The Legend Of Zelda - General Thread

nah it because time is of the essence is what makes it a great dungeon.

Page topper 2: top once more

Edited by The-Azure-Star-Of-Orion on May 8th 2024 at 8:41:00 AM

I just envisioned a big, buff, intimidating, guy with a beard and he popped into my head. Best part, he could nail just about any version of him we've seen. Oot, TP, WW, Tot K, he just has the perfect look and presence of brutal dread.

Edited by doomrider7 on May 8th 2024 at 8:53:16 AM

Great Bay and Snowhead are like trying to assemble a thousand-piece jigsaw while some asshole with a stopwatch looms over your shoulder and flips the table if he thinks you're taking too long. And of course this is the game with Stray Fairies, too. Just awful, anti-fun design.

Actually, time should stand still in the dungeons. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Nothing in there is time-dependent anyway, and it would make it easier to not only solve them but to play with and appreciate their ideas.

I don't always enjoy Majora's Mask, but when I do, it's solely for the strength of its story.

Not for me as Majora's Mask helped me how to focus on how to get better at time management and how to do things under pressure of the apocalypse breathing down on you, this has stuck with me since I was a child as Majora's Mask was my first Zelda game that played.

The Great Bay Temple is easily the best water dungeon in the series imo. I love the aesthetic, the music, and the gimmick of changing the water flow. The dungeon is also tightly designed and really fun to navigate due to Zora Link's swimming. The boss kinda sucks outside the 3DS version where Gyorg became an actual fight.

Exactly, outside of Gyorg the great bay temple is a place that you hate if you don't get the rhythm but when you do you be surprised how well crafted it really was.

Water dungeons in Zelda never bothered me, at worst they're average. I've played Oo T so many times that the route through the Water Temple is etched into my memory so I never have trouble with that place. I also never struggled much with time in MM dungeons since I always do them on a fresh three day cycle with the Song of Inverted Time.

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on May 8th 2024 at 4:46:26 AM

To me water dungeons get a bad rap for a couple of reasons: 1. If the game has basic swimming controls the you are going to have a bad time, 2. The water dungeon is almost the third or last in the set so by that point the game steps up to push your shit in so you do the same but with the controls issues your going to have a bad time, 3. Sometime the devs made a air mechanic when you dive so the is the added pressure of dealing with that and because of that you are going to have a bad time.

A bit of an alternate take on the "favorite dungeons" question; What are some of your favorite dungeon gimmicks? That is, the general recurring task the dungeon has you doing. I'd say most Zelda games (at least 3-d ones) since Ocarina of Time have this sort of structure. Things like finding and killing the four Poes in the Forest Temple to re-activate the center elevator. Or turning on the valves in Great Bay Temple to change water flow to open new routes.

I think one of mine is the Earth Temple from Wind Waker. I always enjoy light puzzles in Zelda games, and I think the Earth Temple has my favorite rendition of that gimmick. Not only using the usual Mirror Shield tactics, but also having Medli to team up with to allow for even more elaborate light set ups.

...Hmm, while I'm thinking about partnering up, massive missed opportunity; There should've been another dungeon in Wind Waker where you use the Command Melody to work with Tetra/Zelda.

I can't think of an overarching gimmick in terms of pure gameplay, but I like when Zelda dungeons feature meta concepts that are implemented to the progression style, like Skull Woods in ALTTP (which have multiple entrances and exits), Snowpeak Ruins in TP (which takes the dungeon elements to a normal, everyday residence), Sky Keep in SS (where rearranging rooms is part of the puzzle), or the more recent Spirit Temple in TOTK (which scatters its dungeon elements into the questline that unlocks it, particularly within the Thunderhead Isles and the Construct Factory, so all it needs is to host the boss).

I also like how you cooperate with Medli and Makar in the WW temples, and it would have been amazing to have Tetra playable in some section, dungeon or not.

I'd count that. I also really enjoy that whole Spirit Temple run-up in TOTK.

Edited by diddyknux on May 8th 2024 at 6:43:37 AM

imho, the best water dungeon in the series is the Lakebed Temple from Twilight Princess, and it ain't close. It helps that you can swim freely with the Zora armor and swing your sword underwater. I also really love that game's take on classic enemies like Baris and Shell Blades (you can literally yoink Baris' brains out with the clawshot for a one-hit kill!).

As for my favorite gimmick, definitely the time travel in the Spirit Temple from Ocarina of Time (that remains my all-time favorite dungeon), but getting the flames back from the four ghosts in the Forest Temple comes close.

Turning Stone Tower upside-down (10/10 mini-bosses, too) and collaborating with Medli in the Earth Temple are runners-up.

Skull Woods is also so good, dude. And Thieves' Town. I'm due for an ALttP replay, come to think of it...

Edited by ThriceCharming on May 8th 2024 at 7:49:18 AM

I love the Great Bay Temple's water direction puzzles and the twist of changing the current. They're a bit slow but its a really cool and well utilized gimmick.

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on May 8th 2024 at 7:58:38 AM

Great Bay Temple is not as hard as people think it is. Basically all you have to do is follow the pipes.

I would say the worst water temple in the series is Jabu Jabu's Belly in Oracle of Ages, since its a 2D version of Oo T's Water Temple with a different skin and layout.

I found Jabu Jabu in Ocarina to be awful, from design, to Ruto to the boomerang being so late in the dungeon, to the boss being way more difficult than it should be.

All of that, plus the odious looks. It's not even that it's a Womb Level, because I played levels like that in other games and enjoyed them. It's the odd bright of the walls, which always makes my eyes strain.

I agree that the OOA version of JJB isn't much better either, but at least you can watch it for hours without giving your eyes torture.

I'm actually replaying Ocarina of Time on NSO, having only previously played the game once (the 3DS remake).

They really went all-out on making Jabu Jabu's Belly as nauseating as they could, didn't they?

On the subject of favorite dungeon gimmicks, count me in on Earth Temple and its light puzzles. Having to use both Link's and Medli's reflectors in tandem is pretty clever.

The jellyfish were the worst part for me,and carrying Ruto

Jabu-Jabu's Belly is hella unique and they should do something similar in a future 3D game. I never thought it was particularly gross.

Also, there should be a water dungeon where the gimmick is changing between the three states of water. Or at least freezing/melting ice like in that one level of Super Mario Galaxy 2.

While I'm at it, it's a crime that Breath of the Wild brought back blue fire but no red goddamn ice to go with it!

"Also, there should be a water dungeon where the gimmick is changing between the three states of water"

Minish Cap comes close with Temple of Droplets, thouhg it only works with water and ice (no gas).

Sword & Shield Maze in OOS. Not really water, but the gimmick of the dungeon involves using ice to freeze pools of lava so you can walk on them.

ED: Dragon Roost Cavern in TWW has a similar gimmick

Edited by asterism on May 9th 2024 at 12:51:29 PM

Other than Jabu, I liked the Oo T dungeons. Only thing I didn't like about the Shadow Temple was the long stretch with no checkpoint so you were sent back pretty near to the start.

B Ot W gameplay would have made Spirit Temple pointless since you could just climb the front of the building to reach the hands and grab the big chests.

Well, unless the temple's external side uses Shrine walls, which cannot be climbed at all.

It’d still be trivially easy to get high enough to glide to the chests without entering the temple.