Some people complained about how the dungeons in Twilight Princess revolved around a single item, and then Skyward Sword made efforts to make dungeon solving require a wide range of items. I appreciated this, but I'd think it would be cool if the game designers went further and brought an idea back from the original game. In LoZ there were 12 items hidden in the game's 9 dungeons. If I counted correctly, you only needed 5 of them to beat the game. This idea was cut back significantly in ALTTP in which there were at least two optional dungeon items- the blue and red mails. Technically the lens of truth was skippable in OOT, but for practical purposes it was essentially impossible to complete the game on your first playthrough without it (also it was in a minidungeon and not a dungeon). So basically since ALTTP this idea has been virtually extinct.
I would like to see optional dungeon items return because I feel that even in Skyward Sword the puzzles were predictable. I think that the puzzles in the games would require greater critical thinking skills if you no longer took for granted that the item you just found will be immediately useful. Another positive would be that dungeons would have optional rooms. You'd be given the choice to either proceed through the dungeon or go on a tangent to get an optional item. Maybe you could be rewarded further by gaining a shortcut past some of the rooms you would have had to go through if you tried to go straight through the dungeon.
To illustrate how I would see this working I'll use the Snowpeak Ruins from Twilight Princess as an example. In that dungeon you are basically following the well-intentioned but not so helpful directions of Yeta. Perhaps at the start of the dungeon Yeta could have also told you something like, "You look cold, how about you borrow some warm clothes. I think we have some in this room." She could open up a second path that leads to this item, and you would have the option to go get it or or proceed to get the pumpkin as the dungeon actually goes. You would have to fight some enemies and maybe solve an ice block puzzle or two on your way to the optional item, but then you would be rewarded with something like an ice tunic that halves damage from ice enemies and/or prevents you from being frozen. Also maybe the room with the tunic connects back to the path to the pumpkin but lets you skip a room or two along the way.
The last example just showed an extra item in a dungeon, but there could also be items that have no necessary use in a dungeon but could still help. For example take Dondongo's Cavern from Ocarina of Time. Let's say for the purpose of this example that you actually could purchase the bomb bag from the market in Hyrule Castle. Then maybe the dungeon item in Dondongo's Cavern could have been bombchus. There were a couple of instances where bombchus might have been able to help such as when you need to time the explosion of a bomb to open up a bombable wall by throwing the bomb. If the bombchu explodes on contact with a bombable surface, then these parts of the dungeon would have been easier with the optional dungeon item.
I realize that my examples aren't the best but use those as a jumping off point for imagining how this could work. Let me know what you think. Good idea/bad idea, you miss optional items from the older games, you like how the dungeons currently utilize items, etc.
Edit: Also who says dungeons have to only have one item. That is pretty much a given in modern Zelda games.
I would like to see optional dungeon items return because I feel that even in Skyward Sword the puzzles were predictable. I think that the puzzles in the games would require greater critical thinking skills if you no longer took for granted that the item you just found will be immediately useful. Another positive would be that dungeons would have optional rooms. You'd be given the choice to either proceed through the dungeon or go on a tangent to get an optional item. Maybe you could be rewarded further by gaining a shortcut past some of the rooms you would have had to go through if you tried to go straight through the dungeon.
To illustrate how I would see this working I'll use the Snowpeak Ruins from Twilight Princess as an example. In that dungeon you are basically following the well-intentioned but not so helpful directions of Yeta. Perhaps at the start of the dungeon Yeta could have also told you something like, "You look cold, how about you borrow some warm clothes. I think we have some in this room." She could open up a second path that leads to this item, and you would have the option to go get it or or proceed to get the pumpkin as the dungeon actually goes. You would have to fight some enemies and maybe solve an ice block puzzle or two on your way to the optional item, but then you would be rewarded with something like an ice tunic that halves damage from ice enemies and/or prevents you from being frozen. Also maybe the room with the tunic connects back to the path to the pumpkin but lets you skip a room or two along the way.
The last example just showed an extra item in a dungeon, but there could also be items that have no necessary use in a dungeon but could still help. For example take Dondongo's Cavern from Ocarina of Time. Let's say for the purpose of this example that you actually could purchase the bomb bag from the market in Hyrule Castle. Then maybe the dungeon item in Dondongo's Cavern could have been bombchus. There were a couple of instances where bombchus might have been able to help such as when you need to time the explosion of a bomb to open up a bombable wall by throwing the bomb. If the bombchu explodes on contact with a bombable surface, then these parts of the dungeon would have been easier with the optional dungeon item.
I realize that my examples aren't the best but use those as a jumping off point for imagining how this could work. Let me know what you think. Good idea/bad idea, you miss optional items from the older games, you like how the dungeons currently utilize items, etc.
Edit: Also who says dungeons have to only have one item. That is pretty much a given in modern Zelda games.
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