I played this when I was 7 when it came out, and remember having to get my dad to call the nintendo helpline, and a man patiently talked me through the water temple room by room, till I was able to find the key I was missing. 🙏 Thank you, extremely patient nintendo call center man.
My older brother passed in 2016 so I’ll never be able to ask him how he completed the water temple in 1999 with no internet guides or strategy book. I still have his file on Nintendo 64 and he definitely completed the whole game. Who knows how long it took him though. That’s the real question
@@ArrowPandaFode i was even younger, and i'm sure lots of people also were. it did take lots of patience but the game was otherwise so good it was worth suffering through water temple
Fun fact: Dark Link's health mimics your own when you enter the room, so if you enter on the brink of death he'll go down in a hit or two or he'll take awhile if you have full health. I always thought that was interesting
I have noticed. Eventually I learned to cheese him with the broken Gorons Knife, which he really could not counter. Although the Goron Sword is awesome too for cheesing that battle.
Every time I knew I was gonna fight dark link, I always made sure to have a extra magic potion with me, and the big magic meter. I spam Din's fire when I fight him and he literally cannot escape it, even when Dark Link tries to block it with his sheild. He goes down easily and no damage to Link.
This is partially true, Dark Link's health is in fact equal to your maximum health capacity. So if you have say 8 heart containers, it will take 8 hits to kill him, regardless of how much health left you have entering the room.
I actually beat the dungeon by using that and not needing the key i never could find in the beginning by jumping to the second level when the water was all the way gone
This temple always gave me a serious claustrophobic feeling. You're in this ancient man made cave buried deep underneath a giant lake. It's dimly lit, the corridors are tight and awkward, goddamn prehistoric crustaceans wandering around, oh and one of the rooms involves an existential hallucination. You can almost taste the stale dead air that's been sealed in that watery tomb for who knows how long.
I had the exact opposite feeling. What you're describing is how I felt about the Fire Temple. EVERYTHING IS RED, BROWN, BLACK OR ORANGE. BATS ARE EVERYWHERE. WALLS OF FIRE APPEAR OUT OF THIN AIR MAKING YOU TIPTOE AROUND. Narrow hallways with kamikaze pots and tilles, fire slugs that knock you from the high ground and into rolling boulders, lava everywhere, pits that drop you multiple floors down... I'd always prefer the Water Temple. It had few enemies, plenty of healing items, and just let you focus on unwinding and solving the puzzle.
EVERYONE would miss that key that's under the platform in the middle column of the temple. Where you raise the water the first level. Seemed like back in the day whenever anyone was stuck they always missed that key, thinking they couldnt beat it.
Bingo. The remake during the cutscene as the water rises, they have the camera show the area down there way more so you realize to go down there. That key was the only reason you'd get stuck running circles in the temple for hours.
Just replayed the game on switch and you're absolutely correct. The temple is not hard at all, it's just that one key. And honestly...I felt kinda dumb for missing it. You use the iron boots everywhere else but for some reason it just doesn't click in a players brain to utilize them inside the column. I think if the game was remade today they would do just slightly more to hint at that opening when the platform rises.
I always heard people say they got stuck and softlocked them selves with the keys, which I'm pretty sure is impossible in any Zelda game lol. That said, I also think it's cause people were like 10 and didn't look at the map lol
When my brother first played this dungeon, my sister and I watched and helped as much as we could as he was getting confused. This was our first Zelda and the third video game we ever got our hands on as kids. We developed a strategy of process of elimination and constantly checking the map. Checked all available routes on the bottom floor, okay move on to the next floor. It was a constant rechecking and reexploring that helped us and the satisfaction we got when it was beaten. When I played on my own, I did the same. During my childhood, I found this temple to be annoyingly tedious. But now that I'm older, I appreciate the design more and was glad I had a chance to explore.
On my first try I struggled finding the basement. I remember noticing the entry but from that angle it just seemed as a bottomless pit. Remember, in that era we were trained to avoid holes in the ground!
Or more aptly, as mentioned in this video, people most familiar with Mario and other similar platformers we're trained to avoid pits. For those of us more familiar the likes of Metroid, down was as equally valid a direction to explore as any other.
I replayed the water temple as an adult recently because I remember how hard I thought it was as a kid the pit was the only thing I found difficult. I assumed that’s just where the water drained to and I would die if I went down there. Other than that it wasn’t nearly as bad as I remembered
This is disingenuous to say; Link to the Past had various holes in the ground you could jump in. Some, you could see the low-res texturing of the floor below; these you kNEW were safe. Some were just a black abyss, which was dangerous and would hurt / kill you. But some.. Some were that same pitch darkness with something secretly hidden beyond it; and you had no way of knowing the difference.
I think the annoying thing was realising you have to actually memorise the temple’s design, not just blag through with your short term memory. And THEN the spatial reasoning is tested, if you’re into that.
@@kylehill3643 Link's Awakening had some of that with a dungeon with raised floor panels. Those only had two heights, but you had orange and blue, and raising one lowered the other.
@@marhawkman303 link's awakening dx (and Oracle of seasons) are actually why I didn't mind the water temple when I first played it, by the time I got to the water temple I was already used to pausing every 2 seconds to change equipment on account of playing the gb/gbc games immediately before playing ocarina of time. (And for link's awakening Eagle's tower is my favourite dungeon in the game)
@@jaidenbaxter1871 YESSS!!!! Awakening did that incessantly. pull an item, do a thing, swap back... sometimes during boss fights. Eventually it's a reflex.
It's more tedious than it is hard, having to raise and lower the levels, and then equip/unequip the boots. The remake fixed the latter part, and if you play the randomizer, they map the Ocarina and both Boot items to the d-pad, making it even better.
I didn't find the water temple too tedious (n64 version) I liked the puzzles, the dark link fight was cool, and I didn't mind the iron boots too much (cause I played Oracle of seasons and link's awakening dx right before ocarina of time so I was already used to pausing and switching equipment every 2 seconds) the only thing I really didn't like was the boss, they just sucked.
@superman2957 A randomizer is software that lets you download a new version of the game, where you can shuffle item locations and other things, making each playthrough unique. For instance, you might not get the Kokiri Sword for a long time, and have to use Deku Sticks or other weapons to get around.
I actually found it relaxing, just floating up and down the water. The Fire temple and Well were more frustrating/nerve wrecking (as frustrated as I could get from a game I adore) yes the boots issue was a tad annoying but not enough to ruin it for me
I think for most people it just sucked when you were searching for something specific, cycling though the water levels and pausing for the Iron Boots over and over AND OVER, only to find whatever innocuous item seemingly by chance. I had this issue even multiple playthroughs later.
It's my favorite dungeon in the series, it really was relaxing because there were barely any enemies and the atmosphere didn't give me dread, I could take my time without worrying what's around the corner.
The water temple is in my 3rd favourite dungeon in the game and I love it (I only played the 3ds version so I had a bit less annoyingness). The fire temple is my least favourite dungeon in the game it’s just not that fun for me and funnily enough more repetitive than the water temple for me it’s still fun but I just don’t like it much.
I actually compleated this enitre dungeon without the blue tunic by accident. I remember freeing the King Zora after finishing the Water Temple and him giving me the tunic and thinking "Man this would have been useful in the Water Temple."
I did that for the Shadow Temple. Didn’t know you needed the Lens of Truth so I just bruteforced my way until I was close to the end and got stuck, looked up what I was doing wrong and lo and behold, I was supposed to do a whole ass other dungeon first.
The water temple was always my favorite with the fire temple being a very close second. The puzzles, the mini boss and the hookshot made this temple the best imo. ooT has always been my favorite, hands down.
The basement key was the bane of my existence, the one and only reason why this temple took me hours to beat. I was cruising through with just that one tiny, easy to overlook detail holding me back. When I see a platform raising I don't look under it, I look at it because the moving object draws my eye; it took me hours to spot the hole under the platform. Nintendo may have put in a cutscene to tell players "look here dummy," but I can say I'm the dummy in question and I appreciate it.
What I found useful was setting up Farore's wind at either the Top Floor (Where you raise the water to the top level) or in the area where you lower it back down. That way you can skip a huge portion of the cycle by using Farore's wind to instantly teleport to the spot you need, saving quite a bit of time Edit: Guess I should have read the comments.. looks like some people already beat me to this x.x
I don't have concrete memories of my first time experiencing this dungeon, since I was so young. All I know is that I was fascinated by how it looked and sounded, and came out of it loving it. The 3DS changes were basically all the game needed imo, and I'm glad Zelda dungeon design has still remained very solid to this day despite the pushback the Water Temple got. Really good video detailing the dungeon, it's nice to get some really good retrospective on this type of thing. Not my favorite dungeon, but still a really solid one imo Also, another thing I'd always thought was hysterical to me was how the Master Quest version of the dungeon felt easier? I remember beating it first try with 0 issue or thinking, yet the Water Temple definitely left me stuck and lost in a few areas. It's crazy lmfao
Yes! The MQ version is actually easier. At least... that's how I experienced it. There's almost no keys and more option rooms. It's funnow how the Water Temple was nerfed for the supposed "Master" Quest.
@@MonsterMaze Shouldn't Dark Link be in the Shadow Temple where you ummm fight him in the dark? You'd have his glowing eyes as your only cue and Navi's glow.
@@kylehill3643 I personally think it makes more sense for Dark Link to be fought in the Water Temple. When Sheik first teaches you "Serenade of Water" he says "Time passes, people move... Like a river's flow, it never ends. A childish mind will turn to noble ambition. Young love will become deep affection. The clear water's surface reflects growth. Now listen to the Serenade of Water to reflect upon yourself." When you first walk into the Dark Link room, you can see Link's reflection in the water, but as you pass the tree in the middle, it will dissappear and, once you turn around, Dark Link will appear. The way I see it, Dark Link is the embodiment of all of the evil that Link has deep down inside, and fighting him is sort of a way of reflecting on those evil thoughts and putting them to rest, sort of like how Sheik said. I love the symbolism behind it, but on a surface level, yeah, it would have been pretty cool to fight Dark Link in the Shadow Temlple.
@@MonsterMaze in mq, i learned you never need to raise the water to the second level if you know what you are doing and you can get the small key before or after the longshot. one thing that is harder is that there is a stalfos trio.
I LITERALLY just did the Water Temple in OoT yesterday. The key in the hole under the floating block in the center pillar (spiked floor) was easy to forget
I have always maintained that this key is why most people hate the water temple. A lot of the backtracking and tedium people remember was probably trying to find it.
@@Rocpacci I agree, that was a good change. While it does take some of the magic of discovery out, like stated in the video, the amount of slow backtracking you need to do if you didn't notice it during the N64 cutscenes is very tedious. If they had streamlined the boots and water physics a touch more to make it less tedious, and shortened or removed the cutscene to change the water level, I'd be inclined to say it should have stayed the same as the original. On an unrelated note, one of the best changes that the OOT Randomizer makes is that all the boots and the ocarina are assigned to the previously unused D-pad, so you never need to pause to equip different boots or the ocarina. Probably the best QOL change in the game IMO
The Water Temple has been my favorite since the first time I played the game when I was in middle school. I love the atmosphere and slowly working through the dungeon learning the layout and figuring out how it all fits together is something I really enjoyed. Also never felt bothered by the Iron Boots. It's not much more tedious than swapping items around anywhere else in the game
You make good points! I prefer the 3DS version nowadays, with the exception of that one key they nerfed. But I also replayed the N64 version recently. I don't think I really noticed the Boots swapping as annoying when I was younger. I was too busy being amazed by the fact that this game exists
1- Farore's wind. Use it. 2- Get the secret scarecrow song. Move around faster. Including using the hookshot from the central platform to the triforce that influences the water. 3- Take notes. Mentally or an a paper. 4- Pay attention to your surroundings. Not everything is blinking neon lights.
Found it a little intimidating in my first playthrough all those years ago but got used to the way the dungeon works eventually. Great Bay Temple in Majora's Mask however, is a different story.
Great Bay Temple is quite interesting, because you only really have to change the direction of the water twice. It's not AS tedious as the Water Temple. But I do remember getting hella lost trying to find the Boss Room. There's something about water-themed dungeons that always presents difficulty xD
I played the games as a dumb 10 y/o and religiously checked guides on GameFAQs because I kept getting lost all the time and not knowing what to do despite having an okay grasp at English at the time. But that doesn't really count, what I'm gonna count here is my repeat playthrough years later as an adult, I don't replay these games enough and my first playthrough was basically me getting hand-held the entire way through. You could esentially think of that 2nd run as my actual first run on my own. And in said repeat playthrough of both games, I can definitely say the Great Bay Temple was far worse for me somehow. Swimming as Zora Link feels so much better and is infinitely more fun, but the central room with the water currents was pretty evil compared to the slow paced central room of the Water Temple. Though… Water Temple was slow paced to a fault. Echoing the sentiments in the video, I don't think they really tested just how annoying the boots were. If I replay OoT on emulator rather than original hardware, I'm gonna see if I can run Citra or find a mod for the N64 game to make the Iron Boots not horrible.
I loved the music in great bay temple, but I didnt enjoy getting lost in it as a kid. I played mm3d so it might have had updated gameplay mechanics or something to make bits of it less frustrating, but I wouldnt know. Still, cool ass music
Before watching the video, i can say that the water temple in OOT is not hard. It’s tedious because you have to constantly pause and unequip and reequip the iron boots.
Not to mention the tedium of changing the water levels - you have to find the place, equip your ocarina, play the song, wait for the cutscene of you playing the song, then wait for the cutscene of the water level changing. And then navigate to the next station and repeat. Especially frustrating when you realise just one thing you forgot to do, and now you need to go through the whole cycle again.
@@JennifuhhGilardi realize the difference in power compared to n64 and switch. Switching items takes a few seconds now. In N64 zelda games, this is a no-no.
I dont remember even needing to change my equipment, apart from the first time I ever enter the temple, everytime I replay the game I always prepare ahead for the temples, if anything the Shadow temple was harder for me, the atmosphere always makes me want to run away, I was so scare of it as a kid.
I was born after 2000, so I first played it on 3DS when I was like 15,16 years old, so I avoided some of the game control trauma of switching between shoes that was on N64, and was more capable of thinking with better game skill and experiences compare to a lot of people who first played it when really young. At the same time I claim I probably have some talent on observation and imaging how flat things come out when it turns into a 3D form. That means, while Zelda is my most loved game franchise and played almost everyone of them, OoT water temple is definitely one of my favorite Zelda dungeon. It just managed to use a simple mechanic to it's extreme and expressed it so well, with puzzles that are complex but not hard or out of the range of thinking like the eyes in Skyview temple of Skyward Sword.
This is a good analysis of it. Especially how you say simply inexperience with 3D games or even just Metroid type games where checking the map is frequent and necessary, is likely an influence in how some people had little issue and others had hard times. I had already played at least Link to the Past and Wind Waker completely before I played Ocarina, as well as I believe up to Gen 5 Pokémon games, so it was more straight forward for me even tho at the time I hadn’t played more open world or Metroid games yet. I think it is interesting to consider both one’s life, as well as gaming experience in having an effect on player’s perceptions of this dungeon. There is often many times where something is regarded as “bad” just because it’s new or unfamiliar, but with slight tweaking, it can actually be quite amazing and fun.
My dad and I worked together to complete this temple when I was a kid, so I actually have fond memories of the water temple. The only thing that impeded our progress was the switching between the boots. I know if I played this by myself though I probably would’ve been very overwhelmed LOL Also wanted to edit my comment and add that I enjoyed this sort of re-exploration of the water temple, and your defense of it. I’d love more videos going into details of dungeons like this.
I actually really loved the water temple the first time I played it. I could never understand why people hated water dungeons, but I think this video actually helped me better understand why people hate them. I never even thought about people avoiding the map, that was just something I did automatically. I always enjoy learning about other people’s perspectives.
After years of experience playing all the previous installments of Legend of Zelda I KNEW the tricks and to look for hidden stuff and I was tormented to no end in the water temple. 1) That water level thing becomes confusing if you lose focus for a moment. 2) That one key where you raise the water level and the block floats up revealing another path was sneaky af. 3) Imagine after that hell when you finally head to the boss room - those frikkin' slow moving spikes...😩 As difficult as it was - it was still fun.
Dude you should do other explanations of dungeons like this, going through and watch how all the water temples mechanics worked was neat, I'd love to see an in depth type of this like this with like the spirt temple or any other dungeons tbh
It would have to be dungeons from another game. There's nothing else in OoT that comes close to this level of complexity. Eagles Tower from LInks Awakening would be a good choice.
I remember, as a young kid, my friend and I were stuck on the water temple for over a month (this was around 2000, so no internet). Specificly, the part in the main room were the block was blocking the door on the ground floor and you had to raise the water levels. We didn't know there was a door there. I don't remember how we solved it (it might have been a game guide we read inside gamestop, although I don't quite remember), but I DO remember how hyped we were when we did. We felt so proud of ourselves, it's kinda sad how those types of moments are a thing of the past nowadays. It's oddly comforting to hear a lot of people also struggled with the water temple, makes me feel less like a fool.
Yes I remember doing this dungeon first up and got stuck trying to find the key to get further in the dungeon so I asked one my friends for help. He said oh yeah, there's the basement key. I said oh show me and he did. I fucking laughed when he showed me where it was and kept going through. Great dungeon. Yes I also got stuck again because of the cracked wall on the 2nd floor but quickly rectified that. It was an INTERESTING dungeon!
I think part of it might be old TVs didn't show that hole very clearly. and when you're trying to avoid landing on the spikes, you won't see the little hole between them. plus you just raised the water level, so your kid brain is like GO UP THERE'S MORE STUFF AVAILABLE UP NOW
The Water Temple is actually one of my favorite temples of OOT. I like when a game or stage is challenging. Yes, putting on and taking off the boots can initially be quite tedious but I got so used to it that it doesn't bother me that much. I think that nowadays people got so spoiled with the newest more modern games where everything is more comfortable, practical and everything is spoonfed to you telling you more than in older games what to do. And besides , older 2d games were so much harder and more difficult that in comparison playing the water temple is a quite a piece of cake😁
Today I would say no, but I have replayed the game dozens of times if not hundreds. But I do remember the first time I completed the dungeon with no help and why it fell so hard. In the center room of the dungeon where you are able to fill the water to medium level there is that platform that has the room under it. I got stuck because I was missing a key and child me could not find it. Never thought to look underneath the platform. I believe they addressed this in the 3D version by having a gate over it and you needing to hit a switch to open it. Purposefully drawing your attention to it.
Hardest parts of the game that I can think of: - knowing where to go to find the hookshot in the graveyard - certain parts of Jabu Jabu's belly. I can't remember exactly which parts - noticing the cutscene in the water temple where the platform rises with the water opening up a new passage -knowing to bomb that one unmarked wall towards the end of the water temple - getting the windmill guy to play the song of storms and flood the well. I didn't clue in that I'm supposed to hold up my Ocarina in front of him - placing the bomb in front of the rolling goron. It has to be very specifically placed and timed - Bongo Bongo
Jabu-Jabu's belly definitely had several kind of unfair parts where you either have to mentally juggle way too much (remembering which ulcer leads to which platform in a room) or you're given false hope about your ability to do a thing (a switch that requires a weight and looks ALMOST accessible from the platform you just rode up, so you might try it with Ruto). Top that with enemies that are straight up invincible til you get the dungeon item and a somewhat confusing mini-boss, and a lot of us had a harrrd time.
i tried so hard to beat that race against that running man, i couldnt find any solution and felt i was missing something. that was actually the most unsatisfying part of oot. took me 10 years to realise its a hommage to the running man in kakariko of a link to the past and this time you got no pegasus boots to beat him :D
I didn't have any real problems with it either, then again I wasn't a young kid and had been playing Metroid games for a while along with every other Zelda game I could get my hands on at the time so...
@@beee3339 the hidden but absolutely necessary chest in the tree in the very first room, the warped hallway being a cool effect, but a far less intuitive puzzle than the three water levels, the wallmasters grabbing you when you stop to get your bearings, the first really technically tricky fights in the game with the stalfos miniboss & phantom ganon...I found it a lot more stressful and difficult than the puzzlebox that was the water temple. Then again, my hands are shaky AF, so technical execution challenges like combat and platforming have always been way more difficult than navigation and puzzles.
Thank you for this trip down memory lane, sneakily combined with a walk through! I don't remember having too much trouble with the dungeon my first time back around '99. But Dark Link I sure had trouble with! Maybe the boss as well. As for the boots, back then we never really worried about it - it was what it was. One particular challenge was finding all the skulltulas!
The most frustrating part was the cave with whirlpools. Link can't walk up a slight slope underwater there. The main area with water levels was a puzzle but it's meant to be. Solving it is fun.
The water temple is more difficult than most temples because it requires more spacial awareness (finding that room under the floating block in the central room) and memory (knowing the path to the musical water level controlling spots and remembering about that bomb-able wall on the second floor). IQ has four substraits: memory, logic (which includes spacial reasoning), language comprehension, and processing speed. Most dungeons are only taxing on your reflexes (processing speed), and even that’s not too common. The puzzles generally aren’t too bad in other dungeons. Also, the iron boots don’t make the dungeon hard, just tedious.
Yeah that basement key was the only key I struggled to find when I first played. When I found the stupid room under the platform I was so mad because I didn't even see that whole. But overall it was super easy to complete and easy.
@@mattmatter5643 I was like 6 or 7 so wasn't exactly paying attention to the hole in the ground lol. I got all the way to the room right before the boss and was like what the hell am I missing.
In my opinion this water temple was easier than the one in Twilight Princess. Honestly I had to watch walkthroughs for both of them when I was younger though.
Commenting before watching all the way through: This was my favorite temple simply because I spent so much time in it that I developed an understanding of it, like some kind of weird gamer stockholm syndrome. I got very comfortable there. I remember being nervous because I felt very lost and all the websites were saying it was possible to be permanently stuck, but I didn't listen because I had the compass and knew there was an extra key the guides weren't mentioning, I just couldn't find it. But after persevering, I found a basement room with said key that no online guides mentioned. Ever since, I wondered if the water temple was never truly game-breaking, and so many people just ragequit at the prevalent rumor (?) that Nintendo put an extra key in. I've seen other posts with similar stories. That said, I fully understand why so many people found this temple absolutely infuriating. Finding that key in the bottom took so long-- 15:07 yep, that's the one. I also felt smart when I found it.
Use Farore’s Wind. A lot of the hallways are dead ends which will have you back tracking just to get back to the main room. Farore’s Wind will save you a lot of time back tracking and reduce boot equips. There are a lot of keys in this temple. If you are missing a key to a door, drop Farore’s Wind close to that door and then back track to look for the key. Lastly, Farore’s Wind can help warp you back to an upper level of the temple without having to raise the water level.
The water temple is definitely confusing but I loved it as a kid cause it fixes lake hylia which make me feel like I really did something. That was so cool. 👍🏼
after watching boss keys that is when i realized why this was the case. yes it is clunky and could use some polishing such as removing a few oversights but its complexity and verticality is what makes the dungeon really good.
@@drluigi8563 jabu jabu's belly is another example of great dungeon design but suffers from a poorly mapped feature (the mermaid suit). the water temple itself is not inherently bad with its level design but the problem is that it centers around a poorly mapped mechanic. oot3d was able to present what it should have been. eagle's tower in link's awakening's remake also fixed several oversights with the ball and making arbitrary push blocks unpushable. in fact, you could enter the one way door when carrying the ball and that made no sense. the remake added more consistency. its only overcorrections i can think of are the more detailed map design, additional cracks in bombable walls and combining screens for less transitioning (this sounds like a qol feature but it can also spoil too much information).
My most embarrassing water temple moment was after i got the longshot, i forgot about the song of time block behind the chest in that room and backtracked instead.
Thank you for bringing up the importance of checking the map to complete the dungeon. The Water Temple is the ultimate test of the player’s spatial awareness and critical thinking; as you said, you can’t just run around mindlessly hoping to stumble upon the solution. Instead, you need to examine the dungeon layout and choose the correct path. Every action needs to be deliberate and well thought-out. I didn’t even find it all that confusing, even on my first playthrough. There may be 14 exits from the central chamber, but as you emphasized in the video, only a few of them are available at any given moment. I actually think that the cyclical nature of the water panels (you have to go from 3 to 1 to 2, not from 2 to 1 or 1 to 3) further helps with navigation because it forces you to backtrack and become more familiar with the layout. Maybe I was spoiled by playing for the first time in 2020 when 3D games were well-established in my mind and I had been exposed to years of people complaining, but the Water Temple is actually my third favorite dungeon of all time, after the Spirit Temple and MM’s Great Bay Temple (which I would also enjoy a video on, should you want to make a sequel of sorts to this one).
The hardest part is the "hidden" key that I won't spoil. Otherwise the dungeon is just really slow paced compared to the rest. It's just easy to get distracted and lose your train of thought due to the constant pausing / unpausing to swap boots. At least on the original N64 Still a great temple, I love the idea of thinking vertically.
Something I love about the Zelda community is that even though this game is more than two decades old at this point, the memories of exploration and discovery are still so precious that we don’t want to spoil that excitement for first-timers!
@@MrDevintcoleman Hell yeah!! One of the best aspects of playing a Zelda game without a guide is figuring out the puzzles. No matter how old the game gets, I'll always encourage people to play through it the way it was meant to be. There was this one fellow who never played OOT before. I told them to give it a shot and not look up any guides. Every now and then they'd get stuck and I'd drop a vague hint. Long story short, they play through the whole game and they described it best: "I felt like I just watched a movie"
The "secret passageway" appears briefly in the cutscene after raising the water level. The reason most people miss the secret room is because they don't pay attention to the cutscene. I guess that's why they are unskippable.
@@Rocpacci WRONG!!! There is a cut scene. I just played it on my N64 a week ago. Maybe you should go back and play it again instead of spilling your lies!
When I played this level for the first time during my college years, it didn't stand out as being any more difficult than most of the other dungeons. It was ALL difficult to me haha. I did eventually beat the game though, so there's that.
I actually really enjoyed the water temple as a kid, the atmosphere, the music, the mysterious feel to it, I remember it was kinda confusing, but every small progression was so exciting. The water temple is definitely a top favorite for me. I also thought the Forest Temple was the most difficult dungeon to beat, that one stumped me for days! 🤷♂️
I had trouble with the forest temple my first time through as well. Couldn't figure out were to go for a good while. The water temple wasn't too bad, just had to look for where the locked doors were and weren't.
yh forest temple was worse for me too cos I had no clue u had to shoot those ghost frames 😭 At least this one didn’t have any silly actions like that u had to figure out to do, it was mostly just exploration 🤷🏽♂️
I love the water temple. Its freaking amazing... Gorgeous architecture, brilliant design, and great ambient music. Crazy that its only my 3rd favorite temple from the game. A testament to OoT Anyway, all the temples were a fucking breeze for me, even at 10 years old
I recently played ocarina of time for the first time ever. And I've always heard the water temple sucked because of how annoying everything about it is. But in all honesty, the water temple is my second favorite temple in oot. I love how complex it is and how much it makes you look around to try and figure out where to go. I admit I did get stuck once but that's because it was on me and not the temple. And for the case of the iron boots people are just impatient lol. I had no problem at all going back to the pause button. I love this temple :)
yeah, the main criticisms I've seen... and not actually that often, was that it's more tedious and dull, because of how puzzley it is. the real problem wasn't true difficulty, but how you had to find all the stuff and welll.... looking was not straightforward. Not really even HARD, just... not straightforward. Or so I heard, never played it. The most complex Zelda dungeons I ever played were in Link's Awakening. that mechanic with red/grey/blue floors that changed height... It made it more complicated than I'd come to expect in the game.
Did you play on N64... I hated the water temple back In the day because you had to open the start menu go boot page and equip boots like 100 times. In later additions it was made easier by being able to equip iron boots to a c button
@@beanbean9364 you sir must have way more patience then I did when I played the game when I was 10ish lol that annoyance has carried over to my 30s now
@@Ruinred honestly I think I do have lots of patience when it comes to something that doesn't really take long to do. Simply pressing the pause button and then alternating between the boots doesn't really take long. Even when I had to do it many many times on my first playthrough I was just having fun and enjoying the game.
It has always been my favorite of the OOT dungeons from the first time I played it way back in 1998. I couldn't have articulated it at the time but now I know it is because it is the most open ended and least linear of the dungeons in the game. Plus it has kickass music.
try swinging a sword or moving quickly underwater, the hookshot work like a harpoon... it's called immersion. the boots thing was annoying though and I'm glad they fixed it for my 3DS
This demon spawn of a dungeon, I still get lost when i go back and do a playthrough to this day. And break out in cold sweats, with every dungeon that brings me closer to having to face it.😂 Thank Jeebus for the internet.😂
So glad I first played Ocarina on the 3DS and didn't have to deal with the Iron Boots shenanigans! I got thrown off by the Water Temple, but for completely different reasons: I entered the Water Temple wondering when the heck I would get the Zora Tunic and finally be able to breathe underwater, not realizing until I looked it up online that I had to go back and unfreeze the Zora king! And then I got stuck in the Dark Link room, getting confused by it, wandering the temple some more, and returning several times before I finally figured out how to trigger the mini-boss!
Now I'm going to say some "blasphemies". Ocarina of Time was my first proper 3D Zelda game and I have to say, the water temple is the one I liked most. Yes it took me two and a half hours to complete but I don't know why, I had so much fun! Being able to manipulate the dungeon itself was fascinating! Also the music is great, the atmosphere is incredible, the mini boss is a masterpiece, and I've played the 3DS version so I could experience what I think is the better version of it. To be totally honest, what I did actually get frustrated on was the forest temple, and most of all, the Shadow Temple. I HATED the Shadow Temple. Mainly because I don't really like spooky things, I'm not a fan of that, so I didn't like the atmosphere. Also I'm scared of redeads because I cannot get them off me so I ended up playing the Sun's Song at least 100 times. Then I also died or got tired and stopped playing the game only to be dropped at the beginning of everything every single time and MY GOD THAT CORRIDOR WITH SPIDERS AND GUILLOTINES. I don't mind backtracking, but having to go through the same road again and again only to get to a point where you previously died, hoping that this time you will not die is something that I hate. And after that the name of the boss pretty much offended me, and I think it was the hardest boss on the game.
@@MonsterMaze that's true, but I'd rather get lost than having to go through the same road again and again ahaha. It's good that the game has something for everyone's taste tho!!
@@TheRealSephiroth I didn't find Twinrova and Ganon to be as hard, Ganondorfs tricky part was understanding how it worked and it required a bit of patience with the tennis game, but at least the arena wasn't trying to give you nausea ahaha
@@JustAWildSkullKid yeah ganondorf kept killing me cuz i didnt time the tenis game right but i never had trouble with twinrova the bitch of it was trying to get up that moving wall with spike kn the ends of it! 😂 the bottom of the well was a problem when i haf no idea where to go and no magic meter 🙄
I do remember getting lost the first time I played but after understanding how it was set up made the times I played after that was so much more fun and interesting. The factory level in Resident Evil Village kinda reminds me of the water temple because of the multiple ways you can go to the floors and the elevator can go to three different levels only accessible at specific points.
I've always loved water levels in games in general. Ocarina of time's water temple was really fun even if keep forgetting the same key on every playthrough. I think just being in the water is fun and calming and getting to travel through it is very fun. I know you can't really do that in ocarina of time, but I liked rolling through the water. Also I understand why the controls were slow. It would be harder to swing a sword through water than the air because water molecules are more packed than air. Longshot has an exception because of how it works. I've been waiting for the day that someone asks this question. You deserve a sub!
It's design is genious! All these mechanics, right placed roadblocks, hidden keys, and still making it impossible to get stuck anywhere! That is fantastic dungeon design!
I really love these panned out views of the temple, giving a better view of how large the temples are and gives a sort of awe to their ancient vastness.
I was EXTREMELY lost and frustrated with Water Temple when I was younger. I swear it had like 100 keys to collect! Now I find out that there were only 6(regular) keys? I never actually counted the keys
Yeah same here! I also never noticed that the Fire Temple had the most keys out of all of them. Doing research for this dungeon taught me quite a lot of trivia.
I love that the main stumbling block that most people actually have with this dungeon (the time block behind the longshot chest) you just completely gloss over. The camera obscures the block on a first trip, and when you get the longshot, the average player's first thought is going to be "oh boy, now I can reach that target in the main room, or that other one in the waterfall room!" And immediately be on their way, before completing everything available to them before going, "Hmm, can't progress any further, what do I do now? Well, there's that one room I haven't gotten to yet..." only to find the only logical path to it is the way OUT of the room. And then you're left confused, bumbling around looking for things, with a map that doesn't seem to help. The connection between the Longshot room and the water rapids room looks more incidental than anything.
THIS! This part had me stumped for hours as a kid. There is nothing that that brings your attention to the song of time block behind the hook shot chest and like you said the map only suggests trying to reach the rapids section from it's exit. They could have easily solved this by just making it impossible to leave the chest room unless you opened the song of time block.
First time was Hell underwater. Second time and the times after, takes 20 minutes to beat. That said, I love this level, it's design, the music, and the tone it sets. Very mysterious.
This temple's constant trolling of surprising you with a locked door at the end of a challenging/tedious room is what frustrated me the most. Of course, the boots switching as well, especially when the design exacerbated this by having a small notch that you need to sink below only to immediately need to float up again, for no good reason! Another thing that frustrated me a lot is how the enemy AI only considers horizontal distance and not vertical distance when engaging with you. So when you're at the bottom of the main room, the Tektites at the top will start chasing you even though you're far away from them and eventually they'll drop on your head and give you a heart attack. The worst thing for me though is how you go through all this tedium and then you get the most underwhelming boss in the entire game. The first time I played OoT, I was blown away by every boss up to that point in the game, as well as the dungeons, and was almost ready to proclaim OoT as better than ALttP but the Water Temple and its boss made me go "Nah, ALttP is still the better game".
I was around 8 years old when I first beat the water temple and didn't struggle with it once. The fire temple on the other hand I had skipped because I never figured out how to get the fire tunic from the little rolly guy in goron city. I believe that my temple order in the first playthrough was forest->water->fire->spirit->shadow, which is kind of an odd order I think.
Glad to see someone who understands this, you explained it perfectly in the video. I dont remember ever having a difficult time, I actually remember it being one of the most fun temples, if annoying as I do remember having to re-do the entire process to get the key...But that was my fault, the game is fairly clear on how everything works. But also I was a lot in to exploration and games that did metroidvania kind of stuff, so the checking the map and all was fairly natural for me. I can totally see a lot of kids not being used to that kind of exploration.
I beat OoT (the 3DS version) for the first time a few weeks ago, and I very much appreciate this level-headed look at the Water Temple! I had heard about it being so bad for so long, so I went in expecting some frustrating mechanic or inscrutable design, but I ended up really enjoying myself! I've always had a soft spot for water areas and the design of this dungeon is really clever, like you said. I enjoyed having to really pay attention to the temple's layout and overall structure to figure out where I was supposed to go next, especially since the game's dungeons only 'clicked' with me during the Fire Temple. It also definitely helps that I didn't have to go through quite as much of a hassle with the Iron Boots because of the 3DS version's item slots I do disagree a bit about the lines indicating the rooms where you can raise the water levels being unnecessary. While they're not crucial, I had to go through that cycle of changing the water level several times, so those lines definitely saved me some time and annoyance. The challenge of the Water Temple is supposed to be how the changing water levels affect which areas you can access, not changing the water levels, so it's helpful to let players know where they can do that so they can get on with the puzzlesolving
I’d say it was tedious, the fire temple felt more hard to me. The amount of times I forgot the one last key needed to get the boss key made me hate the water temple.
I actually always loved the Water Temple. Am I struggling everytime I play through it? Hell yes! But the temple really made Use of the 3rd Dimension and was a huge exploration game.
I found it difficult as a kid purely just because I got so disoriented. Going into the menu to take on and off the iron boots or getting distracting by killing something, but I did have undiagnosed ADHD so getting side tracked was something common in dungeons lol. But to this day the mini boss fight is one of my favourites from the actual enemy to the room it’s in! So freakin cool
yeh, similar here (autism/adhd). this constat swapping between short events while remembering all places and the current water level, was hard to me. When I forgot a key, I was often not able to recall the exact moment and have to do it all over again.
I appreciated that extra camera hint (around 15:00) on the 3DS version. Missing that hidden passage was usually the reason I got stuck in the dungeon. It was really easy to miss on a small CRT TV if you were playing with an RF switch. It hits different in high-res, but I was like 5 feet from a 19" TV haha.
Some companies have design documents that tell them how to design things. For instance, a game company might have requirements that puzzles have some type of audio/visual cues to help players find items related to the puzzle. "If a player's actions reveal a secret passage way, clearly show the location of the passage way to the player" is something I could see in a design document that would influence those types of decisions.
As a little kid I watched my older sister play OoT and she got stuck in the Water Temple. When I was allowed to play, I explored the dungeon and figured out it was stuck on that last key door before the boss key. I even figured out that said key must be behind the block which you can only move by shooting an eye switch on the second level. However, here's my problem: I didn't always watch when my sister was playing, so I DIDN'T KNOW you could change the water levels with Zelda's lullaby. So that safe file remained stuck forever. It was only years later when I started a new file and played the entire game on my own, when I got to the Water Temple and to Ruto explaining the mechanism that it clicked for me.
Man, I could not agree more. On my semi-recent playthrough, I was so impressed with the Water Temple. You can really see the thinking of having an entire environment that you can change to access different areas and actions reflected in Breath of the Wild's Devine Beasts. It's one of the cleverest dungeons in the series, and one of the most satisfying to figure out, putting aside the frustrating issues. Your analysis is spot on, and clarified my own thinking on it for me.
15:20 On my first playthrough, I found the basement right away. I found the dungeon to be incredibly fun beyond the boots issueb and was shocked to find out others hated it. On my second, much later, playthrough? It took me DAYS to figure out what I was missing as I ran in circles over and over. Missing that one little thing (the basement entry) increases the length of time to complete it *tenfold*. And it's all just running back and forth trying to figure out what nook or cranny you missed! The room-level duplication definitely made that worse too! I actually remembered that bombable wall because I immediately tried getting to it after lowering the water level by hook shotting and bouncing off the wall. Obviously, it didn't work, but it made sure that I remembered it.
When I first beat this temple by myself as a teenager (many years after I watched my mom play through it near release), I actually did get stuck due to that basement key. I was pretty determined to find it myself, but after spending two days looking for it I just gave up and looked it up online. Part of the problem is that I just never used the map at all, so I didn't even know there *was* a basement. In fact I had never really payed attention to the map or compass in Zelda games at all until I went back and beat Link to the Past for the first time, where they are essential. In most of the 3D Zelda games, they just never really felt necessary or useful to me, so I think I just forgot they existed most of the time. You can solve most of the dungeons by just bumbling around and doing process of elimination, so the it just honestly never occurred to me to consult the map, even for this one time where it might have helped.
it's really interesting watching this and reading the comments - I never had an issue with the block in the central room and didn't realise that was a thing that people got stuck on. what i did get stuck on (and feel like a dumbass seeing as no one else appeared to) was the hole in the ground after the chest that had the hook shot in it. I didn't notice it at all and went back the way i came as soon as i got the hookshot and gave up. came back to it a few years later (probably 11 instead of 8 or something) and realised my error.
This is the one that stumped me and a bunch of my Zelda pals for a long time. When I first played OoT I stayed stuck in Kokiri Forest for the first month because I couldn't figure out how to bust the spider web inside the Great Deku Tree. Finally figured that out then breezed through Dodongo Cavern, Jabu-Jabu's Belly, Forest Temple, and Fire Temple. Then I got to Lake Hylia and the dread Water Temple. For two years, at least an hour or two a day average, I tried to beat this temple. I lacked a single small key to get through the last locked door before the boss door. I knew exactly where it was, in the alcove high up in the whirlpool room, but I couldn't figure out how to get to it. Finally, a guy I went to elementary school with brought in the Prima guide one day and if I could have cloned myself and kicked my own ass right then and there I would have. In two years I never ONCE noticed the Time block behind the chest after you fight Dark Link. When I got home that afternoon I finished the Water Temple in less than ten minutes from system boot to collecting Morpha's heart container. Needless to say my Zelda buds felt the same when I showed them. We were all so damned mad but looking back now I find it hilarious.
Being a slog is its own sort of difficulty, imo. The combination of repetition and disorientation from being bounced around a bunch of visually samey (*especially* when you're under water) but functionally distinct rooms in a thousand different directions burned out all my mental energy as a kid. I had very little left for the command of spatial awareness and memory that this dungeon demands lol
Having no sense of direction, I got lost in every dungeon in OoT, so getting lost in the Water Temple wasn't frustrating. I found it funny that because I watched my brothers play it first, when Dark Link appeared, I just pulled out the Megaton Hammer and he was dead in 3 hits. Still makes me chuckle to this day.
I found this temple satisfying and fun and cleared it fairly quickly.. Once I figured out the basic idea my approach was to explore the branching paths on all three levels in a clockwise direction. As I raised and lowered the water. I kept checking each path, noting down anything strange. I found the central column key at the bottom because I used the fire arrow to enter on a higher level then used the boots to drop down. I had no idea this area in particular caused so much difficulty for people. The bit that made me go "what?" was when I reached the door before the dungeon key and there was another small key lock. Fortunately I had remembered there was a strange moveable block in one area, and I had already figured out I would need an extended hookshot to reach the back of it. The compass also pointed to one treasure chest left on the map. So I went there and immediately found it. 10/10 dungeon for me, but surpassed by the amazing water dungeon in Twlight Princess. I did wish to be able to switch boots using C like in that game. But it didn't bother me too much.
I never had any trouble with Water Temple. Until I watched this video, I always through people just missed how you can go down within the central tower by raising the platform up. The iron boots switches were a little tedious, sure. But you just had to explore and keep track of where you'd gone, and use the map when you could.
When I was 10 it was an incomprehensible maze that took me over a month to brute force my way through. Playing it again in adulthood, it is indeed that hardest temple but it wasn't that bad. It was refreshingly difficult and I wish every temple after it could have lived up to the same difficulty.
Nice video on this! Yeah, thinking back on it, I think a lot indeed had to do with player's low experience as there was nothing like Ocarina Of Time in that era. Namely because upon doing future playthroughs I noticed they went far quicker. But that first time just sticks with us I guess as even the mere mention of it or the thought of having to replay it gets people's teeth grinding. But on said repeat plays, I found a lot of the irritation is the Iron Boots being in the menu and water level changes because of how easy it is to miss or forget something. As you go, you sort of get in a rhythm of muscle memory guiding you to do each action so it becomes "less" of a hassle, but still came out weird as like you said: They had to have tested it and it was odd they would find it to be ok. Having the Iron Boots an item in the remake made a HUGE difference to it's flow. Plus reminding people of the path to each song helps as well so people don't take paths unnecessarily as those aren't marked on the map and it's easy to forget at first. People could write it down separately since they'd know by then that some key elements are unmarked I guess, but generally in game design it tends to play best when you have all you need from the game itself. Especially on a portable system where you might not have a notepad on hand. Then showing the basement hole in the remake was a bit of an embarrassment though, lol! Like, sure it's rather subtle in the original, but if they wanted to highlight it more, maybe just linger the camera there a bit longer so people are tempted to scan more with their eyes and not focus on the block or something. Not point the camera at the hole. Still, that's a pretty minor gripe in the big picture of course.
I played this when I was 7 when it came out, and remember having to get my dad to call the nintendo helpline, and a man patiently talked me through the water temple room by room, till I was able to find the key I was missing. 🙏 Thank you, extremely patient nintendo call center man.
My older brother passed in 2016 so I’ll never be able to ask him how he completed the water temple in 1999 with no internet guides or strategy book. I still have his file on Nintendo 64 and he definitely completed the whole game. Who knows how long it took him though. That’s the real question
I wasn't aware such a thing existed.
noob
@@Bassibasukkibruv he was 7
@@ArrowPandaFode i was even younger, and i'm sure lots of people also were. it did take lots of patience but the game was otherwise so good it was worth suffering through water temple
Fun fact: Dark Link's health mimics your own when you enter the room, so if you enter on the brink of death he'll go down in a hit or two or he'll take awhile if you have full health. I always thought that was interesting
I have noticed. Eventually I learned to cheese him with the broken Gorons Knife, which he really could not counter. Although the Goron Sword is awesome too for cheesing that battle.
Every time I knew I was gonna fight dark link, I always made sure to have a extra magic potion with me, and the big magic meter. I spam Din's fire when I fight him and he literally cannot escape it, even when Dark Link tries to block it with his sheild. He goes down easily and no damage to Link.
This is partially true, Dark Link's health is in fact equal to your maximum health capacity. So if you have say 8 heart containers, it will take 8 hits to kill him, regardless of how much health left you have entering the room.
The Dark Link fight kinda reminds me of a really tight PvP fight in Dark Souls, now that I think about it...
I found the megaton hammer worked best for bringing him down :)
I just want to point out too that using Farore's Wind at one of the water level switches really helps to minimize the backtracking.
o m g I knew that stupid rock had to have a purpose, why did I never think of this
I can’t believe I didn’t think about that
I actually beat the dungeon by using that and not needing the key i never could find in the beginning by jumping to the second level when the water was all the way gone
Speedrun strats.
Thank you! Finally someone appreciates Farore's Wind! Its actually super helpful!
This temple always gave me a serious claustrophobic feeling. You're in this ancient man made cave buried deep underneath a giant lake. It's dimly lit, the corridors are tight and awkward, goddamn prehistoric crustaceans wandering around, oh and one of the rooms involves an existential hallucination. You can almost taste the stale dead air that's been sealed in that watery tomb for who knows how long.
I had the exact opposite feeling. What you're describing is how I felt about the Fire Temple. EVERYTHING IS RED, BROWN, BLACK OR ORANGE. BATS ARE EVERYWHERE. WALLS OF FIRE APPEAR OUT OF THIN AIR MAKING YOU TIPTOE AROUND. Narrow hallways with kamikaze pots and tilles, fire slugs that knock you from the high ground and into rolling boulders, lava everywhere, pits that drop you multiple floors down... I'd always prefer the Water Temple. It had few enemies, plenty of healing items, and just let you focus on unwinding and solving the puzzle.
EVERYONE would miss that key that's under the platform in the middle column of the temple. Where you raise the water the first level. Seemed like back in the day whenever anyone was stuck they always missed that key, thinking they couldnt beat it.
Eh, I found it. I wanted to poke around the bottom, and I noticed the hole during the cutscene.
Bingo. The remake during the cutscene as the water rises, they have the camera show the area down there way more so you realize to go down there. That key was the only reason you'd get stuck running circles in the temple for hours.
Just replayed the game on switch and you're absolutely correct. The temple is not hard at all, it's just that one key. And honestly...I felt kinda dumb for missing it. You use the iron boots everywhere else but for some reason it just doesn't click in a players brain to utilize them inside the column. I think if the game was remade today they would do just slightly more to hint at that opening when the platform rises.
I always heard people say they got stuck and softlocked them selves with the keys, which I'm pretty sure is impossible in any Zelda game lol. That said, I also think it's cause people were like 10 and didn't look at the map lol
Yup that’s the only part where I got stuck.
When my brother first played this dungeon, my sister and I watched and helped as much as we could as he was getting confused. This was our first Zelda and the third video game we ever got our hands on as kids. We developed a strategy of process of elimination and constantly checking the map. Checked all available routes on the bottom floor, okay move on to the next floor. It was a constant rechecking and reexploring that helped us and the satisfaction we got when it was beaten. When I played on my own, I did the same. During my childhood, I found this temple to be annoyingly tedious. But now that I'm older, I appreciate the design more and was glad I had a chance to explore.
watching my brother struggle with this I didn't realize how much I had retained. beat like two temples for a friend one night during a sleep over
On my first try I struggled finding the basement. I remember noticing the entry but from that angle it just seemed as a bottomless pit. Remember, in that era we were trained to avoid holes in the ground!
Or more aptly, as mentioned in this video, people most familiar with Mario and other similar platformers we're trained to avoid pits.
For those of us more familiar the likes of Metroid, down was as equally valid a direction to explore as any other.
You are totally right. Pits = bad ^^
I replayed the water temple as an adult recently because I remember how hard I thought it was as a kid the pit was the only thing I found difficult. I assumed that’s just where the water drained to and I would die if I went down there. Other than that it wasn’t nearly as bad as I remembered
This is disingenuous to say; Link to the Past had various holes in the ground you could jump in.
Some, you could see the low-res texturing of the floor below; these you kNEW were safe.
Some were just a black abyss, which was dangerous and would hurt / kill you.
But some.. Some were that same pitch darkness with something secretly hidden beyond it; and you had no way of knowing the difference.
@@nickhabre2824 Considering spots like that do exist in the temple (vortexes) that's not an unreasonable fear at all
I think the annoying thing was realising you have to actually memorise the temple’s design, not just blag through with your short term memory. And THEN the spatial reasoning is tested, if you’re into that.
This is the TRUE New Adventures of the Time Machine memory sanctuary as you actually have to remember stuff!
@@kylehill3643 Link's Awakening had some of that with a dungeon with raised floor panels. Those only had two heights, but you had orange and blue, and raising one lowered the other.
@@marhawkman303 link's awakening dx (and Oracle of seasons) are actually why I didn't mind the water temple when I first played it, by the time I got to the water temple I was already used to pausing every 2 seconds to change equipment on account of playing the gb/gbc games immediately before playing ocarina of time. (And for link's awakening Eagle's tower is my favourite dungeon in the game)
@@jaidenbaxter1871 YESSS!!!! Awakening did that incessantly. pull an item, do a thing, swap back... sometimes during boss fights. Eventually it's a reflex.
Hmmmm
It's more tedious than it is hard, having to raise and lower the levels, and then equip/unequip the boots.
The remake fixed the latter part, and if you play the randomizer, they map the Ocarina and both Boot items to the d-pad, making it even better.
I didn't find the water temple too tedious (n64 version) I liked the puzzles, the dark link fight was cool, and I didn't mind the iron boots too much (cause I played Oracle of seasons and link's awakening dx right before ocarina of time so I was already used to pausing and switching equipment every 2 seconds) the only thing I really didn't like was the boss, they just sucked.
Didn't the 3D version also have the ocarinas mapped to a specific spot on the touch screen as well?
It did, but I love the randomizer way, since the d-pad is otherwise unused on the N64.
what is randomiser?
@superman2957 A randomizer is software that lets you download a new version of the game, where you can shuffle item locations and other things, making each playthrough unique. For instance, you might not get the Kokiri Sword for a long time, and have to use Deku Sticks or other weapons to get around.
The 3D models you used to explain the map and water level mechanics are amazing. They make it very clear what you're telling
I actually found it relaxing, just floating up and down the water. The Fire temple and Well were more frustrating/nerve wrecking (as frustrated as I could get from a game I adore) yes the boots issue was a tad annoying but not enough to ruin it for me
I think for most people it just sucked when you were searching for something specific, cycling though the water levels and pausing for the Iron Boots over and over AND OVER, only to find whatever innocuous item seemingly by chance. I had this issue even multiple playthroughs later.
It's my favorite dungeon in the series, it really was relaxing because there were barely any enemies and the atmosphere didn't give me dread, I could take my time without worrying what's around the corner.
The Fire Sage Room in Ganon's Castle is just the worst!
The water temple is in my 3rd favourite dungeon in the game and I love it (I only played the 3ds version so I had a bit less annoyingness). The fire temple is my least favourite dungeon in the game it’s just not that fun for me and funnily enough more repetitive than the water temple for me it’s still fun but I just don’t like it much.
I agree this one was probably my favorite with the fire temple being my least
I actually compleated this enitre dungeon without the blue tunic by accident. I remember freeing the King Zora after finishing the Water Temple and him giving me the tunic and thinking "Man this would have been useful in the Water Temple."
I just completed the temple during my second playthrough ever, and it's exactly what I did
Solidarity. However, I got a tip right near the end of the temple.. maybe 3 chests left! !
kappa
Don't believe you
I did that for the Shadow Temple. Didn’t know you needed the Lens of Truth so I just bruteforced my way until I was close to the end and got stuck, looked up what I was doing wrong and lo and behold, I was supposed to do a whole ass other dungeon first.
The water temple was always my favorite with the fire temple being a very close second. The puzzles, the mini boss and the hookshot made this temple the best imo. ooT has always been my favorite, hands down.
The basement key was the bane of my existence, the one and only reason why this temple took me hours to beat. I was cruising through with just that one tiny, easy to overlook detail holding me back. When I see a platform raising I don't look under it, I look at it because the moving object draws my eye; it took me hours to spot the hole under the platform. Nintendo may have put in a cutscene to tell players "look here dummy," but I can say I'm the dummy in question and I appreciate it.
What I found useful was setting up Farore's wind at either the Top Floor (Where you raise the water to the top level) or in the area where you lower it back down.
That way you can skip a huge portion of the cycle by using Farore's wind to instantly teleport to the spot you need, saving quite a bit of time
Edit: Guess I should have read the comments.. looks like some people already beat me to this x.x
I don't have concrete memories of my first time experiencing this dungeon, since I was so young. All I know is that I was fascinated by how it looked and sounded, and came out of it loving it. The 3DS changes were basically all the game needed imo, and I'm glad Zelda dungeon design has still remained very solid to this day despite the pushback the Water Temple got. Really good video detailing the dungeon, it's nice to get some really good retrospective on this type of thing. Not my favorite dungeon, but still a really solid one imo
Also, another thing I'd always thought was hysterical to me was how the Master Quest version of the dungeon felt easier? I remember beating it first try with 0 issue or thinking, yet the Water Temple definitely left me stuck and lost in a few areas. It's crazy lmfao
Yes! The MQ version is actually easier. At least... that's how I experienced it. There's almost no keys and more option rooms. It's funnow how the Water Temple was nerfed for the supposed "Master" Quest.
@@MonsterMaze Shouldn't Dark Link be in the Shadow Temple where you ummm fight him in the dark? You'd have his glowing eyes as your only cue and Navi's glow.
@@MonsterMaze - Lol, maybe it was nerfed as a reward for now-masters for surviving the original version. 😆👍
@@kylehill3643 I personally think it makes more sense for Dark Link to be fought in the Water Temple. When Sheik first teaches you "Serenade of Water" he says "Time passes, people move... Like a river's flow, it never ends. A childish mind will turn to noble ambition. Young love will become deep affection. The clear water's surface reflects growth. Now listen to the Serenade of Water to reflect upon yourself." When you first walk into the Dark Link room, you can see Link's reflection in the water, but as you pass the tree in the middle, it will dissappear and, once you turn around, Dark Link will appear. The way I see it, Dark Link is the embodiment of all of the evil that Link has deep down inside, and fighting him is sort of a way of reflecting on those evil thoughts and putting them to rest, sort of like how Sheik said. I love the symbolism behind it, but on a surface level, yeah, it would have been pretty cool to fight Dark Link in the Shadow Temlple.
@@MonsterMaze in mq, i learned you never need to raise the water to the second level if you know what you are doing and you can get the small key before or after the longshot. one thing that is harder is that there is a stalfos trio.
I LITERALLY just did the Water Temple in OoT yesterday. The key in the hole under the floating block in the center pillar (spiked floor) was easy to forget
I have always maintained that this key is why most people hate the water temple. A lot of the backtracking and tedium people remember was probably trying to find it.
I kinda like how 3ds gave you that cinematic to realize/remember that room is there. I’ve restarted my 64 before thinking I locked myself out of a key
@@Rocpacci I agree, that was a good change. While it does take some of the magic of discovery out, like stated in the video, the amount of slow backtracking you need to do if you didn't notice it during the N64 cutscenes is very tedious. If they had streamlined the boots and water physics a touch more to make it less tedious, and shortened or removed the cutscene to change the water level, I'd be inclined to say it should have stayed the same as the original.
On an unrelated note, one of the best changes that the OOT Randomizer makes is that all the boots and the ocarina are assigned to the previously unused D-pad, so you never need to pause to equip different boots or the ocarina. Probably the best QOL change in the game IMO
Fuck that key
The Water Temple has been my favorite since the first time I played the game when I was in middle school. I love the atmosphere and slowly working through the dungeon learning the layout and figuring out how it all fits together is something I really enjoyed. Also never felt bothered by the Iron Boots. It's not much more tedious than swapping items around anywhere else in the game
You make good points! I prefer the 3DS version nowadays, with the exception of that one key they nerfed. But I also replayed the N64 version recently. I don't think I really noticed the Boots swapping as annoying when I was younger. I was too busy being amazed by the fact that this game exists
You’re crazy 😂😂😂
@@MonsterMaze I still hate it but I like 3DS version better
I think this is one of the best designed dungeons in the entire series. I wish every dungeon had this level of complexity.
I just wish it didn’t have that one key under the platform in the middle that raises up when the water raises
1- Farore's wind. Use it.
2- Get the secret scarecrow song. Move around faster. Including using the hookshot from the central platform to the triforce that influences the water.
3- Take notes. Mentally or an a paper.
4- Pay attention to your surroundings. Not everything is blinking neon lights.
Ok dad
I found it really interesting a breakdown of a temple’s progression and mechanics. You should do the other temples
Mark Brown already did it.
Found it a little intimidating in my first playthrough all those years ago but got used to the way the dungeon works eventually. Great Bay Temple in Majora's Mask however, is a different story.
Great Bay Temple is quite interesting, because you only really have to change the direction of the water twice. It's not AS tedious as the Water Temple. But I do remember getting hella lost trying to find the Boss Room. There's something about water-themed dungeons that always presents difficulty xD
@@MonsterMaze oh god please no WHY ME!!!! AAAAAHHH
@@MonsterMaze Provided you know where to go, that is!
I played the games as a dumb 10 y/o and religiously checked guides on GameFAQs because I kept getting lost all the time and not knowing what to do despite having an okay grasp at English at the time. But that doesn't really count, what I'm gonna count here is my repeat playthrough years later as an adult, I don't replay these games enough and my first playthrough was basically me getting hand-held the entire way through. You could esentially think of that 2nd run as my actual first run on my own.
And in said repeat playthrough of both games, I can definitely say the Great Bay Temple was far worse for me somehow. Swimming as Zora Link feels so much better and is infinitely more fun, but the central room with the water currents was pretty evil compared to the slow paced central room of the Water Temple.
Though… Water Temple was slow paced to a fault. Echoing the sentiments in the video, I don't think they really tested just how annoying the boots were. If I replay OoT on emulator rather than original hardware, I'm gonna see if I can run Citra or find a mod for the N64 game to make the Iron Boots not horrible.
I loved the music in great bay temple, but I didnt enjoy getting lost in it as a kid. I played mm3d so it might have had updated gameplay mechanics or something to make bits of it less frustrating, but I wouldnt know. Still, cool ass music
Before watching the video, i can say that the water temple in OOT is not hard. It’s tedious because you have to constantly pause and unequip and reequip the iron boots.
Well you must hate breath of the wild with how often you have to pause and change everything, I know I find it tedious at times
Not to mention the tedium of changing the water levels - you have to find the place, equip your ocarina, play the song, wait for the cutscene of you playing the song, then wait for the cutscene of the water level changing. And then navigate to the next station and repeat. Especially frustrating when you realise just one thing you forgot to do, and now you need to go through the whole cycle again.
@@JennifuhhGilardi realize the difference in power compared to n64 and switch. Switching items takes a few seconds now. In N64 zelda games, this is a no-no.
I dont remember even needing to change my equipment, apart from the first time I ever enter the temple, everytime I replay the game I always prepare ahead for the temples, if anything the Shadow temple was harder for me, the atmosphere always makes me want to run away, I was so scare of it as a kid.
The only water temple that was difficult for me was Twilight Princess, I got lost a lot a having to switch the stairs everytime got to me.
I was born after 2000, so I first played it on 3DS when I was like 15,16 years old, so I avoided some of the game control trauma of switching between shoes that was on N64, and was more capable of thinking with better game skill and experiences compare to a lot of people who first played it when really young. At the same time I claim I probably have some talent on observation and imaging how flat things come out when it turns into a 3D form. That means, while Zelda is my most loved game franchise and played almost everyone of them, OoT water temple is definitely one of my favorite Zelda dungeon. It just managed to use a simple mechanic to it's extreme and expressed it so well, with puzzles that are complex but not hard or out of the range of thinking like the eyes in Skyview temple of Skyward Sword.
I started oot yesterday, then quit over the water temple, watched your video to cope, then you motivated me and now I made it. Thanls :)
This is a good analysis of it. Especially how you say simply inexperience with 3D games or even just Metroid type games where checking the map is frequent and necessary, is likely an influence in how some people had little issue and others had hard times. I had already played at least Link to the Past and Wind Waker completely before I played Ocarina, as well as I believe up to Gen 5 Pokémon games, so it was more straight forward for me even tho at the time I hadn’t played more open world or Metroid games yet. I think it is interesting to consider both one’s life, as well as gaming experience in having an effect on player’s perceptions of this dungeon.
There is often many times where something is regarded as “bad” just because it’s new or unfamiliar, but with slight tweaking, it can actually be quite amazing and fun.
My dad and I worked together to complete this temple when I was a kid, so I actually have fond memories of the water temple. The only thing that impeded our progress was the switching between the boots. I know if I played this by myself though I probably would’ve been very overwhelmed LOL
Also wanted to edit my comment and add that I enjoyed this sort of re-exploration of the water temple, and your defense of it. I’d love more videos going into details of dungeons like this.
I actually really loved the water temple the first time I played it. I could never understand why people hated water dungeons, but I think this video actually helped me better understand why people hate them. I never even thought about people avoiding the map, that was just something I did automatically. I always enjoy learning about other people’s perspectives.
I seriously have no idea how my older brother beat the water temple and the whole game in 1999 with no Internet guides that is so amazing to me
After years of experience playing all the previous installments of Legend of Zelda I KNEW the tricks and to look for hidden stuff and I was tormented to no end in the water temple.
1) That water level thing becomes confusing if you lose focus for a moment.
2) That one key where you raise the water level and the block floats up revealing another path was sneaky af.
3) Imagine after that hell when you finally head to the boss room - those frikkin' slow moving spikes...😩
As difficult as it was - it was still fun.
Dude you should do other explanations of dungeons like this, going through and watch how all the water temples mechanics worked was neat, I'd love to see an in depth type of this like this with like the spirt temple or any other dungeons tbh
It would have to be dungeons from another game. There's nothing else in OoT that comes close to this level of complexity. Eagles Tower from LInks Awakening would be a good choice.
I remember, as a young kid, my friend and I were stuck on the water temple for over a month (this was around 2000, so no internet). Specificly, the part in the main room were the block was blocking the door on the ground floor and you had to raise the water levels. We didn't know there was a door there. I don't remember how we solved it (it might have been a game guide we read inside gamestop, although I don't quite remember), but I DO remember how hyped we were when we did. We felt so proud of ourselves, it's kinda sad how those types of moments are a thing of the past nowadays. It's oddly comforting to hear a lot of people also struggled with the water temple, makes me feel less like a fool.
Yes I remember doing this dungeon first up and got stuck trying to find the key to get further in the dungeon so I asked one my friends for help. He said oh yeah, there's the basement key. I said oh show me and he did. I fucking laughed when he showed me where it was and kept going through. Great dungeon. Yes I also got stuck again because of the cracked wall on the 2nd floor but quickly rectified that. It was an INTERESTING dungeon!
I think part of it might be old TVs didn't show that hole very clearly. and when you're trying to avoid landing on the spikes, you won't see the little hole between them. plus you just raised the water level, so your kid brain is like GO UP THERE'S MORE STUFF AVAILABLE UP NOW
I felt genius when i was swimming around in that main room and saw the hole going down
The Water Temple is actually one of my favorite temples of OOT. I like when a game or stage is challenging. Yes, putting on and taking off the boots can initially be quite tedious but I got so used to it that it doesn't bother me that much. I think that nowadays people got so spoiled with the newest more modern games where everything is more comfortable, practical and everything is spoonfed to you telling you more than in older games what to do. And besides , older 2d games were so much harder and more difficult that in comparison playing the water temple is a quite a piece of cake😁
I'm so glad I first did this temple with the 3Ds remake. It made the n64 version so much easier. If I'm being honest it's one of my favorites.
Today I would say no, but I have replayed the game dozens of times if not hundreds. But I do remember the first time I completed the dungeon with no help and why it fell so hard. In the center room of the dungeon where you are able to fill the water to medium level there is that platform that has the room under it. I got stuck because I was missing a key and child me could not find it. Never thought to look underneath the platform. I believe they addressed this in the 3D version by having a gate over it and you needing to hit a switch to open it. Purposefully drawing your attention to it.
Hardest parts of the game that I can think of:
- knowing where to go to find the hookshot in the graveyard
- certain parts of Jabu Jabu's belly. I can't remember exactly which parts
- noticing the cutscene in the water temple where the platform rises with the water opening up a new passage
-knowing to bomb that one unmarked wall towards the end of the water temple
- getting the windmill guy to play the song of storms and flood the well. I didn't clue in that I'm supposed to hold up my Ocarina in front of him
- placing the bomb in front of the rolling goron. It has to be very specifically placed and timed
- Bongo Bongo
Jabu-Jabu's belly definitely had several kind of unfair parts where you either have to mentally juggle way too much (remembering which ulcer leads to which platform in a room) or you're given false hope about your ability to do a thing (a switch that requires a weight and looks ALMOST accessible from the platform you just rode up, so you might try it with Ruto). Top that with enemies that are straight up invincible til you get the dungeon item and a somewhat confusing mini-boss, and a lot of us had a harrrd time.
Bongo Bongo is easy AF. I beat BB in less than a minute. Git Gud Skrub.
i tried so hard to beat that race against that running man, i couldnt find any solution and felt i was missing something. that was actually the most unsatisfying part of oot. took me 10 years to realise its a hommage to the running man in kakariko of a link to the past and this time you got no pegasus boots to beat him :D
@@hartmutkern5966 yes running man was confusing af
I’ve been able to blindly help people beat water temple by just telling them to get the key in center room. Everyone always misses it
I never really found it that difficult or challenging, I found the Forest Temple and Spirit Temple to be more harder and more difficult
I didn't have any real problems with it either, then again I wasn't a young kid and had been playing Metroid games for a while along with every other Zelda game I could get my hands on at the time so...
It's just people mistake annoying with difficult. The 3ds remake fixed the issue by making the iron boots an item instead of an equip in the menu.
Forest temple is prob the easiest what you mean
@@beee3339 the hidden but absolutely necessary chest in the tree in the very first room, the warped hallway being a cool effect, but a far less intuitive puzzle than the three water levels, the wallmasters grabbing you when you stop to get your bearings, the first really technically tricky fights in the game with the stalfos miniboss & phantom ganon...I found it a lot more stressful and difficult than the puzzlebox that was the water temple. Then again, my hands are shaky AF, so technical execution challenges like combat and platforming have always been way more difficult than navigation and puzzles.
You're just being contrarian. Forest temple is almost completely linear.
Thank you for this trip down memory lane, sneakily combined with a walk through! I don't remember having too much trouble with the dungeon my first time back around '99. But Dark Link I sure had trouble with! Maybe the boss as well. As for the boots, back then we never really worried about it - it was what it was. One particular challenge was finding all the skulltulas!
The most frustrating part was the cave with whirlpools. Link can't walk up a slight slope underwater there.
The main area with water levels was a puzzle but it's meant to be. Solving it is fun.
The water temple is more difficult than most temples because it requires more spacial awareness (finding that room under the floating block in the central room) and memory (knowing the path to the musical water level controlling spots and remembering about that bomb-able wall on the second floor). IQ has four substraits: memory, logic (which includes spacial reasoning), language comprehension, and processing speed. Most dungeons are only taxing on your reflexes (processing speed), and even that’s not too common. The puzzles generally aren’t too bad in other dungeons.
Also, the iron boots don’t make the dungeon hard, just tedious.
Yeah that basement key was the only key I struggled to find when I first played. When I found the stupid room under the platform I was so mad because I didn't even see that whole. But overall it was super easy to complete and easy.
That hole was bull
Dude same 😂
In the 3ds version it’s way easier to see. I never really had a problem on 64 I didn’t realize soo many people got caught up on it.
@@mattmatter5643 I was like 6 or 7 so wasn't exactly paying attention to the hole in the ground lol. I got all the way to the room right before the boss and was like what the hell am I missing.
Did you play majoras mask?
In my opinion this water temple was easier than the one in Twilight Princess. Honestly I had to watch walkthroughs for both of them when I was younger though.
Commenting before watching all the way through: This was my favorite temple simply because I spent so much time in it that I developed an understanding of it, like some kind of weird gamer stockholm syndrome. I got very comfortable there. I remember being nervous because I felt very lost and all the websites were saying it was possible to be permanently stuck, but I didn't listen because I had the compass and knew there was an extra key the guides weren't mentioning, I just couldn't find it. But after persevering, I found a basement room with said key that no online guides mentioned. Ever since, I wondered if the water temple was never truly game-breaking, and so many people just ragequit at the prevalent rumor (?) that Nintendo put an extra key in. I've seen other posts with similar stories.
That said, I fully understand why so many people found this temple absolutely infuriating. Finding that key in the bottom took so long-- 15:07 yep, that's the one. I also felt smart when I found it.
Wait, what extra key?
NGL, for this dungeon i actually used the map and found out that there is a basement in middle this alone took a lot of time to figure out
Use Farore’s Wind.
A lot of the hallways are dead ends which will have you back tracking just to get back to the main room. Farore’s Wind will save you a lot of time back tracking and reduce boot equips. There are a lot of keys in this temple. If you are missing a key to a door, drop Farore’s Wind close to that door and then back track to look for the key. Lastly, Farore’s Wind can help warp you back to an upper level of the temple without having to raise the water level.
The water temple is definitely confusing but I loved it as a kid cause it fixes lake hylia which make me feel like I really did something. That was so cool. 👍🏼
The water Temple is one of the best designed dungeons in Ocarina of Time in my opinion.
after watching boss keys that is when i realized why this was the case. yes it is clunky and could use some polishing such as removing a few oversights but its complexity and verticality is what makes the dungeon really good.
good design bad execution
@@drluigi8563 jabu jabu's belly is another example of great dungeon design but suffers from a poorly mapped feature (the mermaid suit). the water temple itself is not inherently bad with its level design but the problem is that it centers around a poorly mapped mechanic. oot3d was able to present what it should have been. eagle's tower in link's awakening's remake also fixed several oversights with the ball and making arbitrary push blocks unpushable. in fact, you could enter the one way door when carrying the ball and that made no sense. the remake added more consistency. its only overcorrections i can think of are the more detailed map design, additional cracks in bombable walls and combining screens for less transitioning (this sounds like a qol feature but it can also spoil too much information).
Loved this breakdown
outstanding visuals, the representation of the dungeon is well done !
My most embarrassing water temple moment was after i got the longshot, i forgot about the song of time block behind the chest in that room and backtracked instead.
Thank you for bringing up the importance of checking the map to complete the dungeon. The Water Temple is the ultimate test of the player’s spatial awareness and critical thinking; as you said, you can’t just run around mindlessly hoping to stumble upon the solution. Instead, you need to examine the dungeon layout and choose the correct path. Every action needs to be deliberate and well thought-out. I didn’t even find it all that confusing, even on my first playthrough. There may be 14 exits from the central chamber, but as you emphasized in the video, only a few of them are available at any given moment. I actually think that the cyclical nature of the water panels (you have to go from 3 to 1 to 2, not from 2 to 1 or 1 to 3) further helps with navigation because it forces you to backtrack and become more familiar with the layout. Maybe I was spoiled by playing for the first time in 2020 when 3D games were well-established in my mind and I had been exposed to years of people complaining, but the Water Temple is actually my third favorite dungeon of all time, after the Spirit Temple and MM’s Great Bay Temple (which I would also enjoy a video on, should you want to make a sequel of sorts to this one).
The hardest part is the "hidden" key that I won't spoil. Otherwise the dungeon is just really slow paced compared to the rest.
It's just easy to get distracted and lose your train of thought due to the constant pausing / unpausing to swap boots.
At least on the original N64
Still a great temple, I love the idea of thinking vertically.
Something I love about the Zelda community is that even though this game is more than two decades old at this point, the memories of exploration and discovery are still so precious that we don’t want to spoil that excitement for first-timers!
@@MrDevintcoleman Hell yeah!! One of the best aspects of playing a Zelda game without a guide is figuring out the puzzles.
No matter how old the game gets, I'll always encourage people to play through it the way it was meant to be.
There was this one fellow who never played OOT before. I told them to give it a shot and not look up any guides.
Every now and then they'd get stuck and I'd drop a vague hint.
Long story short, they play through the whole game and they described it best:
"I felt like I just watched a movie"
The "secret passageway" appears briefly in the cutscene after raising the water level. The reason most people miss the secret room is because they don't pay attention to the cutscene. I guess that's why they are unskippable.
@@misterkaos.357 also in the 64 (and I think GameCube) there is no cinematic.
@@Rocpacci WRONG!!! There is a cut scene. I just played it on my N64 a week ago. Maybe you should go back and play it again instead of spilling your lies!
When I played this level for the first time during my college years, it didn't stand out as being any more difficult than most of the other dungeons. It was ALL difficult to me haha. I did eventually beat the game though, so there's that.
I actually really enjoyed the water temple as a kid, the atmosphere, the music, the mysterious feel to it, I remember it was kinda confusing, but every small progression was so exciting. The water temple is definitely a top favorite for me. I also thought the Forest Temple was the most difficult dungeon to beat, that one stumped me for days! 🤷♂️
I had trouble with the forest temple my first time through as well. Couldn't figure out were to go for a good while. The water temple wasn't too bad, just had to look for where the locked doors were and weren't.
yh forest temple was worse for me too cos I had no clue u had to shoot those ghost frames 😭
At least this one didn’t have any silly actions like that u had to figure out to do, it was mostly just exploration 🤷🏽♂️
I love the water temple. Its freaking amazing... Gorgeous architecture, brilliant design, and great ambient music. Crazy that its only my 3rd favorite temple from the game. A testament to OoT
Anyway, all the temples were a fucking breeze for me, even at 10 years old
I played oot for the first time when I was 20, and was already a seasoned 3-d videogame player. I can confirm that this level was some bullllshiiiit
I recently played ocarina of time for the first time ever. And I've always heard the water temple sucked because of how annoying everything about it is. But in all honesty, the water temple is my second favorite temple in oot. I love how complex it is and how much it makes you look around to try and figure out where to go. I admit I did get stuck once but that's because it was on me and not the temple. And for the case of the iron boots people are just impatient lol. I had no problem at all going back to the pause button. I love this temple :)
yeah, the main criticisms I've seen... and not actually that often, was that it's more tedious and dull, because of how puzzley it is. the real problem wasn't true difficulty, but how you had to find all the stuff and welll.... looking was not straightforward. Not really even HARD, just... not straightforward. Or so I heard, never played it.
The most complex Zelda dungeons I ever played were in Link's Awakening. that mechanic with red/grey/blue floors that changed height... It made it more complicated than I'd come to expect in the game.
Did you play on N64... I hated the water temple back In the day because you had to open the start menu go boot page and equip boots like 100 times. In later additions it was made easier by being able to equip iron boots to a c button
@@Ruinred I did play the N64 version. Wasn't a bother to me at all :)
@@beanbean9364 you sir must have way more patience then I did when I played the game when I was 10ish lol that annoyance has carried over to my 30s now
@@Ruinred honestly I think I do have lots of patience when it comes to something that doesn't really take long to do. Simply pressing the pause button and then alternating between the boots doesn't really take long. Even when I had to do it many many times on my first playthrough I was just having fun and enjoying the game.
It has always been my favorite of the OOT dungeons from the first time I played it way back in 1998. I couldn't have articulated it at the time but now I know it is because it is the most open ended and least linear of the dungeons in the game. Plus it has kickass music.
My dude.
This has to be some of the best production value I've seen from a channel with less than 100k subs. Major props!
try swinging a sword or moving quickly underwater, the hookshot work like a harpoon... it's called immersion. the boots thing was annoying though and I'm glad they fixed it for my 3DS
This demon spawn of a dungeon, I still get lost when i go back and do a playthrough to this day. And break out in cold sweats, with every dungeon that brings me closer to having to face it.😂
Thank Jeebus for the internet.😂
So glad I first played Ocarina on the 3DS and didn't have to deal with the Iron Boots shenanigans!
I got thrown off by the Water Temple, but for completely different reasons:
I entered the Water Temple wondering when the heck I would get the Zora Tunic and finally be able to breathe underwater, not realizing until I looked it up online that I had to go back and unfreeze the Zora king!
And then I got stuck in the Dark Link room, getting confused by it, wandering the temple some more, and returning several times before I finally figured out how to trigger the mini-boss!
What would be nice to have at Water Temple:
Changing the water levels at will.
Sinking and floating faster.
Full combat underwater.
Now I'm going to say some "blasphemies".
Ocarina of Time was my first proper 3D Zelda game and I have to say, the water temple is the one I liked most. Yes it took me two and a half hours to complete but I don't know why, I had so much fun! Being able to manipulate the dungeon itself was fascinating! Also the music is great, the atmosphere is incredible, the mini boss is a masterpiece, and I've played the 3DS version so I could experience what I think is the better version of it.
To be totally honest, what I did actually get frustrated on was the forest temple, and most of all, the Shadow Temple. I HATED the Shadow Temple. Mainly because I don't really like spooky things, I'm not a fan of that, so I didn't like the atmosphere. Also I'm scared of redeads because I cannot get them off me so I ended up playing the Sun's Song at least 100 times. Then I also died or got tired and stopped playing the game only to be dropped at the beginning of everything every single time and MY GOD THAT CORRIDOR WITH SPIDERS AND GUILLOTINES. I don't mind backtracking, but having to go through the same road again and again only to get to a point where you previously died, hoping that this time you will not die is something that I hate.
And after that the name of the boss pretty much offended me, and I think it was the hardest boss on the game.
Shadow Temple sure is spooky, but it's one of the easiest dungeons ever to navigate. It's almost a complete straight line ^^
@@MonsterMaze that's true, but I'd rather get lost than having to go through the same road again and again ahaha. It's good that the game has something for everyone's taste tho!!
@@JustAWildSkullKid yeah for me the bitch is rither shadow, spirit or ganons first boss fight in the tower everything else its nothing 😁
@@TheRealSephiroth I didn't find Twinrova and Ganon to be as hard, Ganondorfs tricky part was understanding how it worked and it required a bit of patience with the tennis game, but at least the arena wasn't trying to give you nausea ahaha
@@JustAWildSkullKid yeah ganondorf kept killing me cuz i didnt time the tenis game right but i never had trouble with twinrova the bitch of it was trying to get up that moving wall with spike kn the ends of it! 😂 the bottom of the well was a problem when i haf no idea where to go and no magic meter 🙄
I do remember getting lost the first time I played but after understanding how it was set up made the times I played after that was so much more fun and interesting. The factory level in Resident Evil Village kinda reminds me of the water temple because of the multiple ways you can go to the floors and the elevator can go to three different levels only accessible at specific points.
I've always loved water levels in games in general. Ocarina of time's water temple was really fun even if keep forgetting the same key on every playthrough. I think just being in the water is fun and calming and getting to travel through it is very fun. I know you can't really do that in ocarina of time, but I liked rolling through the water. Also I understand why the controls were slow. It would be harder to swing a sword through water than the air because water molecules are more packed than air. Longshot has an exception because of how it works. I've been waiting for the day that someone asks this question. You deserve a sub!
for some reason i found the forest temple the most frustrating, i think it was the music that did it
It's design is genious! All these mechanics, right placed roadblocks, hidden keys, and still making it impossible to get stuck anywhere! That is fantastic dungeon design!
I really love these panned out views of the temple, giving a better view of how large the temples are and gives a sort of awe to their ancient vastness.
After you figure it out, the temple is straight forward, and it's actually easy to beat it with an extra small key
you've never known true pain until you have had to do the water temple in a randomizer run!
I can relate to that ^^
I was EXTREMELY lost and frustrated with Water Temple when I was younger. I swear it had like 100 keys to collect! Now I find out that there were only 6(regular) keys? I never actually counted the keys
Yeah same here! I also never noticed that the Fire Temple had the most keys out of all of them. Doing research for this dungeon taught me quite a lot of trivia.
I think the Fire Temple had the most keys because of the locked up Gorons.
@@MonsterMaze because your joining tri force trends Trivia *secretly*
I love that the main stumbling block that most people actually have with this dungeon (the time block behind the longshot chest) you just completely gloss over. The camera obscures the block on a first trip, and when you get the longshot, the average player's first thought is going to be "oh boy, now I can reach that target in the main room, or that other one in the waterfall room!" And immediately be on their way, before completing everything available to them before going, "Hmm, can't progress any further, what do I do now? Well, there's that one room I haven't gotten to yet..." only to find the only logical path to it is the way OUT of the room. And then you're left confused, bumbling around looking for things, with a map that doesn't seem to help. The connection between the Longshot room and the water rapids room looks more incidental than anything.
THIS! This part had me stumped for hours as a kid. There is nothing that that brings your attention to the song of time block behind the hook shot chest and like you said the map only suggests trying to reach the rapids section from it's exit. They could have easily solved this by just making it impossible to leave the chest room unless you opened the song of time block.
First time was Hell underwater.
Second time and the times after, takes 20 minutes to beat.
That said, I love this level, it's design, the music, and the tone it sets. Very mysterious.
The graphic work and animations for this video are awesome! It really helps visualize it all.
I have just now gotten through the water temple for the first time and it feels so good!
This got recommended to me directly after watching TerminalMontage’s Water Temple video 😂😂😂😂😂
Yep
This temple's constant trolling of surprising you with a locked door at the end of a challenging/tedious room is what frustrated me the most. Of course, the boots switching as well, especially when the design exacerbated this by having a small notch that you need to sink below only to immediately need to float up again, for no good reason!
Another thing that frustrated me a lot is how the enemy AI only considers horizontal distance and not vertical distance when engaging with you. So when you're at the bottom of the main room, the Tektites at the top will start chasing you even though you're far away from them and eventually they'll drop on your head and give you a heart attack.
The worst thing for me though is how you go through all this tedium and then you get the most underwhelming boss in the entire game. The first time I played OoT, I was blown away by every boss up to that point in the game, as well as the dungeons, and was almost ready to proclaim OoT as better than ALttP but the Water Temple and its boss made me go "Nah, ALttP is still the better game".
I was around 8 years old when I first beat the water temple and didn't struggle with it once. The fire temple on the other hand I had skipped because I never figured out how to get the fire tunic from the little rolly guy in goron city. I believe that my temple order in the first playthrough was forest->water->fire->spirit->shadow, which is kind of an odd order I think.
Glad to see someone who understands this, you explained it perfectly in the video.
I dont remember ever having a difficult time, I actually remember it being one of the most fun temples, if annoying as I do remember having to re-do the entire process to get the key...But that was my fault, the game is fairly clear on how everything works.
But also I was a lot in to exploration and games that did metroidvania kind of stuff, so the checking the map and all was fairly natural for me. I can totally see a lot of kids not being used to that kind of exploration.
I beat OoT (the 3DS version) for the first time a few weeks ago, and I very much appreciate this level-headed look at the Water Temple! I had heard about it being so bad for so long, so I went in expecting some frustrating mechanic or inscrutable design, but I ended up really enjoying myself!
I've always had a soft spot for water areas and the design of this dungeon is really clever, like you said. I enjoyed having to really pay attention to the temple's layout and overall structure to figure out where I was supposed to go next, especially since the game's dungeons only 'clicked' with me during the Fire Temple. It also definitely helps that I didn't have to go through quite as much of a hassle with the Iron Boots because of the 3DS version's item slots
I do disagree a bit about the lines indicating the rooms where you can raise the water levels being unnecessary. While they're not crucial, I had to go through that cycle of changing the water level several times, so those lines definitely saved me some time and annoyance. The challenge of the Water Temple is supposed to be how the changing water levels affect which areas you can access, not changing the water levels, so it's helpful to let players know where they can do that so they can get on with the puzzlesolving
I’d say it was tedious, the fire temple felt more hard to me.
The amount of times I forgot the one last key needed to get the boss key made me hate the water temple.
Fire Temple was hard too but I always thought it was more fun. The Water Temple layout got kinda boring to me.
I actually always loved the Water Temple. Am I struggling everytime I play through it? Hell yes! But the temple really made Use of the 3rd Dimension and was a huge exploration game.
I found it difficult as a kid purely just because I got so disoriented. Going into the menu to take on and off the iron boots or getting distracting by killing something, but I did have undiagnosed ADHD so getting side tracked was something common in dungeons lol. But to this day the mini boss fight is one of my favourites from the actual enemy to the room it’s in! So freakin cool
yeh, similar here (autism/adhd). this constat swapping between short events while remembering all places and the current water level, was hard to me. When I forgot a key, I was often not able to recall the exact moment and have to do it all over again.
I appreciated that extra camera hint (around 15:00) on the 3DS version. Missing that hidden passage was usually the reason I got stuck in the dungeon. It was really easy to miss on a small CRT TV if you were playing with an RF switch.
It hits different in high-res, but I was like 5 feet from a 19" TV haha.
Some companies have design documents that tell them how to design things. For instance, a game company might have requirements that puzzles have some type of audio/visual cues to help players find items related to the puzzle. "If a player's actions reveal a secret passage way, clearly show the location of the passage way to the player" is something I could see in a design document that would influence those types of decisions.
As a little kid I watched my older sister play OoT and she got stuck in the Water Temple. When I was allowed to play, I explored the dungeon and figured out it was stuck on that last key door before the boss key. I even figured out that said key must be behind the block which you can only move by shooting an eye switch on the second level. However, here's my problem: I didn't always watch when my sister was playing, so I DIDN'T KNOW you could change the water levels with Zelda's lullaby. So that safe file remained stuck forever.
It was only years later when I started a new file and played the entire game on my own, when I got to the Water Temple and to Ruto explaining the mechanism that it clicked for me.
Man, I could not agree more. On my semi-recent playthrough, I was so impressed with the Water Temple. You can really see the thinking of having an entire environment that you can change to access different areas and actions reflected in Breath of the Wild's Devine Beasts. It's one of the cleverest dungeons in the series, and one of the most satisfying to figure out, putting aside the frustrating issues. Your analysis is spot on, and clarified my own thinking on it for me.
15:20 On my first playthrough, I found the basement right away. I found the dungeon to be incredibly fun beyond the boots issueb and was shocked to find out others hated it.
On my second, much later, playthrough? It took me DAYS to figure out what I was missing as I ran in circles over and over. Missing that one little thing (the basement entry) increases the length of time to complete it *tenfold*. And it's all just running back and forth trying to figure out what nook or cranny you missed! The room-level duplication definitely made that worse too!
I actually remembered that bombable wall because I immediately tried getting to it after lowering the water level by hook shotting and bouncing off the wall. Obviously, it didn't work, but it made sure that I remembered it.
When I first beat this temple by myself as a teenager (many years after I watched my mom play through it near release), I actually did get stuck due to that basement key. I was pretty determined to find it myself, but after spending two days looking for it I just gave up and looked it up online.
Part of the problem is that I just never used the map at all, so I didn't even know there *was* a basement. In fact I had never really payed attention to the map or compass in Zelda games at all until I went back and beat Link to the Past for the first time, where they are essential. In most of the 3D Zelda games, they just never really felt necessary or useful to me, so I think I just forgot they existed most of the time. You can solve most of the dungeons by just bumbling around and doing process of elimination, so the it just honestly never occurred to me to consult the map, even for this one time where it might have helped.
it's really interesting watching this and reading the comments - I never had an issue with the block in the central room and didn't realise that was a thing that people got stuck on. what i did get stuck on (and feel like a dumbass seeing as no one else appeared to) was the hole in the ground after the chest that had the hook shot in it. I didn't notice it at all and went back the way i came as soon as i got the hookshot and gave up. came back to it a few years later (probably 11 instead of 8 or something) and realised my error.
This is the one that stumped me and a bunch of my Zelda pals for a long time.
When I first played OoT I stayed stuck in Kokiri Forest for the first month because I couldn't figure out how to bust the spider web inside the Great Deku Tree. Finally figured that out then breezed through Dodongo Cavern, Jabu-Jabu's Belly, Forest Temple, and Fire Temple. Then I got to Lake Hylia and the dread Water Temple. For two years, at least an hour or two a day average, I tried to beat this temple. I lacked a single small key to get through the last locked door before the boss door. I knew exactly where it was, in the alcove high up in the whirlpool room, but I couldn't figure out how to get to it. Finally, a guy I went to elementary school with brought in the Prima guide one day and if I could have cloned myself and kicked my own ass right then and there I would have. In two years I never ONCE noticed the Time block behind the chest after you fight Dark Link. When I got home that afternoon I finished the Water Temple in less than ten minutes from system boot to collecting Morpha's heart container. Needless to say my Zelda buds felt the same when I showed them. We were all so damned mad but looking back now I find it hilarious.
Being a slog is its own sort of difficulty, imo. The combination of repetition and disorientation from being bounced around a bunch of visually samey (*especially* when you're under water) but functionally distinct rooms in a thousand different directions burned out all my mental energy as a kid. I had very little left for the command of spatial awareness and memory that this dungeon demands lol
Having no sense of direction, I got lost in every dungeon in OoT, so getting lost in the Water Temple wasn't frustrating. I found it funny that because I watched my brothers play it first, when Dark Link appeared, I just pulled out the Megaton Hammer and he was dead in 3 hits. Still makes me chuckle to this day.
I found this temple satisfying and fun and cleared it fairly quickly..
Once I figured out the basic idea my approach was to explore the branching paths on all three levels in a clockwise direction. As I raised and lowered the water. I kept checking each path, noting down anything strange.
I found the central column key at the bottom because I used the fire arrow to enter on a higher level then used the boots to drop down. I had no idea this area in particular caused so much difficulty for people.
The bit that made me go "what?" was when I reached the door before the dungeon key and there was another small key lock. Fortunately I had remembered there was a strange moveable block in one area, and I had already figured out I would need an extended hookshot to reach the back of it. The compass also pointed to one treasure chest left on the map. So I went there and immediately found it.
10/10 dungeon for me, but surpassed by the amazing water dungeon in Twlight Princess.
I did wish to be able to switch boots using C like in that game. But it didn't bother me too much.
Saving the game and quitting right after meeting ruto and forgetting about the cracked wall is a really bad idea :/
The atmosphere of this dungeon is fantastic. Although navigating it was so confusing and frustrating at times, they nailed the overall vibe.
I never had any trouble with Water Temple. Until I watched this video, I always through people just missed how you can go down within the central tower by raising the platform up. The iron boots switches were a little tedious, sure. But you just had to explore and keep track of where you'd gone, and use the map when you could.
When I was 10 it was an incomprehensible maze that took me over a month to brute force my way through. Playing it again in adulthood, it is indeed that hardest temple but it wasn't that bad. It was refreshingly difficult and I wish every temple after it could have lived up to the same difficulty.
Nice video on this! Yeah, thinking back on it, I think a lot indeed had to do with player's low experience as there was nothing like Ocarina Of Time in that era. Namely because upon doing future playthroughs I noticed they went far quicker. But that first time just sticks with us I guess as even the mere mention of it or the thought of having to replay it gets people's teeth grinding.
But on said repeat plays, I found a lot of the irritation is the Iron Boots being in the menu and water level changes because of how easy it is to miss or forget something. As you go, you sort of get in a rhythm of muscle memory guiding you to do each action so it becomes "less" of a hassle, but still came out weird as like you said: They had to have tested it and it was odd they would find it to be ok. Having the Iron Boots an item in the remake made a HUGE difference to it's flow. Plus reminding people of the path to each song helps as well so people don't take paths unnecessarily as those aren't marked on the map and it's easy to forget at first. People could write it down separately since they'd know by then that some key elements are unmarked I guess, but generally in game design it tends to play best when you have all you need from the game itself. Especially on a portable system where you might not have a notepad on hand.
Then showing the basement hole in the remake was a bit of an embarrassment though, lol! Like, sure it's rather subtle in the original, but if they wanted to highlight it more, maybe just linger the camera there a bit longer so people are tempted to scan more with their eyes and not focus on the block or something. Not point the camera at the hole. Still, that's a pretty minor gripe in the big picture of course.
Give me a Zelda full of dungeons as complex as the water temple and it will be my favourite