OoT Dungeons

[Smacktard]

I've been feeling nostalgic for Ocarina of Time recently, so it's time to rank the dungeons!

• Great Deku Tree
• Dodongo's Cavern
• Jabu-Jabu's Belly
• Forest Temple
• Fire Temple
• Water Temple
• Shadow Temple
• Spirit Temple
• Ganondorf's Castle
• Ice Cavern
• Inside the Well

My rankings:

1. Great Deku Tree
   This dungeon is the perfect intro to the game -- maybe any game. It taught you so much you needed to know to progress through the rest of the game: looking around the room in 3 dimensions to find hidden switches (pretty revolutionary at the time), thinking vertically, using fire to light torches and burn webs. Jumping onto the web from the top floor to break it was such an "Aha!" moment. It was like the game was breaking the rules of video games, and doing something I'd never really seen before. It was very cool. Epic first boss, too.
2. Spirit Temple
   I'm not sure EXACTLY why I love this temple so much, but I'll try to explain. Switching back and forth from Young Link to Adult Link breaks the pacing up a bit, but it adds so much cool factor to the temple, that it's worth it. Temples were only supposed to be for Adult Link! You mean I have to travel through time to beat this as both kid and adult??? Dope. The music is excellent. It just makes the temple feel epic, and historic, and REAL, in a sense. The mirror shield, too, is awesome, the Iron Knuckle fights are tense and incredible, and you really get a feel that the adventure is winding down in a way that is bittersweet. The boss is very involved and fun to fight as well.
3. Forest Temple
   The first temple you visit as Adult Link, and it really makes you feel like you're venturing somewhere sacred, forgotten, and dangerous. The temple is bigger and more complex than anything you've seen at this point by far. The music is appropriately haunting and unnerving, without being textbook spooky. The enemies are more dangerous. The interactions you have with the dungeon -- twisting the hallways themselves and straightening them to reach new areas and new treasures -- is so unique. And fighting Ganondorf right off the bat as your first adult boss? Mind blowing.
4. Shadow Temple
   The game takes one of its very few dark and unexpected turns here. It ventures into gothic horror, with torture devices laying around, blood splatters everywhere. The death cruise at the end with the sinking ship is seared into my memory. Admittedly, this is probably the dungeon I remember in the least detail, but I do remember the hidden passages and the gruesome atmosphere and the extremely unsettling music. Chilling. I forget the name of the boss, but it was pretty badass.
5. Dodongo's Cavern
   I don't have too much to say about this dungeon. It's just solid and well-designed. A bunch of new enemy types, some nice mechanics with the bombs, and an unforgettable boss battle.
6. Inside the Well
   Spooky atmosphere, but very repetitive. Still, the first glimpse at horror in OoT was pretty great, and Dead Hand is unforgettable. The music is so goddamn unsettling, holy shit.
7. Fire Temple
   Very cool dungeon with some great music. I love freeing the gorons from their prisons and hearing of Darunia delving deeper and deeper into the cavern. There are some annoying parts though. There's one specific jump that looks too high for Link to make. My brother and I were stuck at this section for days. It's the only route ahead, and when you finally commit to a jump that looks like you're just going to fall into lava, Link magically teleports a couple of feet upwards and grabs a ledge. Annoying. The fire wall maze is annoying, too. Volvagia was a pretty cool boss fight, too.
8. Ice Cavern
   Short, but sweet. Great atmosphere and aesthetics -- especially the final room. Sliding block puzzles can get a bit annoying, though.
9. Water Temple
   The most controversial dungeon. Admittedly not that confusing -- except for the central pillar which never occurred to me might have a chest inside of it after raising the water! Switching between boots can be annoying though, and there's nothing particularly exciting this dungeon does, except for some decent platforming/hookshotting. Dark Link is unforgettable though. The room before the fight, the battle itself, the room after the fight. It's art. Morpha kind of sucks, though, but the intro cinematic is great.
10. Ganondorf's Castle
    Kind of just an average series of minigame-like rooms, each based on a temple's theme. None of them executed particularly well. This one was kind of a flop -- especially for the final dungeon. The final battle is epic though, and the escape sequence is nice.
11. Jabu Jabu's Belly
    This one kind of just sucks. Escorting Princess Ruta around is obnoxious. The hallways are boring and repetitive. The miniboss is an annoying fight. I just don't like this one at all. The fact that it's inside of a giant whale is really cool though, and I liked how you entered it.

 

[Spiner202]

It's a tough task to rank the dungeons. OoT is my favourite game ever, but I wouldn't say there's one dungeon I love all that much. I realize that's a somewhat confusing statement, so here's a vague attempt at ranking them:

1. Forest Temple
2. Fire Temple
3. Shadow Temple
4. Dodongo's Cavern - I think this could be higher if it weren't for the fact that young link mostly uses the wooden shield and it gets burnt easily
5. Great Deku Tree
6. Spirit Temple
7. Inside the Well
8. Ice Cavern
9. Ganondorf's Castle
10. Jabu Jabu's Belly
11. Water Temple - there are good parts to this, but in addition to the general confusing nature of it, I also don't like how random the Dark Link fight feels. I know there are two ways to kill him, but sometimes I find it works in just a few hits, and other times they go on forever.

 

[Quagmire]

I don't remember the game well enough to rank them

I hated the one inside the whale, I agree that first Forest one is a really good Temple and I understand the issues with the water temple, I think 90% of it is fixed in the remake, the worst part is having to switch out the boots and it's a bigger pain in the butt on the N64

 

[Jawneh]

• Great Deku Tree
  • Classic. First is the best. Short and simple. Teaches you many things. Still hate the damn small skultulla wall though.
• Forest Temple
  • Confusing at first thanks to the twisty corridors, but again, I kind of like dungeons that change shape. I probably dislike fighting the poes the most, but otherwise everything was pretty neat.
• Spirit Temple
  • The time travel portion for this makes it very neat. I only really dislike fighting the boss when it doesn't shoot the correct element at you.
• Water Temple
  • Usually fairly disliked, but after playing again as an adult, it's not that bad. I don't like iron boots and how slow it makes you, but navigating through the temple and getting to places via different water levels is a neat puzzle mechanic. Plus it has Dark Link.
• Ice Cavern
  • I kind of like slide puzzles, so that's neat. Other than that, I don't really enjoy sliding around doing other things.
• Dodongo's Cavern
  • Probably the weakest in terms of design out of the first three, but not as annoying as escort quests.
• Ganondorf's Castle
  • Right in the middle. Not super good. Linear as hell. Some neat things, but you just collect the things to open a door. Meh.
• Jabu-Jabu's Belly
  • The escort quest portion also kills this for me. The rest of the temple is fine though. I remember a friend of mine who got stuck in this place because he didn't look up and shoot the thing in the ceiling to open the first door lol.
• Fire Temple
  • Too much climbing in this one. The slow parts kind of kill it for me on top of being frequently doused in fire. It's not bad, but I never enjoyed this place.
• Shadow Temple
  • I would say probably the coolest temple if you just look at the first room, the boat, and the boss room. It's just that I found everything else in between fairly annoying to do. Especially since you're kind of forced to get the Lens of Truth for this until you learn where everything is.
• Inside the Well
  • I would say the worst dungeon. It is technically optional, but kind of like the Shadow Temple, reliant of the Lens of Truth to learn where everything is and then you just don't need it. Bleh.

 

[Fool's Requiem]

I never completed the tree. Gave up every time I tried to play the game and on both N64 and Gamecube.