The Sandship – The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Part 12

Tentalus appears

Now aboard the Sandship, we find it to be derelict and largely abandoned save for a few Keese and Sand Spumes. After a bit of exploration and facing off against the Mechanical Maniac himself, Scervo, we access the ship’s control room, expecting to find the flame, but instead several large tentacles burst from the deck. We quickly escaped the interior as tentacles tore at the hull. Now on the deck we began our fight against Tentalus, Abyssal Leviathan.

Once our victory is secured, the flame appears and our sword is upgraded to the Goddess White Sword and, just as the Triforce of Courage did before, the Triforce of Wisdom appears on the back of our hand..

With nothing left for us on the Sandship, we made our way to the Isle of Songs where we learned Din’s Power, the final key on our quest to unlocking the true power of the Goddess Sword.

Some fun gifs from this section:

Scervo looks out to the sand sea

tentalus busts shit up

Shownotes

Last Time

Last time on Tandem Legends Link passed Nayru’s Silent Realm by the skin of his teeth, receiving the Clawshots as reward.

Able to access new areas, Link explored the Lanayru Desert, meeting a new Goron named Golo along the way, and found himself facing an ancient sea, now turned to a sandy wasteland.

An Ancient Robot named Skipper once charged with captaining the ship that protected the Sacred Flame helped Link cross the sea in search for his stolen vessel. Link met yet another new Goron named Gortram and eventually discovered the now invisible ship and began an assault that ended with the ship grinding to a halt in the dunes, allowing Link to board.

Today

Today Joe and I will be discussing The Sandship.

Now aboard, we find the ship to be derelict and largely abandoned save for a few Keese and Sand spumes. After a bit of exploration and facing off against the Mechanical Maniac himself, Scervo, we obtain the Bow, allowing us to activate a Time Shift Stone, reviving the various Bokoblins, Technoblins, and imprisoned members of Skipper’s crew.

We access the ship’s control room, expecting to find the flame, but instead several large tentacles burst from the deck. We quickly escaped the interior as tentacles tore at the hull. Now on the deck we began our fight against Tentalus, Abyssal Leviathan.

Once our victory is secured, the flame appears and our sword is upgraded to the Goddess White Sword and, just as the Triforce of Courage did before, the Triforce of Wisdom appears on the back of our hand..

With nothing left for us on the Sandship, we made our way to the Isle of Songs where we learned Din’s Power, the final key on our quest to unlocking the true power of the Goddess Sword.

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General Discussion

Sandship

  • I have a lot of mixed feelings about this place. It feels kind of unfinished. There’s a spooky element to this ship that comes out here and there, somewhat in the Deck theme I think, but it’s never really used. And the layout was super complicated to me, lots of backtracking and bouncing around the same few rooms–though that may have been me not searching hard enough. It just didn’t feel very cohesive to me.

LD002G Scervo

  • Really cool design, but wildly different from the other robots we’ve seen. I can’t believe we don’t get to learn anything else about this guy. Fi says she’s impressed by his tenacity in surviving so long.. Why did he steal the ship? What did he accomplish? How is he alive after all this time? Real missed opportunity. I liked the fight, totally got what they were going for as the classic sort of scoundrel fencing thing.. Just wish it did him justice.

Tentalus

  • A lot of people complain about the design of this guy. I get it. He’s pretty much pulled straight from Monsters Inc. But the fight was great. Slashing through tentacles as he’s tearing apart the ship during your escape to the deck, slicing them before they grab you on the deck. And then his head tendrils start snapping at you like eels and you need to quickly dispatch the onslaught. Super fun. Plus Scaldera’s theme.. so.

Din’s Flame, Triforce of Wisdom

  • I’m a little disappointed in this upgrade.. Honestly I don’t get it I guess. I don’t think I’ve ever needed to dowse for more than 1 thing at a time.. What’re all the slots for?
  • Goddess Sword looks nice in white though.
  • Triforce of Wisdom! Still no one talking about it…

Isle of Songs

  • OMG the goddess statue is amazing. At first I was uncertain if they were trying to be comical or just interesting in their use of the statue’s emerging locations.. But they’re playing it up and i love it.
  • Song, not so much.

Enemies

Nothing new

  • Aracha
  • Red Bokoblins
  • Sand Spume
  • Keese
  • Technoblins
  • Beamos

Music:

  • Sandship
    • As soon as I stepped foot on the deck it felt haunted. The twang instrument in this piece feels like some sort of otherworldly voice chattering in the background. There’s something vaguely Chinese
  • Sandship (Past)
    • There’s another melody added here with the low horns. It sounds kind of forlorn. The “voices” are still there, but they’re quieter now.
  • Inside the Sandship
    • What is that first crescendo about? It sounds like a cliche haunted mansion sort of intro? Its like the halloween episode of angry beavers. The rest of it still kind of fits that haunted place thing.. It’s got a desert feel to it which makes sense, but I’m expecting things to start jumping around or something.
  • Inside the Sandship (Past)
    • Definitely less haunted feeling, feels almost like a theremin suddenly, which is a very techy instrument. A little more beat to this, a little more energy. I like this one.
  • LD002G Scervo (Pirate Miniboss)
    • Hm. So its the Stalfos battle theme, which I LOVE, but with a rolling timpani thrown in. I kinda like it, but it feels a bit chaotic sometimes. I wish it were more integrated with the tune.
  • Scaldera/Tentalus repeat
    • Already talked about this one with Scaldera back at the Earth Temple, just wanted to say I love it. We had a good talk about it on taht episode. Mentioned Bolero’s and such. Check it out!
  • Din’s Power (Goddess)
    • The only version of this song I like. It’s simple, maybe a little bit creepy, but i can follow it.
  • Din’s Power
    • Huh. What happened. Whats happening. What is this song? What are these instruments? I feel like I would love this song if it were used for a purpose that matched its sound.. A bustling place, a market, or a race, something.. But this theme plus the imagery of the Loftwings flying serenely around Link just felt so.. Blech. It did not work for me.

Wrap-up

Joe:

I mentioned this already but the Sandship was a bit of a disappointment to me. I was kind of looking forward to a Ghost Ship and in some respects I feel like they were going for that. But in other respects there wasn’t even a shadow of that intent. I’m happy to have the Bow now, and this dungeon made good use of it. Great boss battle even if he was a little silly looking. Kind of like Scaldera which also used this theme.

I’m bummed that we didn’t really get to meet Scervo, and that ultimately, Skipper is just.. Alone now? The ship is stuck in its ruined state because you need to deactivate the timeshift stone to leave.. I hope that gets resolved somehow because it just strikes me as super sad. Give this guy total awareness of his situation and then deprive him of happiness? Hm.

Not big on the Din’s Power song, feels like Farore’s Courage again.  


The theme music for this podcast, Overworld, was created by Kevin Macleod of incomepetech.com, licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

We Are the Robot Pirates was written and performed by Songs to Wear Pants To. Check them out here: http://www.songstowearpantsto.com or purchase this track here: http://www.songstowearpantsto.com/songs/we-are-the-robot-pirates/


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