Ocarina of Time: Disorder of Events

I've been playing Zelda: Ocarina of Time with various cheat codes so that I can have all the equipment at the beginning and do things like levitate and see just how much of the game I can jump around. After fooling around a bit, I decided to skip as much of the game as I could (short of turning into adult Link with a code) and do everything else out of order. I started with all the usable items and the levitation code, but left out the important quest items such as the Spiritual Stones required to get into the Temple of Time, the ocarina songs, and the Golden Gauntlets. Besides, since some such items trigger events, it is possible to run into serious hang-ups because the game registers that Link has an item, but the part of the game played to get said item has not been completed. (As you will see, I encounter some such instances anyway, but they are larger, more complete areas; the programming is not sliced into so deep that a set of closely related affairs becomes problematically detached.) The Ocarina of Time might be one such item, because a special scene in which you learn a song ensues the moment you get it; the Fairy Ocarina, on the other hand, has no special purpose other than playing a few songs to proceed through the game before you acquire the Ocarina of Time. That said, I also left my inventory devoid of an ocarina so I could get as far as possible without one.


So here's a humorous summary of the game as it happened for me.


Navi comes to Link to tell him to go see the Great Deku Tree. Link has other ideas: he goes to the Lost Woods and uses the bombs he's not supposed to have to blast his way through a shortcut into Goron City. Stepping out onto Death Mountain, he bombs open Dodongo's Cavern, proceeds straight to the boss, and promptly beats the giant lizard up. When he exits the cave, the Goron leader, whom Link had neglected to ever meet, comes down and thanks Link by giving him the Spiritual Stone of Fire, the Goron's Ruby; then he goes back inside and immediately shuts himself in until the messenger from Hyrule arrives to help with their Dodongo problem. Poor amnesiac.

Next Link heads up to Zora's Domain, which he cannot open the entrance to because he neither knows Zelda's Lullaby nor has an ocarina to play it on. He does, however, possess the ability to fly; he floats right over the sealed waterfall, [down through the area where the top never needed to be drawn because it was never going to be seen,] and casually strolls into the cave.

Our young lad flies over the Zora King, who blocks the way to Zora's Fountain, without so much as telling him who he is or that he is about to save his dear little princess. Link gets swallowed by the fish (whale?), Jabu-Jabu, and heads for the parasite residing in its stomach. Link kills the mutated monstrosity and joins up with the the Zora Princess as he leaves the ichthyoid's gut. The grouchy piece of royalty expresses her reluctant gratitude for saving her by handing over the Spiritual Stone of Water, the Zora's Sapphire. Link, knowing full well that she has no idea who he is and might not trust him, decides to go back into the fish (whale?) and double-check things. Sure enough, he finds the Zora's Sapphire sitting down there in another area, but when he discovers that the Zora Princess is there as well and appears to have never seen him before, he decides to leave with what he's got and hope for the best.
[The game gives the message that I have collected all three Stones at this point. It is possible to legitimately get the Zora's Sapphire before the Goron's Ruby; when I tried this once with cheats and got the Zora's Sapphire first, the game said I had one more to go, and when I got the Goron's Ruby it said I had all three. However, the game would never recognize that I was missing the Kokiri's Emerald, because it's not supposed to be possible to leave Kokiri Forest until you have acquired it. You also must actually have all three in order to trigger a cutscene and enter the Temple of Time.]

Having met one princess, Link thinks he'll pay a visit to another: Princess Zelda of Hyrule. After flying over the oblivious guards, Link arrives in the courtyard where Zelda is spying into a castle window. Upon seeing Link, she becomes excited, believing Link is the one from her vision: the "figure holding a green and shining stone." She eagerly asks if he has the Spiritual Stone of the Forest, the Kokiri's Emerald. Well, no, Link doesn't, and he tells her so, but she has such a severe case of cynicism that Link finally gives in and lies that he has it. Zelda is overjoyed at this and proceeds to tell him about the Sacred Realm, the Triforce, about Ganondorf, and about the use of the three Spiritual Stones along with the Ocarina of Time.

Zelda sends Link off to find the other two Stones, and Impa, Zelda's caretaker, escorts him out, but not before teaching him Zelda's Lullaby. As she plays the notes, Link whips the Ocarina of Time out of nowhere and follows along. Only when he is finished does he realize what he is holding, but he has no time to think about it because Impa is trying to show him the way to Death Mountain to get the Goron's Ruby.

Feeling rather annoyed at the two royal women, Link goes back to Kokiri Forest to get the one stone they thought he already had. He and Navi, who has been urging him all this time to see the Great Deku Tree, head for the ancient guardian of the forest ("Great Deku Tree, I'm back!" Navi says). The tree tells Link that the time has come for him to begin a quest -- or, as Link interprets it, it didn't hurt that he left the forest for some adventuring on a whim. The Great Deku Tree allows Link to venture inside him so that he can defeat the evil within, and he does that in about two minutes. When he emerges, the Great Deku Tree thanks Link but says he was doomed before Link even started (well, gee, you lasted this long, didn't you? I think you and that spider were living in symbiosis if you're only dying now that it's gone). Before he passes, he tells Link that Ganondorf put the curse on him (nah, he cursed the once-gentle spider, if you ask me) because he wanted the Kokiri's Emerald, which the tree then gives to Link. When the he finishes relating to Link everything Zelda already had, he says goodbye and ceases to live.

Possessing all three stones, Link heads back to Hyrule Castle to meet Zelda, but as soon as the drawbridge lowers she and Impa come shooting out on a horse, fleeing the castle. Zelda throws the Ocarina of Time back into the river, and as Link follows it with his gaze he sees Ganondorf right outside the castle. Ganondorf demands to know which way Zelda went, but Link draws his sword and shield instead. Simultaneously amused and angry, Ganondorf blasts him with some dark magic and gallops away.

Link rights himself, retrieves the Ocarina of Time from the river, and suddenly goes into some sort of trance in which Zelda teaches him the Song of Time. When he finds himself outside the castle once more, Link pockets the Ocarina and makes for the Temple of Time, wondering if the mysterious vision has any relation to his mysterious momentary possession of the Ocarina some time ago. At any rate, he opens the Door of Time and draws the Master Sword without delay.

After listening to a long speech from Sage Rauru explaining that, a) drawing the Master Sword unsealed the Sacred Realm, allowing Ganondorf to steal the Triforce (gee, maybe we shouldn't have done this. Maybe we should have just waited 50 years for Ganondorf to die.); b) it sent Link forward in time seven years to his adulthood; c) Princess Zelda is safe; and d) he (Rauru) and five others make up six Sages who can help Link defeat Ganondorf; Link finds himself back in the Temple of Time and is quite ready to leave and go anywhere else. Before he can do so, he encounters Sheik, who talks more about the six Sages and tells him where to find and rescue the first one. Finally able to go, Link exits the temple and steps out into the desolate place that was once the kingdom of Hyrule.

As he makes to leave the run-down market, Link takes a detour to Hyrule Castle, which has now obviously become Ganondorf's stronghold. He decides to check it out and see what he can do right now; he flies over the bridgeless gap and enters boldly. Inside he finds six branching passages that seem to generate the energy for a barrier around the central tower. Link heads down each of these in turn, and at the end of each he finds and dispels what sure enough are his hypothesized barrier generators. For each one he destroys, Link is paid a short visit by apparitions of whom he can only assume are the Sages, although he is slightly confused: Sage Rauru didn't need saving, and Sheik told him he would find one Sage in Kokiri Forest, so is he or is he not saving them when he dispels the barriers?

At any rate, he deactivates the barrier and heads up the tower, at the top of which he finds Ganondorf and Zelda, who is magically confined. Link has no time to feel irked at Rauru and Sheik for not having their facts straight, though. Ganondorf intends to recapture the entire Triforce, which split when he took it seven years ago, and Link suddenly realizes that he and Zelda now possess the other two parts. Ganondorf attacks, Link takes him down, Zelda is freed, the end. Or not. The tower begins to collapse and Link and Zelda flee just in time. The end. Or not. Ganondorf transforms into a dark beast and Link faces him once more. When he weakens Ganon sufficiently, Zelda and the Sages seal him in the Sacred Realm, where he will be trapped until A Link to the Past.

Having completed his quest at last, Link turns to Zelda, who more or less apologizes for his lack of teenhood experiences because of the abrupt adventure he had to go on. Taking the Ocarina of Time, Zelda plays it and sends Link back to the youth he had to postpone, telling him to enjoy his childhood now that Ganondorf is gone. When he finds himself a kid back in the Temple of Time, Link thinks he ought to give Zelda a piece of his mind: how is he supposed to enjoy himself? Ganondorf won't be gone for seven years! He makes his way back to the courtyard where he first met the princess as a girl, but before he can say anything, the world turns to stone and says "The End."