Poll of the Day > Water Temple is absolutely underrated

(+) Yeah! (+)

It is really built on solving puzzles which I love. It also has the fight with Dark Link, which is slightly better in concept than execution, but is still awesome.

It might be the best dungeon in the game. The worst part was opening the menu to change boots, but the 3ds version of the game fixes that issue.

I know people thought it was hard, but I never had a problem with the dungeon. And again, the 3ds version made it a bit easier.

It was the least linear dungeon for sure. It's just annoying due to the amount of waiting you've got to do, between the pausing to equip/unequip Iron Boots, wait to float/sink, play Zelda's Lullaby at the water control spots (and wait for it to play the song back to you, and then raise/lower the water level).

I've never really disliked the dungeon, but the key in the room under the block that floats up when you raise the water to the middle level is easy to miss in your first playthrough, and it's easy to forget that wall you need to destroy on the middle level as well.

Yeah. The forest temple was the coolest one though

beaten out only by the forest temple.

It flirts with breaking one of the cardinal rules of puzzle design, which is to ensure that there isn't too much of a gap between the player figuring out the solution (the fun part of puzzles) and executing that solution to receive the extrinsic reward. If there is too much of a gap, the player ends up feeling like they're just going through the motions to get the game to recognize that they've solved the puzzle, and that gets frustrating and tedious.

In the Water Temple's case, the core puzzle that defines the whole temple is setting the water level. The problem, however, is that that's a pretty easy puzzle to solve, once you navigate to the three adjustment points for the first times: You see something you want to reach, you determine which water level you need, you go to the adjustment point to get that water level. Depending on how lucky you get in your exploration, that can mean you end up doing a bunch of trudging to get to the adjustment points every time you realize you need a different level. That means you spend quite a bit of time executing the solution after figuring it out, which is annoying.

That said, the temple is pretty well-designed to guide you to be in the neighbourhood of each adjustment point when you need them, so it's fairly intuitive to end up following a route that doesn't require all that much tedious trudging around and therefore doesn't run into that problem. That means that a lot of players are never going to have a problem with it, while others might if they wander off of that deceptively linear route. I think this is why it tends to be a bit polarizing: people who had to do a bunch of backtracking because they made some unlucky mistakes found it annoyingly fiddly, while people who didn't like it.

green_dragon posted...

The worst part was opening the menu to change boots, but the 3ds version of the game fixes that issue.

randomizers do too these days! (or you can use the Better OoT mod by itself)

but yeah, that and the slight complexity overwhelming my little child brain are why I had bad memories of the water temple. I don't think I hated it as much as others did, but it always felt extremely intimidating

I think the main problem with the water temple is the slowness of the menus and transitions, because it's rather pleasant in the rereleases which boost menu speed and add fast item swapping

i used to like it until i fucking softlocked myself in it

is there an actual softlock or is this the hidden block in the longshot room becoming obtuse to find if you don't check the room fully

It is possible to use a key out of order and not be able to get a replacement to move forward. I don't remember where exactly it is and I've never encountered it myself, but I know there is a legitimate softlock there. I believe the 3DS remake fixed it. Not sure about other rereleases.

all i know is that there was a locked door and i checked the three usual missed spots

My favourite temple in the game.

I don't remember much about it now. I only played through it once; I actually never got around to playing Ocarina of Time until it was on 3DS.

Initially, it frustrated me, and made me go on hiatus from the game for over six months. Then, one day, I just randomly decided to give it another try, and it was a total pleasure.

agesboy posted...

(or you can use the Better OoT mod by itself)

I looked this up and I don't like the principle Removing parts from the game because speedrunners don't like them. I know people mostly agree that unskippable cutscenes for example are annoying, but speedrunners should just deal with it

you can choose the bits to remove or shorten

i think the mod's valuable on its own just with the c stick stuff. disable the rest of that shit for a real run

Damn_Underscore posted...

but speedrunners should just deal with it

Why?

Because if they don't they confirm the stereotypes about them as sitting in the corner streaming on twitch resetting their runs every 5 seconds

who gives a shit about stereotypes

the changes were about making the game better when ur playin fast

agesboy posted...

who gives a shit about stereotypes

the changes were about making the game better when ur playin fast

Well yeah I was disappointed because the changes were truly intended to benefit speedrunners, benefits to others are coincidental

Damn_Underscore posted...

Because if they don't they confirm the stereotypes about them as sitting in the corner streaming on twitch resetting their runs every 5 seconds

Why does that matter?

For that matter, why would you expect a speedrun-centric mod of a game to increase the amount of "reset every 5 seconds" that happens? Speedrun-centric mods tend to remove the sort of run-killing issues that prompt resets if they happen.

Damn_Underscore posted...

Well yeah I was disappointed because the changes were truly intended to benefit speedrunners, benefits to others are coincidental

Why does that matter? Benefits are benefits. If it improves your experience playing the game, that's all that matters.

Because the end result could have been better (or a future mod could be better) if they have a general intention of improving the game's flaws like the 3DS version did

So... Nirvana fallacy.

adjl posted...

It is possible to use a key out of order and not be able to get a replacement to move forward. I don't remember where exactly it is and I've never encountered it myself, but I know there is a legitimate softlock there.

There actually isn't. It is completely impossible to softlock Water Temple when playing normally, regardless of what order you find/use keys. There's a few theories as to how the myth of Water Temple being possible to softlock came about (the most common of which is that people didn't notice the blocks of time behind the longshot chest, leading to the river room that contains a small key), but it is just that: a myth. Based on the key placement, you simply cannot lock yourself out of being able to clear the dungeon, regardless of what version you are playing.

heIly posted...

all i know is that there was a locked door and i checked the three usual missed spots

people wanna argue that you probably just missed the key in the longshot room, or the one under the middle thing, but i had a locked door and i checked every single goddamn chest and key location i had access to and there just wasn't one

doesn't matter anyways, forest temple song makes it the goat

This also happened to me but I was also like 13.

Fuck the water Temple, on top of all the menu shit you had constantly raise and lower the water, genuinely no idea how Nintendo let all that past QA.

Dont dislike it but probably 3rd weakest dungeon for me ahead of BotW and Jabu. 3DS remake was a nice buff for it.

I'd say the 3DS remakes were perfect if not for how they pitifully crumped the Majora's Mask bosses

Didnt Majoras Mask 3DS have freezing problems?

Anyway Im totally fine playing the N64 versions. Fans can upgrade those.

Damn_Underscore posted...

Didnt Majoras Mask 3DS have freezing problems?

Dunno about 3DS, but the Collector's Edition disc on the GC did, and that was a major problem because it was a straight port that did nothing to change the save system. A badly-timed freeze could cost you 2-3 hours of progress because it would reset you back to the start of your current cycle. You could work around that by copying your save file after every owl save, but that was a major pain and I pretty quickly decided that I preferred playing the N64 version over CE.

I believe the 3DS improved the save system, so even if it does have freezing issues, there may be fewer consequences.

Damn_Underscore posted...

Didnt Majoras Mask 3DS have freezing problems?

Anyway Im totally fine playing the N64 versions. Fans can upgrade those.

I never experienced any freezing issues. It could be that you had a damaged copy?

I don't like the water temple. Its tedious.

Venixon posted...

I never experienced any freezing issues. It could be that you had a damaged copy?

I just heard about it, maybe it was a different version or different Zelda game.

Damn_Underscore posted...

I just heard about it, maybe it was a different version or different Zelda game.

As adjl said, you're most likely thinking of the GC version. That copy had terrible emulation and was prone to freezing in load zones, particularly on the final night.

fun fact: The Goron Tunic is permanently missable

If you manage to complete the Fire Temple without the Goron Tunic, you can't get it anymore... you can't even buy it because the condition for the shopkeeper to have it is you getting it.

Lokarin posted...

fun fact: The Goron Tunic is permanently missable

If you manage to complete the Fire Temple without the Goron Tunic, you can't get it anymore...

Unless you're using glitches or sequence breaking, it is impossible to even access Fire Temple without first getting the Goron Tunic, because you receive it from Link the Goron after stopping him from rolling around, and only after you talk to him does Darunia's Room re-open, which allows you to access lower Death Mountain Crater and the Fire Temple entrance. To get around this, you would either have to megaflip off of the ledge in upper DMC or go get the longshot from the Water Temple, jump down to the lava platforms, and longshot over to the lava islands connected by wood planks in lower DMC.

Lokarin posted...

you can't even buy it because the condition for the shopkeeper to have it is you getting it.

No, the shopkeeper has it regardless. The issue is he won't sell it to child Link and access to his store is blocked for adult Link until you talk to Link the Goron after stopping him from rolling.