is the spiritual successor of playing fireball tennis with the butterfly net in A Link to the Past.

Worth mentioning here too that I did a huge amount of side-questing before embarking on any of the adult dungeons. Mask of Truth, Biggoron's Sword, and obviously the Hookshot and Epona—the latter is really helpful for the Biggoron's Sword trade SQ timers. Also grabbed the Big Wallet upgrade from smushing 30 Skulltulas for another missable achievement coming up. (These are all separate achievements too, so I'm just killing multiple keese with one boomerang here.)

Hot Hot Hot

"Defeat Volvagia without wearing the Goron Tunic"

Whac-A-Mole

"Defeat Volvagia using only the Megaton Hammer and without healing with 3 hearts only"

A real fun one-two for this peekaboo fight. As you might expect, impatience is the killer here as that dumb glam rock dragon tends to waste precious time floating around being all immune while air striking you with fire or boulders. It's only after he pops out of one of his lava holes that you can smack him good with the hammer (or the Biggoron's Sword, which is essential for that first challenge due to its higher DPS). Since the overheat timer is based on how many total hearts you have, a three-heart weakling like me really needs to show up with a whole vineyard's worth of fairy bottles to survive the fight long enough to win: in fact, it even felt necessary to get the fourth bottle, which is the one most players skip because it involves catching all those damn ghosts across Hyrule Field. If you know you know. (There's a separate achievement for it too, so I was going to have to do it eventually.)

This is obviously a case where getting both achievements simultaneously is ridiculous, so I earned one and then did a reset for the other. For as much as I was sweating with the time limit one—it only took a single attempt in the end, though it got real close to the wire after I wasted one of my fairies with a regular death (which doesn't reset the overheat timer)—the other proved the way harder of the two. It's hard to avoid the boulders that rain down at certain points of the fight and any hit from any source, besides standing in the lava pools, takes two whole hearts away which isn't something I can tank more than once. You're also stuck with the hammer which, for all its "legendary dragon killer" status, does so little damage that it takes about six or seven cycles to finally smash that serpentine schmuck sufficiently. The achievements are getting harder to earn now purely because the fights are getting progressively that much more intense with only three hearts to cling to.

Kiss That Frog

"Get a kiss from King Zora"

The way this part of the game normally works is that you can thaw King Zora by visiting the Ice Cavern (for the Iron Boots) and grabbing some Blue Fire on the way out, and as a reward he'll give you a free Zora Tunic and point you towards the Water Temple. It's similar to how you get a free Goron Tunic by talking to the little dude rolling around Goron Village. However, you can decide to go buy a Zora Tunic instead and he'll... offer to make out with you as a back-up prize. Curiously, this is already the second game this month in which a giant frog-like King has made romantic overtures towards me. (This is also why I needed 30 Skulltulas for the bigger wallet: those Tunics don't come cheap.)

Day of the Tentacles

"Defeat Morpha without falling into the water or getting captured by its tentacle"

Tentacles of the Deep

"Defeat Morpha without falling into water or taking damage with 3 hearts only"

Mercifully, these two achievements overlap rather than being mutually exclusive, and Morpha's a pretty easy blobber to clobber once you know the trick of isolating it in a corner and taking it to slashville. Any no-damage boss fight will still have its tense moments though.

Invisible One

"Defeat Bongo Bongo without using the Lens of Truth or getting trapped by his hands"

Invisible Stalker

"Defeat Bongo Bongo without using the Lens of Truth and without healing with 3 hearts only"

Man, talk about your "all bark and no bite" bosses. This guy always intimidated the hell out of me as a kid due to being some enormous alien creature hiding in the dark and drumming out that nerve-wracking bongo beat as you get tossed and turned around. Even with my very finite hearts and eliminating the ability to see him by banning the Lens of Truth this fight was still over in seconds: shoot one hand, shoot the other in the short stun gap while it reacts to its first hand getting shot, charge up the spin attack for when it lunges at you, then hit its prone form with as many Biggoron's Sword jump attacks as possible (I'd completely checked out of trying to do the crouch-stab trick at this point). Two quick cycles and the biggest danger of that fight was almost running into the heart container afterwards. (The two achievements more or less overlap here: getting grabbed by his hand is practically a death sentence with three hearts anyway.)

Twins of Evil

"Defeat the Twinrova Sisters without falling from the platform and without resurrecting with Fairies"

Double Trouble

"Defeat the Twinrova Sisters using only the Master Sword and Mirror Shield without using Fairies and with 3 hearts only"

Another overlap. The Twinrova fight was always a bit of a RNG diceroll, at least from my perspective, when you're trying to get the pair to line up properly before they merge. After merging, they do more damage but are much easier to track as a single entity. Falling off the platform is something you get around by sticking to the middle of the arena, which can make the first phase a little more daunting as it becomes easier to lose track of either Koume or Kotake. Having headphones helps a lot there though (as it did for the Phantom Ganon fight as it moved between portraits).

Kind of annoyed that they nixed my beloved Biggoron's Sword for that second achievement for no appreciable reason other than to make the fight longer but there are more healing options at least when the requisite is "no fairies" rather than "no healing". Of course, some of their spells will effectively one-shot you by this point of the game with their damage-over-time properties so maybe RA didn't feel the need to stipulate a no healing clause.

King of Thieves

"Defeat Ganondorf without falling or climbing down the Platform and without using Fairies"

My Last Breath

"Defeat Ganon with 1 heart or less remaining without using Fairies or Bombs"

Dark Lord

"Defeat Ganon without getting hit and with 3 hearts only"

Hooray, some mutually exclusive achievements for the final boss. Well, unless you decide to enter that fight with one heart like a real champ. The Ganondorf fight is just kinda whatever; requires some precision with the fireball tennis again but the Biggoron's Sword makes quick work of him after you've stunned him with the Light Arrows. Ganon's the bigger problem here, in more ways than one, as he has an unexpectedly long reach with those wonky daggers of his. This is a no-damage run largely because most of his attacks will kill you outright anyway, unless you bothered to go get the defense doubler from the last Great Fairy of the game (and why wouldn't you with that horrible gauntlet in the tower? And I don't mean the Gold Gauntlet).

The key to this fight I found, besides the defense doubler, is Nayru's Love which is another spell I barely pay attention to in most OoT runs. However, it makes you invincible for a pretty substantial length of time and the second stage of the Ganon fight speeds his attacks up enough that the insurance is downright vital, especially since it doesn't void the "don't get hit" requirement—that only checks if you've lost health, not if you've gone through the damage animation. By maintaining Nayru's Love for at least the second half of the Ganon fight (he's slow enough to be perfectly manageable for the first half, when you don't have the Master Sword) you can tank the whole battle pretty much. I gotta give Nintendo props for Farore's Wind and Nayru's Love; they're way more useful than I ever gave them credit for.

Plenty of Hearts

"Obtain all 20 hearts"

Cartographer

"Complete the game with every Map, Compass, and Boss Key from all dungeons"

I assumed you'd have to do a separate playthrough to collect these two "missable" completionist achievements since they're mutually exclusive with Blind Explorer, above. Turns out all those post-boss heart containers just stay sitting in their respective boss rooms until you come back for them, and even a potentially missable map in Jabu-Jabu can be acquired with a glitch (which is cheating a little, but it's the only case in the game where you can't get the dungeon map/compass way after the fact). There's only one mini-game Piece of Heart you can permanently miss out on and it involves walking right past it after taking the steps to unlock it, which would be a weird thing to do but I appreciate the RA contributors marking it as missable just in case.

It was a relief to know I didn't need to create another save file for these last two achievements, though I suppose I play this game often enough that I'd probably come back to get them eventually. I might go for another randomizer run instead first though, or maybe a total conversion fan hack. Or even Majora's Mask: Nintendo's very own Ocarina of Time fan hack. I'll let you know how that goes but for now that's a wrap on another RA rundown. Man, achievements are the best, even when they suck and do mental damage to me.

Totals

• Achievements: 97/97 (100%) (or it will be very shortly)
• Hardest Achievement: "Blind Explorer"

Hardest Bosses With Three Hearts and the Above Achievement Requirements (in descending order):

1. Barinade
2. Volvagia
3. Queen Gohma
4. Ganon
5. Twinrova
6. Phantom Ganon
7. King Dodongo
8. Ganondorf
9. Bongo Bongo
10. Morpha