Video Game Review: My Problems with the Water Level in Ocarina of Time

Anyone who has played video games extensively knows a lot about levels. Every video game more complicated than Pong, from Donkey Kong and Pac-Man to the games of today (at least the ones that focus on adventure) is structured around levels. They are what we play through, the basic unit of gameplay, and video games would not be nearly the same without them.

Like everything in a video game (or for that matter, any medium) there are some levels which are OK, some which are good, some which are annoying, and everything in between. However, there are also the levels we remember, even if we only played the game once, be they absolutely amazing, or so bad that they actually don't want to play the game for fear of having to suffer through the level again.

Well, I have decided to take notice, and start a new series of posts that pay tribute to the levels that have had an impact on me, which means that many of these posts will be very, very angry. Including this one, because I have decided to start this series off with a level which is infamously bad -- a level which is widely regarded among gamers as one of the worst levels in video game history (which is saying something). I am talking about the Water Temple in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

I'll start with an explanation for those who have not played this game. Link, the main character, starts off as a little kid living in the forest. However, after finding three magical stones, and receiving the titular Ocarina of Time from Princess Zelda, he finds the Master Sword, and upon drawing it is transported seven years into the future. There he learns that Ganondorf has taken over the world, and Link must find five of the seven sages in order to defeat him (two of the sages have already been awoken and help Link along the way). Naturally, the people who are actually the sages have managed to get themselves inside the deepest part of the dangerous temples swarming with horrible monsters, as opposed to hiding in the perfectly safe village which has somehow avoided getting conquered (well, OK, a few of them actually do have good reasons for being inside the temples, but this whole aspect of the story is still annoying).

Anyway, the third temple is known simply as the Water Temple, but it is anything but simple. It is puzzle-filled dungeon gameplay at its worst. In fact, it was so bad that when the makers of Legend of Zelda announced that they were remaking Ocarina for the upcoming 3DS they actually said that they were looking forward to righting the wrongs committed with the Water Temple.

Why is it so bad? Let me count the ways. Naturally, this temple is filled with water, which Link is incapable of diving in despite being able to breathe infinitely. (No one ever bothers to explain this.) In order to sink in the water, Link must put on the Iron Boots, and must take them off again to go up out of the water. Instead of making this as easy as pressing a button like in later games, you can only put on the Iron Boots by going into the Start Menu and scrolling through a few screens. However, since the layout of the dungeon is so complicated, you will get lost easily and therefore you must constantly check your map, which is on a separate menu. This means that you'll spend approximately half your time in this dungeon scrolling through menus. Fun.

Furthermore, half of the areas in this level can't be accessed until you get an item called the longshot (sort of like a grappling gun), and almost every single door in the dungeon is locked. To make things worse, you are constantly having to change the water level, but this can only be done at certain locations, and each location can only put the water at a certain level. This means that if you mess up, you have to go through a whole cycle of water level resetting, since you can only get back to the level you need it to be at by going through every single other level possible.

Can you see why I hate this place? While you're underwater, you're almost completely defenseless, and your only weapon (which only works while you have the Iron Boots on and are not sinking or moving at all) is the hookshot (a lesser version of the aforementioned longshot), which isn't that accurate. This wouldn't be much of a problem because there aren't that many enemies underwater, but there is a clam enemy that is only vulnerable at a certain time and that is really annoying, because if you fail to hit the clams, they will hit you. There was one part where I actually caught in a tiny room with two clam enemies, and was eventually forced to flee because I could not hit them.

Back to the doors. They can only be unlocked by keys, but the keys somehow disappear as soon as you use them. This might make sense if every door had a different lock, but in fact any key will work in any door. In other words, the game is simply making things more tedious so that you will have to work harder (to be fair, this is a problem with every Zelda game).

So here's what usually happens. You go through the temple for about half an hour before you find a key. After finding that key you'll unlock that door you found earlier. This is what you're probably thinking at this point. "Oh, finally, I'm making some progress in this dungeon, alright that wasn't so . . . .Wait a minute. There is only one door out of this room besides the one I came through.

"And it's locked.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!"

Now, multiply that experience by about 50 doors, and you've got a pretty good idea why I, along with everyone who ever played the game HATES THIS STUPID DUNGEON, AND WOULD GLADLY NUKE THE PLACE GIVEN HALF A CHANCE!

You might think that there is nothing more to complain about, but you'd be wrong. I haven't even mentioned the mini-boss yet. For those of you who don't know, pretty much every Zelda dungeon follows the same pattern. You go in a dungeon, fight some flaming bats, find some keys, solve some puzzles, and then you fight a mini-boss, who's guarding an item necessary to complete the dungeon and fight the boss. The mini-boss in this dungeon is Dark Link, and he is the hardest in the game, bar none, and is actually harder than most of the full-fledged bosses. Dark Link has a sword and shield like you do, meaning that he can block almost every attack you throw at him. He's not that much of a threat because you can do the same thing, but figuring out how to hurt him is a huge pain. Navi, your so-called "helper" is, as usual, completely useless, and if you ask her how to fight Dark Link, she will say something like "defeat yourself." Wow, that's helpful! I tried everything to defeat Dark Link, from fire to exploding nuts, before I literally ran out of weapons and just ran in his face swinging my sword wildly -- which somehow worked. I still don't get this, why is this a good idea? Who would simply rush headlong into a trained swordsman blindly swinging his blade? No instinct tells you that that is a good idea.

However, the single most annoying thing in the dungeon is the room before the boss door. It's really small, but the most deadly room in the game. You just have to walk up a ramp, but the ramp is so steep that if Link ever pauses while going up he will slide back down. To top this off, the ramp, which is really narrow, has three blades which bounce from one side of the ramp to the other endlessly. Now, off the top of my head, I would say that each hit from a blade, which of course sends you back down, takes out about half a heart. I would guess that I had about 8 hearts at this time, in addition to two fairies, which fully restore your health when you die. When I got up to the top, I had no fairies left. None. I ate through about 16 full hearts of health, taking about 32 hits, JUST TRYING TO GO UP A STUPID RAMP! The boss is extremely easy, but that's another problem -- it should be easier to go up the ramp than to defeat the boss.

There are so many problems with this temple, so many that Nintendo simply could not ignore them. In addition to saying that they plan to fix the control during the Water Temple in the remake, in similar temples in other games the control is much better. In Twilight Princess's water level, you can toggle the Iron Boots with a button, you can use the clawshot (that game's hookshot) without the boots on, and I'm pretty sure that you can even use your sword underwater.

In all, I hate this level with the intensity of a thousand suns, and really hope that the remake's version is much better.

Because having to play through this temple again might just trigger another rant.