LogFAQs > #981494842

Water Temple
I think its my favorite one, at least in OoT 3D, which is how Ive been playing this game for the last 12-13 years. Its achieved this legacy of being so confusing and convoluted, but shit, I beat it when I was a kid, so its probably not actually too bad. The remake did put in some features to make the feeling of traversal less tedious and more streamlined, so maybe this is me talking about something from the position of a coddled modern gamer rather than the eldritch beings who played video games made before 2001. Regardless, the puzzle box structure of 3D Zelda reached an apex here. There are a number of games which would surpass it, sure, but in 1998, no singular video game level was this fucking cool. The way how all the rooms function as a unit and how you slowly unravel the winding hallways while making incremental progress until you get to that iconic scene of the endless lake with a small island and tree in the middle? Wowza. Its a bit more linear after that moment. Morpha is fine. Probably my least favorite of the games bosses if only because it feels a bit rough to play. I kinda wish he was the miniboss instead of Dark Link, which is probably the coolest fight in the game, again, much due to the atmosphere and mood.

Shadow Temple
My least favorite dungeon. Its super linear and super big, and a lot of the atmosphere it relies upon was done way better in the Bottom of the Well. The ship setpiece is really fucking cool though, and Bongo Bongo is one of the best bosses in the game, but I dont care for the rest of the place.

Spirit Temple
A highly ambitious, multi-part dungeon meant to turn the story mechanic of multiple eras into a gameplay mechanic. It mostly does a great job, though Ive never been big on the aesthetics here, which I think hurts it the most for me. Like I said earlier, some criticisms are just naturally going to be vibes-based, and this is where I stand there. It does have some great puzzles regardless, and it introduces the Darknut, which is almost always the most fun type of enemy to fight in the 3D games. Twinrova is a really cool fight as well. With the Mirror Shield being somewhat underutilized overall, its nice that it has this awesome fight built around it.

Inside Ganons Castle
A bland final level (A common trend in the 3D games, unfortunately), but it works fine. They added a new dungeon item here which is purely cinematic, and I kinda get the desire to keep that going, but so much of this dungeon is just reiterating what the previous dungeons did, just without the puzzle box structure that made them so memorable. The final fights with Ganon are so cool though. The one problem OoT 3D has, at least in my eyes, is a lot of atmosphere being lost in that last battle due to lighting. Regardless, it is the culmination of every theme the game explores. The theme of good vs. evil. The theme of growth, both physical and emotional. The theme of cinematic encounter design deserving just as much respect as the actual inputs you will put into the controller. It is the perfect way to end a work which is simultaneously one of the most important works of fiction ever devised, and one of the most individually meaningful things I have spent the gift of life with by writing about, thinking about, and, of course, playing and replaying and replaying and replaying. It is, with not even the slightest hyperbole, a masterpiece.