After defeating the desert scorpion Moldarach, Link is advised by Impa – who is more polite this time than during the first encounter with our hero – to return to the Sealed Grounds and speak with the Old Woman, who will “know where you must go.”
As it happens, Link isn’t alone in going where he must go. After falling through the green vortex in the sky leading to Faron, he discovers his old rival, Groose, has followed him down to the Surface, and after a few “OMG, where am I and what is this?” comments, Groose decides to take off after Zelda on his own.
After marking time with Groose, Link makes his way to the Sealed Grounds where the Old Woman, still looking eerily like a certain former President, teaches Link how to use the Goddess Harp. Or, in our case, she tried. We weren’t very good at it, to be honest. But eventually we managed to match the strumming of the harp (or the Old Woman gave up and figured we were close enough) such that we “learned” the Ballad of the Goddess. Just don’t ask us to hum it.
(Aside: As unskilled as we are at playing the Goddess Harp, our musical incompetence in Skyward Sword pales in comparison to that in the Ocarina of Time. At least with SSHD, the game – we think, we hope – learns the song for you, right? You just need to move the controller sometimes faster, sometimes, slower, but without actually playing a tune that you’re expected to remember and replicate. In OOT, one had to use the buttons on the controller to generate a particular melody on the Ocarina. We had scraps of paper upon which we jotted ostensible music direction for a variety of songs, but that didn’t mean successful playing followed suit.)
Link’s next mission, should he choose to accept it – and when does he ever not? – is to open the Gate of Time. Of course, once he does, the evil imprisoned therein, called The Imprisoned for short because we’re on such good terms, wakes up and starts trundling up toward the Sealed Temple. According to our guidebook, there are two ways to lose the fight with the Imprisoned: one, to get killed, and two, to allow the hairy beast to reach the Sealed Temple before Link does.
We, erm, lost the fight both ways. We like to experience it all, you see.
And while we’re complaining, not that we are, of course, what’s with having a boss fight first thing upon arrival? What about a gentle building up to the fight, with some lessons learned along the way (strumming on a harp doesn’t count) and earning a useful tool or two before the big show-down? But no. Instead, this beast/boss is a bit of a doozy!
The Imprisoned looks a little like Cousin Itt, if Cousin Itt were the size of a large building and had massive teeth and electric toes and a stake impaled in its head. And that’s the gist of the fight: Take off all Itt’s toes (Get it? its toes? Oh, never mind), and then, when it’s rolling around on its back, strike the spike in its head with upward strikes. Do the whole thing three times, and the Imprisoned gets re-sealed – badly again, no doubt. Shoot, consider every time in a Zelda game when some evil whatsit or whosit is allegedly “sealed,” but the seal is later broken, and havoc ensues when something or someone escapes.
Ergo, wethinks we have not seen the last of Cousin Itt, the Re-Imprisoned for the Nonce.
Later, Gorko the Goron chats up Link, remarking upon certain walls and stones that respond to lovely tones. (Clearly, Gorko did not see us playing Zelda’s harp, or he would refrained from this observation, as he would surely have concluded that, in our hands, lovely tones would never emanate from the instrument.)
Turns out that playing the Goddess Harp in front of the aforementioned certain stones and walls – when there are blessed butterflies about – triggers a Gossip Stone or a Goddess Wall. The Gossip Stone offers random treasure and a Goddess Wall, if you draw particular symbols on it, will also generate treasure.
After depleting both our patience and all our potions, we returned to Skyloft — not just to get more potions, for ourselves and Link both, but also because we needed lyrics to go with the Ballad of the Goddess tune. After all, what’s a ballad without words? Lyrics are the sine qua non of balladry, we submit.
Headmaster Gaepora (we keep thinking Diaspora, for some reason, which bodes ill if potentially accurate) provided us with the missing lyrics to the Ballad, but we hadn’t time to admire them; the lyrics set us on our next quest, setting two windmills to blow at Skyloft’s Light Tower. A fun time was had by all, including a cute little robot who helped us with a side trip to Eldin. Eventually, with the two windmills blowing in concert at the Light Tower, we began our own concert atop the tower, with – what else? – the harp.
It may have been at this point that Itzal tossed the Joy-Cons at Demelza and snarled, “you try.” We have no comment on this. But at long last, strumming the harp resulted in a beam of light directed toward a thunderhead, which in turn created a portal to the pleasantly named Isle of Songs. The Isle of Songs contained a puzzle involving concentric rings that made harp playing seem easy. Oh! And speaking of songs, successful completion of the puzzle resulted in a second song for Link’s musical repertoire, Farore’s Courage.
And courage was what we were going to need for our next adventure: Return to the Faron Woods. But that’s for another day. What about today? What do we recommend for our liquid accompaniments for today’s play? Nothing will do, we think, but a Late-Night Gossip, to commemorate your first gossip stone. It won’t be your last, surely.