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Favorite Temple Theme?

Joined
Oct 12, 2012
Location
Sacred Realm
Hey guys, ive been thinking. There are soo many themes for all the temples. Like fire, ice, wind, forest,etc.

What is your favorite theme?

What new themes would you like to see in Zlda?
 

shogun_zidane

将軍 ジタン
Joined
Jan 10, 2012
Location
Stock Pot Inn in the Knife Chamber
My favorite theme of a dungeon is probably water. I really have enjoyed every water dungeon throughout the series especially the Great Bay Temple because of how the actual water is used throughout each respected dungeon. As for a theme I would like to see... maybe like a "dream" type dungeon, where you enter a room and fall asleep sort of like Link's Awakening but explore many types of elemental themes throughout the dream. When you finish the dungeon instead of resolving someones problems and stuff, you just come out with a piece of knowledge to gain entrance to the final boss or something like that. Maybe like a longer Skykeep type dungeon or something more like Stone Tower Temple, I love multiple themes within one dungeon and I think Nintendo needs to keep experimenting with those types and I will be happy.
 

Random Person

Just Some Random Person
Joined
Feb 6, 2010
Location
Wig-Or-Log
Technology... technically this incoporates more themes, but nevertheless, I am more pleased with a dungeon when it is centered around using technology. Such temples include MM's Great Bay Temple, TP's Goron Mines, TP's Arbiter Grounds. Of course, not all temples themed around this please me. TP's Water Temple wasn't too impressive, and I just hate TP's City in the Sky. It's all about how creatively the technology is implemented and if the temple is centered around it, rather than it being just something in the temple.

Now if we're going by natural things, I guess I'd have to say forest. I generally don't like forest temples, but the themes are usually done well. And because they are now considered classic among the Zelda dungeons (ha, see what I did there?) I can't help but look forward to them, being the obvious choice for the first temple we, the players, will encounter.

I want to see electrically themed temples. Similar to SS's Lanryu Desert where you have to implement electricity to make things work. I think the Lanryu Mining facility was the closest to do this, but it was more centered around time traveling than electricity. TP Goron mines also came close, but still involved the classic "step on a switch" method rather than involving actual methods. I'd love to see things like electric arrows, light fueled switches, rubber boots and things that would make the player really contemplate what they have to do.
 

Curmudgeon

default setting: sarcastic prick
Joined
Dec 17, 2012
Gender
grumpy
It hasn't been explored a ton, but I enjoy dungeons that change shape or state as you move through. I've always thought it would be cool to have a grandfather clock-type level where nearly everything is moving around you.
 

Sir Quaffler

May we meet again
Technology is also my favorite general theme to use in dungeons. Whether it be the Great bay Temple in MM, the Tower of the Gods in WW, the Goron Mines, Temple of Time and Floating City in TP, the Mining Facility and Sandship in SS, etc., I find this to be a very intriguing idea in an otherwise medieval setting. I also like the fact that it can be combined with other themes to create a new dynamic on both.

Other than technology, I like dungeons that revolve around the undead, or of the more spiritual aspects. OoT and MM were amazing in this regard, while most of the latter games haven't quite got the same feeling to them. I think it's because they either rely too much on the disgust factor while leaving out the tension and dread beforehand, making the threat itself just ugly-looking, or they put all their effort into the presentation beforehand making you think this thing is gonna be seriously messes-up, but then when it arrives you sorta deflate and think "Wait, that's it? This isn't so bad."

The Dead Hand is my favorite example of it done right (the first time as a kid, anyway). You explore the entire house beneath the well before you face him (which is incredibly creepy, I might add), so your nerves are already shot. You go in, see the hands waving in the air, so you're dreading the fight that's about to happen. The only way to fight him is to let yourself become vulnerable by being trapped by the hands. And when he does show up, he's so horrifyingly... wrong, that you scream everytime you see him. (At least I do anyway, that freaking thing still gives me nightmares!)

So yeah, I'd like for them to do a dungeon revolving around the themes of the spirit and the undead. My idea for a dungeon would be one that actually kills Link from the very beginning. He becomes a ghost and must travel throughout the dungeon to get back to his body. Reuse that element from the Silent Realms, where you can't attack the enemies because they can kill you outright in one hit. But make it an entire dungeon that's focused on stealth and invisibility rather than action. You'll still have to solve puzzles like what we're used to in dungeons, but you can't kill anybody (at least, at first). Then the item you get much later on allows you to finally confront the enemies and keep them at bay, and it'll have much use outside of the dungeon as well, no TP crap. Only at the very end of the dungeon are you reunited with your body (I can't decide before or after the boss fight, a stealth-based boss fight would be very interesting to see happen, but the pure catharsis of beating the heck out of bid bosses like with Koloktos is also really fun).

It hasn't been explored a ton, but I enjoy dungeons that change shape or state as you move through. I've always thought it would be cool to have a grandfather clock-type level where nearly everything is moving around you.

This is also a really cool idea.
 

Not Take Mirror

Sage of Ice
Joined
Dec 8, 2012
Location
Minneapolis, MN
I can't say I have a favorite theme. I look more towards how well the dungeon is designed and how fun it is to actually play through than what the actual theme is. Any theme can be done well or done poorly. My favorite dungeons have a wide variety of themes.

I do have a weird interest in ice and snow but I didn't really like any of the ice dungeons that much except for snowpeak ruins. That one was awesome.

I also like water alot as a theme. I just wish the water dungeons were designed better so that navigating through them wasn't so tedious.

I would like to see more technology-based dungeons and non-traditional ones such as sky keep where the dungeon itself is a puzzle. Or a perspective shifting dungeon like stone tower temple.

Fire and ice I guess...

I'd like to see a dungeon that mixed the two together.
 
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Dark themes (for lack of a better term for them)

I really enjoyed the Spirit and Shadow temples in Ocarina of Time, I also really loved the Arbiter's Grounds and Twilight Realms in Twilight Princess.
For me the elemental themes are fine to start a Zelda game off with like the first three before the compulsory complicating event but after that event I'd like to have a lot of interesting themes like Spirit, Shadow etc instead of having to do the elements again before seeing something new. It is testament to Zelda that the second Forest, Fire and Water temples don't usually feel boring but sometimes they fall on their faces for me.

For some new dungeon types I'd like to see a weather dungeon, sounds silly but based on the placement of some dungeons in both geography and narrative timing then the weather could play a big part in traversing a dungeon; for example an open topped dungeon like Snowpeak could be hit by a blizzard, a water temple could be hit with a rising tide or tsunami etc... something to make the dungeons more interesting, immersive and dangerous rather than just inconveniently placed enemies and puzzles.
 

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