Water Temples : The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[AwesomeZeldaFan]

Water Temples - Some are good, some are bad and some just make you want to "RAGEQUIT!"

Ocarina of Time (N64) - Water Temple - The gimmick was good but some times, you go up and down lots of times and you get so annoyed. This temple can make you have to start the WHOLE GAME again if you are cautious and save all the time.
NOTE FOR DEVELOPERS : If there are TWO LOCKED DOORS, do not make it so you have to reset if you choose the wrong one. At least put another key if you happen to choose the wrong one OR put it so you can go into any door.

Majora's Mask (N64) - Great Bay Temple - You had to change the water flow using the Zora swimming. It was good but some times, it was boring until you got the Ice Arrows and the boss is FREAKING HARD!

NOTE FOR DEVELOPERS : Make dungeons less boring and more uses for the item. The mini - boss was good but make the boss easier.

Wind Waker (GC) - The Tower of Gods was partly a water temple at the start where the FREAKING water rises and lowers it self.

NOTE FOR DEVELOPERS : Good going but this game didn't need a water temple because YOU SAIL THE SEA!

Twilight Princess (GC/Wii) - Lakebed Temple - You have to direct the water and rise it in the main room. It was good and I loved the whole thing.

NOTE FOR DEVELOPERS : GOOD GOING!

Skyward Sword - Ancient Cistern - This dungeon is FREAKING AWESOME! Nuff said.

 

[Big Octo]

Well, here we go for the umpteenth time.

The Good:

• Water Temple (OoT)- I find this dungeon to actually be enjoyable, and the the difficulty isn't as hard-pressed (to me) as people think. Finding the keys and changing the water level wasn't a grueling task.
• Ancient Cistern (SS)- Not a very difficult dungeon, but still worthy to mention. The water segments weren't very challenging, but were amended by the basement portions. As for the dungeon itself, good show.

The Bad:

• Lakebed Temple (TP)- Now, here's where the branded difficulty of Water dungeons picks up. Through the good number of TP play throughs I've done, I still find myself stumped, mainly with correctly positioning the stairs to direct the water flow, or to acsess another area. Though, with the previous dungeons stated, I still enjoyed it.

The Ugly:

• Greatbay Temple (MM)- Oh my, the time consuming nature of this dungeon. I find this mainly due to its universal challenge, as there are many things to take into account while playing through. First, one must know the direction of the general water flow and what passages they can enter. At first, this is simple to follow by, but changing it back and forth will surely mess with their thought process. Along with the directional flow, forgetting to activate a pipe or not knowing that they have multiple switches can be a genuine pain. Yet, as you may have guessed, I still enjoyed the dungeon.

From reading the above, it's obvious that this categorization is based on the level of difficulty and not the the quality of the dungeons. I'm not counting the Tower of the Gods as a water dungeon, mainly because I don't base most its difficulty on the water segment.

 

[Ventus]

The Good:

• Water Temple (OoT) - While maintaining an interior structure that allows for even the most advanced player to get lost, OoT's water temple allows for extreme planning and of course testing of routes and all that to become essentially useful. With the exception of the Forest Temple, one LIKELY didn't have to plan all too much within OoT because they knew for a fact what lied beyond that one door, things were relatively straightforward. OoT, though, allowed for new depths within puzzles to be tread, which is a great thing in my opinion.
• Great Bay Temple (MM) - I admit, changing the flow of the water was tedious. Perhaps more tedious than changing the water levels of the original Water Temple, perhaps less. However, with this interesting mechanic it made it so that exploring new heights and new rooms was like going into wonderland. Like it's elder brother, making paths and testing routes was beneficial to the player due to Great Bay not being so straightforward. The only thing it suffers from, personally, is a less than amazing set of enemies.

The Bad:

• Ancient Cistern (SS) - This dungeon was a throwback to the good ol' days of OoT, however the difficulty of the water portion doesn't live up even to the Lakebed Temple. The thing that keeps it from being downright ugly, aside from the boss, is the interesting mechanics of the Whip used in a 3D Zelda.

The Ugly:

• Lakebed Temple (TP) - Changing the direction of the water, akin to Great Bay Temple, wasn't all too tedious. However, due to a rather large dungeon, lack of decent enemies and puzzles that weren't all that inspired, I hafta say that Lakebed is ugly.

/myopinion

 

[sonseray]

Good:
Great Bay Temple- One of my favorite dungeons ever. I never really got stuck, and I really enjoyed changing the water flow. It was action packed, with two great mini bosses, both of who were a pretty big challenge for me, and in my opinion, had the hardest boss of any 3d zelda, period (I haven't played wind-waker though). That's a good thing, by the way, not a bad thing

Lakebed temple- Great dungeon. Challenging, but manageable with some really awesome puzzles. Had a decent boss, too.


The OK- Ancient cistern

The boss and the hell portion prevent it from being downright awful, but the first half of the temple was really dull.


Bad:

Water temple (oot)- Not hard so much as incredibly, incredibly, incredibly poorly designed. It might be better in the 3ds remake, I haven't played it. Here are the three main problems with it

1. The iron boots. Seriously, why weren't these an item? That was just really stupid. It took forever to get these on and off, and you had to do it through the entire dungeon.

2. The dungeons puzzles weren't hard at all, but finding the keys WAS hard. Nothing is more irritating then completing the dungeon in half an hour, and spending the next 3 hours doing the entire dungeon over and over searching for a key.

3. While it wasn't possible to get stuck to the point where it's impossible to complete, like some thought, it IS possible to get stuck to the point where you can't complete it without dying. I was trying to do this without a walkthrough. After about an hour and a half, I finally took to the internet and found out it was impossible to complete without dying and going back to the beginning of the dungeon. Now THAT's annoying.

There was so much wrong with this dungeon it made me sick. It wasn't hard, it was just a joke from a design perspective.

 

[JuicieJ]

The Good

Lakebed Temple:

Taking what was frustrating about the Water Temple's design in OoT and fixing it (for the most part), the Lakebed Temple felt like a giant maze that required thought, but not so much that it was insanely easy to get lost. Use of the Iron Boots and Clawshot were also pretty fantastic, both getting a proper amount of recognition in the puzzles, and the swimming via the Zora Armor just felt great. Maybe a little clunky, but great nonetheless. It did often suffer from its hallways looking the same, much like the Water Temple did, but there were red and blue colors to help out, so it wasn't a nightmare for first-time players.

The enemies were also very strategically placed and used efficiently, something I don't feel any other water dungeon in Zelda can boast. Morpheel was also a pretty good boss to wrap the whole ordeal up, combining the use of swimming, the Iron Boots, and the Clawshot seamlessly. Not the greatest boss in Zelda history, and definitely not one of the best, but still a solid fight, which is, again, something I don't think the other water dungeons in Zelda can boast (save the Ancient Cistern). In my opinion, the Lakebed Temple has the best design out of all the water dungeons in Zelda. It's still not spectacular, but it was a good dungeon nonetheless, and that's what counts in this thread.


The Bad

Water Temple:

Okay, so this isn't exactly a bad dungeon, per se, but it's not exactly a good one, either. It has relatively poor design what with so many areas looking exactly the same, having to backtrack like a boss between these areas, and raising and lowering the water levels to enhance the confusion (different levels opened and closed certain paths). Nearly everything about this dungeon had nothing but bad conveyance, which led to its incredible confusion level. It's often overexaggerated by fans, but the complaints don't exist without reason. For first-timers, this dungeon can be sheer hell. I gotta give the 3D version credit for adding the lights to guide players to the areas where Link can change the water level, though. That would have helped as a kid.

Oh, and Morpha is a pretty lame fight imo. Just maintain a proper distance from the water arms, pull the nucleus out when it attacks with these, slash, possibly trap it in a corner and beat it quickly, if not, repeat. It was an utterly underwhelming boss fight for me, even as a 7 year-old kid. Not a terrible fight, but not a good one, either.

Greatbay Temple:

Yeeeah, again, not a bad dungeon, but not a very good one, either. Traveling back and forth between the rooms to change the flow of the water, tedious puzzles all around, uncertainty as to which paths to take... it just has overbearing design as a whole. While it wasn't exactly confusing -- I was never truly confused as to which path to take -- it's a real chore having to travel all over the place. I'll admit the Lakebed Temple had a bit of this, but it wasn't nearly as bad. The Greatbay Temple was just rather frustrating as a whole, whereas the Lakebed Temple was enjoyable for the most part. I'd say the Greatbay Temple has better design than the Water Temple, but it's still pretty unintuitive overall. Gyorg is also a *****. Just... yeah, not a good boss. Frustrating conclusion to a frustrating dungeon.


The Ugly

Ancient Cistern:

Okay. This is the only 3D water dungeon in Zelda that I would say has legitimately bad design. I wouldn't call it terrible, but, unlike its predecessors, it has more than just flawed and tedious design. It's just plain bad. The environment and concepts of the dungeon were great and very intriguing, but the puzzles were not. The puzzles as a whole were rather bland and unoriginal, which is strange, seeing as most of SS's puzzles were the complete opposite.

The swimming was rather fun, but it wasn't used very often, and, while the Whip was used rather well, it was severely limited and wasn't used nearly as well as it should have been. The use of the lower portion was also very skimpy and very pathetic. It had a very small part in the dungeon as a whole and it didn't transition from the top portion well at all. The Cursed Bokoblins also served a bittersweet role. They were pretty good in the sense of being in packs and taking a while to defeat overall, but they didn't play the role of being scary that Nintendo so obviously tried to have them perform. The dungeon as a whole just wasn't all that impressive. I don't hate the dungeon, but I don't love it, either, as a result of all this. At least Koloktos was one of the best boss fights in the series. Can't complain there at all.

 

[Makarthekorok]

This is in terms of difficulty and not quality

Good: Swamp Palace, Angler's Tunnel, Catfish's Maw, Dancing Dragon Dungeon, Temple of Droplets, Ancient Cistern

Bad: Lakebed Temple, Water Temple, Mermaid's Cave

Ugly: Inside Jabu-Jabu's Belly, Great Bay Temple, Jabu Jabu's Belly

 

[tysonrss]

Don't really know of any I thought were "good" in terms of what I liked. Though I did like the 3rd level in Twilight Princess. As for bad, that'd be Water Temple, Great Bay Temple and Jabu Jabu's belly, from Oracle of Ages. Out of the 3 of them, I don't know which ones I hate the most lol.

Oh, and Jabu Jabu from OoT is definitely ugly.

 

[Dragoncat]

Good:
Ancient Cistern(SS): I enjoyed this dungeon, and I like how it doubles as a darkness themed dungeon much like Shadow Temple. Puzzles were the perfect difficulty, even if I did go up a water geyser like 50 million times, without going anywhere, before I had to look at a walkthrough that told me to turn over the lily pad on top of the geyser. Derp...

Jabu Jabu's Belly(OoT): I wonder what the switches are in there...tumors or ulcers? And how come the wooden boxes, and Link and Ruto for that matter, don't get digested? Oh well, screw logic, it's Zelda! I didnt enjoy this as much as Ancient Cistern, but hey, it's a big stinky gross fish's guts. Gotta give Nintendo points for creativity.

Bad:
Lakebed Temple(TP): Was frustrating at times. The stairs didnt give me much trouble, but the spinning wheel rooms did. Kept falling to my death or wanting to ragequit because I was having trouble with the clawshot targets.

Ocean Temple(ST): None of ST's dungeons are very spectacular so far in my playthrough...the boss here is easier than the one before it in Snow Temple, but the wooden poles can sometimes be hard to cross.

Ugly:
Water Temple(OoT): Big confusing maze, that's all I can say...and having to put the iron boots on and off constantly gets annoying. Dark Link is a badass mini boss though.

 

[Emmanuel]

Just generally speaking, doesn't it seem that the water-based dungeons tend to be more challenging than ground-based counterparts? I think part of it is that Link is not as suited to moving in water as on land, the "order" of the temple is generally not as intuitive, and it can often be a difficult to get a good view or sense of what is going on around you. Does anyone remember the part of the water temple in Ocarina of Time where you enter the central pillar area from the bottom floor, and there is a place to pull you to a lower basement with your hookshot, but only when the water is at a certain level... it was so easy to pass right by it, but there was a key in there and you could not proceed without it. Lord knows how many times I ran circles around that dungeon trying to figure out what I was missing...

 

[The Jade Fist]

Good: Majora's Mask : Great Bay Temple, i loved this temple, and i loved everything about it, the last boss was kinda BS though in certain ways, how you can be behind it and it apperently still grabs you in its mouth and thrashes you about... ya gota love it when a fish can bite behind itself while diving forwards. But that boss fight was also fun when you actually got the ability to jump out of the water which is easier said then done. The temple water flow, despite it being a big circle that you have to go through 1 way then back around it was a fairly linear dungeon so its not easy to confused.

Good: Oracle of Ages : JabuJabu's belly

Good: Ocarina of Time : Water Temple, I liked it, only bad thing really being the iron boots, pause, unpause/pause, oh wait i had to use the hook shot to get out of the water here instead of floating up? And the boss was well the opposite of a threat. Target Practice?

Bad, Wind Waker, Tower of gods i guess counts, I got annoyed by the water level more then found it fun
Bad: Twilight: Lake Bed, idk it wasn't fun, mostly I find it annoying cause i wandered around for 2 hours trying to find a key I didn't even need cause the last door was for the boss and i had the boss key, and all the chest on my map still showed up cause If your wallet is full you put the money back and your map still shows the same chest.
Bad : Oracle of Ages :Lord JabuJabu's Belly

Ugly: Oracle of Ages: Lord JabuJabu's Belly, note how I put this for all 3. I love/ hate it so much. I got so lost and spent so long just trying figure out how to get back to the room to change the water level. And some times you flooded the room to swim across, or had to let the water out to push a block, don't know why the water in the room should change that or why link can't just swim over it if the whole area is flooded. But this dungeon i tell you, it was easily the most watery water dungeon in any zelda game.

Even worse when you have the the gameboy style maps that show only squares, so using it to actually find your way to the room to change the water level again, which took different routes when the water was at different levels. But on the same note, for any gameboy dungeon I think this one is more prominent in my mind. It just showed what a good job capcom actually did making the oracle games.

 

[r2d93]

Good:
Great Bay Temple- One of my favorite if not my favorite water dungeon. I didn't see why everyone disliked this dungeon so much. It was challenging, but the perfect amount of challening. I loved changing the spin of the water and while it sometimes became tedious, I thought it did it a lot less than the other water dungeons of the series. Plus I liked Gyorg and didn't find him suooper dooper hard

Swamp Palace- not one of the best but certainly not bad. a solid dungeon. not too hard, not too easy, decent boss, and very creative use of the great dungeon item, the hookshot

Ancient Cistern- very good dungeon. Looked amazing, fantastic boss, very creative concept of over + underworld. Only problem was that the item was mediocre, and it was rather easy

Catfish's Maw- (counts right?) good dungeon in LA. decently challenging, very creative sequence to get the hookshot, fun boss

Angler's tunnel- not as good as the others, but still good. this dungeon did a good job of evenly distributing work throughout the dungeon (that's how i chose to word it lol). It did a good job of unlocking the majority of the dungeon after getting the flippers

Bad:
Water Temple OoT- this dungeon would've been good if it didn't take so long. It really isn't super hard it just takes a lot of memory and attention. a lot of unnecessary memory and attention. plus i thought the boss was extremely stupid

Inside Jabu Jabu's Belly OoT- honestly this dungeon wasn't that bad but i wouldn't classify it as good. very creative location, just not fun nor interesting. and carrying ruto around everywhere was a pain

Jabu Jabu's Belly OoA- Oooh boy. Oracle of Ages was very mentaly challenging, and i will say without a doubt that this dungeon is the most challenging part of the game. It's certainly do-able, but OH MY GOD. i literally had a headache after completing this dungeon, changing the water levels was i thought worse than in OoT, and theres so much regressing and returning and water and swimming and gahh.

Ugly:
Lakebed Temple- one of TP's biggest flaws for me was the mediocre dungeons. to describe this dungeon to me in one word would be stupid. just stupid. great atmosphere, but stupid. you just simply go where you haven't gone yet, and occasionally return. directing water on stairs is creative i guess, but doesn't improve the dungeon. the water wheels make it obvious as to where you need to direct the water, but this doesn't make it easy. It's not hard either its just stupidly long. OoT Water temple was very very long too, but with reason. OoT water temple required much traversing, regressing, and attention. Lakebed temple was unneccesarily long. Plus, i thought morpheel was the worst boss of the entire game. Lock on, hookshot, slash. simple, stupid.

Mermaid's Cave- don't remember this one extremely well but i remember i disliked it. From the start i got confused and couldn't figure out what to do, and the past and present versions did NOT help. lots of unneccesary water and swimming (not underwater) and just agh. idk. ugly

 

[MW7]

3. While it wasn't possible to get stuck to the point where it's impossible to complete, like some thought, it IS possible to get stuck to the point where you can't complete it without dying. I was trying to do this without a walkthrough. After about an hour and a half, I finally took to the internet and found out it was impossible to complete without dying and going back to the beginning of the dungeon. Now THAT's annoying.

I know the Water Temple very well, and I've always been confused when people say they were permanently stuck. I'm virtually 100% sure you and I are correct in saying it's not possible to come to a point where it's impossible to complete based on probably 50 playthroughs of experience going through the dungeon in different orders. However, you're the first person I've come across who has said you can come to a point where you can't complete it without dying. I admit I definitely could be wrong since I haven't heard of this before, but I would guess it's impossible to ever have to die to go back to the beginning of a dungeon because you can play warp songs in dungeons and then just re-enter the dungeon. Also couldn't you just save and quit, or maybe I'm just totally misunderstanding the situation.

Anyways I can't really give a real response to this thread because in general I absolutely love every water dungeon I come across. I couldn't even place any in the bad or ugly category. The three I would say are the best are the three that involve complex global puzzles with water levels or flow- the Water Temple, the Great Bay Temple, and the Lakebed Temple. Each of these three dungeons made me have to stop and think several times about what I was doing or had to do, and I absolutely loved the challenge. I often complain about the series getting easier with modern releases, but the Lakebed Temple honestly has me puzzled no matter how many times I play it. That central room never fails to make me disoriented and I always second-guess myself about where I have to go to next. Also I must mention that I love the Temple of Droplets from Minish Cap as well even though it's kind of a hybrid ice/water dungeon.

 

[sonseray]

I know the Water Temple very well, and I've always been confused when people say they were permanently stuck. I'm virtually 100% sure you and I are correct in saying it's not possible to come to a point where it's impossible to complete based on probably 50 playthroughs of experience going through the dungeon in different orders. However, you're the first person I've come across who has said you can come to a point where you can't complete it without dying. I admit I definitely could be wrong since I haven't heard of this before, but I would guess it's impossible to ever have to die to go back to the beginning of a dungeon because you can play warp songs in dungeons and then just re-enter the dungeon. Also couldn't you just save and quit, or maybe I'm just totally misunderstanding the situation.

Anyways I can't really give a real response to this thread because in general I absolutely love every water dungeon I come across. I couldn't even place any in the bad or ugly category. The three I would say are the best are the three that involve complex global puzzles with water levels or flow- the Water Temple, the Great Bay Temple, and the Lakebed Temple. Each of these three dungeons made me have to stop and think several times about what I was doing or had to do, and I absolutely loved the challenge. I often complain about the series getting easier with modern releases, but the Lakebed Temple honestly has me puzzled no matter how many times I play it. That central room never fails to make me disoriented and I always second-guess myself about where I have to go to next. Also I must mention that I love the Temple of Droplets from Minish Cap as well even though it's kind of a hybrid ice/water dungeon.

If you get stuck on the bottom level without the key to the central pillar, like I did (I never bothered opening this) You have to die OR save and quit. You have to do something to get back to the beginning of the dungeon, because if you don't open the central pillar and you have all the water drained you can't change the water level. That's just poor design.

 

[MW7]

If you get stuck on the bottom level without the key to the central pillar, like I did (I never bothered opening this) You have to die OR save and quit. You have to do something to get back to the beginning of the dungeon, because if you don't open the central pillar and you have all the water drained you can't change the water level. That's just poor design.

You actually don't even need to open that door. From that position you can enter the central pillar by playing the Serenade of Water, re-entering the dungeon, jumping onto the second level of the central pillar, going around to the other side, and shooting an arrow through the torch into the unlit torch to open the door to the inside of the pillar.

 

[The Jade Fist]

Ya I don't see how you can actually get stuck stuck, but there was 1 dungeon that if you did wrong in master quest you would literally have to restart your file. The Spirit Temple in master quest if you pushed that block, before you shot the eye switch, you were down a key, and no way to get around it. Even if you pushed the block in the future, if you went back as a kid, the block was still already pushed down and blocking the eye switch.