Image: Jim Norman / Nintendo Life
It’s the one we’ve all been waiting for. I am six weeks into my Ocarina of Time N64 playthrough, taking a look at one dungeon each week, and I have finally arrived at the most-discussed of the bunch.
After clearing the halfway point with the Fire Temple, it was time to tackle the Ice Cavern and head back over to Lake Hylia to see what the next puzzle box had in store. And yes, as I have said on this site a few times over the years, I honestly don’t understand the hate.
As a reminder, I’m going to be getting into precise Ocarina of Time spoilers here, so if you are saving yourself for the big Switch 2 remake, turn back now!
OoT Dungeon Crawl #6 – The Water Temple
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you don’t hate the Water Temple, you just hate the Iron Boots.
Honestly, it’s a sentiment that I can completely understand. Eiji Aonuma has held his hands up about it, it was fixed in the 3DS version, and from the available footage it looks like said fixes are carried over to the Switch 2 as well.
Yes, going to the outfit menu every time you need to change into/out of those heavy booties is a pain in the butt, but I won’t dedicate any more words to it here because, without that nuisance, the Water Temple is very clever.
My obsession with ‘central puzzle rooms’ is getting a little out of hand at this point in my Dungeon Crawl, but the Water Temple has an excellent one.
Images: Nintendo Life
The grand chamber is the first thing that you see when you bob up from the Temple’s entrance. It’s several floors high, each with doors leading off in various directions, and most of it, you’ll soon find, is basically inaccessible. Because yes, despite appearing intimidating, the Water Temple is actually quite linear — once you’ve worked out its mechanics, that is.
It’s not one of those dungeons I can do in my sleep, I’ll admit, so after finding little luck with the opening floor’s locked or otherwise un-Hookable doors, I remembered to head down to the bottom floor and see how my jilted wife was doing.
Much like Darunia, Princess Ruto doesn’t hang around much in this one. She explains the three main water level controls, encourages you to follow her upwards, then buggers off. But in her departure lies one of my favourite parts of the dungeon: that cracked wall on the middle floor.
Every time I float past that damned wall and its tantalisingly bombable crack (steady), it brings a smile to my face. It’s the first instance of the dungeon telling you ‘remember this bit, because you’ll want to come back here’, and it’s so simply signposted on your ascent that it’s almost impossible to miss.
Image: Nintendo Life
The dungeon does it again in the spike-floor room with the middle water-level switch, where using it raises a floating block out of the floor to reveal a new pathway below — something that was made more obvious with an additional animation in the 3DS version, though I never felt it needed it. And again on the several occasions it presents a Hookshot target that’s just out of reach. If only our tool were a little longer (again, steady).
While I don’t know it like the back of my hand, I have enough of an understanding of this dungeon that I can approach it systematically. My first rodeo, this is not. I made my way up, collecting as many keys as possible and making the most of the easily overlooked new pathways on the middle floors (hello, bombable wall), and then back down again. There was some backtracking and unnecessary boot changes, for sure, but on the whole, things were going…dare I say…swimmingly?
Soon, I cleared enough to hit Dark Link. I have played through this game so many damn times, but it still chills me like nothing else. I love the uncanniness of the room’s interior, the anticipation of walking its length to find nothing but a barred door, and the eventual 180-degree spin to see the phantom figure just standing there.
It feels like watching the sublime Doctor Who episode Midnight every time I play it (IYKYK), but I’d be lying if I said it was a clean fight this time around. In all honesty, it’s been a while since I’ve taken on my shadowy foe, and I had forgotten almost all of his attacks. Cue five minutes of non-targeted attack spamming followed by frantic rolls when he respawned too close.
I’m not proud of it, but it is what it is.
Images: Nintendo Life
Long Hookshot Longshot in hand, it was time to tackle the watery big boss. I’ll go to bat for just about everything this much-despised dungeon throws at me, but man, Morpha sure does make that difficult.
I really like the concept of this one — targeting the nucleus and pulling it out with the Hookshot when it surges to the surface is a neat loop — but the arena has never felt quite big enough for the satisfying attack-spam pause that most bosses allow. Whether I’m on one of the four columns or dodging the spikes around the edge, I can only ever pull that cocky little ball out for a hit or two before it leaps back into the water and the process starts again.
Pent-up rage aside, I can’t help but feel there’s a very Pikmin vibe to the whole encounter. A big plus in my book.
Image: Nintendo Life
Remake Reflections
Everything that needed tweaking about this dungeon (the Iron Boots, a little more signposting, etc.) was already done in the 3DS version, so assuming Nintendo carries that version over to the Switch 2 remake, I’m expecting a lot more people to join me on Team “Wait, this one rules!” in the coming months.
Who knows, maybe modern camera controls will be enough to soothe my Morpha woes as well.
Things are getting shadowy next week as I head on an adventure of pure childhood trauma. See you all there… if you’re brave enough, that is.
What do you make of the Water Temple? Does it deserve its bad reputation? Let us know in the comments.
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Jim came to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, despite his insistence that The Minish Cap is the best Zelda game and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (yes, really), he has continued to write news and features on the site ever since.