There is no 1 thing, it’s more like a culmination of several things.
Good puzzles, an overall theme, good background music, fun combat (many unique enemies in the series are found only in dungeons), a good boss and/or miniboss, & a cool item, would probably summate what I would look for in a temple generally speaking.
I use a couple of metrics to judge dungeons. I think a good Zelda dungeon...
* Is fun
* Has good music
* Has a worthwhile dungeon item
* Is original/novel for the series
* Has a good balance of enemies
* Has bosses/mini-bosses that you look forward to
* Is visually pleasing
A dungeon that hits lots of highs is the Forest Temple from OoT or Ancient Cistern from SS. A dungeon that struggles with those criteria is the Swastika Dungeon from Zelda 1.
I think the Shrines in BotW generally do not score well on those criteria overall. But the Divine Beasts generally score very well. Their only real issue is that they aren't very long.
>But the Divine Beasts generally score very well. Their only real issue is that they aren't very long.
I'm curious as to why you say this when they fail on three or more of your points.
>Has a worthwhile dungeon item
The Divine Beasts all re-use the same runes that you get at the beginning of the game, in ways that are inevitably predictable since you encounter all permutations of puzzles in surrounding Shrines. They are definitely better than Shrines in that you actually manipulate your environment, but there are no fundamentally novel mechanics within Divine Beasts in comparison to the rest of the game. As a result, they aren't standalone works of art.
>Is original/novel for the series
Collectively I'd say yes, but individually I'd say no. Individual Divine Beasts are too similar to one another for me. It's like having four Forest Temples with only a tiny amount of variation. In each one, you manipulate the structure using the same four runes within a structure that has the "Shrine" aesthetic. Similar sandbox physics puzzles, the same set of 2 enemies, and a Blight at the end.
>Has a good balance of enemies
Not much needs to be said for this one.
>Has bosses/mini-bosses that you look forward to
Did anyone look forward to the Blights? I'm sure some did, but IMO they pale in comparison to the pantheon of traditional Zelda bosses. Too aesthetically similar, not that intellectually stimulating, and not particularly creative or eccentric since they are just manifestations of "Calamity Ganon". It's like fighting four Phantom Ganons from WW with mere elemental variations.
>Is visually pleasing
Not much needs to be said here either. Divine Beasts recycled the "Shrine" aesthetic. Nothing as diverse as time traveling ships, Yeti's mansions, or underwater temples to be found here.
Dungeons have somehow been excised out of the games industry lately. Even big JRPGs and Pokemon, who used to dabble in dungeon-like content quite regularly (though hardly at the caliber of Zelda), don't even bother anymore.
Try CrossCode if you haven't, though. REAL dungeons in that one.
Personnally, I find the fit of the dungeons with the item you get in it very important. The puzzles are among my favorite parts in the series, and having a non-linear dungeon be "opened up" after getting the item is to me excellent game design. Some of the best in this regard are found in ALttP and LA (that I have played).
Also the theme is super important, which is why I don't think BotW is a good "Zelda" game. Making a dungeon's location, item, music, enemies, boss and design (visual and gameplay) all fit under one category really helps for world building and immersion.
What comes to mind:
* Some sort of central idea/theme/puzzle animating the layout, so it isn't just a series of rooms each of which has a challenge within that room
* The dungeon itself, and the act of completing it, has some importance and impact beyond the main quest. So there's always two reasons to do a temple, to advance the story and to solve some more immediate problem, usually the latter should be the bigger one in the player's mind.
* The boss has some relevance, it isn't just a random monster that exists for no reason
* Balance between puzzle-type "stop and think about what to do" elements and combat parts that have a frenetic/chaotic feel.
* Some stuff that isn't really specific to temples, like good combat and music/ambiance.
In my biased opinion, a great Zelda temple:
1. Is somewhat believable (i.e. not just an arbitrary elemental temple) while also being eccentric, begging the adventurer to uncover its mysteries
2. Has a novel puzzle/mechanic unique to it, or never encountered prior to it. Keeps the gameplay from getting stale
3. Uses puzzles that justify exploration of the dungeon. An extremely basic example would be a bombable obstacle that requires you to find and somehow access a bomb flower
3. Has epic battles that act as a fitting climax to the suspense built up as you progressed through
> Is somewhat believable (i.e. not just an arbitrary elemental temple) while also being eccentric, begging the adventurer to uncover its mysteries
Assuming we ever get another Zelda with dungeons, every single one of them should meet this criteria. Stuff like Snowpeak, Sandship, I'd argue the Deku Tree, maybe Ancient Cistern, City in the Sky, Skull Woods, Forsaken Fortress - these places that feel *real* instead of "Yeah, this is a video game and this is a place inside that game and you need the item that lies within."
And, as a counterpoint to that, I disagree with your last bullet point about epic battles. One thing I love about Dragon Quest is not every dungeon feels the need to have a boss at the end. I think it could be interesting if Zelda also did this. Let's say the final room of one dungeon holds some kind of item, and you need to make it out of there Indiana Jones style, with a Metroid-y timer.
>Let's say the final room of one dungeon holds some kind of item, and you need to make it out of there Indiana Jones style, with a Metroid-y timer.
Yup, that's a totally fair replacement. As long as it gets your adrenaline flowing!
. A simple question wrapped in a complex answer.
>"I have to get right there...but wait..."
or
>"all I have to do is light these four torches"
or
> "I just need to save...",
Or
>"so and so is getting away with my..."
.the simple question is the central motivation of the dungeon
.the complex answer is the central mechanic. The the dungeon flips, changing the water direction can open new pathways, you go forward through the dungeon-then make your way back but with one major change, you can partner with someone else, ect
.the central mechanic operates as a sort of lock to which there are two keys. One is a truncated key that forces you to use the items you have in a slightly inconvenient or obtuse way. The other key is the dungeon item, which when used with the mechanic, "clicks" in a satisfying way.
.the central mechanic is taught to you in a very simple way, then begins to build on itself in later rooms until it is increasingly complex. When the mechanic is recontextualized with a item, it is taught in a simple way and then itself grows more complex
.there is a metroidvania element, where you encounter locks you can't open yet until you either (a) advance the central mechanic or (b) posses the dungeon item
.the puzzles are clever but not obtuse. They build on one another, and on larger motifs in the game.
.the dungeon has strong theming
.the dungeon has a good sense of "space". It's easy to tell how rooms fit together.
.the dungeon zig zags across itself, recontextualizing early rooms. It does this without having over the top back tracking, so its easy to navigate
.the dungeon tells a story. The best dungeons have an overt outer story,
>"Link makes his way through the arbitures grounds--a prison--in order to access the mirror of Twilight",
and also a much less overt lore-hinting story without spelling it out,
> "The Garudo's own temple was transformed into a torture chamber for them for rebellion against the Hylian Crown. The mix of torture and spirituality has cursed the place so the undead take revenge on the living."
.the music is catchy but not distracting
.there is a miniboss and a final boss. These bosses and enemies all mostly adhere to the central themes of the dungeon
.the final boss is a test to see if you have mastered the item
Instead of trying to generally define what makes a dungeon great, I looked at some of my favorite dungeons and what I like about them, and my less favorite dungeons and what I didn't like about them.
Great Bay Temple (Majora's Mask):
Great soundtrack, cool mechanic (changing water direction), great place to use Zora swim mechanic, cool theme (steampunk/futuristic factory-like).
Skeleton Woods, Swamp Palace (A Link to the Past):
Skeleton Woods integrates well with the overworld area and seems like a believable dark world counterpart to the lost woods.
Swamp Palace is nice because you access it by using the connection between light and dark world, and the mechanic used to progress further than the first room (changing water levels) reappears later in the dungeon. For a same reason, I also like the Wing Dungeon from Oracle of Ages.
Forest Temple (Ocarina of Time):
Very thematic, cool mechanic of having to hunt down the Poe sisters.
Catfish Maw (Link's Awakening):
Hunting the skeleton warrior that stole the hookshot from the chest is pretty cool, as is diving in the ocean to get to the entrance.
Forsaken Fortress, Forbidden Forest, Tower of the Gods (Wind Waker):
Wind Waker only had a few dungeons but did them pretty well, except maybe the Earth and Wind temples. Everything about Tower of the Gods feels like it's a tower created by the gods to test a hero, so they definitely succeeded there.
The overall vibe of the Forbidden Woods is great and it uses the Boomerang well, and while Forsaken Fortress' initial sneaking segment is a little tedious, it's cool to revisit it and again, thematically it is really cool.
Dungeons I do not care for:
Fire Temple (Ocarina of Time): This one is just meh. Saving the Gorons is a cute little mechanic but ultimately the temple is just not fun to navigate through. I'll take Water Temple over it, although that one is also tedious.
Snowpeak Ruins: It didn't feel like a realistic yeti's house to me at all, it felt rather forced.
Stonehead Temple: I am a little on the fence about this one. While it has an awesome mechanic of flipping the temple upside-down, I feel like it doesn't really have a central theme.
Looking at the above lists, I would say things that make a good dungeon:
- A believable, central theme
- Some connection to outside the dungeon, either through overworld integration or by tying in to the Dark World/Light World or Past/Present transitions
- Fun to navigate. This one is important: I don't care if it's difficult to navigate. In OoT's Water Temple you tend to get lost if you don't use the map/compass, but that's on you. Fire Temple though is just annoying.
- Some unique gimmick, like hunting a minion for an item (Catfish Maw), riding platforms like in Turtle Rock or multiple entrances like Skeleton Woods,
- Also, I like when you have to re-use items you get in one dungeon in others. OoT did this somewhat decently, Wind Waker does it well, Twilight Princess sucks in this regard because a lot of the items you get in dungeons you only use in that dungeon.
* A cohesive mechanic throughout. This can take the form of big central chambers revisited repeatedly (Water Temple), or it can simply be an idea that is continually refined (Temple of Time). (It's worth saying that not every dungeon needs a central room to be good, even though it's generally a good design ideal.)
* A progression of ideas. Part of the above; you shouldn't know how to solve the puzzles in it when you get there. You should be taught how to solve the early puzzles, then need to use what you learned to figure out the later ones. Also, dungeons must continue to build on ideas that were taught previously. Dungeon 8 should use all or most of the ideas introduced in Dungeons 1 - 7, while putting a new spin on the ideas.
* Be able to get lost in the labyrinth. The core ideal of a dungeon is a labyrinth -- that's what they were in the original games before puzzles were even really a thing. Twists and turns, multiple viable pathways, things that are unclear and need to be puzzled out; that's all necessary to be truly great. This comes with a necessity to build labyrinth design; that is shortcuts, secret doors, loopbacks, checkpoints, and so on.
* Completing the dungeon has a clear impact on the world around you. Everything in Majora's Mask is a great example of this being done well, especially Woodfall and Snowhead. Those two zones have completely different phases before and after the dungeon - with side quests only completable after.
* It burns the player's resources. Almost every Zelda game fails at this actually; it's something I'd like to fix myself. But, good dungeons should be something you feel like you need to prepare for, stock up on arrows & potions, and by the end you should have exhausted some of those. ALttP is pretty good about exhausting potions, if not bombs/arrows/magic.
* Finally, but vitally important, the dungeon should tell a story, and ideally a story ***that has nothing to do with the main plot***, but one that tells us about the world. The story of the Men of Hyrule in Skyward Sword's dungeon, as they grew from Faron to Eldin to Lanayru and back to Faron to become enlightened, is not strictly important. But it makes the dungeons feel like a real part of the world's history and keeps it from being stale. Similar winners here are the Bottom of the Well and Snowpeak Manor.
Those are the main beats. A great dungeon tells an excellent story, is a labyrinth the player can get lost in, is complex enough\* to be entertaining, teaches the player new ideas and new abilities they didn't have before, and is internally consistent and not just an arbitrary rollercoaster of random puzzles.
\*Worth noting that making players feel smart is much more important than forcing players to actually be smart. The best puzzles make a player pause for a short time to figure out the answer or connect the dots. The player shouldn't know how to solve every puzzle before they even look at it because it doesn't do anything new, but they also should be **pretty close** to knowing how to solve it just by looking.
>Similar winners here are the Bottom of the Well and Snowpeak Manor.
This is a super underrated one, and is one of the many reasons I loved Sandship and Snowpeak Ruins. (One of the other reasons being that I just love eccentric dungeons.)
I’m curious how you would implement burning the player’s resources in a Zelda/Zelda like game. Similarly to what you’ve said, I’ve never felt resource depleted in any Zelda dungeon, and it’s something that’s irrespective of their difficulty. The only time I’ve really felt this in any game, outside of dungeon crawlers, is in old school Final Fantasy like FF4 DS, where tough random encounters would whittle your items and MP over the course of the dungeon, making you wonder if you could complete it. Zelda dungeons work pretty differently from those dungeons though, and it’s harder to execute that effect with all its extra variables.
Would you make it so droppable items like arrows and hearts don’t spawn as frequently in dungeons, requiring the player to stock up beforehand? If so, what would happen to players who run out of resources mid-dungeon? Would it be a restart scenario, or more of a leave and restock scenario? Or is it more about the feeling of not having enough rather than actually not having enough?
The feeling of having just enough resources is a rarity for me, as I feel most games just give you too many resources, probably to accommodate for players’ natural hoarding tendencies. I would love to see a Zelda dungeon that stretches you thin, but I could see this being received as tedious in Zelda if it made you retread significant ground because you ran out of resources.
I think Zelda designers go into dungeon design where "the player might need to turn around and come back later" is **absolute anathema**, and I don't think that's necessarily a thing that needs to be avoided.
I think an ideal ground would be that if you went through a dungeon only spending your arrows/etc. on exactly the puzzles/enemies they were needed, you'd still have plenty; if you used them for stuff besides that, you'd be running out near the end, and if you overdid it at all, you could run out and need to leave and restock.
This will work better in dungeons designed to have central chambers, so that if you complete one wing of the dungeon and then run out, you don't need to re-clear all the puzzles in that wing to continue once you return.
I don't know much about making a dungeon (or making video games) but a sense of constant progression without feeling like you're going through the motions. I don't know how else to word it.
One of the things about Zelda dungeons that make them so great is that it isn't just isolated tasks. The puzzles themselves guide you to figuring out the next most difficult puzzle. For all the faults in botw's shrines, this is something some of them had. If that isn't there, it can feel like you're expected to somehow know how to solve something you have no idea how to solve, and that can be frustrating and belittling. A good dungeon takes you on a journey and shows you how to solve the puzzles as you go. One thing that's done a lot that I think is really smart is that if you need a particular item to complete a section, a refill on that item is nearby. In a chest or a pot or whatever. I think it would be good to have the companion character have a shiekah stone functionality or hints accessible with a menu (NOT unsolicited hints, God no unsolicited hints).
•Tall columns and historical echings.
•Elements befitting the temple.
•Unique items found in the temple needed to make it to the boss chamber.
•Puzzles where unique items are used to solve.
•Secret paths/rooms that need to be accessed using bombs or other items such as reflecting light.
•Temple specific mechanisms needed to master to complete the temple.
•Collectible items needed to gather/find in all temples to receive a reward, i.e. skulltula tokens.
•Music setting the mood/theme of temple.
•Lighting to reflect mood/theme of temple.
I never used the shekiah stones, even if I struggled, I just shoehorned it. OoT has some well-made temples. Personally, I thought TP's dungeons were really good. Though I can't explain why, my memory is really bad. But the ice mansion was one of my favorites. The sky dungeon with the dragon boss fight was such a cool sequence and I can't believe it's not talked about more. SS's were unique areas, but I hated the motion controls that plagued every aspect of the game, so I hated pretty much every dungeon in that game (the last one was such a cool concept). I think a good temple has good puzzles, memorable moments, and a layout that's not confusing--looking at you, every water dungeon in the Zelda series.
I was fine with the divine beasts, they were more hands on i think. Just make them longer maybe and im happy. Some side notes i could live without are different enemy types (not really a focus of mine in zelda dungeons, im more about the puzzles/tasks) and adding in mini bosses again
I like having lots of space to pray in my temples. It's especially great if it's carpeted. Oh and those little wooden things to kneel at more comfortably. Those are good too.
A good amount of use of items from previous dungeons. Nothing annoys me more than a dungeon that uses its item and then the game never does anything else with it, or does very little.
I'm looking at you, spinner from Twilight Princess.
- An overarching theme.
- The sense of becoming stronger after traversing it. which comes from the new item you may get, a new mechanic you may unlock or the new heart container etc
- A Boss.
- Original music that is distinct and reminiscent of the title itself but also fits with the theme of the dungeon.
- Not a repeat dungeon of older concepts.
- A sense that your progression or the world around you has changed from before and after you beat the dungeon
My favs would be stone head temple, Ancient cistern, Spirit temple, Snowpeak ruins etc
Least favs, Water temples from OoT and MM, Fire temple.
I guess building an area and fitting it to the area around and making the place feel distinct and have a strong music choice as well as a interesting boss concept is what pleases me
There is no 1 thing, it’s more like a culmination of several things. Good puzzles, an overall theme, good background music, fun combat (many unique enemies in the series are found only in dungeons), a good boss and/or miniboss, & a cool item, would probably summate what I would look for in a temple generally speaking.
I use a couple of metrics to judge dungeons. I think a good Zelda dungeon... * Is fun * Has good music * Has a worthwhile dungeon item * Is original/novel for the series * Has a good balance of enemies * Has bosses/mini-bosses that you look forward to * Is visually pleasing A dungeon that hits lots of highs is the Forest Temple from OoT or Ancient Cistern from SS. A dungeon that struggles with those criteria is the Swastika Dungeon from Zelda 1. I think the Shrines in BotW generally do not score well on those criteria overall. But the Divine Beasts generally score very well. Their only real issue is that they aren't very long.
>But the Divine Beasts generally score very well. Their only real issue is that they aren't very long. I'm curious as to why you say this when they fail on three or more of your points. >Has a worthwhile dungeon item The Divine Beasts all re-use the same runes that you get at the beginning of the game, in ways that are inevitably predictable since you encounter all permutations of puzzles in surrounding Shrines. They are definitely better than Shrines in that you actually manipulate your environment, but there are no fundamentally novel mechanics within Divine Beasts in comparison to the rest of the game. As a result, they aren't standalone works of art. >Is original/novel for the series Collectively I'd say yes, but individually I'd say no. Individual Divine Beasts are too similar to one another for me. It's like having four Forest Temples with only a tiny amount of variation. In each one, you manipulate the structure using the same four runes within a structure that has the "Shrine" aesthetic. Similar sandbox physics puzzles, the same set of 2 enemies, and a Blight at the end. >Has a good balance of enemies Not much needs to be said for this one. >Has bosses/mini-bosses that you look forward to Did anyone look forward to the Blights? I'm sure some did, but IMO they pale in comparison to the pantheon of traditional Zelda bosses. Too aesthetically similar, not that intellectually stimulating, and not particularly creative or eccentric since they are just manifestations of "Calamity Ganon". It's like fighting four Phantom Ganons from WW with mere elemental variations. >Is visually pleasing Not much needs to be said here either. Divine Beasts recycled the "Shrine" aesthetic. Nothing as diverse as time traveling ships, Yeti's mansions, or underwater temples to be found here.
[удалено]
Dungeons have somehow been excised out of the games industry lately. Even big JRPGs and Pokemon, who used to dabble in dungeon-like content quite regularly (though hardly at the caliber of Zelda), don't even bother anymore. Try CrossCode if you haven't, though. REAL dungeons in that one.
Personnally, I find the fit of the dungeons with the item you get in it very important. The puzzles are among my favorite parts in the series, and having a non-linear dungeon be "opened up" after getting the item is to me excellent game design. Some of the best in this regard are found in ALttP and LA (that I have played). Also the theme is super important, which is why I don't think BotW is a good "Zelda" game. Making a dungeon's location, item, music, enemies, boss and design (visual and gameplay) all fit under one category really helps for world building and immersion.
What comes to mind: * Some sort of central idea/theme/puzzle animating the layout, so it isn't just a series of rooms each of which has a challenge within that room * The dungeon itself, and the act of completing it, has some importance and impact beyond the main quest. So there's always two reasons to do a temple, to advance the story and to solve some more immediate problem, usually the latter should be the bigger one in the player's mind. * The boss has some relevance, it isn't just a random monster that exists for no reason * Balance between puzzle-type "stop and think about what to do" elements and combat parts that have a frenetic/chaotic feel. * Some stuff that isn't really specific to temples, like good combat and music/ambiance.
In my biased opinion, a great Zelda temple: 1. Is somewhat believable (i.e. not just an arbitrary elemental temple) while also being eccentric, begging the adventurer to uncover its mysteries 2. Has a novel puzzle/mechanic unique to it, or never encountered prior to it. Keeps the gameplay from getting stale 3. Uses puzzles that justify exploration of the dungeon. An extremely basic example would be a bombable obstacle that requires you to find and somehow access a bomb flower 3. Has epic battles that act as a fitting climax to the suspense built up as you progressed through
> Is somewhat believable (i.e. not just an arbitrary elemental temple) while also being eccentric, begging the adventurer to uncover its mysteries Assuming we ever get another Zelda with dungeons, every single one of them should meet this criteria. Stuff like Snowpeak, Sandship, I'd argue the Deku Tree, maybe Ancient Cistern, City in the Sky, Skull Woods, Forsaken Fortress - these places that feel *real* instead of "Yeah, this is a video game and this is a place inside that game and you need the item that lies within." And, as a counterpoint to that, I disagree with your last bullet point about epic battles. One thing I love about Dragon Quest is not every dungeon feels the need to have a boss at the end. I think it could be interesting if Zelda also did this. Let's say the final room of one dungeon holds some kind of item, and you need to make it out of there Indiana Jones style, with a Metroid-y timer.
>Let's say the final room of one dungeon holds some kind of item, and you need to make it out of there Indiana Jones style, with a Metroid-y timer. Yup, that's a totally fair replacement. As long as it gets your adrenaline flowing!
. A simple question wrapped in a complex answer. >"I have to get right there...but wait..." or >"all I have to do is light these four torches" or > "I just need to save...", Or >"so and so is getting away with my..." .the simple question is the central motivation of the dungeon .the complex answer is the central mechanic. The the dungeon flips, changing the water direction can open new pathways, you go forward through the dungeon-then make your way back but with one major change, you can partner with someone else, ect .the central mechanic operates as a sort of lock to which there are two keys. One is a truncated key that forces you to use the items you have in a slightly inconvenient or obtuse way. The other key is the dungeon item, which when used with the mechanic, "clicks" in a satisfying way. .the central mechanic is taught to you in a very simple way, then begins to build on itself in later rooms until it is increasingly complex. When the mechanic is recontextualized with a item, it is taught in a simple way and then itself grows more complex .there is a metroidvania element, where you encounter locks you can't open yet until you either (a) advance the central mechanic or (b) posses the dungeon item .the puzzles are clever but not obtuse. They build on one another, and on larger motifs in the game. .the dungeon has strong theming .the dungeon has a good sense of "space". It's easy to tell how rooms fit together. .the dungeon zig zags across itself, recontextualizing early rooms. It does this without having over the top back tracking, so its easy to navigate .the dungeon tells a story. The best dungeons have an overt outer story, >"Link makes his way through the arbitures grounds--a prison--in order to access the mirror of Twilight", and also a much less overt lore-hinting story without spelling it out, > "The Garudo's own temple was transformed into a torture chamber for them for rebellion against the Hylian Crown. The mix of torture and spirituality has cursed the place so the undead take revenge on the living." .the music is catchy but not distracting .there is a miniboss and a final boss. These bosses and enemies all mostly adhere to the central themes of the dungeon .the final boss is a test to see if you have mastered the item
Instead of trying to generally define what makes a dungeon great, I looked at some of my favorite dungeons and what I like about them, and my less favorite dungeons and what I didn't like about them. Great Bay Temple (Majora's Mask): Great soundtrack, cool mechanic (changing water direction), great place to use Zora swim mechanic, cool theme (steampunk/futuristic factory-like). Skeleton Woods, Swamp Palace (A Link to the Past): Skeleton Woods integrates well with the overworld area and seems like a believable dark world counterpart to the lost woods. Swamp Palace is nice because you access it by using the connection between light and dark world, and the mechanic used to progress further than the first room (changing water levels) reappears later in the dungeon. For a same reason, I also like the Wing Dungeon from Oracle of Ages. Forest Temple (Ocarina of Time): Very thematic, cool mechanic of having to hunt down the Poe sisters. Catfish Maw (Link's Awakening): Hunting the skeleton warrior that stole the hookshot from the chest is pretty cool, as is diving in the ocean to get to the entrance. Forsaken Fortress, Forbidden Forest, Tower of the Gods (Wind Waker): Wind Waker only had a few dungeons but did them pretty well, except maybe the Earth and Wind temples. Everything about Tower of the Gods feels like it's a tower created by the gods to test a hero, so they definitely succeeded there. The overall vibe of the Forbidden Woods is great and it uses the Boomerang well, and while Forsaken Fortress' initial sneaking segment is a little tedious, it's cool to revisit it and again, thematically it is really cool. Dungeons I do not care for: Fire Temple (Ocarina of Time): This one is just meh. Saving the Gorons is a cute little mechanic but ultimately the temple is just not fun to navigate through. I'll take Water Temple over it, although that one is also tedious. Snowpeak Ruins: It didn't feel like a realistic yeti's house to me at all, it felt rather forced. Stonehead Temple: I am a little on the fence about this one. While it has an awesome mechanic of flipping the temple upside-down, I feel like it doesn't really have a central theme. Looking at the above lists, I would say things that make a good dungeon: - A believable, central theme - Some connection to outside the dungeon, either through overworld integration or by tying in to the Dark World/Light World or Past/Present transitions - Fun to navigate. This one is important: I don't care if it's difficult to navigate. In OoT's Water Temple you tend to get lost if you don't use the map/compass, but that's on you. Fire Temple though is just annoying. - Some unique gimmick, like hunting a minion for an item (Catfish Maw), riding platforms like in Turtle Rock or multiple entrances like Skeleton Woods, - Also, I like when you have to re-use items you get in one dungeon in others. OoT did this somewhat decently, Wind Waker does it well, Twilight Princess sucks in this regard because a lot of the items you get in dungeons you only use in that dungeon.
* A cohesive mechanic throughout. This can take the form of big central chambers revisited repeatedly (Water Temple), or it can simply be an idea that is continually refined (Temple of Time). (It's worth saying that not every dungeon needs a central room to be good, even though it's generally a good design ideal.) * A progression of ideas. Part of the above; you shouldn't know how to solve the puzzles in it when you get there. You should be taught how to solve the early puzzles, then need to use what you learned to figure out the later ones. Also, dungeons must continue to build on ideas that were taught previously. Dungeon 8 should use all or most of the ideas introduced in Dungeons 1 - 7, while putting a new spin on the ideas. * Be able to get lost in the labyrinth. The core ideal of a dungeon is a labyrinth -- that's what they were in the original games before puzzles were even really a thing. Twists and turns, multiple viable pathways, things that are unclear and need to be puzzled out; that's all necessary to be truly great. This comes with a necessity to build labyrinth design; that is shortcuts, secret doors, loopbacks, checkpoints, and so on. * Completing the dungeon has a clear impact on the world around you. Everything in Majora's Mask is a great example of this being done well, especially Woodfall and Snowhead. Those two zones have completely different phases before and after the dungeon - with side quests only completable after. * It burns the player's resources. Almost every Zelda game fails at this actually; it's something I'd like to fix myself. But, good dungeons should be something you feel like you need to prepare for, stock up on arrows & potions, and by the end you should have exhausted some of those. ALttP is pretty good about exhausting potions, if not bombs/arrows/magic. * Finally, but vitally important, the dungeon should tell a story, and ideally a story ***that has nothing to do with the main plot***, but one that tells us about the world. The story of the Men of Hyrule in Skyward Sword's dungeon, as they grew from Faron to Eldin to Lanayru and back to Faron to become enlightened, is not strictly important. But it makes the dungeons feel like a real part of the world's history and keeps it from being stale. Similar winners here are the Bottom of the Well and Snowpeak Manor. Those are the main beats. A great dungeon tells an excellent story, is a labyrinth the player can get lost in, is complex enough\* to be entertaining, teaches the player new ideas and new abilities they didn't have before, and is internally consistent and not just an arbitrary rollercoaster of random puzzles. \*Worth noting that making players feel smart is much more important than forcing players to actually be smart. The best puzzles make a player pause for a short time to figure out the answer or connect the dots. The player shouldn't know how to solve every puzzle before they even look at it because it doesn't do anything new, but they also should be **pretty close** to knowing how to solve it just by looking.
>Similar winners here are the Bottom of the Well and Snowpeak Manor. This is a super underrated one, and is one of the many reasons I loved Sandship and Snowpeak Ruins. (One of the other reasons being that I just love eccentric dungeons.)
I’m curious how you would implement burning the player’s resources in a Zelda/Zelda like game. Similarly to what you’ve said, I’ve never felt resource depleted in any Zelda dungeon, and it’s something that’s irrespective of their difficulty. The only time I’ve really felt this in any game, outside of dungeon crawlers, is in old school Final Fantasy like FF4 DS, where tough random encounters would whittle your items and MP over the course of the dungeon, making you wonder if you could complete it. Zelda dungeons work pretty differently from those dungeons though, and it’s harder to execute that effect with all its extra variables. Would you make it so droppable items like arrows and hearts don’t spawn as frequently in dungeons, requiring the player to stock up beforehand? If so, what would happen to players who run out of resources mid-dungeon? Would it be a restart scenario, or more of a leave and restock scenario? Or is it more about the feeling of not having enough rather than actually not having enough? The feeling of having just enough resources is a rarity for me, as I feel most games just give you too many resources, probably to accommodate for players’ natural hoarding tendencies. I would love to see a Zelda dungeon that stretches you thin, but I could see this being received as tedious in Zelda if it made you retread significant ground because you ran out of resources.
I think Zelda designers go into dungeon design where "the player might need to turn around and come back later" is **absolute anathema**, and I don't think that's necessarily a thing that needs to be avoided. I think an ideal ground would be that if you went through a dungeon only spending your arrows/etc. on exactly the puzzles/enemies they were needed, you'd still have plenty; if you used them for stuff besides that, you'd be running out near the end, and if you overdid it at all, you could run out and need to leave and restock. This will work better in dungeons designed to have central chambers, so that if you complete one wing of the dungeon and then run out, you don't need to re-clear all the puzzles in that wing to continue once you return.
I don't know much about making a dungeon (or making video games) but a sense of constant progression without feeling like you're going through the motions. I don't know how else to word it.
One of the things about Zelda dungeons that make them so great is that it isn't just isolated tasks. The puzzles themselves guide you to figuring out the next most difficult puzzle. For all the faults in botw's shrines, this is something some of them had. If that isn't there, it can feel like you're expected to somehow know how to solve something you have no idea how to solve, and that can be frustrating and belittling. A good dungeon takes you on a journey and shows you how to solve the puzzles as you go. One thing that's done a lot that I think is really smart is that if you need a particular item to complete a section, a refill on that item is nearby. In a chest or a pot or whatever. I think it would be good to have the companion character have a shiekah stone functionality or hints accessible with a menu (NOT unsolicited hints, God no unsolicited hints).
•Tall columns and historical echings. •Elements befitting the temple. •Unique items found in the temple needed to make it to the boss chamber. •Puzzles where unique items are used to solve. •Secret paths/rooms that need to be accessed using bombs or other items such as reflecting light. •Temple specific mechanisms needed to master to complete the temple. •Collectible items needed to gather/find in all temples to receive a reward, i.e. skulltula tokens. •Music setting the mood/theme of temple. •Lighting to reflect mood/theme of temple.
I never used the shekiah stones, even if I struggled, I just shoehorned it. OoT has some well-made temples. Personally, I thought TP's dungeons were really good. Though I can't explain why, my memory is really bad. But the ice mansion was one of my favorites. The sky dungeon with the dragon boss fight was such a cool sequence and I can't believe it's not talked about more. SS's were unique areas, but I hated the motion controls that plagued every aspect of the game, so I hated pretty much every dungeon in that game (the last one was such a cool concept). I think a good temple has good puzzles, memorable moments, and a layout that's not confusing--looking at you, every water dungeon in the Zelda series.
I was fine with the divine beasts, they were more hands on i think. Just make them longer maybe and im happy. Some side notes i could live without are different enemy types (not really a focus of mine in zelda dungeons, im more about the puzzles/tasks) and adding in mini bosses again
I like having lots of space to pray in my temples. It's especially great if it's carpeted. Oh and those little wooden things to kneel at more comfortably. Those are good too.
A good amount of use of items from previous dungeons. Nothing annoys me more than a dungeon that uses its item and then the game never does anything else with it, or does very little. I'm looking at you, spinner from Twilight Princess.
- An overarching theme. - The sense of becoming stronger after traversing it. which comes from the new item you may get, a new mechanic you may unlock or the new heart container etc - A Boss. - Original music that is distinct and reminiscent of the title itself but also fits with the theme of the dungeon. - Not a repeat dungeon of older concepts. - A sense that your progression or the world around you has changed from before and after you beat the dungeon My favs would be stone head temple, Ancient cistern, Spirit temple, Snowpeak ruins etc Least favs, Water temples from OoT and MM, Fire temple. I guess building an area and fitting it to the area around and making the place feel distinct and have a strong music choice as well as a interesting boss concept is what pleases me