Tag: Dungeons

Although the Forsaken Fortress is first visited before Dragon Roost Cavern, I’m starting this series off with this dungeon and reviewing all the Forsaken Fortress portions at the same time during its revisit. Dragon Roost Cavern is the first full-on dungeon of The Wind Waker, with its predecessor being essentially only half of a dungeon, and one that deviates from the format of the rest of the dungeons in the game at that. As a result, while it falls prey…

When Nintendo announced that their mission for Zelda Wii U was to rethink the conventions of Zelda, I thought it was a bit odd they only listed two such conventions that they wanted to break away from: “Complete dungeons in a certain order” and “Play by yourself”. Granted, they did say that they started to do this with Skyward Sword (but weren’t able to do everything they wanted), so these are probably going to be included with convention changes found…

The final dungeons of the first three Zelda games were long, challenging, epic tests of the player’s skill and wit. So why is it that so often in modern Zelda, the final dungeons are abridged in some way? While maybe the trend started with Link’s Awakening, it’s pretty hard to call the Wind Fish’s Egg a dungeon, so let’s say it started with Ocarina of Time’s final dungeon: Ganon’s Castle. Ganon’s Castle wasn’t a bad dungeon, but it was by…

Here we are: Hyrule Castle, the last dungeon in Twilight Princess left to review, is so much of a mixed bag for me, you have no idea. And I don’t mean that like it’s got some good and some bad, so it just ends up being mediocre. Hyrule Castle has some really great aspects but also so many things missing, that while it’s good, I get a sense of disappointment when I go through it. But, before I discuss what’s…

Okay, this one’s a bit weird for me to review. The Palace of Twilight is the second to last dungeon of Twilight Princess, and like the true final dungeon, it’s a bit shorter and less impressive than you’d think; both of the game’s final dungeons dial it down a bit and are on the shorter, more straightforward side. On paper this is a lame move and normally it would be something I’d criticize the dungeon for more than I do,…

I’m going to give a heads-up on this one: Unlike all of my other dungeon reviews, the subject of this one is the only dungeon in the entire Zelda series I think I truly hate. I wrote once before that I’ve never had fun with it at any point, so while I will try my hardest to look for good things in the City in the Sky, this review is going to be virtually entirely negative. This dungeon represents nothing…

In my dungeon review last week I said that Snowpeak Ruins was the last dungeon in Twilight Princess that I had any personal fondness for, so you already know that I don’t particularly care for the Temple of Time. That’s not necessarily to say I find it bad, however. The word I would probably choose for the Temple f Time is… solid. It does its job, but it doesn’t really excel at it. I think that’s a little unfortunate because…

Ahh, Snowpeak Ruins… Time to review this unusual dungeon. Last week I wrote that I felt Arbiter’s Grounds’ level design was very unoriginal, mostly pooling from previous dungeons’ ideas and using its elements in uncreative ways (for better or for worse). Snowpeak Ruins is the exact opposite. It is completely nontraditional, both thematically and design-wise, and that makes it one of the most interesting dungeons in Twilight Princess. Unfortunately it also marks the last dungeon in the game that I…

My apologies for the delay in writing this review, but now I can finally cover Arbiter’s Grounds. Scary dungeons are common in the Zelda series, starting with Ocarina of Time’s Shadow Temple. The Zelda games have often had a single dungeon ripe with scary elements, and Arbiter’s Grounds continues this trend but combines it with multiple other elements, particularly those of a desert dungeon. But how does it stack up to other dungeons in general, scary or otherwise? Arbiter’s Grounds…

Ahh, the Lakebed Temple. This is the water dungeon of Twilight Princess, and the third dungeon in the game. Perhaps I haven’t been around different forums enough, but I don’t ever really seem to hear that much about this dungeon, and when I do, rarely very many positive sentiments. No one seems to really like the Lakebed Temple that much particularly. I think that’s a shame; I like this dungeon quite a bit. I’ve written before about how I think…