The Water Temple isn't as difficult as we remember
It's a bit like going back to visit your school as an adult: everything seems smaller than you remember.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which frequently tops lists of the best video games ever, was released 20 years ago this week. Although I have started Nintendo's masterpiece again several times since I completed the game back in '98 or, more likely, '99, I have never got that far into a second playthrough. This means that it is the best part of two decades since I played the Water Temple.
This dungeon lives in infamy amongst Zelda fans. It is considered tortuously difficult, not because it is dangerous - in fact, aside from its notoriously tough midboss, it doesn't contain many threatening enemies - but because it is inscrutable. It is a deep warren of caves and corridors, linked by a tall central chamber and mostly submerged until you learn how to move the water level between three floors. Thanks to recently acquired items, our hero Link can breathe and walk underwater, but he's so buoyant he can't swim for any distance, so changing the water level greatly affects his access to parts of the dungeon. The Water Temple was designed in such a way that you need to change the water level often and revisit areas multiple times, approaching them from new directions, to acquire all the keys to all its doors and unlock all its secrets.
Post a Comment