It all started in the first dungeon of the Legend of Zelda, where there was a locked door, the first of many such doors to come throughout the game, and pretty much every other Legend of Zelda game that came after. To unlock this door, you have to find a key in the dungeon. In this Zelda game, this is usually found by defeating a specific enemy or defeating all of the enemies in a specific room (in later games, the keys are often found in treasure chests).
It was innocent enough. I found a key, and used it to unlock a door to go to the next room. That's what the key was for, after all. But then I went into this new room and bombed a couple walls to see if there any hidden passages. And sure enough, the south wall revealed a hidden passage. I follow the hidden passage to find myself in a room I have already been in, meaning that I could have easily gotten to the room I was just in without using the key. I WASTED A KEY!!
I haven't played for very long, I told myself, only about 20 minutes. I could easily reset the game and make it to this point in 15 minutes and play to this point, find the key, and NOT use it. Of course, I didn't reset the game. That would be something a pathetic person does. I don't have a problem. Obviously this game was designed to have enough keys.
So I entered the second dungeon still a sane person.
And I didn't have a problem in that second dungeon. Sure, I found four keys and didn't use a single one of them, but that was because the secret passageways were extremely easy to find with my bombs. I didn't use any keys because the need to never really presented itself. There's nothing wrong with saving them for a rainy day.
In the third dungeon, I explore the dungeon and find a couple locked doors that I figure out that I can easily make my way around, but there is a door leading north and a couple leading west that I can seem to find a secret way past. At this point I have seven keys total. I reluctantly use one of them to go north, just to find myself confronted with a man telling me "DID YOU GET THE SWORD FROM THE OLD MAN ON TOP OF THE WATERFALL" and then the next room is a dead end. Still calm and collected, I bomb every last corner of that room, but there is no secret passage. This is a dead end! I used one of my keys just so I get a useless tip? In anger, I kill everything in the room. Then a key appears.
Thank God! This may have been a dead end, but the new key, which I would not have been able to get except by using other key, means everything balances out. All is right with the world, but I will not make that mistake again.
I know I still have to go east, because I have searched everywhere else for whatever item this dungeon is hiding and by process of elimination that means it must be east. But the only way to go that direction is to unlock one of two doors.
Or is it? Thirty minutes of exploring and several continues later, the answer becomes clear. Yes, I do have to unlock one of those doors. But which one? I make my choice, and it soon becomes apparent I made the wrong one. The door I choose makes me go through several rooms with difficult enemies. After a few rooms, I get to one with a locked door to the east, which means this is the room that the other locked door would have led to. By this point my energy is low and I soon die because this room also has difficult enemies. I continue a couple times (which brings me to the beginning of the dungeon) and keep dying on my roundabout journey through the east wing of the dungeon. There are just too many difficult enemies along the way.
Of course, I could use one of my keys to unlock a shortcut, but that would be wasteful, since it was not necessary to use it to get to my destination. And besides, after another hour and a half of play and a dozen continues, I managed to make it to my destination and find a precious raft which will take me to the fourth dungeon.
And I still have my seven keys. But I don't have a problem. Really.
I haven't played for very long, I told myself, only about 20 minutes. I could easily reset the game and make it to this point in 15 minutes and play to this point, find the key, and NOT use it. Of course, I didn't reset the game. That would be something a pathetic person does. I don't have a problem. Obviously this game was designed to have enough keys.
So I entered the second dungeon still a sane person.
And I didn't have a problem in that second dungeon. Sure, I found four keys and didn't use a single one of them, but that was because the secret passageways were extremely easy to find with my bombs. I didn't use any keys because the need to never really presented itself. There's nothing wrong with saving them for a rainy day.
In the third dungeon, I explore the dungeon and find a couple locked doors that I figure out that I can easily make my way around, but there is a door leading north and a couple leading west that I can seem to find a secret way past. At this point I have seven keys total. I reluctantly use one of them to go north, just to find myself confronted with a man telling me "DID YOU GET THE SWORD FROM THE OLD MAN ON TOP OF THE WATERFALL" and then the next room is a dead end. Still calm and collected, I bomb every last corner of that room, but there is no secret passage. This is a dead end! I used one of my keys just so I get a useless tip? In anger, I kill everything in the room. Then a key appears.
Thank God! This may have been a dead end, but the new key, which I would not have been able to get except by using other key, means everything balances out. All is right with the world, but I will not make that mistake again.
I know I still have to go east, because I have searched everywhere else for whatever item this dungeon is hiding and by process of elimination that means it must be east. But the only way to go that direction is to unlock one of two doors.
Or is it? Thirty minutes of exploring and several continues later, the answer becomes clear. Yes, I do have to unlock one of those doors. But which one? I make my choice, and it soon becomes apparent I made the wrong one. The door I choose makes me go through several rooms with difficult enemies. After a few rooms, I get to one with a locked door to the east, which means this is the room that the other locked door would have led to. By this point my energy is low and I soon die because this room also has difficult enemies. I continue a couple times (which brings me to the beginning of the dungeon) and keep dying on my roundabout journey through the east wing of the dungeon. There are just too many difficult enemies along the way.
Of course, I could use one of my keys to unlock a shortcut, but that would be wasteful, since it was not necessary to use it to get to my destination. And besides, after another hour and a half of play and a dozen continues, I managed to make it to my destination and find a precious raft which will take me to the fourth dungeon.
And I still have my seven keys. But I don't have a problem. Really.
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