Zack & Wiki - Ancient Wyrm (1 of 2)
18At long last, here it is: the boss stage of Volcano Cavern. But before I begin, I check to see what Maddy got for us and hit the books, as usual. This time, he borught back concept art for the Goon Totem. I have to wonder just how comprehensive this thing is...
The puzzle in this one isn't very difficult to figure out. In fact, it's pretty dang obvious. The hard part is keeping that giant dragon in the middle content, known as Swellosaurus. As Zack walks around, her baby, Swellosaurus Jr., follows him around and becomes more and more irritable the more Zack ignores him. A mother cares for her children deeply, so when Swellosaurus Jr. is upset, the bigger dragon will be too. She'll shoot fireballs at Zack, and if he's not careful, he'll get hit, hence the death montage. There are a few things that can stun Zack or otherwise prevent him from roaming freely--some intentional, some design flaws in the game. You'll be able to tell which one's which. On the other hand, this must be mentally taxing for Zack, since he enjoys bullying the little guy.
The solution is laid out right there at the entrance: Create a reservoir of water in the chandelier, then break it with the hammer. Each of the statues is holding a pail--you get one guess as to what's in it. How you get the statues to squirt the water into the chandelier is something the game doesn't tell you...but the fact that Junior is sitting there enjoying the statues for some reason should have something to do with hitting the switch. He doesn't seem to mind getting his tail pulled at all. And if he starts to get in a worse mood than before, he gets happy by eating flames or by cuddling him properly (which I'm no good at).
The hammer, on the other hand, gets raised each time you place a Goon Totem on an appropriate pedestal. It's pretty straightforward except for the fact that one of the pedestals is on an unreachable platform. The fact that one of the pedestals is a different color than the others must have something to do with it...