Ocarina of Time What's Good and Bad About the Water Temple?

[Flagpole]

I do really want to know your opinion about Ocarina of Time's Water temple, guys, seeing it is, for most people, one of the most 'puzzling and annoying' temples in Ocarina of Time, and maybe in Zelda history. Well, here's my opinion:

Backtracking and Puzzles

The backtracking is the temple's most solid point, and also the point in which most people complain, even more than the way in which you change your boots from the Kokiri to the Iron ones, and viceversa.
Maybe because I used a walkthrough when I first played it, or maybe not, I've never felt the Water Temple to be puzzling: I find it more of a trial-and-error temple, being the backtracking something very extensive, as missing a key causes you to level up and down the water levels until you find the one in which you can get a certain key. This kind of backtracking annoyed me a bit, especially because most of the times you forget about one key and incorrectly level up or down the water, and have to do all the water level process again, which is quite a tedious work.
As for puzzling, people just confuses the words 'puzzling' and 'confusing'. I can understand this temple having a lot of backtrack and being annoying, thus making it a tedious temple to some people, but definitely this temple isn't puzzling, it just has an extensive length, which includes quite a lot of backtrack, and it is very confusing, but by no means is it puzzling.

Iron Boots

The Iron Boots is almost unarguably one of the temple's worst point, having to constantly change your boots by going through the menu and chaning them, which takes a lot of time considering you only change your dresses.
I've also experienced the annoyance of the Iron Boots, and came to think it's the temple's worst part, though this is in my point of view.

Difficulty

The temple's difficulty has been argued a lot of times, some thinking the temple is easy to medium (like me), while the majority of people find it an insane temple with an insane temple, which is very tedious and annoying, finding everything in it to be insane (with the obvious exception of the boss, Morpha).
As stated before, I've found it to be a trial-and-error temple, not difficult but confusing and tedious and annoying.
This is a problem most people have: being confused about the meaning of 'difficult' and 'confusing' and 'annoying'.

Boss

The boss is what I definitely consider the temple's weakest point.
You have the confusing structure, the extensive backtracking, the annoyance of the Iron Boots... TO ENCOUNTER A BOSS WHICH IS A PIECE OF CAKE?!
Don't get me wrong, I love fighting Morpha, being it a very entertaining fight, but it's just to easy if you do the stay-in-the-corner trick, without touching the platforms at the middle of the room once.
Morpha may be hard if you fight with her over the platforms, but the room itself has too many flaws in it for the battle to be something hard...
Again will I repeat, don't get me wrong, i love fighting Morpha, but it is way too easy...

 

[Sstorm]

I personally like The Water Temple a lot for a few reasons:

1. The Music/Aesthetics: The Water Temple is one of the most beautiful looking temples in the game, and coupled with the amazing music from the temple makes it a great experience

2. The Difficulty: As far as fights go, the water temple isn't overly difficult, but it can be one of the most frustrating temples in the game. The puzzles are indeed challenging especially to new players and even seasoned players can still face difficulty or forget a key or two when going through the temple. Unfortunately Morpha is pretty easy and I agree with Flagpole that the room it self is possibly the biggest detriment to the fight.

3. Items and Their Uses: Well first off as Falgpole pointed out, switching the Iron Boots all the time is definitely not fun . However the idea of the boots coupled with the Zora Tunic is pretty cool. We also get the Longshot in here which I personally love as the Hookshot is one of my favorite items in the whole series and adds a level of convenience to the rest of the game. Finally we get the Fire Arrows after completing the Temple which are really cool! :p

Anyways like I said I love the Water Temple, and although it is not perfect it is still pretty darn great

 

[bbevington90]

The reason the Water Temple is so hard is that there's quite a few rooms that change based on the water level of the temple, and if you go into them with the wrong water level, you have to go back and change it and whatnot, therefore without a walkthrough it's extremely frustrating and confusing.

 

[KickinBird]

The reason why people thought the Water Temple was hard is because they tried it WITHOUT a walkthrough. If you used one your first time, I don't think you can really comment on the difficulty of this temple. That's just my opinion.

 

[Kybyrian]

The Water Temple may have been difficult, but I think it was enjoyable nonetheless. Just as long as you don't let yourself get too frustrated, that is.

The Iron Boots were a big strong point of the Water Temple in my opinion. Much of the temple was based around them and, of course, the use of the Zora Tunic. The combination of the two made for a very interesting dungeon. You couldn't use your items aside from the hookshot underwater, sure, but that just adds to the challenge if you find an enemy underwater. I'm not sure if there were any enemies under the water in the original quest, but I know in Master Quest I almost got beat down by two or three Lizalfos in one of the passages. It was a good thing to base the water temple around. The two were awesome together and made the perfect theme for an entire dungeon. Without them it wouldn't have been quite as good, in my opinion. They would have had to do something else with it. It would mean throwing out the water level changes and creating a whole new theme for the temple. If you think about, do you really want a plain old temple with a few lakes or something scattered here and there? I think it's better for the Water Temple to be based almost entirely around water. The Iron Boots and Zora Tunic combination were absolutely perfect for this idea.

The difficulty could certainly be frustrating, but all it did was require some in-depth thinking. You really had to survey your surroundings in this temple. Just go down and walk into a few of the tunnels or whatever you can enter at the time and seeing what happens. It was a lot of trial and error as I remember. Changing the water level and going to the area to see if you got it right. If you used good observation skills, you could eventually remember where the things were and how to set the water level throughout the temple. It wasn't too challenging if you actually thought through it very well and remembered what everything looked like. It can be intimidating the first time around and early on for later playthroughs upon which you forgot the previous one, but it still isn't all that bad. I think people just let themselves get too frustrated way too easily. The dungeon item also had a nice use to it in the final run, as well. I believe you used it to get up the waterfall to the boss room at the very end. I'm not entirely sure if this was just Master Quest, though. I played Master Quest the last time that I played Ocarina of Time. It also had a good use with the iron boots, once again, while going through the river part later in the dungeon where the whirlpools are.

The boss was also quite... interesting, I suppose you could say. Morpha was pretty unique. I suppose it could be a little challenging, but not too much. If you didn't know the strategy you could take some massive damage. At first nobody really knows the exact strategy to defeat the boss without a walkthrough, so it could be rather challenging on the first playthrough, but not so much after that. That's true with just about any boss, though.

 

[Flagpole]

I think I said something people misunderstood, or, most probably, I've said it the worong way: I have only used a walkthrough in parts I was really stuck, like the bombable dark wall, which I found to be strange, but almost no hint as to what to do there (almost only part in which you do have to think).
As for most of the temple, I knew you only had to change the water levels almost every time, but, as said before, I found it more of a trial-and-error temple than a puzzling one.

 

[tmiln15]

I have some good points and some bad points but it is not my favorite OOT temple, the forest and spirit temples are

GOOD POINTS:1 it had a calming feel about it
2 the boss was quite easy
3 not many enemies

BAD POINTS: 1 changing boots all the time
2 annoying water levels

 

[Cel-Shaded Deku]

The Water Temple is good in the way of music, easy boss, and challenge. It's bad because it's annoying to switch your boots and change the water level. The best thing about it (In my opinion) Is the battle with Dark Link. The worst would be the Tektites. Those little devils really frustrate me at times.

 

[Ice6661]

i like the water temple baisically for the fight at the end, but i will agree morpha is way to easy to beat
challenging level i will agree. but thats the fun of it right
and like others have said the music is pretty awesome in it to =]
i find its biggest flaw, was yes changing the boots all the time, so annoying the first few times.
this is my least favorite temple to do, but it could have been worse.

 

[Chubby Luma]

The Bad: The varying Water levels and confusing layout, the tedium of having to equip and unequip the Iron Boots, and the possibility of using a key on the wrong door.

The Good: The scenery, music, and bosses.

At least, this is my opinion.

 

[PhantomTriforce]

The Water Temple was a clever dungeon, sure it got frustrating at times, but it posed the challenge most dungeons in Zelda should have.
And I didn't find the boss all that easy, he takes away a lot of damage per hit.

 

[RyanP]

I actually like the Water Temple, it just needed a little patience the first time playing through it, but the temple isn't really difficult. The structure of it makes sense and it's actually a shorter dungeon because of the more extended 'sit and think' pauses you take figuring it out first time. The Dark Link fight is nicely staged as well. The only two gripes for me was the boss, which wasn't a particularly rewarding boss for a challenging dungeon, and the slightly cumbersome method of changing boots.

 

[OotLord1003]

Good: Dark Link, Long shot, and an awesome great challenge!

Bad: Hard to swtch boots, and rooms get confusing.