Having recently played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on Nintendo Switch Online, I realized that my impressions of Water Temple had changed since I first played it. In elementary school, when my friends and I were trying to beat the Water Temple for the first time, it was notorious for being a very difficult dungeon. At the time, it even made me quit the game for a while because I just couldn't figure it out.
For years, I didn't really question my assumption that the Water Temple was a difficult dungeon. For me and others my age, it seemed to be an accepted truth that the Water Temple was very difficult, and I never questioned it for a while. Revisiting the game as an adult – an adult who has also played most of FromSoftware's Souldborne games – I still hate Water Temple, but I don't think it's as difficult as we remember.
Why everyone hated the Water Temple
The temple requires players to jump through many hoops
There's a lot going on in the Water Temple that made players hate it when Ocarina of Time came out first. First, there was the adjustment of the water level. If you made a mistake and adjusted the water level without checking every room on a specific floor, you would have to adjust it again and try again. Adjusting the water level wasn't something you could do at will, instead it had to be done by playing Link's ocarina at specific points in the temple, resulting in a lot of backlash.
Another reason why players hated the Water Temple was the Iron Boots. Players needed to use Iron Boots to sink into the water and walk. However, many rooms require players to alternate between walking and swimming. This meant putting boots on and taking them off multiple times just to walk across a single room.
This wouldn't have been a big deal except Iron Boots needed to be equipped and unequipped in the home menu. This meant that when trying to get through a single room, players would often have to take a few steps, open the pause menu, take off their boots, swim a few meters, and then open the menu again to put on their boots. If this was exhausting to read, I promise it's worse doing it over and over again while trying to play.
Fortunately, the 3DS remake of Ocarina of Time changed this so that Iron Boots could be put on and taken off using the same keyboard shortcuts as normal items like Link's bow or Hookshot. Playing this version of the game makes the Water Temple much more palatable, and it also makes going back to the original much worse. While the Water Temple in the N64 version is rightfully hated, I'm not sure it's actually difficult.
Is the Original Water Temple really that difficult?
The Original Water Temple was really not difficult
The reason the Water Temple has gained a reputation for being more difficult than typical Zelda dungeons comes down to how to solve a Zelda dungeon normally works. In any dungeon, players start with a finite area that they can explore without finding a key or new item to help them advance. All the player has to do is thoroughly explore each available room, as it is guaranteed that something in those rooms will help him move forward.
The Water Temple works in the same way, but adds a special twist. The ability to adjust the water level in the dungeon puts the onus on the player as to which areas are available. Unlike other dungeons, where players can simply see which rooms they have or haven't visited, the Water Temple requires players to revisit the same rooms in different water levels. This means that if players solve the dungeon through trial and error, it will take longer simply because there are more combinations to try.
While this certainly makes the Water Temple seem more difficult than other Zelda dungeons, I'd say it's actually not that much harder. The same basic strategy for solving the dungeon works. I don't think the Water Temple is difficult, instead it's just tedious.
The Water Temple isn't difficult, it's just frustrating
The Water Temple takes time, but now there is a lot of effort
I think there is a somewhat unfair conflation between difficult games and frustrating games. The distinction I would make is that if a game is difficult, the difficult part will eventually become easy once mastered. Let me explain through a non-Zelda example.
The first Soulsbourne game I played from start to finish was Transmitted by blood. When I started, I was dying left and right to practically every enemy in Central Yharnam. However, now that I've played through the entire game a few times, Central Yharnam is very easy. I can safely go from the starting area to Father Gascoigne without dying, even to the Wolf Beast that was initially supposed to kill me. Although Transmitted by blood It was difficult for me at first, it got much simpler after I learned to play.
In contrast, players cannot improve on finishing the Water Temple. Sure, they can memorize the puzzles, which can shave off some of the time, but they'll still have to raise and lower the water level and constantly take the Iron Boots on and off. The most frustrating parts of Water Temple never go away, no matter how good the players are. Ocarina of Time, because it's actually not difficult. Frustration does not come from a lack of skill on the part of the player, but of the dungeon's tedious design.
Zelda games don't always get the dungeons right
The Water Temple isn't the only frustrating Zelda dungeon
I love it very much Zelda dungeons, and I'm a little disappointed with it Breath of Nature may have killed the series' traditional approach to 3D dungeons. The thrill of crossing Twilight Princess' City in the Sky with Double Clawshot is one of the highlights of the series for me. That said, the Water Temple isn't the only one that's frustrating and tedious. THE series has occasionally stumbled in the design of its dungeons, leading to several frustrating Zelda similar dungeons Ocarina of TimeIt's a soggy hole in the ground.
A link to the pastThe Ice Palace is also notoriously frustrating. Players struggle to move, and attacking an enemy often causes Link to fling himself backwards onto the icy ground and into a trap. Some players resort to standing in doorways where there is no ice and just firing ranged attacks until they hopefully empty a room.
Soon after Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask introduced another watery dungeon with lots of throwbacks: Great Bay Temple. So there is Sword to the Sky's Lanayru Mining Facility, where players solve puzzles by removing sand with Gust Bellows. It felt much more like doing chores than being on an exciting mission.
While the Water Temple is definitely tedious and frustrating, it's not the only one. Although it will probably still not be remembered fondly by players like me who grew up playing Ocarina of TimeI no longer see this as a particularly difficult dungeon like I used to. Instead, I see this as one of the franchise's occasional stumbles into frustrating design in an otherwise excellent game.