Collect 40 rupees and buy the Deku Shield.
It’s organized by area - every area transition is a new step. Note that I don’t tell you how to get things, just where they’re at and when it’s best to collect them. I lost the list when I switched computers, but I’ve reproduced it here for your edification. I’m probably the only person on the planet who gets obscenely happy when he figures out that if you wait to start Sidequest A until after Plot Event X, you can do Step 3 of Sidequest A and Step 1 of Sidequest B in one trip. To me, a game is “mastered” when I can work out the ideal route through the game, the route that lets me see the maximum amount of good stuff with the minimum amount of aggravation, grinding, and backtracking. I’m not a fan of sequence breaking and I hate glitches.
I’m not really a speedrunner, and while I like hundred-percent completion I’m not willing to beat myself over the head with it. This is actually representative to the way I play games as a general rule. I didn’t get very far due to crushing laziness, but one of the elements of it that I did finish was “the checklist” - a list of actions to take that would get you everything in the game in the most efficient manner possible. Long ago, when the four nations lived together in harmony, I put some work into a walkthrough of one of my favorite games: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
