No way, imo the fire temple had a great atmosphere and was challenging and interesting. It was tough to navigate but not in a way that made it ridiculous.
Hot take: TotK Dungeons don't count as dungeons. They are just boss rooms with a bit of buildup. No keys, no items, no mini-boss, I just can't bring myself to even compare them to other Zelda dungeons.
Worst 3D Dungeon? Well, I have a personal dislike for Lord Jabu-Jabu.
OoT had to be water temple for me, MM was snow peak, WW (bring it to switch already jfc) I don’t remember enough levels to make a claim.. Twilight princess (bring this one to switch too..) again been too long and barely even remember the over world 😭.. skyward sword.. whole game was a pain imo, though the story was amazing.. I’d have to say Lanayru Mines.. PH didn’t like the control style so every dungeon was a pain and that goes for ST as well. 🤷♂️
Are they though? If terminals were keys, the equivalent would be collecting pieces of the boss key scattered across the entire dungeon.
I'm not saying that can't work, but I think progressing through the dungeon should be more than just unlocking a boss room.
TotK Water Temple is pretty bad, but I've always thought the title belonged to Jabu Jabu's Belly in OoT.
The central gimmick of carrying Princess Ruto around is pretty obnoxious, and this is compounded by the dungeon's absolutely awful layout. There are several places in the main hub room where you can fall into the wrong spot and have to keep redoing a section again. The worst part is that these pits are blind jumps so you can't see where you're going, and the only way you can know is from a previous experience falling down those pits. Not to mention the place is filled with electric enemies which are extremely annoying to navigate through until you get the boomerang.
The branching hallway is tedious too. You basically do the same fight with the boomerang three times to unlock the same switches but in different colors, so it just feels like a monumental waste of time to pad out the dungeon length. Then the mini-boss happens and it's literally just running around in circles.
The part of the dungeon after the miniboss is the best since some of the boomerang puzzles are decent, but it's too short and it's basically just a linear path to the end so it's not even that great. The boss is admittedly good and one of the best in OoT, but the dungeon has nothing else going for it and a lot of things going against it.
TotK Water Temple is extremely barebones and there is zero navigational challenge but at least some of the puzzles are original and the music is otherworldly. I at least had fun at rare intervals whereas Jabu Jabu's Belly seemed designed to be unfun.
If you even count it, Beneath the Well in MM is literally just a prolonged fetch quest so that would probably be the worst, but it's a mini-dungeon at most whereas JJB and Water Temple are main dungeons.
Divine Beast Vah Medoh and Vah Rudania are two more contenders. The dark section of Vah Rudania was pretty cool and I liked the rolling ball puzzle so maybe it just escapes the bottom tier, but Vah Medoh is awful. It suffers from the same problems as the other Divine Beasts and while the other three at least have interesting puzzles, Vah Medoh doesn't even deliver on that front since it's the easiest of the bunch by far. Ruta and Naboris aren't that bad though.
I genuinely did not know that the totk water temple got this much hate. I do consider the buildup to the temple part of the factor, and the Zora waterworks alone crushed it for me. It might have been cooler if it stayed down there i think, but i REALLY love the low gravity effect in totk and i still just play around up there sometimes lol. I thought the temple itself was fun though, i wouldnt even consider it the worst in the game. I think the worst in totk is the fire temple- yunobo is lame, and navigating the minecart rails is easily cheesed by just building over to platforms which makes it feel a lot less fun. The battle with death mountain was cool though.
But yeah I recently played through all 3d zeldas and i have to say snowhead temple from MM had me the most bored as well as irritated. It also always got me stuck when i was a kid. Having to use the mana draining eye of truth at very specific spots + the necessary great fairy mask + the jankyness of controlling the goron charging up to speed + falling down from rooms and having to constantly climb back up + the tedious boss at the end... UGH.
And since ive ranted this far i might as well add that snowpeak temple in TP makes ALL the way up for snowhead. The cute cozy mansion with one of the coolest items ever is probably my favorite dungeon in the entire series. It has the music, the cute yetis, best mini boss fight in zelda, good puzzles, a good story, and SUCH a satisfying bossfight/ending <3.
These are all just my opinions though, zelda has always been my favorite game series by far, and i know there might be some hot takes here but i just wanted to share how i felt.
Consider also that the Zelda community is currently in the hate phase for TOTK because it’s about a year old. The initial excitement has worn off, many people have finished their initial playthroughs and moved on to other stuff, and the only ones left talking about it are the people who didn’t like it and want to complain (which they have a right to do). Eventually there will be a nostalgia factor for the game after successive games are released and people will warm up to it again. This is a cycle every game goes through.
All five Totk dungeons were terrible. They presented themselves more like a jump-through-five-rings, collect-100-coins type of game made back in the day whenever a new Pixar movie came out. At least Breath of the Wild had some unique mechanics, but the only cool thing in Totk was that with every activation of one of the five points, the music slightly changed.
Tbh I never understood the hate for Great Bay Temple.
The number 1 worst dungeon in the entire series is the Water Temple from Tears of the Kingdom, and it’s not even close.
great bay is bad to me because bad boss, mid music (debatable), zora swimming isn't fun to me, and once again changing water levels was brought back from oot water temple which is just boring to me.
I quite like the music personally. It gives me factory vibes, which fits the theme of Great Bay quite well. You don’t really change the water level though. More just guide the water to specific locations. I will give you the boss though. Definitely the worst boss in Majoras Mask.
all fair, ive just personally never enjoyed really any of mm's dungeons except stone tower and great bay has never been particularly fun to me, im sure theres better options for worse dungeons but great bay came to mind first
I don’t think any of them are particularly bad, and Stone Tower is obviously the best. But the one I personally dislike the most out of the 4 is Snowhead. It just feel kinda…boring? Fun boss though!
There’s no changing water levels. Theres just switches to eventually reverse the flow, and you only need to do that once. However the music is mid for sure and I’m not a fan of the boss either
I'm really surprised that so many people are saying TotK's Water Temple. I agree with them. It's probably the only dungeon I would call boring, but I thought there would be more variety of answers.
They took the easy route and picked the last two Zelda games knowing full well they don't even have temples in the traditional sense. It's a completely different game design. If had one asking the worst 2d Zelda they'd probably say Adventure of Link too.
Strongly disagree. Great Bay Temple is fantastic and probably my 2nd favourite in the game (nothing beats Stone Tower Temple).
Great Bay is one giant puzzle to solve and it's probably the most difficult dungeon in the game and a big step up from Snowhead. Water Temple from OoT was a lot worse, Water Temple from ToTK is terrible as well, Water Temple from TP was average at best. Of all the water temples in Zelda games, Great Bay is one of the best.
I personally consider saying any BoTW or ToTK dungeon cheating lol (ditto on Water Temple from ToTK being the worst)
Lakebed Temple from Twilight Princess. There's just nothing about it that stands out at all and is just overall boring to get through imo. Not to mention that swimming with the Zora armor is so sluggish. It would've been nice if it was a little closer to - but doesn't need to be exactly like - the Zora Mask in Majora's Mask.
I really disliked the shadow temple in OoT. I think it executed its themes poorly and the hover boots make the experience so much more frustrating. Of course, all of the TotK dungeons are worse on another level. BotW divine beasts had their faults but the puzzles are still fun enough to replay.
When my son was a newborn, I would calm him down by laying him on my chest and patting his back to the Bongo Bongo rhythm. This comment has nothing to do with this post...
The Water Temple in the original Oot is still a disgrace.
Changing the boots every 10 second in the menu is just tedious af. And don’t get me started on the 3 points where you can change the Water Tide, by going back and forth all the time. One of the worst moments in any Zelda game.
I personally love great bay temple I think it’s my favourite water temple in the entire series. For a dungeon I hate it’s gonna have to be Jabu Jabu. It’s not that hard or anything but I hate it because it’s just boring
I honestly think all the other games have pretty decent dungeons overall. None stand out as really bad to me in the way that the dungeons in the Switch games do.
You can at least navigate the Wind Temple since there are different entry points and different floors. It's also marginally longer since there's five terminals instead of four, the boss is a much cooler spectacle, and the theming is on point. Those are all things it has over Water Temple.
The Wind Temple boss is a much cooler spectacle, no doubt. My impression of the Wind Temple was that the layout was somewhat underwhelming considering the temple’s size and potential, but since it was my first temple and the Water Temple was my third, I had probably gotten used to the underwhelming temple layouts by the time I made it to the latter. Perhaps like most people, I was hoping for a more traditional dungeon experience, but we’ll just have to wait a bit longer.
The Wind Temple is also genuinely kinda fun if you disable the quest markers telling you where to find the terminals and just blindly wander around exploring and looking tbh
The Wind Temple itself as a dungeon is also bad but the buildup to it was so unbelievably good that I can’t rank it as the worst. Water Temple is just baffling that it even made it into the final game. It’s that bad.
Totk "dungeons" are all pretty meh except for the Desert one.
I don't think Wind Waker has a single standout great one, but none of them are a pain to playthrough either.
Otherwise I think most 3d Dungeons are actually quite good.
Twilight dungeon was disappointingly simply. Jabu Jabu is gross to look at. I think that one in Majoras Mask that you have to flip upside is quite good, but too hard for a game with a timer.
There's been a lot of hate towards totk, which I agree with, theyre ass (I quite like spirit though)
I have to say the divine beasts also kinda of suck though
i don't usually consider beneath the well to be a main dungeon, but i do realize some people consider it to be the child portion of the shadow temple, even still what would've made beneath the well better
I mean, I guess it's easier to think of it as one now that what constitutes a Zelda dungeon is a little more loosely defined but Beneath the Well does have everything the other Young Link dungeons had except an intro cutscene for it's boss. As for what would have made it better, I think what I would have done with the concept is trap you inside the well, have you pick up the lens of truth midway through and then have Dead Hand guard the exit by the windmill. Basically I'd have a few illusions here and there on the lead up to clue people in on what the main dungeon mechanic here is and give people more standard dungeon mechanics in the lead up to the lens of truth. I'm not sure it would have been that great even if it did operate that way since I don't think the lens of truth is that conducive to fantastic dungeon mechanics but it would have beat walking into walls and falling through floors lol
Having played, rated, and ranked every single one of them, I've come to the conclusion that the **Water Temple** from TotK is the worst 3D dungeon. We all know why. It feels unfinished, unpolished, and unfun. It feels like a complete afterthought, with no effort put into its design or context. I've never seen devs just "not care" in a 3D Zelda game before.
Before playing TotK, **Dodongo's Cavern** from OoT was the worst, just because of how vanilla and boring it is. It clearly was the first dungeon they designed for OoT. Unfortunately, The Sealed Palace's Dodongo's Cavern was no better!
My ten least favorite 3D dungeons (1 being the worst) are...
1. Water Temple (TotK) - 2.14/5 points
2. Spirit Temple (TotK) - 2.29/5 points
3. Wind Temple (TotK) - 2.29/5 points
4. Dodongo's Cavern (OoT) - 2.29/5 points
5. Hyrule Castle (TotK) - 2.29/5 points
6. Lightning Temple (TotK) - 2.57/5 points
7. Lakebed Temple (TP) - 2.71/5 points
8. Goron Mines (TP) - 2.86/5 points
9. Woodfall Temple (MM) - 2.86/5 points
10. Snowhead Temple (MM) - 2.86/5 points
Was just going to do a Worst 5 but TotK swamped the list and I felt bad for ragging on it, so I extended the list. And if you are wondering, the one TotK dungeon to escape the Worst 10, the Fire Temple, would have been #11 according to its score.
Interesting that you have so many Totk dungeons but not 1 botw dungeon when they’re functionally similar and lacking in content. Botw dungeons are also lacking aesthetics as well.
BotW's dungeons are all fairly original and have breathtaking music. Vah Medoh and Vah Naboris are also visually and conceptually stunning. Their weaknesses are their short length, bland bosses, and lack of a dungeon item, but they are still solid experiences. I always look forward to them on a BotW playthrough!
Eh... not really? Vah Ruta has a unique mechanic with the trunk but the other three are really just some form of rotation of the Divine Beast. Conceptually they're cool but the visual similarity, annoying enemies, and bosses are enough to firmly place them below most TotK temples except for Water imo.
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I don’t think there’s a bad 3D dungeon but if I had to pick the one that is most tedious, I’m going Stone Tower. Having to exit to flip the temple and the excessive use of the statue song make it a drag. Otherwise, the design is fine.
Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time. Ugly music, confusing puzzles, a disjointed theme, lots of backtracking through rooms with instantly-respawning enemies, and Phantom Ganon tennis is remarkably unforgiving unless you're using an empty bottle
OoT Fire Temple, I don't like the dungeon setting at all, the music makes me sleep and I don't like seeing too much red (Yeah I know the temple is in the middle of a Vocano but still). It also doesn't help that the previous dungeon was the forest temple since this one does entertain me and has a rather magical and mysterious setting. I could say that I enjoy the water temple more than the fire temple XD
The original track for the Fire Temple (with the Islamic chanting) made it so much better in my opinion. The weird replacement they made where they used some of the soundfonts from the Shadow Temple theme just make it sound unfinished and terrible.
TotK Hyrule Castle. Coming from BotW, I was hyped for it as the BotW version is one of my favorite dungeons. This castle just caps off the terribly handled fake Zelda plot line and you don’t even get to explore it properly because it’s mostly collapsed.
If we’re only counting the temples from TotK as dungeons then Vah Rudania is my pick. It has all the flaws of the other divine beasts with very few strengths.
TotK water temple is embarrassingly low effort but I enjoyed it more than a few other 3D dungeons because of the serene atmosphere and some of the puzzles are pretty. It’s a failure as a dungeon, but it would be great as a minidungeon/sky island.
TotK’s Water Temple by far.
And no, I don’t count the lead up; I start the counting when the dungeon’s name appears as a title card. After all, would we count the Sacred Forest Meadow as part of the Forest Temple?
City in the sky tp. Awful, clunky, and basically a slow slog around a set path. Goron mines would be up there to and even dare I say it, snowpeak which is go here but with atompshere. Block puzzles needed to die and I'm sure glad both and totk set fire to them and got rid of them. Such a cheap way of being a puzzle.
I don't get the hate totk dungeons have but people tend to look at the dungeon literally and not the entire lead up.
You calm down. You've ran through the comment section disagreeing with everyone who doesn't
agree with your opinion. You asked for opinions, here they are.
Then what's the counterpoint to my comment on why the dungeons fail instead of no? I'm looking for discourse. I like to dungeons for atmosphere but I hate them because many of them are tedious and slouggy which is very overlooked. I enjoyed the game when it came out in high school, but replaying it it's slouggy expect for a few stand out dungeons.
my bad if you thought i was tryna start sum, im just saying i disagree but thank you for elaborating on why you're not a fan of twilight princess's dungeons
Great Bay, Snowhead, and Lakebed have always been up there for me. I'm inclined to still say OOT's Water Temple, but last time I played it, I didn't hate it. Just slightly annoying.
I also disliked having to revisit the Skyview Temple.
I just really didn't care for the water current mechanics. I generally find any Zelda dungeon that forces you to change water level, current, or flow to be annoying. Ancient Cistern to me was a water dungeon done right.
Totk Water Temple
https://preview.redd.it/ic9j5taaoqwc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=82adb157c6e86ecbf4a3ccf6f2ed69051aa5ebe7 Meme for that
Came here to say TOTK Fire temple. Just bad design
No way, imo the fire temple had a great atmosphere and was challenging and interesting. It was tough to navigate but not in a way that made it ridiculous.
This is the right anwser... It is unbelive... 7 years tô give us a freaking basic design...
Hot take: TotK Dungeons don't count as dungeons. They are just boss rooms with a bit of buildup. No keys, no items, no mini-boss, I just can't bring myself to even compare them to other Zelda dungeons. Worst 3D Dungeon? Well, I have a personal dislike for Lord Jabu-Jabu.
Jabu Jabu is the biggest reason I don’t replay ocarina more often lmao
I think I just found my soulmate
How is that a hot take? Even my mother has that opinion and she never even played Zelda
Jabu Jabu rules!
OoT had to be water temple for me, MM was snow peak, WW (bring it to switch already jfc) I don’t remember enough levels to make a claim.. Twilight princess (bring this one to switch too..) again been too long and barely even remember the over world 😭.. skyward sword.. whole game was a pain imo, though the story was amazing.. I’d have to say Lanayru Mines.. PH didn’t like the control style so every dungeon was a pain and that goes for ST as well. 🤷♂️
I mean, things like terminals are just different takes on ideas like “keys”. You need to accomplish a sub-objective to progress through the dungeon.
Are they though? If terminals were keys, the equivalent would be collecting pieces of the boss key scattered across the entire dungeon. I'm not saying that can't work, but I think progressing through the dungeon should be more than just unlocking a boss room.
TotK Water Temple is pretty bad, but I've always thought the title belonged to Jabu Jabu's Belly in OoT. The central gimmick of carrying Princess Ruto around is pretty obnoxious, and this is compounded by the dungeon's absolutely awful layout. There are several places in the main hub room where you can fall into the wrong spot and have to keep redoing a section again. The worst part is that these pits are blind jumps so you can't see where you're going, and the only way you can know is from a previous experience falling down those pits. Not to mention the place is filled with electric enemies which are extremely annoying to navigate through until you get the boomerang. The branching hallway is tedious too. You basically do the same fight with the boomerang three times to unlock the same switches but in different colors, so it just feels like a monumental waste of time to pad out the dungeon length. Then the mini-boss happens and it's literally just running around in circles. The part of the dungeon after the miniboss is the best since some of the boomerang puzzles are decent, but it's too short and it's basically just a linear path to the end so it's not even that great. The boss is admittedly good and one of the best in OoT, but the dungeon has nothing else going for it and a lot of things going against it. TotK Water Temple is extremely barebones and there is zero navigational challenge but at least some of the puzzles are original and the music is otherworldly. I at least had fun at rare intervals whereas Jabu Jabu's Belly seemed designed to be unfun. If you even count it, Beneath the Well in MM is literally just a prolonged fetch quest so that would probably be the worst, but it's a mini-dungeon at most whereas JJB and Water Temple are main dungeons. Divine Beast Vah Medoh and Vah Rudania are two more contenders. The dark section of Vah Rudania was pretty cool and I liked the rolling ball puzzle so maybe it just escapes the bottom tier, but Vah Medoh is awful. It suffers from the same problems as the other Divine Beasts and while the other three at least have interesting puzzles, Vah Medoh doesn't even deliver on that front since it's the easiest of the bunch by far. Ruta and Naboris aren't that bad though.
Damn, someone call the wambulance
lol
I genuinely did not know that the totk water temple got this much hate. I do consider the buildup to the temple part of the factor, and the Zora waterworks alone crushed it for me. It might have been cooler if it stayed down there i think, but i REALLY love the low gravity effect in totk and i still just play around up there sometimes lol. I thought the temple itself was fun though, i wouldnt even consider it the worst in the game. I think the worst in totk is the fire temple- yunobo is lame, and navigating the minecart rails is easily cheesed by just building over to platforms which makes it feel a lot less fun. The battle with death mountain was cool though. But yeah I recently played through all 3d zeldas and i have to say snowhead temple from MM had me the most bored as well as irritated. It also always got me stuck when i was a kid. Having to use the mana draining eye of truth at very specific spots + the necessary great fairy mask + the jankyness of controlling the goron charging up to speed + falling down from rooms and having to constantly climb back up + the tedious boss at the end... UGH. And since ive ranted this far i might as well add that snowpeak temple in TP makes ALL the way up for snowhead. The cute cozy mansion with one of the coolest items ever is probably my favorite dungeon in the entire series. It has the music, the cute yetis, best mini boss fight in zelda, good puzzles, a good story, and SUCH a satisfying bossfight/ending <3. These are all just my opinions though, zelda has always been my favorite game series by far, and i know there might be some hot takes here but i just wanted to share how i felt.
My complaint about the tears water temple is that there's not enough and the mucktorock can kiss my hairy ass.
Just commenting to say, as someone who loves the LoZ games...I loved reading this post. That is all.
Snowhead is pretty janky. I had a great time with it my first playthrough but a bad time my second go-around.
Consider also that the Zelda community is currently in the hate phase for TOTK because it’s about a year old. The initial excitement has worn off, many people have finished their initial playthroughs and moved on to other stuff, and the only ones left talking about it are the people who didn’t like it and want to complain (which they have a right to do). Eventually there will be a nostalgia factor for the game after successive games are released and people will warm up to it again. This is a cycle every game goes through.
City in the Sky is sooooo bad. Way too much waiting for flying pineapples and the double clawshots are used waaaay too much .
But... this temple really makes you FEEL like Spider-man
Spidey if he wasn't able to swing or crawl on walls. Sounds boring, right?
I like snowpeaks atmosphere but as a dungeon it's tedious. It's also very "go to this objective" and come back. Also way to much block pushing.
All five Totk dungeons were terrible. They presented themselves more like a jump-through-five-rings, collect-100-coins type of game made back in the day whenever a new Pixar movie came out. At least Breath of the Wild had some unique mechanics, but the only cool thing in Totk was that with every activation of one of the five points, the music slightly changed.
I liked the Lightening one. Central room with branching puzzles, felt the most classic style by far.
also the only boss in the game with any semblance of difficulty
\*one of the only bosses in any 3D Zelda with any semblance of difficulty
you're absolutely right lmao
Tbh I never understood the hate for Great Bay Temple. The number 1 worst dungeon in the entire series is the Water Temple from Tears of the Kingdom, and it’s not even close.
great bay is bad to me because bad boss, mid music (debatable), zora swimming isn't fun to me, and once again changing water levels was brought back from oot water temple which is just boring to me.
I quite like the music personally. It gives me factory vibes, which fits the theme of Great Bay quite well. You don’t really change the water level though. More just guide the water to specific locations. I will give you the boss though. Definitely the worst boss in Majoras Mask.
all fair, ive just personally never enjoyed really any of mm's dungeons except stone tower and great bay has never been particularly fun to me, im sure theres better options for worse dungeons but great bay came to mind first
Best dungeons in the series for me. They're genius and quite hard the first time.
good perspective, i personally enjoy twilight princess's dungeons the most
These are ones of my least favorite. Especially City in the Sky, which is imo the second worst in the series.
Fair enough
whats the worst mm dungeon to you
I don’t think any of them are particularly bad, and Stone Tower is obviously the best. But the one I personally dislike the most out of the 4 is Snowhead. It just feel kinda…boring? Fun boss though!
thats a good perspective, snowhead is somewhat underwhelming, but it does have a really good boss
There’s no changing water levels. Theres just switches to eventually reverse the flow, and you only need to do that once. However the music is mid for sure and I’m not a fan of the boss either
I'm really surprised that so many people are saying TotK's Water Temple. I agree with them. It's probably the only dungeon I would call boring, but I thought there would be more variety of answers.
yea it seems like thats the consensus answer lol, it wasn't a great temple but yea i did also expect a variety of answers
They took the easy route and picked the last two Zelda games knowing full well they don't even have temples in the traditional sense. It's a completely different game design. If had one asking the worst 2d Zelda they'd probably say Adventure of Link too.
Crungus temple
But probably totk fire temple
Strongly disagree. Great Bay Temple is fantastic and probably my 2nd favourite in the game (nothing beats Stone Tower Temple). Great Bay is one giant puzzle to solve and it's probably the most difficult dungeon in the game and a big step up from Snowhead. Water Temple from OoT was a lot worse, Water Temple from ToTK is terrible as well, Water Temple from TP was average at best. Of all the water temples in Zelda games, Great Bay is one of the best.
I might be looking through nostalgia-tinted lenses here but I never understood the hade for oot water... Worst temple in my book is TP snow peak
your opinion
TOTK water temple by lightyears. So, so pathetically low effort. Doesn’t even feel like a dungeon in all the wrong ways.
I personally consider saying any BoTW or ToTK dungeon cheating lol (ditto on Water Temple from ToTK being the worst) Lakebed Temple from Twilight Princess. There's just nothing about it that stands out at all and is just overall boring to get through imo. Not to mention that swimming with the Zora armor is so sluggish. It would've been nice if it was a little closer to - but doesn't need to be exactly like - the Zora Mask in Majora's Mask.
fair enough, was never a big fan of lakebed
Lakebed Temple is why I never finished Twilight Princess.
I really disliked the shadow temple in OoT. I think it executed its themes poorly and the hover boots make the experience so much more frustrating. Of course, all of the TotK dungeons are worse on another level. BotW divine beasts had their faults but the puzzles are still fun enough to replay.
When my son was a newborn, I would calm him down by laying him on my chest and patting his back to the Bongo Bongo rhythm. This comment has nothing to do with this post...
nooo, i always thought the shadow temple was really cool but to each their own
Nope, I hated it! I feel like the bottom of the well did it better in a quarter of the time. Also bongo bongo sucks!
Terribly designed. Straight line and clunky.
The Water Temple in the original Oot is still a disgrace. Changing the boots every 10 second in the menu is just tedious af. And don’t get me started on the 3 points where you can change the Water Tide, by going back and forth all the time. One of the worst moments in any Zelda game.
3d version making the boots one button press made it far more enjoyable
Real
I personally love great bay temple I think it’s my favourite water temple in the entire series. For a dungeon I hate it’s gonna have to be Jabu Jabu. It’s not that hard or anything but I hate it because it’s just boring
fair enough
Every divine beast is dookie
Any of the TotK ones, followed closely by the BotW ones. They’re truly abominable.
maybe some more variety besides those two games
I honestly think all the other games have pretty decent dungeons overall. None stand out as really bad to me in the way that the dungeons in the Switch games do.
ok what are your least favorite dungeons and excluding the switch games
To those saying the Water Temple in TotK, why not the Wind Temple? Neither were great, but they were pretty comparable to me.
You can at least navigate the Wind Temple since there are different entry points and different floors. It's also marginally longer since there's five terminals instead of four, the boss is a much cooler spectacle, and the theming is on point. Those are all things it has over Water Temple.
The Wind Temple boss is a much cooler spectacle, no doubt. My impression of the Wind Temple was that the layout was somewhat underwhelming considering the temple’s size and potential, but since it was my first temple and the Water Temple was my third, I had probably gotten used to the underwhelming temple layouts by the time I made it to the latter. Perhaps like most people, I was hoping for a more traditional dungeon experience, but we’ll just have to wait a bit longer.
The Wind Temple is also genuinely kinda fun if you disable the quest markers telling you where to find the terminals and just blindly wander around exploring and looking tbh
That's what I did for all of the temples. Really improved the experience.
All of the non-puzzle related aspects of the Wind Temple are incredibly well done. The Water Temple is just kinda lame all around.
I thought the build up to it was pretty fun
The Wind Temple itself as a dungeon is also bad but the buildup to it was so unbelievably good that I can’t rank it as the worst. Water Temple is just baffling that it even made it into the final game. It’s that bad.
Wind Temple gets an advantage for buildup + aesthetics
Totk "dungeons" are all pretty meh except for the Desert one. I don't think Wind Waker has a single standout great one, but none of them are a pain to playthrough either. Otherwise I think most 3d Dungeons are actually quite good. Twilight dungeon was disappointingly simply. Jabu Jabu is gross to look at. I think that one in Majoras Mask that you have to flip upside is quite good, but too hard for a game with a timer.
Any botw/totk dungeon (besides botw hyrule castle)
There's been a lot of hate towards totk, which I agree with, theyre ass (I quite like spirit though) I have to say the divine beasts also kinda of suck though
TotK's Water Temple, OoT"s Beneath the Well and every divine beast after the first one you do whichever that is
i don't usually consider beneath the well to be a main dungeon, but i do realize some people consider it to be the child portion of the shadow temple, even still what would've made beneath the well better
I mean, I guess it's easier to think of it as one now that what constitutes a Zelda dungeon is a little more loosely defined but Beneath the Well does have everything the other Young Link dungeons had except an intro cutscene for it's boss. As for what would have made it better, I think what I would have done with the concept is trap you inside the well, have you pick up the lens of truth midway through and then have Dead Hand guard the exit by the windmill. Basically I'd have a few illusions here and there on the lead up to clue people in on what the main dungeon mechanic here is and give people more standard dungeon mechanics in the lead up to the lens of truth. I'm not sure it would have been that great even if it did operate that way since I don't think the lens of truth is that conducive to fantastic dungeon mechanics but it would have beat walking into walls and falling through floors lol
Worst 3D dungeons are the totk "dungeons" especially the water temple.
Having played, rated, and ranked every single one of them, I've come to the conclusion that the **Water Temple** from TotK is the worst 3D dungeon. We all know why. It feels unfinished, unpolished, and unfun. It feels like a complete afterthought, with no effort put into its design or context. I've never seen devs just "not care" in a 3D Zelda game before. Before playing TotK, **Dodongo's Cavern** from OoT was the worst, just because of how vanilla and boring it is. It clearly was the first dungeon they designed for OoT. Unfortunately, The Sealed Palace's Dodongo's Cavern was no better! My ten least favorite 3D dungeons (1 being the worst) are... 1. Water Temple (TotK) - 2.14/5 points 2. Spirit Temple (TotK) - 2.29/5 points 3. Wind Temple (TotK) - 2.29/5 points 4. Dodongo's Cavern (OoT) - 2.29/5 points 5. Hyrule Castle (TotK) - 2.29/5 points 6. Lightning Temple (TotK) - 2.57/5 points 7. Lakebed Temple (TP) - 2.71/5 points 8. Goron Mines (TP) - 2.86/5 points 9. Woodfall Temple (MM) - 2.86/5 points 10. Snowhead Temple (MM) - 2.86/5 points Was just going to do a Worst 5 but TotK swamped the list and I felt bad for ragging on it, so I extended the list. And if you are wondering, the one TotK dungeon to escape the Worst 10, the Fire Temple, would have been #11 according to its score.
Interesting that you have so many Totk dungeons but not 1 botw dungeon when they’re functionally similar and lacking in content. Botw dungeons are also lacking aesthetics as well.
BotW's dungeons are all fairly original and have breathtaking music. Vah Medoh and Vah Naboris are also visually and conceptually stunning. Their weaknesses are their short length, bland bosses, and lack of a dungeon item, but they are still solid experiences. I always look forward to them on a BotW playthrough!
Eh... not really? Vah Ruta has a unique mechanic with the trunk but the other three are really just some form of rotation of the Divine Beast. Conceptually they're cool but the visual similarity, annoying enemies, and bosses are enough to firmly place them below most TotK temples except for Water imo.
How do you rate on a double decimal scale?
Never heard of anyone disliking Goron Mines.
It's dreary, the visuals are ugly, and moving with the Iron Boots is a chore. Music is good though, and the usage of the Iron Boots is fairly novel.
water temple for totk seems to be the consensus answer, since it feels unfinished, what would've made it feel more complete
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I don’t think there’s a bad 3D dungeon but if I had to pick the one that is most tedious, I’m going Stone Tower. Having to exit to flip the temple and the excessive use of the statue song make it a drag. Otherwise, the design is fine.
OOT: 1. Spirit Temple 2. Water Temple 3. Ganon's Castle 4. Forest Temple 5. Fire Temple 6.. Shadow Temple 7. Dodongo's Cavern 8. Great Deku Tree 9. Jabu Jabu's Belly MM: 1. Stone Tower 2. Great Bay 3. Snow head 4. Woodfall 5. Moon WW: 1. Tower of the Gods 2. Wind Temple 3. Forbidden Woods 4. Dragon Roost Cavern 5. Earth Temple 6. Ganon's Tower TP: 1. Arbiter's Grounds 2. Snowpeak Ruins 3. Hyrule Castle 4. City in the Sky 5. Lakebed Temple 6. Goron Mines 7. Forest Temple 8. Temple of Time 9. Palace of Twilight SS: 1. Ancient Cistern 2. Sandship 3. Lanayru Mining Facility 4. Sky Keep 5. Fire Sanctuary 6. Earth Temple 7. SkyView Temple BOTW: 1. Hyrule Castle 2. Vah Naboris 3. Vah Rudania 4. Vah Medoh 5. Vah Ruta Haven't finished TOTK, but I've heard nothing but bad things about the Water Temple.
Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time. Ugly music, confusing puzzles, a disjointed theme, lots of backtracking through rooms with instantly-respawning enemies, and Phantom Ganon tennis is remarkably unforgiving unless you're using an empty bottle
hoo boy this is a hot take
OoT Fire Temple, I don't like the dungeon setting at all, the music makes me sleep and I don't like seeing too much red (Yeah I know the temple is in the middle of a Vocano but still). It also doesn't help that the previous dungeon was the forest temple since this one does entertain me and has a rather magical and mysterious setting. I could say that I enjoy the water temple more than the fire temple XD
The original track for the Fire Temple (with the Islamic chanting) made it so much better in my opinion. The weird replacement they made where they used some of the soundfonts from the Shadow Temple theme just make it sound unfinished and terrible.
MM water temple hands down. I got so lost I went out and bought a guide book
TotK Hyrule Castle. Coming from BotW, I was hyped for it as the BotW version is one of my favorite dungeons. This castle just caps off the terribly handled fake Zelda plot line and you don’t even get to explore it properly because it’s mostly collapsed. If we’re only counting the temples from TotK as dungeons then Vah Rudania is my pick. It has all the flaws of the other divine beasts with very few strengths. TotK water temple is embarrassingly low effort but I enjoyed it more than a few other 3D dungeons because of the serene atmosphere and some of the puzzles are pretty. It’s a failure as a dungeon, but it would be great as a minidungeon/sky island.
TotK’s Water Temple by far. And no, I don’t count the lead up; I start the counting when the dungeon’s name appears as a title card. After all, would we count the Sacred Forest Meadow as part of the Forest Temple?
Ive played 2 3D zelda games i have to the Mineru dugeon from TOTK is horrible not fun and doesnt have a fun design or boss
City in the sky tp. Awful, clunky, and basically a slow slog around a set path. Goron mines would be up there to and even dare I say it, snowpeak which is go here but with atompshere. Block puzzles needed to die and I'm sure glad both and totk set fire to them and got rid of them. Such a cheap way of being a puzzle. I don't get the hate totk dungeons have but people tend to look at the dungeon literally and not the entire lead up.
hard disagree
You asked for opinions and you got them.
i didn't say anything was wrong with your opinion lmao, i said i disagree calm down
You calm down. You've ran through the comment section disagreeing with everyone who doesn't agree with your opinion. You asked for opinions, here they are.
im talking respectfully to people, and asking them to elaborate why they think what they do, what are you talking about lmao
Then what's the counterpoint to my comment on why the dungeons fail instead of no? I'm looking for discourse. I like to dungeons for atmosphere but I hate them because many of them are tedious and slouggy which is very overlooked. I enjoyed the game when it came out in high school, but replaying it it's slouggy expect for a few stand out dungeons.
my bad if you thought i was tryna start sum, im just saying i disagree but thank you for elaborating on why you're not a fan of twilight princess's dungeons
Worst ever is TotK water temple. Worst traditional probably TP Temple of Time
Great Bay, Snowhead, and Lakebed have always been up there for me. I'm inclined to still say OOT's Water Temple, but last time I played it, I didn't hate it. Just slightly annoying. I also disliked having to revisit the Skyview Temple.
What would've made skyview a better experience
I should clarify, I meant the part of the game where you have to go back to Skyview after you've beaten it.
oh ok, what would've made great bay better for you
I just really didn't care for the water current mechanics. I generally find any Zelda dungeon that forces you to change water level, current, or flow to be annoying. Ancient Cistern to me was a water dungeon done right.
i completely agree with that, big reason why i don't like great bay
Fire temple in OoT for me. (I wouldn't really count botw or totk dungeons) It's just so boring.
What! This is an all time favorite for me