Well, this looks familiar.
Dear Mario, your princess is in another castle...
Nah, I can't hate. Second Quest is a legit difficulty increase over the first one, and has some more difficult puzzles to figure out and dungeons to explore. And some other nasty enemies we will come to in a bit...
Remember where we found The Blue Ring shop in the first quest? Well in this quest, it leads us to...
Level 2. Which is an important point of note. Even though some screens look the same on the overworld, most of the secret entrances and level locations have changed, and the dungeons themselves are completely different now.
Awesome, both bombs and a key. These items are even more important in the second quest, as having a stockpile of spare keys will not be as easy as in the previous quest, especially if you try to do the levels out of order.
Gah, Manhandla as a miniboss already!? We've certainly amplified the difficulty here from the get-go.
Now here comes what I consider to be one of the most difficulty enhancing elements of the second quest...
Where did Lunk go? Well, by walking into the wall at the south of the room, and continuing to walk towards it, Lunk will actually walk through it (to the "secret found" sound). However, unlike bombable walls, sometimes walking through a wall is a one way trip, and you can't go back the other way. Sort of like having the door shutter behind you so you can't go back. It starts to get even more ridiculous in later levels.
Awesome, the magic whistle. We get this in Level 2 this time (instead of Level 5), which is good, as it is required for many of the secrets hiding around the overworld.
I sorely miss having the white sword right now, as hitting these guys with the wooden sword causes them to split into two of those gel things, and they drop no goodies when you kill those.
Stairwells seem to be a lot more prevalent in the second quest than in the first one (with the one exception of Level 9, for some reason).
Okay, that was a bit brutal. I actually died twice trying to take on the two-headed Gleeok. Remember from the first quest, we had to kill Aquamentus and Dodongo (in levels 1 and 2 respectively). Instead the second quest treats us to Manhandla as a mini-boss (whereas it was originally the level 3 boss) and two-headed Gleeok as the level boss (whereas it was originally the Level 4 boss). Do recall that in the first quest, I had 10 hearts when we went into Level 4 and had to fight this guy...
And shard 1 of 8 collected for the second quest!
And since old habits die hard, Lunk still needs to feed his need for gambling.
And since lady luck seems to be smiling on Lunk's hand at chance, it is time to buy a blue candle.
Just because your candle or bombs don't open up a secret entrance on a map, do not give up -- the whistle is now a useful tool for searching for secret entrances.
However, you will find that the number of "Pay me the door repair charge!" caves has increased dramatically, so beware! I find it nice to cave hunt while I have almost no rupees on me, just in case.
And a handful of places still have not changed, however.
The same old corner shop, quite literally. But I don't want to drop 90 rupees on a shield right now.
Using our new found whistle, which is an integral part of succeeding at the second quest, we find our first extra overworld heart piece!
And yet again, Lunk seems to be unable to roll anything but lucky number sevens!
And back to the spot where our 100 rupee secret was previously, and we find the new location of the blue ring shop!
And we fortunately have happened to collect enough money to buy it.
Oh yes, the blue ring is going to come in quite handy. In fact, it would've been nice to have already for Level 2.
However, since the whistle is needed for so many secrets in this quest, getting the white sword and the blue ring before doing Levels 1 and 2 (like we did in the First Quest) is just not a realistic plan.
And where Level 5 used to be, there is now just a fairy pond...
And fortunately the White Sword is still in the same location as it was previously, and with our five handy hearts, we can pick it up!
Also, I should point out that this may be one of the rare occasions where I actually have picked up the Blue Ring before the White Sword.