Was the WATER TEMPLE really THAT hard? - Ocarina of Time

I played this when I was 7 when it came out, and remember having to get my dad to call the nintendo helpline, and a man patiently talked me through the water temple room by room, till I was able to find the key I was missing. 🙏 Thank you, extremely patient nintendo call center man.

Fun fact: Dark Link's health mimics your own when you enter the room, so if you enter on the brink of death he'll go down in a hit or two or he'll take awhile if you have full health. I always thought that was interesting

I actually compleated this enitre dungeon without the blue tunic by accident. I remember freeing the King Zora after finishing the Water Temple and him giving me the tunic and thinking "Man this would have been useful in the Water Temple."

EVERYONE would miss that key that's under the platform in the middle column of the temple. Where you raise the water the first level. Seemed like back in the day whenever anyone was stuck they always missed that key, thinking they couldnt beat it.

I just want to point out too that using Farore's Wind at one of the water level switches really helps to minimize the backtracking.

I think the annoying thing was realising you have to actually memorise the temple’s design, not just blag through with your short term memory. And THEN the spatial reasoning is tested, if you’re into that.

This temple always gave me a serious claustrophobic feeling. You're in this ancient man made cave buried deep underneath a giant lake. It's dimly lit, the corridors are tight and awkward, goddamn prehistoric crustaceans wandering around, oh and one of the rooms involves an existential hallucination. You can almost taste the stale dead air that's been sealed in that watery tomb for who knows how long.

It's more tedious than it is hard, having to raise and lower the levels, and then equip/unequip the boots. The remake fixed the latter part, and if you play the randomizer, they map the Ocarina and both Boot items to the d-pad, making it even better.

When my brother first played this dungeon, my sister and I watched and helped as much as we could as he was getting confused. This was our first Zelda and the third video game we ever got our hands on as kids. We developed a strategy of process of elimination and constantly checking the map. Checked all available routes on the bottom floor, okay move on to the next floor. It was a constant rechecking and reexploring that helped us and the satisfaction we got when it was beaten. When I played on my own, I did the same. During my childhood, I found this temple to be annoyingly tedious. But now that I'm older, I appreciate the design more and was glad I had a chance to explore.

On my first try I struggled finding the basement. I remember noticing the entry but from that angle it just seemed as a bottomless pit. Remember, in that era we were trained to avoid holes in the ground!

The 3D models you used to explain the map and water level mechanics are amazing. They make it very clear what you're telling

The water temple was always my favorite with the fire temple being a very close second. The puzzles, the mini boss and the hookshot made this temple the best imo. ooT has always been my favorite, hands down.

I actually found it relaxing, just floating up and down the water. The Fire temple and Well were more frustrating/nerve wrecking (as frustrated as I could get from a game I adore) yes the boots issue was a tad annoying but not enough to ruin it for me

I found it really interesting a breakdown of a temple’s progression and mechanics. You should do the other temples

This got recommended to me directly after watching TerminalMontage’s Water Temple video 😂😂😂😂😂

The most frustrating part was the cave with whirlpools. Link can't walk up a slight slope underwater there. The main area with water levels was a puzzle but it's meant to be. Solving it is fun.

I don't have concrete memories of my first time experiencing this dungeon, since I was so young. All I know is that I was fascinated by how it looked and sounded, and came out of it loving it. The 3DS changes were basically all the game needed imo, and I'm glad Zelda dungeon design has still remained very solid to this day despite the pushback the Water Temple got. Really good video detailing the dungeon, it's nice to get some really good retrospective on this type of thing. Not my favorite dungeon, but still a really solid one imo Also, another thing I'd always thought was hysterical to me was how the Master Quest version of the dungeon felt easier? I remember beating it first try with 0 issue or thinking, yet the Water Temple definitely left me stuck and lost in a few areas. It's crazy lmfao

I LITERALLY just did the Water Temple in OoT yesterday. The key in the hole under the floating block in the center pillar (spiked floor) was easy to forget

So glad I first played Ocarina on the 3DS and didn't have to deal with the Iron Boots shenanigans! I got thrown off by the Water Temple, but for completely different reasons: I entered the Water Temple wondering when the heck I would get the Zora Tunic and finally be able to breathe underwater, not realizing until I looked it up online that I had to go back and unfreeze the Zora king! And then I got stuck in the Dark Link room, getting confused by it, wandering the temple some more, and returning several times before I finally figured out how to trigger the mini-boss!

I think this is one of the best designed dungeons in the entire series. I wish every dungeon had this level of complexity.