Gamer’s Thoughts: My favorite Zelda dungeons

To those who don’t know, I’m a huge Zelda fan. I pre-order every Zelda games that come out and I own almost all of the spin-off games. Not too long ago, a friend of mine commented on my blog asking if I’m willing to do a top 10 list of my favorite Zelda dungeons. So, here is my list of my favorite Zelda dungeons. Notice the “my” in the previous sentence. So, it’s my opinion. Also, I wasn’t able to rank these 10 dungeons, so they are in no particular order! In any case, I invite you to write leave your opinion on my list and/or give your own list in the comment section down below.

PS: I linked each title to the dungeon theme. Enjoy!

The Eagle – The Legend of Zelda

This dungeon has to be on my list. The reason for that is an obvious one. It was my very first Zelda dungeon. I wasn’t able to play it on the NES when this game can out, but I did play the NES Classic GBA port of this game.

Just when I heard the theme of this dungeon, I remember playing this game for the first time before not too far from the fireplace and just enjoying the game. In a matter of fact, after I had beaten the first dungeon, I was reading the instruction manual and found the mini-walkthrough that helped new players towards the first dungeon.

The only complaint I have with this dungeon is that the theme is way too short. In-game, it doesn’t matter that much, but a loop of 1 minute of music can get annoying sometimes.

Thieves Hideout – A Link Between Worlds

Review of this game

In this dungeon, we have a sort of escort mission. One that I enjoyed quite a lot.

When you fail to escort the girl out, you won’t have to redo the puzzles again to get her out of jail. This is a great bonus.

This dungeon is one of my favorite dungeons in the game. The biggest reason why I enjoy this one a lot is that I enjoy the final boss quite a lot. Seriously, when I think about dungeons from A Link Between Worlds, this one pops right in my head. It was also quite fun to replay this one while I was researching for this article.

Eagle Tower – Link’s Awakening (DX)

Review of this game

My favorite Zelda games are the portable Zelda games, to be honest. To be honest, the puzzle in this dungeon one I really like.

In order for you to progress in this tower, you have to solve some puzzles that don’t require you finding a key to a locked door.

This concept has been used by various other Zelda games, but I played with the mechanic for this first time in this game. And recently replayed it, in the DX-version of the game.

Forest Temple – Ocarina of Time

Ah, Ocarina of Time. A game that is lovely by many, and also disliked by many. In any case, I’m leaning more towards the love side.

The Forest Temple is one of the best dungeons in the game in my opinion. The atmosphere, music, theming, puzzles are all great.

The twisting corridor and the Poe Sisters, I enjoyed it all. I finished it on a real N64 finished it on the 3DS version. Yup, both versions of the dungeon are great. Also, the dungeon item, the Fairy Bow is amazing to play around with in the 3DS version since you can all aim around you with moving the 3DS.

Snow Temple – Spirit Tracks

Review of this game

The Snow Temple in Spirit Tracks is quite a lot of fun. Not only were the towns and the journey towards the dungeon a lot of fun and memorable.

I also really love how the boomerang is used in this dungeon. This time, it’s not only to hit far off switches or anything of that sort. Oh no, it’s something that bows can’t replace. It’s to create a temporary ice path to be able to cross the water.

In addition to that, the final boss was a fun fight as well. I know that the concept of the boss has been done before in the Zelda series, but it was executed pretty well.

Sand Ship – Skyward Sword

First impression article on Skyward Sword

Let me be clear on one thing. I’m in the camp of  “Skyward Sword is a good but not great Zelda game.” So, that said it’s time to talk about why this dungeon is so enjoyable.

On this ship, you have amazing fights. One where you have to get a strong pirate off the ship like shown in the screenshot.

But what I enjoy the most is how the time stone mechanic is implemented here. While Fi ruins some of the puzzles, I learned that by pressing A quickly, I wasn’t able to read all her dialogue, so a lot of those puzzles weren’t spoiled me for.  Yeah.

Also, I was able to make great use of the guest jar, that brought back memories of another handheld Zelda game, the Minish Cap. Also, this dungeon gave me the bow and arrow, the proved quite useful in this dungeon.

I remember finishing this dungeon while I was in a big Skype call with a lot of my friends. We were waiting for somebody to fix his Minecraft server that went down. So, we all decided to play other games. The chaos of everybody talking about what happening in their game was hilarious and memorable at the same time.

Fortress of Winds – Minish Cap

Review of the game

If it isn’t clear enough with my nickname, I’m a cat lover. So, the fact that the dungeon item is sort of cat claws (called the Mole Mitts, but they are Cat Mitts in my mind) is just amazing.

I love this dungeon a lot because it provided me with one of my favorite items in the game. I only wish I was able to use it on more spaces.

I also love how the final boss of this dungeon isn’t defeated by the dungeon item alone. You have to use your bow as well. But what makes the dungeon even more memorable is what happens right after you beat it. Yeah. That was something strange for a Zelda game.

Earth Temple – Wind Waker

Medley is one of my favorite character in the Wind Waker. So, when we both tackled the Earth Dungeon in the Wind Waker, I was such a happy camper.

In this dungeon, you get the Mirror Shield. But the puzzles with it are more tricky than in Ocarina of Time. Since you have two mirrors now to work with.

The final boss is pretty interesting as well since you have to beat all the little ghosts to avoid them going back into one big ghost… I still have a déjà vû for that.

Jabu Jabu’s Belly – Oracle of Ages

Review of this game

So, do you remember the Water Temple from Ocarina of Time? I do as well, and I’m not that big of a fan of it. What I’m a big fan of is the 2D version of it.

One of the last dungeons you do in the Oracle of Ages game is inside Jabu-Jabu’s Belly. Thankfully, you don’t have to escort Ruto in this one. It’s the Water Temple with the Jabu Jabu Inside theming.

If you don’t know what you are doing, you can easily get turned around. But, the creativity in this dungeon is so much fun. Also, the final boss of this dungeon is such a great one. It’s one that tests your reflexes and I like that a lot!

Explorer’s Crypt – Oracle of Seasons

Review of the game

At the beginning of Oracle Of Seasons, I found the beach area quite fast. So, I always wanted to continue right there.

So, when I had to dungeons left in Oracle of Seasons, I was so happy to finally tackle the Beach area.

The build-up towards the dungeon is great and the dungeon itself too. You also have to solve puzzles that test your reflexes and knowledge of the items you acquired. It’s also one of the longest dungeons in the game.

While the boss and mini-boss aren’t too difficult, I still had a great time in this one.

Final thoughts

I love the Zelda series and I can’t wait to play more. There are a few Zelda games I’m close to finishing but haven’t fully beaten yet.

Trying to rank my favorite X in the Zelda series is always a hard task, since every game has it’s amazing and memorable moments. I wasn’t able to put dungeons from Breath of the Wild or Majora’s Mask on here. And that’s a real shame.

Also, to avoid me making all the spots related to the handheld games, I also decided that I was allowed to pick one dungeon per game. So, yeah.

In any case, that’s everything I wanted to say for this article. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day!

Advertisement

First Impression: Lufia II (SNES) ~ Some Dutch please

Wikipedia entry

A few years ago, my uncle gave me his SNES with a few games. One of them, was a boxed version of Lufia II – Rise of the Sinistrals. After some research, I realized that my copy of the game is rather rare in a way. The cartridges of the game go on eBay for 80€ and up, but the catch is, I have a Dutch version. Since there aren’t too many Dutch speaking people in the world, less cartridges are produced so making the game even more rare. But hey, I don’t think that every collector wants to own a cartridge of a game in a different language they might not understand while there is a version available in their native language. In any case, let’s take a look at this game. Is it even worth that price now or should you pass on it? Here are my impressions after the first few hours of gameplay. Also, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the article.

Sidenote: while I know that this game got a remake called Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals on the DS, in this article I’m focusing on the SNES game; simply because I don’t own the remake and haven’t played it.

Casual start

When you start this game, your first mission is “The Training Dungeon”. In this training dungeon, you get the basic explanation of the game mechanics.  But more on that later, first let’s talk about the story of this game.

This game tells the story of how the Sinistrals came to be. Now, this sequel tells a prequel story. But here is the annoying thing, the original game never reached European shores. To make matters even more confusing, they dropped the II from the title here in Europe. Yeah.

So far, the story and writing is very enjoyable. The only complaint is that the Dutch translation feels so out of place. Which is normal, since I’m so used to the English names of items and suddenly seeing them in my native language sounds so foreign to me. But, I haven’t gotten too far in the story, so I will leave that for when I review the game.

But something I really enjoy from the writing is the fact that NPC’s react differently depending on the story. Even when little events happen like somebody cooking some bad food. This gives the game a more alive feeling and I think that’s a serious plus in my books.

If you would start playing this game, beware of the glitches.  Due to the rushed localization, there are a lot of strange bugs and some are save corrupting. This happened to me once and I lost my save and had to start over. Take a good read to avoid bugs before you start playing.

Random no Random encounters

So this game has random no random encounters. I mean with that the game has random encounters and no random encounters. When you are on the overworld, the game has random encounters. But in the dungeons, you don’t have any random encounters.

The meat of the game is mostly in the dungeons. In these places, you can also use your skills. A very useful skill is the Reset Spell. With this spell, you can reset a room to its original position. So, if you screwed up a puzzle, you can reset the room without having to leave it. And this doesn’t cost any mana.

This game is a blast to play. This game is a typical RPG when it comes to battles and exploration. But, it has various elements of The Legend Of Zelda sprinkled in. The gameplay in the dungeons reminded me so much of the Zelda games. If you want to form a picture, think of the Zelda dungeons but instead of beating enemies when they are on screen, you have a RPG-battle screen.

A very useful feature is that you see on your screen how much EXP you still before your level raises by one after you defeated an enemy. It also shows your goal total. The only thing I don’t really like about the battle screen is that in sometimes the health bar and such are simply bars and you don’t see how much health or mana you have left.

I’ll go more in-depth about the gameplay when I have beaten this game and when I write a review of this game. It’s a lot of fun and with great controls, you can’t go wrong. The only thing I would have changed about the controls is the “X” button. This button is used as the menu button, but I think that the Start button would have been a much better choice for this.

Soundtrack Gold!

If you would start talking about the best 16-bit RPG soundtracks, a lot of Square and Enix RPG’s would be mentioned. I honestly think that the soundtrack of this game should be mentioned in those kind of talks.

The soundtrack of this game is amazing. It’s one of the best soundtracks I have heard on the system in my opinion. And believe me, various tracks got stuck in my head even when I had put the game down for a while.

Visually, this game looks amazing. I love the details in the dungeons and the animation is great as well. The artwork for this game is impressive and colorful.

This game is well balanced. There isn’t too much grinding in this game. And honestly, I don’t mind the grinding too much in this game. Something I really like is that you have save platforms right before you go into a room with a boss. I really appreciate that since that way I don’t have to do a whole dungeon over again when I die at the boss.

Speaking about saving, that’s one of the only things I don’t really like about this game. You can only save at save points like a church or on save points in dungeons. But, honestly, that’s nitpicking. No?

That’s everything I wanted to say about this game. So far, I’m enjoying myself a whole lot with this game and I can only praise this game. If you look at other reviews of this game, you will read the same praise. And believe me, this game is worth a lot of praise.

Thank you for reading this article! I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing this. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article on my blog but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!