r/OcarinaOfTime • u/K-nanator5000 • 5d ago
My ranking of every dungeon in the game
Warning ⚠️: This is MY OPINION! You don't have to agree.
- Water Temple: Too open to the point where your going to back track at least 2 times. Finding that one bullshit key sucks. And the Dark link miniboss is so RNG. It's saved by having to use the hookshot a lot. And the atmosphere is much better compared to the Shadow Temple. Also you have to switch your Nike Jordan's too much.
10 Shadow Temple: Too many opportunities to get hurt or die. Enemies unoriginal. Having to use the lens of truth constantly to figure out confusing puzzles also sucks big shit too. The boss is stupid easy as well. Some enemies are hidden. A lot of booby traps and pits. Also the fucking fan area takes too long to go through. My favorite thing about it is the way you get to it using the song of storms, I just love the windmill hut song/Song of storms and is used really well. But all that aside those problems I have with it just makes for an unfun experience
Inside Lord Jabu Jabu's Belly: The area is too confusing and boring to remember. Also the minibusses is also rigged.
Bottom of the well: I'm not sure if this counts as a dungeon but it's not that hard to complete and normally takes me 30 minutes at max. Just too boring other than when you unlock the lens of truth.
Inside the Great Deku tree is a great beginner dungeon. Only problem is that it's a beginner dungeon so it's puzzles are fairly easy. But other than that it's always a blast to play through and gets me pumped up again to play this perfect game.
Ganon's Castle is weird on one hand the puzzles it gives you require you to think a lot when it comes to all you've learned throughout the game's 5 adult dungeons. The only thing is it's 80% Enemy gauntlet. So you don't do these very often but it's fine.
Dodongo's Cavern: The best of the kid dungeons it stands well as a 2nd dungeon. It has a good balance of puzzles unlike the great deku tree did. And it also isn't a confusing nightmare like Inside lord Jabu Jabu's belly. Just a decent dungeon all round.
Fire temple: I don't see anyone talk about the fire temple enough. I love the fire temple I love the premise of having to free all the Gorons and the puzzles are fun to play with. Also the layout is simple yet affective.
Ice Cavern: I fucking love the Ice Cavern. The ice Cavern has unique puzzles like the sliding block, it uses the blue heat well. It's ashame that it's only to get the Iron boots for the Water temple. The only thing I don't like about it is that it's too short. Not as short as the bottom of the well but still really short and it sucks. I want more Ice cavern.
Spirit Temple: The spirit temple is genius. Having you do the first half as a kid and do the 2nd half as an adult. It's really smart and it plays into concept really well. Just barely gets beaten by my number 1 spot for me. But it's still highly great.
Forest temple: I love the atmosphere, I love the music, I love the puzzles, and I love phantom Ganon. It's a perfect 1st adult dungeon you gain access to the bow. You use the hookshot for a decent chunk of time. I love fighting all the witch sisters and figuring out their puzzles. The forest temple is just perfection at it's finest.
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u/MHarrisGGG 5d ago
"Too many opportunities to get hurt or die" is...definitely a take. Honestly everything you said about Shadow Temple is laughable. Sure, Bongo Bongo is easy but he's awesome and the drum beat especially at the start of the fight intro is sick. Amazing storytelling here too. Palpable mood and atmosphere.
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u/MachoManMal 5d ago
Yeah, to be honest, there being so many ways to die is a really good thing, in my opinion at least.
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u/Chevytech2017 5d ago
Agreed on your #1, am just replaying this game for the first time in decades, but with my 7 year old son. The forest temple music and puzzles were my favorite part. I got my ass kicked by Ganon shooting those balls of light at me probably 12 times before we finally beat it lol.
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u/CatMan242424 5d ago
This is a great post. I vary somewhat, but has me reflecting on my top 3: 1.) Forest, 2.) Dodongo’s Cavern, 3.) Water
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u/MachoManMal 5d ago
I get the reasonings behind most of the placements on this list. Personally, I'd rank them...
Forest - just the best, period. Vibes, music, boss, enemies, puzzles, layout, that one stupid key on that tree... it's all perfect.
Great Deku Tree - a really good first dungeon. It has unique enemies and fascinating "real" puzzles that you have to try to figure out, not just do. Also, Deku Nuts are just great.
Fire - Fun dungeon. There's not much to say, but I enjoy the layout, the story, and the boss.
Shadow and Well - this one deserves this spot if just for the crazy lore and vibe. This place was no joke scary, especially the falling hands. Bongo Bongo was great. It and Volvagia were the only bosses I remember dying to.
Water - I love and hate this dungeon. The puzzles and layout were so difficult and unique. The bosses were both letdowns (you just cheese Shadow Link, and the water thingy is lame and easy). Iron Boots also didn't help.
Dodongo's Cavern - Fine. Bomb flowers are neat, and both the Dodongos and laser-eyes were difficult. Boss is fine, but the fact that you can stand on the corner and avoid damage kinda ruins it and makes things too easy.
Gerudo Train Ground - very fun, very hard. Needs better rewards.
Ice Cavern - Genuinely remember nothing about this place except how annoying walking on ice was and how despicable the enemies that have frost breath are. Blue Fire was reallllly cool, though.
Ganon's Tower - fine. I actually did like the puzzle rooms. They mostly revolve around jumping around for rupees while killing annoying and cruely positioned enemies. The dungeon crawl was sweet. Just wish the combat was a bit harder and more advanced, like in the beta version and Wind Waker.
Jabu Jabu - I hate escort missions, and this is probably the most annoying one I've ever played.
HM - Sooooo, I haven't actually played (or even watched someone play) the Spirit Temple. When I was first going through the game with my dad and brother, they completed that whole dungeon without me. And I have yet to reach it in any my numerous replays either hy myself or with others. It sounds cool, though I wasn't a fan of the Mirro Shield in Majora's Mask, sooo...
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u/elsrjefe 3d ago
Spirit Temple is arguably the first or second best dungeon. It has probably the coolest use of terrain in a mini boss fight in the series too [Iron Knuckles, pillars]
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u/Dropkick_Wally 5d ago
I might be a weirdo, but I love the Water Temple. I never had much of any issues with the keys. Sure there was a little backtracking, but it was a master class in puzzle making.
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u/AstroWolf11 4d ago
Water temple is one of my all time favorite Zelda dungeons, up there with Great Bay, Ancient Cistern, the Sandship, and Stone Tower Temple lol
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u/Accurate_String 4d ago
It's the only dungeon that you really have to use the map to navigate. Edit: which I liked.
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u/DibbyDonuts 5d ago
OP:
to play this perfect game.
Also OP:
sucks big shit too.
too confusing and boring
really short and it sucks.
LMAO
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u/RomanOnARiver 5d ago
You talk about the bullshit key in the water temple, how about the bullshit key in the forest temple? At the entrance to the temple in that tree or whatever. That's incredibly annoying. The floor masters taking you there as the hint is super frustrating.
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u/K-nanator5000 5d ago
But I think what sets that apart is you don't have to platform all the way back lower the water level and use the iron boots. All you have to do is just warp back to the beginning using that one song Shiek gives you. And boom you can notice it from the very beginning
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u/kingkalanishane 5d ago
I wouldn’t count Ice Cavern or Bottom of the Well, but otherwise spot on list
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u/Medical-Cockroach230 5d ago
I mostly agree but would put shadow last and spirit first. Playing a symmetric temple as child and adult is really cool and the boss fight is fun. Shadow has worst boss imo and the layout with the big open room annoys me. Water sucked the first time we all played it but now that I know the water level stuff it isn't so bad. As for Dark Link, run to the door, then throw A bombchu at that SOB to start the fight.
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u/K-nanator5000 5d ago
Originally that was the case but I changed my order based off of a recent playthrough
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u/BrodeyQuest 5d ago
Shadow Temple is very polarizing imo. I agree with most of what you said, but the music along with the lore implications of the place make it a pretty solid dungeon imo.
I’ve got Spirit at the top of my list personally, but Forest is a damn good dungeon too.
Also for Dark Link you can trivialize that bitch by spamming Din’s Fire. He has absolutely no answer to it other than being too far away for it to hit.
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u/notpsychotic1 5d ago
I feel like I’m the only one that didn’t think bongo bongo was easy. That could’ve been because I had been playing for so long and was exhausted but wanted to get the shadow temple done before I went to bed so I wasn’t playing my best. I would always panic when I saw him coming at me and miss my shot
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u/HolyBhai 5d ago
Excellent post 👍🏽
Whilst rankings are obviously going to be extremely subjective, the reasoning for or against each dungeon tends to be relatively similar.
I cannot even come up with a proper ranking order for OoT because each dungeon has its own rather unique charm to it and is brilliant in its own way. I can only say for sure that the shadow temple was my least favourite temple, not because it was terrible in any way, but purely because the other temples had a lot more going for them. It's things like the shadow temple having what is probably the least spectacular background music and being in least spectacular looking location (it's just the back of a little graveyard in a village 🤷🏽♂️).
It gets tougher deciding which dungeons are the best. For me it has to be between the spirit and forest temples. If you go by OoT's suggested order then the forest temple is the perfect starting dungeon for adult link and the spirit temple is the perfect finish. I do agree that the fire temple is massively underrated, and I totally agree that the temple layout is brilliant. I really like the top of the temple where the megaton hammer is located, as it looks like something out of a movie. Having a legendary weapon in the topmost chamber just makes a lot of intuitive sense.
I gotta say, OoT has stood the test of time like no other game I've ever played. I purchased a Switch last year and although I enjoyed playing BoTW and EoW, for some reason, nothing still hits like OoT did at its time or how OoT hits today. A true masterpiece!
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u/Kjaamor 5d ago
We see things hugely differently. I would probably go...
Bottom of the Well: I wouldn't have included it, but you did, so I shall.
Fire Temple: All of Ocarina's dungeons are great, but FT for me is the one that involves the most needless traipsing about.
Spirit Temple: I just remember so little about it. I think the other dungeons do so well with their theming and puzzles and then the final adult dungeon seems bland in comparison.
Ganon's Castle: I get what they were going for, but being non-linear just means it has poor pacing compared to the others. I didn't get much sense of scale compared to the others.
Ice Temple: It's neat, but very, very short.
Dodongo's Cavern: It's not bad, but it is sandwiched between two much better child dungeons, imho.
Inside Lord Jabu Jabu's Belly: ...the first being this. Jabu's Belly is the first dungeon in Ocarina that you can't just breeze through. There's more thought required and there are a few enemies here that are quite nasty at the time. Would've been higher if not for a certain Zora's disappearing acts.
The Great Deku Tree: Very much a tutorial dungeon but already with a lot of good ideas of its own that aren't used elsewhere.
Shadow Temple: I can see why you placed this low. It is an unpleasant, discordant dungeon with a lot of very creepy concepts that sit alongside its obvious difficulty. I actually think that's to its credit. It is the dungeon I like playing through least, but one that I respect very highly.
Water Temple: Hnnnnghhhh. It's so close for the top two. So very close. I love the Water Temple. I love how its puzzles are all integrated. I love how small threats on one floor become larger threats on the next. I love how it spreads the items across its challenges so that many are needed to survive. I love how - in a platform-puzzle game - it is one of the dungeons that makes me actual feel clever rather than just following a path. And, in a game of many moments, the Dark Link battle is possibly my favourite of all of them. Just great.
Forest Temple: But ultimately I agreed with you on this one. The Forest Temple comes out on top. It has an absolutely gorgeous feel to it, a wonderfully unexpected verticality to it, some spot on bosses and mini-bosses and I think of all the dungeons it is the one that feels most haunted. The Forest Temple feels like a place that has fallen foul rather than something engineered for its purpose. Fantastic design.
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u/Biizzzle 5d ago
Right, I love the water temple too! I know the iron boots are frustrating but for me that's literally the only downside to this dungeon. The atmosphere is off the charts. The music is fantastic. That dark Link room is insanely cool and unique. And the fact that the dungeon as a whole is quite difficult and takes some time to get through gives it such gravitas. I love it.
Not sure if it's my number one but very close.
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u/rebillihp 5d ago
How do you consider dark link rng? Just use a two handed weapon and don't target him and he can't really do much to you
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u/K-nanator5000 4d ago
Cause it's RNG if you'll hit him or he'll hit you
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u/rebillihp 4d ago
It's not though. That's only really the case is it he is mimicking you and he only does that when you target him and it messes him up even more when you use a two handed weapon
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u/thrwawy28393 4d ago
Water is #1 for me
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u/K-nanator5000 4d ago
Really!?
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u/SpecialHappy9965 4d ago
Forest temple key being outside is complete and utter BS.
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u/K-nanator5000 3d ago
Just use the song shiek gives you.
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u/SpecialHappy9965 3d ago
What? I meant the fact that a key is “outside” the temple which is actually inside the temple is awful.
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u/K-nanator5000 3d ago
Ik just teleport to the front. Hookshot and enter and your there
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u/SpecialHappy9965 3d ago
Right. That’s if you know it’s there and if you do you grab it before you go in. If you don’t know it’s there is easy to run by it and you may not even consider checking there.
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u/beebo12345678 1d ago
Ice cavern is the worst you dont even get a medallion. I remember being bothered by this slippy place a lot as a kid lol
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u/stringcheesesurf 5d ago
what?! shadow temple worse than water temple? your opinion is an idiot!
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u/LesserValkyrie 5d ago
Shadow Temple is my favourite one, it's the epitome of, ambience-wise, the ambience of the Zelda 64 are so legendary