Last year on December 23rd around 3:30 PM I began playing Twilight Princess. I finished the main storyline sometine in the afternoon on December 29th. Of course, no Legend of Zelda is complete without working one's way through the numerous sidequests available: weapon upgrades, improved abilities, new items, and so forth. I'll be honest: while I've completed the storyline to five Zelda games, I've never once managed to finish every single sidequest.
I figured that in my boredom, it might not be so bad an idea to actually finish an entire Zelda. That entailed obtaining every single item and weapon upgrade, learning every ability, defeating every single-instance (non-respawning) enemy, and opening every treasure chest on the map of every dungeon. That was sometime in July, if I'm not mistaken. As it draws closer to December 23rd, out of the entire game I've completed everything but these two sidequests:
- Fight through all fifty levels of the Cave of Ordeals. On my first try, I'd managed to blow through the first 46 levels before dying. Now that I have all four bottles, the 1000-Rupee Large Wallet, and the Magic Armor, the odds have changed significantly in my favor.
- Complete Jovani's Quest, preferably without having to resort to a walkthrough to figure out the locations of each ghost. <sarcasm>After all, there are only a couple hundred rocks and holes those last six could be hiding in!</sarcasm>
To those that are curious or that have never played Zelda before, no, nothing happens if you finish every single aspect of the game: you just have several thousand less reasons to keep playing it.