The WORST Heart Piece in Zelda History

collecting a heart piece in the Legend of Zelda franchise has to be one of the most consistently satisfying things to do in any video game aside from the instant gratification of healing to full strength these Collectibles make you feel powerful and provide a tangible sense of progression for link as he Journeys through his Adventure by serving as rewards for completing side quests or difficult challenges heart pieces incentivize the player to explore all the content that each Zelda title has to offer and while most of the time this is a winning formula there are occasions in which a heart piece can really feel like a major letdown for the amount of work you put in to get it there are many reasons that this could be the case from spending too much time doing one task to requiring an unnecessary amount of backtracking to get it but whatever is the case you know it's bad when it turns an event that is ordinarily rewarding into a disappointment with hundreds of hard pieces found Across The Legend of Zelda franchise it's no surprise that some of them leave a little to be desired but one heart piece in particular stands out as the worst of them all this piece of heart combines all of the worst elements that can be found when collecting heart pieces into one truly miserable experience in fact the requirements to obtain this One Singular heart piece is so insane that I'd venture to Guess that only a very small percentage of dedicated Zelda completionists have ever put the time in to get it and in the end was all their hard work really worth it well I'll let you decide because today we are going to take a look at the music House piece of heart earned in The Legend of Zelda the Minish Cap but before we begin don't forget to like the video and subscribe it doesn't cost a thing and it's vital to this Channel's growth plus it helps me get videos to you faster and more directly if you enjoy this kind of content thanks now let's talk about the worst heart piece in Zelda history The Legend of Zelda the Minish Cap is one of the most underrated Zelda titles out there and it's truly a shame more people haven't had the chance to play it it has so much charm and personality as well as several Unique Mechanics not found in any other Zelda entry ordinarily you would hear me singing its Praises as I tried to get people to give it a try but today is not that day that's because Minish Cap has by far without question the single worst heart piece to collect in the entire Legend of Zelda franchise as Minish Cap is the third worst selling title in the series I imagine most people who have played a Zelda game aren't familiar with this entry so allow me to provide some context at the beginning of the game when link gains the freedom to roam the map as he pleases we are able to find a building in the center of Hyrule town that has two entrances to it when we look inside through the back entrance we are able to see a music player a few treasure chests and a piece of heart all sitting out in the open but when we try to enter through the front door to collect them we find that it is locked for much of the game we are given no clue as to how we are supposed to unlock this door but eventually find a man named herb sitting outside of Mama's Cafe who alludes to something good happening if we get a full set of figurines now by the time herb appears in the game it's extremely likely that the player would have found karlov's figurine Gallery in the southwest area of Hyrule Town inside Karlov will give the player a chance to win a figurine of nearly every character and enemy in the game by trading him mysterious shells that link can find throughout his Adventure doing so allows link to pull the lever to karlov's figure dispensing machine for a chance to win one at random with your odds of getting a new figure in increasing based on how many shells you decide to trade each Pole knowing this all link must then do is collect a full set of figurines to present to Herb to gain access to the music House's locked door and the Heart piece will be his sounds easy enough right well to those who have had to deal with frustrating RNG based mechanics in other games this Probably sounds awful already but the truth of the matter is that it is so much worse than it seems at first glance part of the problem is that the game tricks you into thinking that this isn't going to be so bad because it is possible to guarantee that you'll get a new figurine by trading shells to get up to 100 probability on every poll but this is a trap if you recklessly use this feature it's like shooting yourself in the foot at the beginning of a marathon you will pay for it later on in the game when you realize that you were completely out of mysterious shells but are still dozens of figurines away from completing your collection and while true that you will inevitably run out of shells anyway you could potentially save yourself hours of mind-numbing grinding which we'll touch on more in just a few moments first let's talk about why this 100 probability feature is dangerously deceptive and should be used with Extreme Caution the way Carlos figure Dispensing Machine Works is that each time you collect a new figurine the amount of shells that you have to then trade to Karloff to get a 100 probability poll goes up for example when link has zero figurines in his collection he will receive a 100 probability poll after trading just one mysterious shell whereas later on when he has 10 figurines in his collection he would need to trade 10 mysterious shells to get that same 100 probability this scaling doesn't stay consistent as you get closer to completing a full set but you get the general idea so what makes this system so bad well when I tell you that this is the single biggest time sync in any Zelda game know that I'm not exaggerating This Heart Piece Will taunt you for a vast majority of the game as there are 130 figurines in total that you must collect before gaining access to the music house to illustrate just how time consuming this is I want to show you the math behind a run with perfect luck that that's only one shell on each Pole to get all 130 figurines the first try this is also going to assume that you are navigating the menus for trading as quickly as possible with no mistakes that said if you were to collect the entire set in one continuous go the fastest you could complete it in is approximately 43 minutes and 20 seconds now if doing something this mindless for over 43 minutes somehow doesn't seem too bad to you on its own here are a few things to consider the first is that this is statistically impossible and could never actually happen outside of a tool assisted playthrough there will be many many times where you pull the lever with less than 100 probability and receive a useless duplicate figurine this wastes a ton of time roughly a minimum of 20 seconds per pole and only Nets you five measly rubies when Karlov buys the duplicate back from you it may not be the worst aspect of this grind but it certainly becomes annoying as you simply cannot afford to bet high amounts of shells consistently through the collection hunt resulting in a significant amount of duplicates the next thing to consider is that this cannot be done all at once even when arriving to karlov's shop with your mysterious shells maxed out even betting one Shell at a time will cause you to run out of shells before you collect the required 130 figurines because the probability for Success will eventually become too low to allow this strategy to be sustainable this means you inevitably will have to leave and come back to the shop multiple times if you wish to get every figurine in the set with each trip adding to the total time you spend dedicated to the singular heart piece however this is what you should be doing anyway as collecting a full set of figurines is something that should be done incrementally throughout the game not all at once because wasting mysterious shells is one of the worst things that you can do when going for this particular piece of heart you need every shell you can find in this game if you hope to make this process go by somewhat quickly and nothing is as devastating as opening a chest filled with shells that you can't carry because your shell counter is maxed out you can only hold up to 999 mysterious shells at one time which is a number most will naturally get to even if it isn't their goal and unfortunately every shell you find past that number is thrown away this is why it is important to periodically stop by Carlisle's shop whenever you return to Hyrule town to pick up at least a few figurines because those 200 shell chests are way too valuable to accidentally waste that may seem dramatic but if you've never done this quest yourself you have to understand just how precious those big shell drops are Minish Cap gives the player no reliable method of obtaining shells in large quantities outside of One Source we'll get to in a moment which dramatically increases the value of finding 200 at once outside of these rare instances your only hope is to find them when cutting Tall Grass which is completely random outside of using the mysterious shell Peak life and even then you're only netting one shell for each blade of grass cut which is not cost prohibitive considering how much the Pico Lights cost and how long their effects last which brings me to the final thing to consider when evaluating the time it will take to obtain this heart piece and that is the amount of mysterious shell grinding that you'll have to do as I said earlier you will run out of shells at some point and only when you do and when you've exhausted all the major sources of shells you can find in the game does the true grind for this piece of heart begin several frustrating Decisions by Capcom make collecting shells a painstakingly arduous process which is the reason I've been placing so much emphasis on these 200 shell chests and not wasting any of the shells you do find if there was a fast and efficient way to grind shells This Heart piece truly wouldn't be an issue but sadly each method the game does give you is inefficient and adds hours to a quest that was already too long to begin with however rather than going through all of them I just want to talk about what I found as the most efficient method for grinding and why it's still extremely frustrating and time consuming in Hyrule town there is a shop run by Stockwell that is the one source for getting mysterious shells in large quantities that I mentioned earlier for 200 rupees Lincoln purchased a set of 30 mysterious shells and he can do this as many times as he would like as long as he has the money this is certainly expensive and large is definitely a generous word for only 30 shells but despite that you may now be thinking that if you can buy Bunches of shells in town how could the grind be so bad let me explain in The Legend of Zelda Minish Cap the largest wallet link can acquire maxes out at 999 rupees which is very inconvenient when buying these mysterious shells as they cost 200 a set this means each time you visit Stockwell shop only four sets of shells can be purchased before having to leave to find another Ruby so that you can buy the last set of course it's not even that convenient because each time you buy a set of mysterious shells you have to leave the shop and re-enter anyway which while not that big of a deal on its own is annoying as it adds even more padding to this already time-consuming Quest and in the end this only earns us 150 shells which obviously is not doing a lot for us towards the end of our treasure hunt that's why we need to talk strategy for a moment as it relates to collecting every figurine at the beginning of the quest it's definitely smart to spend as few shells as possible but once you dip below the 50 probability threshold it becomes increasingly more time consuming as the odds are now against you especially as you find yourself going for the last few figurines where your odds of success can be as low as a single digit it makes sense that you'll want to start spending more shells to increase your chances at first it's best to try to keep the probability at around at least 50 percent however as you likely are also out of resources I find eventually it isn't worth the risk to bet a high amount of shells for a gamble this is where I will use the 100 probability feature as expensive as it may be because it is soul-crushing to waste 30 plus shells on a 50 probability poll it's like flushing 200 rupees down the drain which isn't worth the risk that means to guarantee the final dozen or so figurines we will be forced to trade in 90 or more shells each time which puts into perspective how few shells 150 really is at most we can guarantee one new figurine with that amount near the end of the quest but it gets even worse when you realize that you'll only be able to buy 120 mysterious shells from Stockwell per full wallet because we need to be able to restock our rubies as well instead those last 200 rupees will be saved for Pika lights which we can buy from Beatles kiosk in Hyrule town naturally these come with their own problems as well but this is how we will refill our wallet efficiently now if you aren't familiar with the picolights they give link different status effects for a short period of time these status effects all change the frequency in which certain items will drop from kinstone pieces to recovery Hearts but we will be focused mainly on the Ruby Peak light also known as the yellow Pika light as that is what will help us fill our wallet quickly but first it's worth mentioning the disappointing mysterious shell Peak light for how ineffective it is because I assume most players will resort to this first when trying to grind for shells as all Peak Lights cost 200 rupees the same amount we must pay Stockwell for 30 mysterious shells we'd need to get at least that many shells using the peak light to make it worth the money and unfortunately we don't even get close this makes the Green Peak light completely useless which is annoying because unlike the yellow Peak light which we need to earn by delivering Lawn Lawn milk to the Minish Village it is available as soon as Beetle sets up shop the rupee Peak light on the other hand is actually very useful if you know where to use it over in the western part of Hyrule Field there is a large grassy area that is the perfect location to use your yellow Peak light as you can dig up hundreds of rupees in a matter of seconds you can do this by Dash attacking through the grass with the Pegasus boots although it is highly recommended to learn the great Spin Attack From spliff Blade the first for maximum effectiveness this will not only recover the cost of the initial yellow Peak light but will usually net you enough to buy an additional Ruby Peak lighter too as well I can regularly get around 600 rupees this way which should make buying shells from Stockwell a breeze but this is the worst heart piece in the franchise after all so naturally there is something else that adds time to this process for whatever reason Beetle will only allow you to hold one amount of any type of peak light at a time so despite having four bottles in your inventory and the ability to store four different types of picolite you can only carry one yellow picolite at a time this means that instead of storing up on Peak lights so you can max out your rupees in Hyrule Field each visit you have to repeatedly travel back and forth to Beetle shop to buy more Peak lights I cannot even begin to tell you how much time this wastes even when using the Ocarina to warp back to Hyrule town and the worst part is that there is no good reason for the game to not allow you to have multiple ruby Peak lights it's just how it is this completes the cycle from hell where you first trade all your shells in at car lots only to buy more shells at stockwells before pit stopping at Beetles for a peak light on your way to Western Hyrule Field to grind more rubies for more shells for more figurines and so on and so forth why Capcom why did you have to do this there were so many ways the side quest could have been fixed but it seems like they went out of their way to make it as convoluted as possible granted this is just the most efficient method I've found and maybe someone knows of an easier way to grind rupees and or shells but regardless you still have to get at least 130 figurines and that can't ever be forgotten honestly so many things are wrong about this Quest but if even just one of them wasn't the way it was I probably wouldn't be making this video if the number of figurines was reduced to let's say 60 This Heart piece is still a little annoying but not worthy of its own video If Stockwell sold 100 mysterious shells for 200 rupees or 30 shells for 50 rubies I probably don't make this video If Beetle allowed you to store four rupee Peak lights instead of just one I likely wouldn't have made this video hell chances are this video doesn't exist if Capcom even just put more treasure chests filled with large amounts of shells around the world it's like a perfect storm of bad decisions where everything came together to turn a fun little mechanic until completionist worst nightmare the kicker to all this is that once you finally do make it inside the music house you receive 600 rubies from the chest inside where the hell were those when I needed them why am I getting them now and honestly the same could be said for the piece of heart there's never been a playthrough of Minish Cap that I've gone through where I hadn't already beaten the game by the time I collected every figurine at that point I'm just doing the Quest for completionist sake because the extra Health reward is useless when there are no more challenges to face and the music player was nice back in 2004 but anyone who's played the game in the last 15 years could easily just look the soundtrack up on their phone if they really wanted to listen to it essentially destroying its novelty every ingredient you need for a terrible Zelda heart piece is present here a frustrating RNG mechanic check tons of backtracking check repetitive grindy gameplay check an excessively High number of Collectibles check and a reward that doesn't fit the work put in to get it check I said earlier that I would let you decide if all this work was worth it for the music heart piece but I lied I'm answering for you no the answer is no take it from me I'm a guy who once skipped a day of middle school so I could Marathon play every disc song in Rock Band 2 on Expert without pausing for an achievement I'm a guy that rather than finding a friend to play with completed the entire co-op mode in the puzzle game death squared with two controllers by myself to get 100 and I'm a guy that cleared every single Peg on every single level of the arcade game Peggle because it drove me crazy seeing that I was just 30 gamer score away from perfection basically I've done a lot of dumb things in games for the sake of completion but getting every heart piece in Minish Cap was one that was definitely not worth the time and effort overall Minish Cap is colorful bright and Charming but completing a quest like this will drain the soul from the experience heart pieces should be rewarding and fun which the music house is not thankfully if you're not a completionist this whole Quest can be completely ignored and truthfully you'll enjoy Minish Cap more for it but if you're a masochist like me and want to try this for yourself good luck and be sure to let me know how it goes at least unlike poor unsuspecting 10 year old Mr doctor boy you'll now know that you're on a journey to get the worst heart piece in Zelda history thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: MrDrBoi

Views: 1,250,213

Keywords: Zelda, The Legend of Zelda, Heart Piece, Link, Ocarina of Time, Majoras Mask, A Link to the Past, Twilight Princess, Wind Waker, Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, Minish Cap, Oracle of Ages, Oracle of Seasons, Link's Awakening, Spirit Tracks, Phantom Hourglass, Four Swords, Four Swords Adventures, Heart Container, Recovery Heart, Worst, Nintendo, Ganon, Ganondorf, Figurines, Carlov, Mysterious Shells, Mysterious Shell, Rupees, Rupee, MrDrBoi

Id: 63MubrcXeh0

Length: 18min 47sec (1127 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 15 2023