Gerstmann Back Up for Air

The 32 hours of Zelda may have been his toughest. Read the latest - and last - Zelda journal entry from videogames.com's Jeff Gerstmann.

And yes, if you want to keep away from some possible spoilers, you may want to pass on reading today's entry. Take it away Jeff.

Last Hours of Friday17:50It's been slow going. The final temple is the desert temple, but I can't get through the Gerudo's little camp thing to get to the desert. I saved the game and turned it off. I need a shower.

18:39Out of the shower. I feel... almost human. Started humming the theme from Zelda 2 while I was washing up. A lot of people talk a lot of crap about the Adventure of Link. Those people are morons. Even though it was a side scroller, Link was still a rad game.

19:16Found the fourth carpenter, got the Garudo membership card. I'm almost ready to head to the spirit temple.

20:01Entering the spirit temple... as a kid. You have to enter it as a kid first, then change back into adult Link to finish it off, I assume.

21:09I'm shutting it off. I don't want to go through most of a temple only to get too tired to continue. Tomorrow is the day.

Saturday13:06Wow, my eyes are actually a normal color again. The redness is gone. Well, time to put the red back in there. Cause I'm not stopping until I've finished the entire game.

14:08Making good progress in the spirit temple. Got the mirror shield.

15:02The boss was really, really simple. Didn't even get hit once. That's the final temple. All that's left to do is... beat the game.

16:41Four puzzles stand between me and what I believe will be the final confrontation. They are, of course, tough.

18:22I want to hurt people. Either these puzzles are insane, or I'm a complete idiot. Probably a bit of both. I'm going to go out to this crazy buffet place where you can fill a bowl up with meat and rice, hand it to a guy, and he cooks it. Then, you can get another bowl, fill it up with meat and rice, hand it to the guy, and he'll cook that one, too!

22:13Well, I filled up one or two bowls too many at the wacky buffet place, but that's what wacky buffet places are for. But enough about that. Either I'm going to beat the game, or the game is going to beat me. What the hell are those giant blocks with the moon symbol on them? I've spotted three of them so far, but I have no idea what to do with them. And I think one of the puzzles requires the use of fire arrows, which I don't have yet. I'm also missing one other type of arrow and the third magic. Are these items that I should already have or items that come later in the game? Either way, I'm really losing my mind.

23:09I'm a broken man. I have a feeling that I need to go back and start searching for the three missing items, but I just don't have the patience to do that right now.

Sunday10:26I've been sitting here, thinking about the puzzles for about an hour now. Or, more correctly, thinking about possible places where these items that I may or may not be missing might be. I've got a theory to test. Let's hope it isn't just another heart container.

11:32Well, my theory was somewhat correct in that I found the ice arrows. But what I really need are fire arrows. Oh well, I'm sure these will come in handy at some point, also. But the question remains: If I were the fire arrows, where would I hide?

15:25At the lake, of course. Got the fire arrows.

16:00Got the golden gauntlets, which let you lift the crazy huge stones.

16:20Beat Ganon's first form.

16:35Done. I feel like I could just collapse. Instead I'll probably watch a little Pay-Per-View wrestling and get started on writing the review.