• Welcome to ZD Forums! You must create an account and log in to see and participate in the Shoutbox chat on this main index page.

Temple of the Ocean King vs. Tower of Spirits

Mellow Ezlo

Spoony Bard
Joined
Dec 2, 2012
Location
eh?
Gender
Slothkin
The Temple of the Ocean King and the Tower of Spirits. Two dungeons that are both so similar and yet so different. My question to you guys is: Which one do you think is better? Which one executed the core concepts better and which one was an overall more enjoyable experience?

For me, I personally prefer the Tower of Spirits. I enjoy them both, as it's a really neat concept, but I feel like the ToS is more polished than it's Mercay Island counterpart. The Temple of the Ocean King is really repetitive, as you must redo each floor you've already completed on each visit which, though cool the first couple of times, quickly got really stale for me. On the other hand, each floor of the Tower of Spirits is only required to be completed once, which eliminates the repetitiveness of the TotOK, creating a more enjoyable experience. The Tower of Spirits is certainly easier, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, especially considering I often found the Temple of the Ocean King to be more frustrating than anything. It's also cool that Zelda can possess phantoms and help Link out with various puzzles and such.

But what about you guys?
 

Iridescence

Emancipated Wind Fish
Joined
May 11, 2014
Location
United States
I think most people would prefer Tower of Spirits, myself included.

Temple of the Ocean Kings was a good concept, and it did have good puzzles but the fact that you had to repeat the same levels over and over again contributed to why people didn't like it so much.
 

PhantomTriforce

I am a Person of Interest
Joined
Jul 12, 2010
Location
Ganon's Tower
I actually prefer the Temple of the Ocean King. The main reason I choose this is because the TotOK had a time limit, so it is much more thrilling for me to do this dungeon. The repeated floors did not bother me because you have new items that allow you to complete previous floors really quickly.
 

Pen

The game is on!
Tower of Spirits for me. I was always looking forward to visiting the Tower of Spirits after each dungeon in Spirit Tracks because the gameplay there was so different in a very fun way while using Zelda to posses the phantoms and whatnot. The Temple of the Ocean King felt too repetitive to me even though you could take shortcuts sometimes by using new items. Being on a time limit was certainly a neat feature in the Temple of the Ocean King, and I always felt super stressed while being there (of course most of the time I had plenty of time left in the end, but I still always get really stressed there). But yeah, I much prefer the Tower of Spirits because of the unique gameplay, the fact that you don't have to repeat certain areas the same way as you do in the Temple of the Ocean King, oh, and the Tower of Spirits has the superior music by far in my opinion. :nod:
 
I'm gonna be the odd one out here and say that I, in fact, preferred the Temple of the Ocean King to the Tower of Spirits. Well, first of all, TotOK came before the ToS, so I could explore it without feeling that it was a knock-off. The puzzles were better as well, in my personal opinion. I mean, yes, the Tower of Spirits had Phantom Zelda and the element of teamwork and that's rad, sure; however, having to retrace the floors in the Temple of the Ocean King with new items made it so you could discover a more efficient route each time.

The puzzles changed each time you returned with a new and the flow of having to advance from the ground level each time created opportunities for shortcuts moreso than doing only three floors at a time. I rarely used that midpoint in the TotOK--even though I could break enough yellow jars to have no time reduced at all--because stealing the key from the third floor and using it on a lower level was so time efficient and clever, that not doing it felt unnatural to me after a certain point.

There were a few things I did like about the Tower of Spirits; don't get me wrong. But the setup of it seemed out-of-place, and the presence of phantoms in New Hyrule still makes no sense to me. I voluntarily revisited floors with items to see if there actually were things for me to discover, and there were a few things here and there--mostly treasures and stuffs, but meh.
 

Ventus

Mad haters lmao
Joined
May 26, 2010
Location
Akkala
Gender
Hylian Champion
ToS > tok, simple reasoning: no pointless backtracking. It wasn't terribly difficult, but it was stimulating; TOK was a massive drag the whole time through and because of that backtracking, the later stages were not easily distinguished or even appreciated. I will admit that TOK was also stimulating, but if the drag was removed...it'd simply be on par with ToS.
 
I thought the Temple of the Ocean King was a lot harder than the Tower of Spirits, not just because of the limited time. The puzzles were more cleverly designed as well. The only part of the Tower of Spirits was the last visit to complete the final floors. Navigating the darkness was quite frustrating.

While I think the Tower of Spirits had subpar design, even for Spirit Tracks, not having to retread familiar ground was a burden I was glad to have off my shoulders. Even though it had inferior design, I have to give the nod to the Tower of Spirits for reducing my frustration with its predecessor.
 

Doc

BoDoc Horseman
Joined
Nov 24, 2012
Gender
Male
I enjoyed the Tower of Spirits much more. The varied phantom designs and their many uses with Zelda was something I found to be very unique. And you could always expect something new as you start each of the areas.

The Temple of the Ocean King was more difficult, I will give it that. But it all felt so repetetive. And not just because you were going theough the exact same floors over and over again. The puzzles were typically the same puzzles seen in a dungeon or something. The only real interesting part that I felt was something new were the echoing floors encountered in the later parts. Other than that, it was basic avoid the phantoms and use X item to do the exact same thing it did in the dungeon before you entered the TotOK.
 

43ForceGems

Quid est veritas, Claudia
Joined
Feb 9, 2010
Location
Magicant
Well the obvious answer is the Tower of Spirits, because you don't have to do the stuff you already did previously when you come back to do the next part. But... Honestly that's kinda why I like Temple of the Ocean King more. Because when you came back, you had new items that let you make shortcuts, things you looked at and wondered "What the heck is that?" and then you knew and now you could take a shortcut. And the more and more items you get, the more and more shortcuts you could take, you felt like you were actually getting better and you were excited to discover the new areas and shortcuts. Plus you were always racing a clock. And that's pretty fun
 
Joined
Jun 30, 2014
Location
Yes
Gender
Male
Tower of Spirits. Like many before me have said, the lack of repetition in segments puts ToS first by default. The time limit was also a large factor in my personal dislike of the TOK; not because it was necessarily flawed, but because it just wasn't a worthwhile addition to the dungeon, and it honestly just dragged it down. Completing a dungeon should be an exciting, sort of a "what comes next?" moment, but I knew, at the conclusion of each PH dungeon, that the same monotonous task was waiting for me on Mercay. that also rings true with ST, but certainly not to the same degree, and controlling Phantom Zelda really added a unique flair to the gameplay.

Aesthetically, however, I've got to give it to TOK; it was a very dank and dreary location, and that was excellently reflected in the atmosphere. ToS, of course, had the better soundtrack.
 

onebizarrekai

gay energy
Joined
Feb 28, 2010
Location
New York
Gender
Agender
I pick the Tower of Spirits for a number of reasons:

-It wasn't NEARLY as tedious. The Temple of the Ocean King was extremely repetitive because of the player needing to go through the entire dungeon every single time.
-The Tower of Spirits had its own music that was better.
-Phantom Hourglass's timer in the Temple of the Ocean King made that even more difficult.
-I kind of have bad memories of the Temple of the Ocean King.
(My sister got that game when it first came out, and me, being relatively young at the time, did not like the Phantoms and frankly found them pretty terrifying)
-Honestly, there were a lot of things in the Temple of the Ocean King that made it difficult in annoying ways.
-The puzzles were better in the Tower of Spirits. There were a few times where they could be kind of annoying, but for the most part, they were good. Though, it might just be because I like the puzzles much more in that game.
-... Finally, if you get hit by a Phantom in Spirit Tracks, you don't have to worry about losing like five minutes of time or whatever it was. I know I already talked about the timer, but still.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom