Zelda Dungeon Reviews: Echoes Of Wisdom

Echoes Of Wisdom is here, and with it marks the return of traditional Zelda dungeons. While this isn’t some incredible roster of dungeons or anything, it takes a while for them to really start to branch out into nonlinearity and the overall theming isn’t especially novel, they do manage to maintain that classic Zelda feel for the most part. And at their best, there are some genuine highlights showing that the Zelda team’s still got it.

Dungeon 1: Suthorn Ruins

 Suthorn Ruins is the mandatory first dungeon of Echoes Of Wisdom, which I think is a good call. This means that unlike in the last two Zelda games, you have a dedicated dungeon that instructs the player on how dungeons will work. Right from the get-go, Suthorn Ruins introduces the Bind move, and it manages to thoroughly explore this mechanic through a number of fun environmental puzzles that slowly amp up in complexity as the dungeon goes on. These more strict Bind puzzles are balanced out with some more freeform puzzles involving lighting torches, doing light platforming, or fighting enemies. Since your echo kit is so small at this point in the game, combat is a real challenge here and that applies doubly with the two excellent boss fights against Link and the Seismic Talus. Both fights had me scrambling to figure out what I could use on them, which helped them feel really engaging even for first bosses. My one gripe with Suthorn Ruins is that navigation is sadly pretty basic so far. The first half of the dungeon is mostly a straight line repurposed from the intro where you play as Link, and it's not until the final segment where the place branches out a bit and keys/locks are introduced. Later dungeons are certainly a bit more interesting in this area, but I still think Suthorn Ruins generally made all the right moves to assure me that dungeons are indeed back.

Dungeon 2: Gerudo Sanctum

Gerudo Sanctum is a solid improvement and yet another entry in Zelda's long lineup of great desert dungeons, even in the Wild games. Similarly to the Lightning Temple in TotK or the Ancient Ruins in Oracle Of Seasons, this dungeon really feels like you're exploring an ancient temple, filled with all sorts of booby traps and puzzles. The echo puzzles do a nice job at testing you on all the echoes you've accumulated in the Gerudo Desert like the flying tile and the moles, while the bind puzzles revolve around rotating cylinders to open doors or create a path forward. Layout-wise, the Gerudo Sanctum is still fairly straightforward to navigate, but it doubles back on itself enough that it feels a bit less linear than it actually is, and the second half tasking you with collecting two statues does give the player a bit more freedom than the last dungeon did. Though the real star of the show is the big twist where you straight-up exit the dungeon and explore the exterior a bit, which is always a cool concept. There are a few clever spatial reasoning puzzles where you need to climb through a window or break through the roof from outside the sanctum, though sadly they mostly just lead to optional Rupee rooms. As for the bosses, they're once again really solid. Not quite as tense as the ones in the previous dungeon, but the Bow Link fight has a memorable second phase and Mogryph has a sick design. Overall, I think the Gerudo Sanctum definitely could've been a bit more complex, but it was still quite the fun time.

Dungeon 3: Jabul Ruins

If you know me by now, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that this was the dungeon I was most excited about. I'm a pretty ardent defender of Zelda's many divisive water dungeons, and a big reason why I tend to like them is their labyrinthine, puzzle box design. So out of all the ways TotK felt like a betrayal of what I enjoy about Zelda, getting a wide open water temple that could be completed in about fifteen minutes was probably one of the worst for me. As a result, the Jabul Ruins were kind of the final litmus test to really determine if Zelda dungeons were properly back. Sadly, it kinda disappointed.

The Jabul Ruins did start really strong though, with a fight against Lord Jabu Jabu himself right before the dungeon, and a tense chase scene against the dungeon boss right upon entering. And the main premise of activating switches to increase the water pressure to push Zelda to the top of a central room does have the potential for some interesting puzzles. But in practice, well, it just plays out like the terminals in a BotW or TotK dungeon. You have the choice of which switches you want to go after first, but they're all one-time events and you never have to actually strategize around the water pressure. There are some fun one-off rooms like that one where you need to hop across logs, but most of them are either enemy rushes or 2D swimming segments. It all made for a dungeon that wasn't necessarily unfun, but did feel like a bit of a let-down. The boss, on the other hand, was actually pretty great. Vocavor's attacks were fun to dodge, and the second phase introduced an interesting strategy element about figuring out how to attack it both above water and underwater. Jabul Ruins had a great set-up, but despite my love for water dungeons, I think it's fair to call this the weakest main dungeon in the game.

Dungeon 4: Hyrule Castle

Just like in Link To The Past and A Link Between Worlds before it, Hyrule Castle is this game's midgame dungeon. And just like with those games, it's mostly designed to be an action-packed test of everything you've learned so far. So, there's a bit stealth, some rooms based on prior dungeons, and a fairly streamlined structure that has you descending further into the castle. As such, I really don't have much to say about this dungeon, though I do want to give props for the fairly open final area where you have to zigzag back and forth across a bunch of rooms to get the boss key. And the boss fight against Echo Ganon is as great as you'd expect, a four-phase behemoth of an encounter that really could've been a final boss in any other Zelda game.

Dungeon 5: Eldin Temple

Most fire-related temples in Zelda tend to be more focused on action and platforming over puzzle-solving and this one is no exception. There’s a big focus on platforming across lava, which does lead to some pretty fun and memorable setpieces scattered across the dungeon, especially at the end. The rising lava chase after getting the Boss Key and that final glide to the boss door are particularly notable. Navigation-wise, though, Eldin Temple is yet again mostly just a straight line peppered with splits that force you to get keys to progress. With how late we are in the game, I was kinda hoping I’d start getting, you know, lost in the dungeons by now? But as it stands, I think the room-to-room action of the Eldin Temple was still enough to make it a fairly enjoyable time. The bosses, on the other hand, were pretty weak. Bomb Link is far and away the easiest of the Link battles, and I honestly was never a fan of Volvagia, even in his Ocarina appearance. Whack a mole bosses always felt kinda boring and repetitive, and this one is no exception.

Dungeon 6: Faron Temple

Okay, now we’re talking. The Faron Temple is a great Zelda dungeon, and such a massive spike in complexity, difficulty, and length from all the previous ones in all the best ways. It’s so long, in fact, that I needed multiple play sessions to even beat it. I got lost, I got frustrated, I even got stumped a few times, and I was relishing every moment of it. 

I knew I was in for a treat when I popped out in front of the Faron Temple and realized there was a whopping six different entrances. You really have to try out all the different entrances to even find the dungeon map, and finally getting it and seeing how everything really clicks together really showcases that puzzle box design that I love about Zelda dungeons. The rooms themselves are also quite fun and varied, ranging from a large dark maze (though admittedly I’m not a huge fan of darkness mechanics), to several satisfying electricity puzzles, to platforming, to some scale puzzles that made me feel very stupid. And on top of all that, the bosses are great in this one. The miniboss brings back that mechanic from Catfish’s Maw where it runs around the dungeon with an important item forcing you to fight it multiple times. The fact that the miniboss in question is a returning Manhandla is icing on the cake. As for the dungeon boss himself, it might very well be the greatest Gohma fight to date. It climbs up walls, shoots lasers at you, and in the second phase, even comes down to the floor and starts slashing at you. It’s a legitimate challenge that forces you to keep track of a lot at the same time, and the fact that I went in with an empty Link bar made it all the more thrilling. As a whole, Faron Temple is easily one of the best dungeons in Echoes Of Wisdom, and even one of the best dungeons we’ve gotten in a while. That being said, it’s not my favorite. That one comes next…

Dungeon 7: Lanayru Temple

If I had a nickel for every time a Zelda game had a sad subplot about a yeti family that culminated in one of the family members becoming a brainwashed dungeon boss, you know the rest of the joke. Of course, Snowpeak Ruins is my all-time favorite Zelda dungeon, so there are certainly worse dungeons to be taking cues from.

The Lanayru storyline was easily one of my favorites in Echoes. Condé is an absolute treasure and his arc about dealing with grief over his father dying and his brother disappearing is a really emotionally resonant part of the game, and it lends Lanayru Temple a sense of urgency that the other dungeons didn’t really have. But on top of that, this is also just a damn good dungeon in itself. Lanayru Temple goes with a similar structure to Turtle Rock in which you descend down a bunch of floors one by one, each having a more complicated iteration of its central mechanic. In this dungeon, the main mechanic are these fans that can cool down or heat up the room when you put in an elemental orb. The puzzles around these fans start simple, but get more tricky as you’ll need to guide the orbs around hazards that could change it to the other elemental. The final puzzle at the bottom floor is probably my favorite of the game, with tons of criss-crossing wires and rooms where you need to purposefully switch the orb’s element. It’s still fairly linear all things considered, but the room-by-room puzzles are easily some of the best in Echoes Of Wisdom. As for the bosses, they’re a bit more of a mixed bag. The fight against a returning yet unrecognizable Slime Eye was a bit tedious, but the fight against Skorchill is fun in how it forces you to use multiple elements along with the story relevance. And just as icing on the cake, the dungeon theme of Lanayru Temple is one of the most gorgeous dungeon themes in the entire series, really heightening the atmosphere.

Dungeon 8: Null's Body

Final Zelda dungeons tend to be either really short or a repurposing of all the previous dungeons. Null’s Body is the latter. It’s certainly a lot better than some of the other dungeons of its kind like the Wind Fish’s Egg and Onox’s Castle, but it’s still very much just an extended tutorial on how to use Link as an ally and not much more. The game stopping every five seconds so Link can nod to you also drags down the pacing quite a bit. Thankfully, everything else is quite strong. Null as a villain gives off some serious cosmic horror vibes that I didn’t expect to see in a Zelda game, and the atmosphere is fittingly creepy. The fight with Echo Zelda prior to the dungeon is admittedly quite easy, but still super memorable in its own right. And the final boss against Null is really good. It’s surprisingly long, packs in multiple distinct phases, and is a legitimate challenge and not just a victory lap (looking at you, Wild games). I was a bit worried that you could just sit back and let Link do all the work, but between Null booting Link out for the second phase and absolutely flooding the screen with attacks in the final phase, I felt it was still ultimately a very active fight that ended Echoes Of Wisdom on a strong note.

So, here’s my final ranking:

8. Null’s Body
7. Jabul Ruins
6. Suthorn Ruins
5. Hyrule Castle
4. Eldin Temple
3. Gerudo Sanctum
2. Faron Temple
1. Lanayru Temple

Zelda Dungeon Reviews: Link's Awakening

I already just made an entire post raving about how much I love Link's Awakening, so I'll cut to the chase. This game's got some strong dungeons. Not my favorites in the series, they can feel a bit samey at points, but they're consistently engaging to navigate, get better as the game goes on, and pretty much established the dungeon formula we all know and love. Compasses detecting treasure, the dungeon item being used to defeat the boss, midbosses breaking the dungeon into distinct halves, the Boss Key solely unlocking the boss door, that was all introduced in Link's Awakening. I also love how open these dungeons are, it makes them really satisfying to unravel and figure out. So, let's talk about them.

Side Note: I think I'm going to stop ranking the bosses in these Dungeon Reviews and instead just briefly mention them when talking about the dungeons themselves. I feel like they're somewhat distracting from the thing I'm actually trying to analysis first and foremost, which is the dungeon design.

Dungeon 1: Tail Cave

Like most of the first dungeons in the series, Tail Cave is a pretty basic tutorial to how dungeons work, but it does that well. You get the compass and map early, and most of the dungeon takes place in a fairly wide open central area with a lot of areas you can only access with the Roc's Feather. So once you get the Feather and the ability to jump, you're excited to explore all those areas, along with being able to take advantage of all the shortcuts laid out throughout the dungeon to mitigate any potential backtracking. I also quite like the blue and pink color palette, it really fits the cave's seaside location. I will say that Tail Cave feels really short though, and I think a big cause of that impression is the fact that the miniboss and boss are directly back-to-back. If the final stretch of the dungeon had a bit more to it, Tail Cave would've probably felt a bit more complete. And as for the bosses, I think the Spiked Roller is a really fun and satisfying first midboss to fight, and while Moldorm still isn't some great boss, this is a much version than the fight in LttP. Beyond Link's more polished control in this game, Moldorm moves slower, has less health, and you can jump over his tail, so it doesn't feel nearly as punishing or unfair if you do happen to fall.

Dungeon 2: Bottle Grotto

Bottle Grotto is another fairly basic dungeon, but it's a lot more linear than Tail Cave was in terms of how it's built. Instead of having a big central area to explore, Bottle Grotto mostly directs you along a path with various side rooms locked behind the dungeon item, the Power Bracelet. Thankfully, Bottle Grotto does introduce a bunch of neat new mechanics to make up for the more restrictive navigation, particularly the colored tiles which already get some fairly fun puzzles. The bracelet itself is also put to good use with how much there is to toss around, and the dungeon even brings back the Pols Voice who can now only be harmed with tossable objects. The miniboss is just a Hinox, it's nothing too memorable, but the main boss Genie is actually the highlight of the dungeon for me. The fact that it has two phases and even some in-game dialogue taunting you before giving in once you turn the tables on the boss makes the Genie one of the better and more memorable fights of Link's Awakening for me.

Dungeon 3: Key Cavern

Key Cavern has always been my least favorite of the main Link's Awakening dungeons and it's not even all that bad. It's got some really clever isolated puzzles, like figuring out that a wall can be bombable by looking at the other side from a higher ledge or hitting a switch in one room to affect another. The Pegasus Boots is also a neat dungeon item that gets used fairly well here, as you'd expect. However, what I think holds this dungeon back is its overall structure and central gimmick. As you can tell, this dungeon is all about keys. You will be flooded with them, and you need to accumulate four by the end of the dungeon to reach the boss. But even more, the dungeon is even shaped like a pair of keys, which ends up causing Key Cavern to feel really disjointed and claustrophobic, and backtracking to get collectibles feels a bit more tedious than it should be. It really feels like Nintendo thought of the dungeon shape first and created the rooms around it, and while this ins't the only dungeon in the game like this, this is easily the worst execution. I'm also not a fan of the pick-a-door room, even the dead ends basically give you your key back, it feels similarly gimmicky. The bosses are also a mixed bag, I really don't like the Baby Dodongo fight (or really just Dodongo fights in general), but the Slime Eyes fight is actually quite fun with a decent amount of moving parts that utilize the Pegasus Boots well, though the elasticity physics added to the remake means its version of the fight is far better in my opinion.

Dungeon 4: Angler's Tunnel

Angler's Tunnel marks a solid bump in quality as far as dungeon design goes, as well as yet another strong water dungeon within the Zelda series. Angler's Tunnel isn't as mindbending as other water dungeons though, it's less focused on manipulating water and more focused on water as a threat. You come into the Angler's Tunnel without a means to swim, so the first half of the dungeon has you careful navigating around giant pools of water trying not to drown. It's the same philosophy that the other dungeons have been using, but I like how whether or not you have the flippers affects the way you traverse this dungeon so dramatically. As usual, there's a few neat puzzles like solving a tile-puzzle in one room and memorizing the solution for a duplicate puzzle in another room, or dropping a key into a pond and remembering to retrieve it once you get the Flippers. And the general aquatic atmosphere of the dungeon is also quite pleasing, especially in the remake with its fantastic redone music. My only gripe with this dungeon is ultimately the fairly weak bosses. The Big Octo (apparently he's called Cue Ball in this one?) is fine, but pretty easy with the Roc Feather, and the Angler Fish is infamous for being insanely easy in the original game. Thankfully, the remake does improve on this by having him attack faster and bounce you off whenever you hit him.
4/5 Stars

Dungeon 5: Catfish's Maw

Catfish's Maw is a fan favorite dungeon in Link's Awakening, and it's not hard to see why. It's easily one of the most clever dungeons in the game, packing a pretty cheeky expectation subversion. The first half of the dungeon is spent essentially chasing the miniboss, Master Stalfos, around to try and get the dungeon item from him. This basically forces you to not only explore the entirety of the dungeon without being able to use the dungeon item, but it also serves as a fun puzzle as you need to use context clues to figure out where Master Stalfos is going to be next. The dungeon itself is quite mazelike to explore as well, as there's a decent amount of 2D pathways to get you lost, so you'll really need to have memorized the layout by the end. It also helps that the dungeon item, the Hookshot, is historically one of the most fun items in the series, and it's put to great use here. From ripping masks off enemies, to pulling bridges, to using the Hookshot to zoom past spike traps that are too fast to navigate normally, the sheer fun of using the Hookshot elevates Catfish's Maw. I already praised the miniboss for how it affects the dungeon as a whole, but there's also a more standard miniboss in the returning Gohma, and the main boss, Slime Eel, is one of the better ones in the game. It's satisfying to rip it out of the wall and try to land as many hits as you can, and he's the first boss to start planting seeds about the game's twist. Overall, Catfish's Maw is a fantastic, incredibly well-realized dungeon elevated by a strong and inventive premise, and its endlessly fun dungeon item.

Dungeon 6: Face Shrine

Hoo boy, do I have a lot to say about this one.

The thing I most recall about Face Shrine is its atmosphere. It immediately follows the game's big dream twist, so the music is somber and contemplative and the dungeon's color scheme is a bit more garish. It's a place for you to ruminate on what you just learned, and it does that very well. But how is it as a dungeon? Well, I think this is the best execution of Nintendo modeling a dungeon after something, this case being a face. The layout of the Face Shrine looks just barely enough like a face to be recognizable, but takes enough liberties so that it still works as a cohesive dungeon layout. Face Shrine looking like a face even plays into a very clever puzzle where you need to realize there are secret rooms where the eyes are. Unfortunately, this kind of puzzle banks on you having a dungeon map, and I often find myself getting lost because the dungeon map is in a pretty hard-to-find spot. Face Shrine is also the obligatory Wizzrobe dungeon and a lot of chests, keys, items, and doors are hidden behind killing every one in a room, the Dungeon Map included. Wizzrobes in this game aren't as frustrating to deal with as in Zelda 1, but they require a lot more effort to defeat so taking a bunch out can feel a bit tedious so I subconsciously don't want to deal with them and end up skipping out on something important. 

 In general, Face Shrine somewhat feels like the trickster dungeon of Link's Awakening, focused primarily on cheap traps and minor inconveniences like those infamous chess puzzles, rooms with floating floor tiles that you have to wait for, and the aforementioned eye puzzle. Not all of it works, but there's a fair amount of setpieces I did still like. Primarily, Face Shrine really amps up the colored block usage, and some switches are positioned awkwardly enough that even finding away to switch the blocks with your current status becomes a puzzle in itself. The dungeon items from here on out do start to get a bit more situational, with Face Shrine's item being a souped-up Power Bracelet that you get fairly early, but I can't deny it isn't immensely satisfying to chuck giant statues at stuff. I also like how you need to toss a pot at the chest with the Nightmare Key to open it, that's a very clever subversion there. And the bosses are generally quite fun. Smasher is a solid bit of tug-of-war as you toss a big wrecking ball at each other, and while Facade can be easily beaten with a few bomb placements, I like how he attacks you by completely warping, shaking, and destroying the room you're both in.

Face Shrine is a mess of a dungeon, it reaches incredibly high highs and some real lows as well, but ultimately settles around the middle of the pack for me as far as Link's Awakening dungeons go.

Dungeon 7: Eagle's Tower

Eagle's Tower is far and away the crowning jewel of Link's Awakening. I'd even call it one of the best 2D dungeons in the series, maybe even one of the best dungeons overall. This is the only dungeon in the game to have multiple floors, and on one hand, that's a bit of a shame since puzzles built around jumping between worlds is an easy way to encourage the player to learn the dungeon and how it connects. But on the other hand, it also makes Eagle's Tower feel all the more special. Eagle's Tower has easily the strongest spatial reasoning puzzles in the game. The entire dungeon is flooded with colored blocks but there's only like 3-4 switches across every floor, and there are several chests that must be obtained by dropping from a higher floor. However, the main hook is that you need to cart around a giant wrecking ball and use it to break four columns to collapse the fourth floor onto the third floor. So now, not only do you have to keep the different floors in mind, but you also need to figure out how to bring the wrecking ball to each column, a process that can get genuinely challenging by the end. I also love how much of this dungeon you can do out of order, there's a shortcut you can take with the Boomerang that'll let you get the Mirror Shield early, and you can choose to get the Nightmare Key right off the bat or wait until the upper floor has collapsed. I also appreciate that combat is a lot more minimal in this one, few rooms are locked behind enemies, and the one original miniboss is a joke. The boss fight against Evil Eagle is a genuinely solid challenge, though. My only gripes with Eagle's Tower are minimal. You don't spend much time in the third floor pre-collapse, the Mirror Shield isn't used until after the dungeon, but otherwise, this is top-tier Zelda in every sense of the word.

Dungeon 8: Turtle Rock

Turtle Rock is a great final proper dungeon for Link's Awakening, going for sheer scale over anything else. This dungeon has the most rooms out of any in Link's Awakening, and since it doesn't have multiple floors, it also takes up the largest radius. However, while its size may seem overwhelming at first, I didn't find Turtle Rock quite as tough to navigate as the previous two dungeons. It's very wide open and aside from some one-way doors, it's not especially hard to get where you need to go. Rather, Turtle Rock is more focused on testing your combat abilities, and as such it's flooded with minibosses. Most of them are returning, but the new one Blaino is a pretty fun fight as well. That's not to say Turtle Rock is lacking in good puzzles though, the moveable blocks serve both as interesting one-way doors as well as micropuzzles within themselves as you need to figure out how to fill in every hole in the room. And the Fire Rod is a great idea, both because its lack of magic makes it super powerful in this game and because the ice block puzzles that spawn from it are really clever and fun. The boss, Hot Head, is a bit of a joke, sadly, but overall, Turtle Rock is a strong finale that tests you on pretty much everything you've learned throughout the game without just feeling like a rehash of previous dungeons.

Dungeon DX: Color Dungeon

Link's Awakening DX introduces a new secret dungeon called the Color Dungeon, which is pretty much just a showcase of the fact that the Game Boy Color has... color. Okay, look, I know this sounds lame but it's actually quite a fun little dungeon. Pretty much every room has some sort of inventive, unique color-themed setpiece, from fragile blocks that bounce you around, to enemies that blend in with the ground, to marbles that you need to toss into the right holes. The actual structure of the Color Dungeon is fairly straight-forward, but the individual rooms are fun enough to make up for it in my opinion. The bosses aren't anything special, though. Giant Buzz Blob doesn't have much to it beyond spamming Magic Powder, and Dekudon is a legitimately fun and challenging fight as long as you don't use any item other than the sword to completely trivialize it. However, the main boss, the Hardhit Beetle is easily my least favorite in the game. You have to hit it repeatedly to make it turn red so it can be vulnerable to damage, but it bounces you back every time you hit it so it just turns into an exercise in frustration. Still, as a whole, I like the Color Dungeon and Link's Awakening would feel incomplete without it.

Dungeon Final: Wind Fish's Egg

So, whether or not the Wind Fish's Egg counts as a dungeon to begin with is up for debate. You can argue it's the final dungeon, or you can say it's a mini-dungeon like Kanalet Castle, or you can say it's just a glorified cave. Personally, I treat as a dungeon since it's followed by a boss, though that's still quite nebulous. All this area consists of is a very basic maze that you can navigate easily by jotting down the directions that you find in the library, it's the first of many looping maze rooms within the series, but it doesn't make for the most compelling gameplay. Thankfully, everything else picks up the slack. The final boss of Link's Awakening is one of my favorites as far as the 2D games go, it's a lengthy six-phase behemoth consisting of back-to-back rematches from Link To The Past, and while a good amount of the phases can be cheesed pretty easily if you have the right item, the frenetic pace still makes for a really fun encounter. And of course, I've praised the ending of Link's Awakening to no end back in my review of it, so in terms of storytelling and emotion, the Wind Fish's Egg does its job perfectly.

And here's my final ranking:

10. Wind Fish's Egg
9. Key Cavern
8. Bottle Grotto
7. Tail Cave
6. Face Shrine
5. Color Dungeon
4. Angler's Tunnel
3. Turtle Rock
2. Catfish's Maw
1. Eagle's Tower

Zelda Dungeon Reviews: Link To The Past

While the first two games certainly have their merits, I think most can agree that Link To The Past is where the Zelda series really started to come into its own, introducing many of the series' most prolific conventions and bits of iconography. And of course, that applies doubly so to the dungeon design. There's multiple floors, dungeon items, Boss Keys, a balance between more linear and open dungeons, it's all great stuff. This is the first Zelda game to really feel like I'm racking my brain while playing it, between juggling the Light and Dark Worlds, and the increasingly navigation-focused dungeon design. That being said, like with the game itself, I think there's still a fair share of weird growing pains here. Keys are often placed in enemies or under pots which makes it pretty easy to miss them, the Boss Key is used to unlock a chest with the Dungeon Item in it rather than the boss door, the Compass doesn't show you where the chests are, many dungeons still have a good amount of almost entirely useless rooms, and with a whopping 13-14 dungeons, the ratio of overworld to dungeon exploration still feels a bit off. I still really like the game though (even if I think Link Between Worlds kinda overshadows it now) and the many improvements and iterations it did make are absolutely worth acclaim, but I do think it's those little quirks that makes LttP's dungeons quite interesting to talk about.

Dungeon 0: Hyrule Castle/Secret Passage

I'm not fully sure if this section of the game fully counts as a dungeon, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. LttP has one of the coolest openings to a Zelda game, to the point where I think this is one area it even beats out A Link Between Worlds. Breaking into Hyrule Castle and freeing the princess is a fun and exciting way to kick off a game, but your first visit to Hyrule Castle also serves as a solid tutorial of Zelda's mechanics. You get a few keys and locked doors, multiple floors, a few items to immediately mess around with like the Lamp and the Boomerang, the more open castle entrance immediately followed by the more linear dungeon area, and some lever-pulling environmental puzzles in the sewers. I also really like the way combat is introduced, LttP's combat was always kind of iffy, your sword is stubby and only does half of a swing arc if you spam attack. It's really built around using items and everything in your environment, so I like how this area  is primarily designed to encourage stealth and taking out enemies with pots, at least unless you want the Boomerang. So yeah, while I'm not sure I'll be counting this as a dungeon, it's a fantastic intro to the game in its own right.

Dungeon 1: Eastern Palace

Once again, the Eastern Palace is a solid introduction to how dungeons work in this game. It's fairly short and straightforward, but it's quite efficient as well, balancing optional exploration with a guiding hand. The main, intended path forward is fairly linear, but there are a lot of optional goodies like Rupees and the Dungeon Map hidden in side paths. Many rooms in this dungeon have multiple, often disconnected levels to them forcing you to frequently double-back to rooms you've already been to but on different paths, which in turn makes the dungeon feel more sprawling. The arguable main mechanic are switches hidden under the ground or in pots which is a fine enough way to encourage the player to explore, but it's not too remarkable. There are also a few rooms with rolling cannonballs you need to dodge and while they're easily the highlight of the dungeon, there just isn't enough of them. That being said, the dungeon item is the Bow which actually gets a decent amount of mileage here since it can help with fighting Armos Knights. Many dungeon items in LttP don't have this same level of versatility. So while Eastern Palace isn't super remarkable, it does do most of what it's trying to do pretty well.

Dungeon 2: Desert Palace

The Desert Palace is unironically one of my favorite dungeons in the game, it's got everything. The first half is incredibly nonlinear, tossing you into a large open space with a bunch of rooms to explore, while the second half is a linear, more combat-focused gauntlet. The main gimmicks here are the fact that most of the dungeon is sandy meaning enemies can often pop out of the floor, and the Beamos which swivel around and shoot lasers at you on sight. I actually really like the Beamos, they're placed pretty well here like in the room where you need to find the pot with the switch hidden under it while dodge the Beamos' shots. There are a few other memorable setpices though, like being able to briefly go outside the dungeon (something that later games start to really phase out), that cannonball run to get to the Big Key, the introduction of the floating floor tiles, and opening a path by lighting some lanterns almost as if you're a tomb raider. My only gripe is that the dungeon item, the Power Bracelet, is only used once here, but otherwise, the Desert Palace is as good as early Zelda dungeons get.

Dungeon 3: Tower Of Hera

Something you'll learn is that many of my favorite Zelda dungeons involve spatial navigation, taking the dungeon as a whole and trying to figure out how to get yourself from Point A to Point B. Tower Of Hera is probably the first dungeon to make this a focus... but unfortunately, it doesn't do that very well. Tower Of Hera introduces a few neat mechanics such as the ever reliable blue/orange switches and switches that swap the active floor tiles. Unfortunately, you're rarely ever challenged to figure out which switch needs to be pressed at which time, particularly with the former. There is a neat puzzle to get the dungeon item where you need to open up the floor at the right spot and drop down to a lower level, but that's the only puzzle like that in the entire dungeon. Speaking of which, Tower Of Hera is short, too short. Despite being a vertical climb with five floors, almost every floor is composed of a single room which means you can easily blaze through it in about 10 minutes. The concept of a vertical tower dungeon built around navigation puzzles is a great concept, but it's nowhere near developed enough in this case. Thankfully, many later Zelda games would end up rectifying this. Oh yeah, and I didn't even mention the dungeon item. It's just the Moon Pearl that stops you from turning into a rabbit. You can miss the thing completely and not notice until you get yourself stuck in the Dark World.

Dungeon 4: Hyrule Castle Tower

This is one of the more iconic LttP dungeons and for good reason. Just as the opening where you storm Hyrule Castle and break out Zelda is badass, storming Hyrule Castle again but this time getting to wreak havoc with the Master Sword is even more badass. And yes, it's incredibly cathartic and fun to take out every soldier in sight with the Master Sword, but I can't really say there's much more than that. Layout-wise, Hyrule Castle Tower is a vertical straight-shot with little deviation or exploration. It's just a bunch of rooms entirely focused on combat which once again is fun, but it's not especially engaging on a mechanical level which is why I can't really rank it above many of the more standard dungeons.

Dungeon 5: Dark Palace

And here we are, the Dark World dungeons. Overall, I'd say the Dark World dungeons are generally better and more interesting than their Light World counterparts, but on the other hand, they don't tend to require that much more work to access. So like with Zelda 1, this half of the game will mostly just have you darting from dungeon to dungeon. As such, the Dark Palace is your introduction to how Dark World dungeons work, even echoing the Eastern Palace in its first room before slowly branching out into its own thing. Dark Palace doesn't really have much of a standout gimmick, but it stands out as having some of the best dungeon design in the game. With how simple the Light World dungeons could be, the Dark World immediately amps up the complexity in pretty much every way. There's a big emphasis on blowing up walls and the floors with bombs to get to important collectibles, and I especially like how you can see the chests on a balcony next to a cracked wall, forcing you to figure out which room that wall connects to. I actually kinda got stumped at one point trying to figure out how to get to the dungeon map, simply navigating this place is a puzzle and that's what makes it so fun! I also love the dungeon item, the Hammer, which is not only pretty important for getting around the overworld, but is also thoroughly explored and utilized within the dungeon itself.

Dungeon 6: Swamp Palace

The Swamp Palace is the first of many incredible water dungeons in the Zelda series (yes, I said incredible). Like many future Zelda dungeons, the main mechanic here is changing the water level, and it's established right from the very start. I love the opening puzzle where you have to realize that you can go to the Light World and change the water level to affect the Dark World, and the game keeps expanding on this central concept as the dungeon goes on. Another highlight is a bit where the lever that you use to change the water level blocks your path so you have to figure out how to open it from the other end. I'd say the middle section is the real highlight though, it's a big open area akin to Desert Palace where you have to figure out how to get to the Boss Key. What results is a pretty complex puzzle involving dropping through a floor, dealing with a color switch, and changing the water level, and I found that really engaging. Just to sweeten the deal, the Swamp Palace introduces one of my absolute favorite dungeon items to the series, the incredibly fun and creative Hookshot. And once again, the Hookshot actually gets some use within the dungeon and, from what I can tell, is required to beat the boss. The Swamp Palace is pretty much everything a good dungeon should be. It has engaging navigation puzzles, a strong central identity, and a fun dungeon item utilized well.

Dungeon 7: Skull Woods

The Skull Woods has one of the most interesting concepts for a Zelda dungeon, as it's split between the overworld and the inner dungeon, so you're forced to constantly consider where you are in relation to both of these planes. There are several items that you can only collect if you drop into the dungeon from a specific spot, and the dungeon itself is segmented across three different entrances in the overworld. Just to spice things up further, those floor switches from the Tower Of Hera are brought back and utilized in far more creative puzzles this time around. This time, you'll often have to hit the floor switch in one room to open a path in a different room. The dungeon can feel a bit aimless due to its unique structure, but the compelling navigation makes up for any of that. However, my biggest issue with Skull Woods comes from the dungeon item, the Fire Rod. The Fire Rod is fairly well-utilized, but it can feel a bit situational in that it's hard to tell what it can or can't work on. Figuring out that you need to use the Fire Rod on that giant skeleton feels wrong since you can't actually burn skeletons in real life, and yet you can't use the Fire Rod on the vines on the walls, those need to be slashed. This dungeon also introduces Wallmasters and, I don't know, I don't love them but they're not awful enough for me to hate them. They're just kind of annoyances. But overall, despite its few issues, Skull Woods still holds up as a standout dungeon in the game.

Dungeon 8: Thieves Town

Thieves Town is a mediocre dungeon with a great twist. The first half of the dungeon takes place in this four large connected square rooms where you have to look for the major items. Finding the Big Key is a bit of a puzzle, but overall, this area of the dungeon is really repetitive to navigate since everything looks the same. The second half is thankfully a lot stronger, though it still has its issues. This area is mostly comprised of cramped hallways of varying shapes, along with a fair amount of tricky conveyor belt gauntlets. But most importantly, you get the incredibly memorable moment where you free a maiden from prison, break open the flooring from an upper level, and reveal said maiden to be the dungeon's boss, Blind. It's a super fun twist but even it's not perfect. If you try to go upstairs with the maiden in tow, she'll run all the way back to the prison which not only spoils the twist pretty blatantly but means you'll have to go back down and pick her up. In addition, after three dungeons that utilized their items pretty effectively, Thieves Town introduces the Titan Mitts which is probably the most easy to skip item in the game.

Dungeon 9/10: Misery Mire

The one thing I like about Misery Mire is that you can choose to either do it or the Ice Palace first. You're meant to do the Ice Palace first, but I did the Misery Mire first this time because it can make the Ice Palace easier... and because I wanted to get this godforsaken dungeon over with as quickly as possible. Misery Mire truly lives up to its name. It's one of my least favorite dungeons in the series, and a jarring low-point in an otherwise solid roster of dungeons. The worst thing I can say about it is that it feels like, for lack of a better word, filler. Misery Mire doesn't add anything to the game. It doesn't add any new interesting ideas, no surprising changes to the formula, even the theme of a swampy marsh makes for a visually drab dungeon. I guess you could say it introduces Wizzrobes... yay, I guess. Layout-wise, Misery Mire is a complete and utter maze which sounds like it would be right up my alley, but none of the navigation puzzles here are all that interesting. You don't have to think critically about your place in the dungeon, you just have to aimlessly wander around until you find a key, unlock the nearest door, and rinse and repeat. It also doesn't help that out of every dungeon, Misery Mire has the most completely optional and useless rooms, so fully exploring it doesn't even feel rewarding. It's just such a nothing dungeon.

Dungeon 9/10: Ice Palace

Something that you'll come to notice is that the most hated dungeons in each respective Zelda game oftentimes end up being one of my favorites, and the Ice Palace is a perfect example. This dungeon gets a lot of flack for its confusing layout and tricky ice physics, but you know what? It's my favorite in the game, and it's everything Misery Mire wishes it could be. Ice Palace is another mostly vertical dungeon, but unlike the Tower Of Hera, you're descending rather than ascending, and each individual floor is a lot more complex. From figuring out where to bomb the floor, to making sure the color switches are set correctly, some of the puzzles in Ice Palace are devious in the absolute best of ways. Of course, the highlight is that one block-pushing puzzle at the end, arguably the most complex of the game (assuming you don't play Misery Mire first). I will admit that some of the backtracking can be a bit rough, but in a similar fashion to the Water Temple's fixes, the GBA version tones it down enough to mitigate the issue. I also love the individual rooms, there's a ton of varied and memorable obstacles like firebars, conveyor belts, falling floor tiles that force you to a lower floor, and of course, ice physics. My one gripe with the Ice Palace is that one key in the hookshot room that I always miss for whatever reason, but that's more of an issue with how LttP as a whole handles chests and key hunting rather than this specific dungeon. Otherwise, I love the Ice Palace. It's still a maze, but it's a far tighter and more intricate maze than Misery Mire with more interesting and unconventional navigation. It's an honest to goodness puzzle box, satisfying to unravel, with not a single room wasted.

Dungeon 11: Turtle Rock

Turtle Rock is another one of the more polarizing dungeons for me, as it once again takes a somewhat different approach. Unlike many of the other multi-tiered Dark World dungeons which require you to jump between floors, Turtle Rock has you slowly descent deeper into the mountain floor by floor, with the only reason to go back upstairs being if you happen to miss anything. Structurally, it's actually really similar to the Shadow Temple from Ocarina Of Time, a dungeon which you'll find I have some really mixed opinions on. A dungeon being a strictly linear gauntlet means that if you happen to die, it's a long trek back to where you left off. It also doesn't help that, like the Shadow Temple, Turtle Rock is a bit of a magic sink so if you happen to run out, you're pretty much screwed. Despite this, however, I think Turtle Rock has some of the most fun single-room puzzles out of any dungeon in the game. Each floor tosses a new idea at you, from a complex web of rails that you can ride on using the Cane Of Somaria, to a surprisingly fun and intuitive pipe maze, to a complex color switch maze to unravel. The one miss for me is that pitch-black room where you have to dodge firebars while riding on those aforementioned rails, something way harder than it sounds, but overall, Turtle Rock is a fun time, structure be damned.

Dungeon 12: Ganon's Tower

Okay, so I've beaten this game before several times, but in this replay specifically, my game crashed midway through Ganon's Tower and I lost a ton of save progress. So that left a pretty awful taste in my mouth, and I'm gonna have to do some of this by memory. That being said, my own unfortunate experience aside, Ganon's Tower is a good final dungeon, maybe even a great one. Your skill is tested in pretty much every single one of the game's mechanics, from the dungeon items to the several gimmicks ranging from color switches to conveyor belts to moving spikes to Beamos. The first half of the dungeon is a complex maze at the bottom floors testing your navigational skills, and the second half is a more linear gauntlet testing your skills at combat and dodging obstacles. There's even a few boss rematches scattered around to shake things up, it's just a great culmination of everything the game has been teaching you, which is what a good final dungeon should do. As far as issues go, there are once again a few too many dead-ends in the maze area, and the dungeon as a whole lacks the strong identity or convention-breaking twists that some of the others do by virtue of being a final dungeon, but those are mostly small things.

Overall, my ranking of Link To The Past's dungeons would be:

12. Misery Mire
11. Tower Of Hera
10. Eastern Palace
9. Thieves Town
8. Hyrule Castle Tower
7. Turtle Rock
6. Ganon's Tower
5. Dark Palace
4. Skull Woods
3. Desert Palace
2. Swamp Palace
1. Ice Palace

And here's my ranking of Link To The Past's bosses:

12. Moldorm

Moldorm and I have history, I remember going absolutely crazy trying to beat him for the first time as a kid, and he still gives me grief to this day. The worst part is that it's just so simple. Moldorm is a big worm who moves around, and you need to hit the weakspot on his tail a bunch of times. Every time you hit him, he moves faster. However, the arena is surrounded entirely with pitfalls and Moldorm is very eager to bump you into them, sending you to a lower floor, and making you climb back up to start the fight all over again. Moldorm's movement gets so fast, so erratic, so unpredictable that getting good at him feels like an impossibility. Either you're lucky enough to land a hit, or you'll be spending hours climbing back up the tower over and over again trying to finally take the bastard down. If it wasn't for Smog, LttP Moldorm would've been a shoe-in for my least favorite bosses list, and he still stands out as a low-point within the entire series.

11. Vitreous

One of the easiest boss fights in the series. Vitreous starts by sending out tiny eyeballs at you to fend off, while also shooting lightning across the center of the screen, before charging at you himself in his second phase. Sounds complex... until you discover that you can stand in the corner of the room, spam your sword swings, and take out both phases without budging an inch.

10. Lanmolas

While several of LttP's early fights feel more like they're against beefed-up enemies, the Lanmolas probably get this the worst. Their attacks also don't synergize especially well, it just feels like you're fighting three entirely disconnected forces rather than a unified boss. They each pop out of the ground and shoot out bits of dirt for you to dodge, which can be a bit hard to see on the sandy ground, and aside from the last remaining Lanmola shooting out more dirt, there isn't much evolution or variation to the fight. This isn't a bad boss, but it's not especially remarkable or fun.

9. Armos Knights

The Armos Knights aren't the most impressive first bosses out there, they are pretty much just larger enemies, but their attack pattern makes up for it. They dance around the screen and even occasionally form a wall in an attempt to trap you, and once you've taken out all but one, the last Armos Knight left goes red and starts angrily trying to stomp you. It's just a fun fight and it makes good use of the Bow.

8. Arrghus

Arrghus is a boss that pretty much demands the use of the Hookshot, and that's pretty cool. The first phase is a fun time as you need to hook away the clouds surrounding its body, which looks and feels incredibly satisfying. Unfortunately, the second phase is a bit of a let-down. Arrghus starts to dart around the room, but can be easily hit by just spamming your sword swing. The fight against Arrghus is certainly enjoyable, but it's not especially complex or mechanically interesting beyond the Hookshot usage.

7. Kholdstare

 Kholdstare is an interesting boss in that it doesn't really ever attack you. In the first phase, he's enclosed inside a cube of ice, and in the second phase, he splits himself in three and starts aimlessly flying around. Despite this passivity though, this is not an easy fight. Right from the start, you'll have to be dodging icicles that fall from the ceiling at a fast-rate, and once Kholdstare splits into three, the fight gets quite chaotic.

6. Trinexx

Trinexx is a pretty cool boss, a giant three-headed turtle where you need to use both the Fire and Ice Rods. I always felt his design was a bit too derivative of the Helmasaur King, but it's still sick as hell. However, the implementation of Trinexx's fight isn't quite as good as it probably could've been. At this point in the game, you should probably have gotten the Golden Sword, and each of Trinexx's heads goes down to a mere three swings of it making for a really short fight. The second phase where Trinexx turns into a worm and starts moving around Moldorm style is also a bit of a let-down after a much stronger first phase. And finally, while using both the elemental rods are really good, they use up a ton of magic which is particularly notable after a very magic-heavy dungeon. Trinexx's fight is still pretty fun when all's said and done, but it has a decent amount of issues.

5. Agahnim

Ah, Agahnim. This is the first of many energy tennis bosses in Zelda where you need to knock their projectiles back at them, but Agahnim does a decent job of keeping things fresh. He teleports around the room, shooting at you from different angles, and also tossing in homing shots and screen-clearing lightning strikes for good measure. And his even better second encounter has you content with multiple clones of Agahnim as well, which gets incredibly manic to deal with. My one gripe with this boss is that Agahnim cycles through his attacks almost entirely randomly, meaning that you might have to wait a while before getting a shot type that you can actually hit back at him. But otherwise, this is one of LttP's better boss fights and a solid difficulty bump for the game overall.

4. Blind

I already raved about the Blind twist when talking about Thieves' Town, so this is just about the fight itself. Blind's fight takes a fairly simple pattern and slowly amps up the complexity to great effect. He starts by flying around shooting slow lasers at you, but every time you take him out, his head starts flying around at you shooting bullets. By the end of the fight, you'll have to deal with two flying heads along with Blind and his lasers which makes for a pretty hectic and fun battle.

3. Ganon

As a final boss, Ganon is easily the best one the series has had so far. It's a far more fast-paced and involved fight with multiple phases, and even a neat throwback to the original game's final battle. The first phase has you weave around the fire bats he shoots out as you try to land hits, and the second phase requires you to light candles to illuminate him and hit him with silver arrows. However, I do feel like this fight just almost crosses the line into being kind of annoying. Ganon has a lot of invulnerability periods, between teleporting, surrounding himself with fire, and going invisible. Even worse, if you happen to fall into the hole he creates in the second phase, you fall out of the arena ala Moldorm and have to do the fight again. But at least Moldorm is short, this just feels needlessly cruel. But despite those annoyances, you can't say he isn't immensely satisfying and rewarding to take down.

2. Mothula

Mothula is a very love-it-or-late-it boss because of just how chaotic of a fight it is. Not only do you have to deal with Mothula flying around and shooting beams at you, but you also have spiked walls slowly moving across the arena, along with the arena floor itself randomly moving in various directions. For some, it's just too much to deal with, but for me, I relish in the chaos. The fight against Mothula is fun, frenetic, and really satisfying to take down, but it doesn't feel frustrating in the way that something like the Moldorm fight.

 1. Helmasaur King

The Helmasaur King is easily my favorite boss in Link To The Past, a perfect balance between challenge and fun factor. Chipping away at the boss's mask feels really satisfying, especially when you land that final hit and it blows itself apart. And the boss's design is really sick and menacing, with a technically impressive swinging tail that he uses to swipe at you and a ton of fireballs that split apart in an almost bullet hell-esque pattern. It's primarily built around the dungeon item unlike many of this game's bosses, but it also allows you to try other options, Bombs can deal some pretty hefty damage to the mask if you can use them correctly. It's just a cool concept executed pretty much perfectly.

Zelda Dungeon Reviews: The Adventures Of Link

Zelda II: The Adventures Of Link was never a game I particular liked. As a matter of fact, it's a game I hadn't actually fully beaten until now, I usually bounced off at Death Mountain. So I was totally expecting to completely and utterly trash this game, but to my surprise, that's not what happened. Believe it or not, I actually really enjoyed Zelda II quite a bit, even more than the first game! 

Don't get me wrong, this is a brutal and punishing game that strays far from what you'd expect from Zelda. Its death system is ridiculous, the magic meter is too tight, some of the puzzles are too cryptic, and some of the enemies are quite annoying. However, when compared to the many action RPGs of its time, I think it holds up as one of the best. It controls well, it looks more detailed, the soundtrack is an improvement, and even the dungeon design feels more refined. The dungeons in Zelda II are more streamlined and linear, each room feels important in some way, you can't just skip over massive chunks of the dungeon with bombs, there are no carry-over keys, there are more original room designs and defining features between the dungeons, and there are no repeated bosses. Even more, the lead-ups to each dungeon feel more fleshed-out. By the end of the first game, I was darting from dungeon to dungeon because there was nothing else to do in the overworld, but Zelda II feels far better paced and really breezed by despite being a longer game than its predecessor. Barring the lack of a map, some annoying backtracking, and the punishing gameplay itself, dare I say that Zelda II's dungeon design is actually pretty damn solid.

Here's my reviews of the dungeons in Zelda 2: 

Dungeon 1: Parapa Palace

Like with the first game, Parapa Palace is a solid introduction to the way dungeons work in this game, with a particularly well-designed opening. You enter the dungeon and head to the right, as you do, only to hit a locked-door. You turn around and go to the left where you find a key to use on the door, and boom, now you have a complete understanding of how to navigate dungeons in Zelda II. The second half of the dungeon is a bit iffer, though. There's one part where you need to get a candle at the end of a long hallway, but it's locked behind a door and if you happen to go there before getting the key, you gotta walk all the way back. This is a common issue with Zelda II as there aren't any shortcuts and backtracking after getting an item is pretty frequent, but it feels particularly bad here. I'm also not a huge fan of that room with all the Bubbles, it's pretty tedious to navigate especially considering it's on the way to that aforementioned candle. Ultimately though, Parapa Palace is still a decent tutorial despite its flaws. It's too short to get annoying, but also too short to do anything particularly special.

Dungeon 2: Midoro Palace

Midoro Palace is a pretty standard improvement over Parapa Palace in two major ways. First off, the layout is better. There are no dead ends that would require extensive backtracking, and as long as you check every hallway as you pass them, you won't get lost. But even more, Link has a much larger kit now. At this point, you should have several spells beyond just the Shield Spell, the downward slash, and a higher level that should let you take out the beefier enemies like Darknuts a lot faster. Beyond those improvements, there isn't too much super memorable about Midoro Palace outside of that pretty neat rooms with the falling blocks, but it's overall a solid and well-crafted dungeon that feels like a breath of fresh air coming off the most tedious part of the game.

Dungeon 3: Island Palace

Or as I like to call it: The Block Dungeon. Island Palace is all about those breakable blocks. You have to carve out paths for yourself, dodge falling blocks, and dig into pits of blocks to retrieve items like keys. It's a fun mechanic that helps give this dungeon its own identity, and the fact that the progression is mostly quite linear like in Midoro means that the backtracking is also fairly minimal here. The one complaint I have with the Island Palace is just that it's very Darknut-heavy, and even more, it likes to cram you into tight spaces with Darknuts. This is even the dungeon that introduces you to the infamous Blue Darknuts, which are deservedly the most hated in the game. However, the fantastic layout and room design mostly makes up for the somewhat frustrating enemy encounters.

Dungeon 4: Maze Palace

Maze Palace has one of the more interested layouts in this game, and in a good way too. Early on, you come across a gap, and once you realize that dungeons never have pits that aren't filled with lava, you discover that jumping into the gap will send you to a floor with an important item on a lower level. It's one of the first times Zelda ever dabbles with spatial reasoning, and that's pretty cool. The enemy lineup is also mostly fair, though the Maze Palace does have one crippling flaw. This is a dungeon that loves to waste your magic, between an abundance of Wizzrobes that can only be defeated using reflect and a good amount of rooms that require the Jump spell, and this is very problematic when you need the Reflect Spell for the boss. I ended up finishing the dungeon with only just barely enough magic left, imagine having to purposefully die to regain magic because enemies just weren't giving you any in the lead-up to the boss?

Dungeon 5: Ocean Palace

This dungeon can suck it. While Dungeons 2-4 were mostly pretty alright in terms of navigation, Dungeon 5 is where Zelda 2's worst backtracking excesses show as it's filled to the brim with completely useless dead ends and contains a nonlinear layout that will have you running back and forth, while also dealing with a ton of some of the most annoying enemies in the game like the Bubbles and Magos, and in tight spaces to boot. What really seals the deal though is the fact that behind one of those "dead ends" is a secret passage that leads to the dungeon item. There is nothing signalling to the player that this passage exists, nor that fake walls are even a thing in this game. And when you do finally make it to the end, you're faced with a goddamn Darknut gauntlet. 

Dungeon 6: Hidden Palace

Aaaaand this is where Zelda II completely drops the ball. My favorite thing about Zelda dungeons has always been their puzzle box nature where every room matters, and you need to engage with every part of the dungeon as a collective whole, which is a big reason why the first game's more open and aimless dungeon design feels so unsatisfying to me. Zelda 2 was a great step in the right direction... until the game gives you a Magical Key right before this dungeon that unlocks any door. Now, you don't need to scour for keys, you just need to get the dungeon item and make a beeline for the boss. On top of that, the actual room design of the dungeon is pretty weak too as it primarily reuses rooms from previous dungeons, which is also a shame since Zelda 2 previously did a pretty good job at adding new stuff to the table. That being said, this isn't to say Hidden Palace is entirely awful. It lacks the frustrating dead ends of the previous dungeon, and the first half with the looping rooms is actually a really cool idea and a fun puzzle to solve. I also kinda like the room where you have to activate the fairy spell in midair, but I can admit it'd be a lot better if the limited magic didn't mean you basically had one shot to get it right.

Dungeon 7: Great Palace

Considering how much I dislike Death Mountain from the first game, I was expecting to loath Great Palace. It does suffer from similar issues in how the Magical Key makes an entire half of it completely skippable, and it boasts an abundance of dead ends to boot (albeit not nearly as time-wasting as the ones in the Ocean Palace). However, what makes Great Palace stand out is that unlike Death Mountain which only exposed how few unique room designs there were in the original Zelda, Great Palace is entirely original. It not only has a ton of fun and unique room arrangements, but the enemy roster is completely new too, most of which is fun to fight. There are some clever puzzles involving dropping through the right hole at the right spot, along with some memorable encounters like against that giant blob that suddenly spawns on top of you. It actually feels like a climactic, rewarding final dungeon, and ended my playthrough on a surprisingly solid note.

Overall, my ranking of Zelda 2's dungeons would be:

1. Island Palace
2. Great Palace
3. Midoro Palace
4. Maze Palace
5. Hidden Palace
6. Parapa Palace
7. Ocean Palace

And here's my ranking of Zelda 2's bosses:

 8. Carock

There's nothing I hate more than a boss that forces you to use a limited asset and doesn't replenish it if you run out. You need enough magic to use the Reflect spell to even hit him, and in a dungeon filled with Wizzrobes that also need the Reflect spell to be defeated, it's very possible for you to just not have it. But even if you do have the Reflect spell, this boss is just boring. You crouch in the corner and wait until Carock has been hit with enough reflected shots, there's zero effort required here. And this isn't even an exploit like in the Dark Link fight, no, the intended strategy is to just sit around doing nothing while Carock defeats itself.

7. Dark Link

I won't deny that as a concept, Dark Link is a very cool boss. In execution, though, this guy was just too ahead of his time. The AI in the Dark Link fight is ridiculously aggressive and can counter your moves almost perfectly. While it is possible to defeat him, the fact that most players resort to cheating and slashing from the corner says a lot. I'm willing to put him over Carock because at least you can try to defeat Dark Link the intended way for some extra challenge, but the fact remains that Dark Link is either way too easy or way too hard depending on how you fight him.

6. Thunderbird

Thunderbird basically turns the game into a bullet hell as you have to jump and slash at his head while dodging an absolute onslaught of fireballs. It's not particularly fun, but it is a decent change of pace considering how samey a lot of Zelda 2's fights can feel. However, what really kills this fight for me is the fact that you once again are required to use a spell to defeat him. But while the Reflect spell only needed about two bars of magic, the Thunder spell that you need to even expose Thunderbird requires half of your maxed out magic. This is inexcusable in my eyes.

5. Rebonack

Rebonack is so cool. He's a Blue Darknut who starts the fight on a horse, and you have to knock him off of it using downward slashes before taking him out on the ground. It's an early example of a two-phase Zelda boss, and the first phase is really fun and satisfying. The second phase, however, kinda drops the ball. As I said, Rebonack is a Blue Darknut so defeating him is mostly just like fighting any other Blue Darknut: Annoying. It's even more annoying here considering that Rebonack goes off screen super frequently, meaning you have to back all the way up to draw him out for another hit. The rematches are better since he goes down in less hits, but that just feels like a bandaid on a greater issue

4. Horsehead

A pretty solid first boss. He's very easy but I think it works for so early in the game, and nothing about his fight feels particularly BS. You have to jump and hit his head to take damage, before quickly backing off to avoid his subsequent mace swing. Horsehead's movement isn't super erratic, and trying to land a hit on Horsehead without getting hit through contact damage is a decent challenge.

3. Gooma

Gooma is similar to Horsehead in terms of his moveset, with the big exception being that he has a giant mace instead of an axe. This gives Gooma a large reach making run ups to hit him more dangerous. If you fight him normally, this fight is brutal... but if you think to use the Jump spell to jump over his mace swings, the fight gets a lot easier.

2. Helmethead

With Helmethead, your tactics remain the same but instead of using an axe, Helmethead shoots energy balls at you that you can deflect with your shield. It's still not a super tough boss, but the animation of how his helmets fall off every time you hit him is quite charming, and it plays into the fight as the helmets start to fly around shooting even more energy balls at you.

1. Barba

 Yeah, this is a pretty obvious pick. Barba is easily one of the most iconic and well-liked boss in Zelda 2 for a number of reasons. Playing whack-a-mole with a dragon is a great change of pace after so many mano-a-mano boss fights against a humanoid with a weapon, and his attack pattern is tough but fair, simple but satisfying. There's a reason this guy came back in Ocarina Of Time.

Zelda Dungeon Reviews: Legend Of Zelda

I've been wanting to do a series where I reviewed dungeons in the Legend Of Zelda series for a long time, so I'm finally doing it. I'll need to actually replay these games to really be able to fully dissect some of these dungeons, so expect new posts to come out pretty slowly. The Legend Of Zelda is obviously a pretty great and influential game for its time, and its overworld is obviously impeccably designed to this day. However, it's probably my least favorite mainline game and a big reason for that is the way dungeons work. Despite the impressive enemy variety (which is weirdly enough better than in the BotW duology), there's really only so much Nintendo could do with such a limited lineup of rooms, so the dungeons feel really repetitive as a result. 

On top of that, I think Zelda NES suffers from just how easy it is to optimize the fun out of it. You can get most of the overworld items at the start of the game which just leaves you to go from dungeon to dungeon with nothing to break up the monotony, and the dungeons in question have so many shortcuts and entirely optional rooms that it's almost as if the game encourages you to skip past its challenges rather than engage with the room designs are intended. Zelda 1 has an incredible first 30-60 minutes, but once you get into that dungeon grind, it starts to drag.

So, without further ado, let's at least try to start ranking the dungeons in The Legend Of Zelda:

9. Death Mountain

While I was getting a bit exhausted by Dungeons 7 & 8, Death Mountain is when I was begging for the game to end. This is a shamelessly brutal dungeon, a massive behemoth filled with tons of dead ends and some of the most annoying enemies in the game, particularly the Wizzrobes. For some, Death Mountain is an incredible and fitting final challenge. For me, it's frustrating and unfun. I like to take the time to fully explore every room of all the first eight dungeons, but Death Mountain is so large and so much of it is just superfluous busy work and copies of rooms from previous dungeons that I don't even bother. It's not all bad, I do like how you get to take different paths depending on if you have the Magical Key, and some of the new enemies like Lanmola and Patra are pretty neat, but most of Death Mountain is just a back-to-back onslaught of Zelda 1's worst excesses.

8. Dungeon 6: The Dragon

The Dragon just isn't a very fun dungeon. It feels like it's meticulously designed to be a slog to play through, right from the start. Many have talked about how the very start of the dungeon can lock you out if you don't come in with at least one key, but even after that bit of bad design, The Dragon has everything I don't want in a Zelda dungeon. It's linear, with long and straight stretches without any bends or branching paths. It's repetitive and sluggish, with countless combat rooms of some of the tankiest enemies in the game such as Like Likes and Blue Wizzrobes. It even has a number of pretty cruel dead ends, some of which will require quite a bit of backtracking to get onto the right path. I don't particularly hate The Dragon, but I can say that I felt next to nothing while playing it, and it also marks the point where the first Zelda kinda started to overstay its welcome for me.

7. Dungeon 2: The Moon

Out of all the dungeons in Zelda 1, The Moon is probably the one that suffers most from this game's more freeform approach to dungeon design. Most of The Moon is laid out pretty much like a straight line, with each room on that line being connected to a standalone room to the right. This leads to a very repetitious layout and a short dungeon since half of it is pretty much entirely skippable even without bombs. There's also an abundance of rooms filled to the brim with snakes, which can be a bit annoying. That being said, I do really like that one Moldorm room for how sudden and spontaneous it is, and the purple color scheme in general is probably my favorite in the game.

6. Dungeon 3: The Manji

Okay, let me get the elephant out of the room first. Yes, I know The Manji has a somewhat unfortunate layout, it's a buddhist symbol and it's facing the wrong direction. Either way, The Manji's pretty mid. It doesn't do anything particularly wrong, it's far more windy and twisty than dungeons like The Moon were, but most of the rooms aren't particularly memorable and the abundance of Red Darknut spam can drag down the pacing. I'm also not a fan of how you get the raft in this dungeon but never use it until you're out in the overworld, there's no check to make sure the player has this mandatory item.

5. Dungeon 7: The Demon

The Demon is a mostly fine dungeon with some good and bad elements. The combat encounters are mostly solid, with a focus on the pretty fair Goriyas. I like that the Moldorm pits return, though there's way too many Digdogger minibosses and the Aquamentus fight is a joke. The Demon is easily one of the most nonlinear dungeons with a lot of branching paths, which is nice, but there's also a lot of points where you need to bomb a random wall to move onto the next part of the dungeon. Add in the fact that there are two sets of triple Dodongos in The Demon, and you get a dungeon that feels like it's tailor made to waste all your bombs. I do like the sidequest of having to buy bait though, even if the toll check should probably have been placed at the start of the dungeon to prevent potential backtracking.

4. Dungeon 1: The Eagle

Being the first dungeon in the entire series, it's pretty obvious that The Eagle is one of the most iconic Zelda dungeons, and for good reason. What 1-1 is for Mario, The Eagle is for Zelda, a pretty fantastic tutorial to how dungeons work. It's fairly guided and linear, there's a decent room variety, most of the enemies are pretty manageable, you get your first dungeon item in the Bow, and the first boss is a (admittedly easy) dragon). The Eagle is really short, though, and it suffers a similar issue to The Manji where the Bow isn't actually necessary to get until all the way at Dungeon 6. And even if you do get the Bow early on, if you don't know that you need to get the arrows somewhere else in the overworld, you wouldn't be able to use it. This game is way too cryptic for its own good sometimes.

3. Dungeon 8: The Lion

By the time I got to The Lion, I was feeling pretty burnt out with the game, but looking back at this dungeon, I actually have a lot of good things to say about it. I like how the white floors give The Lion a regal feel befitting the name and the focus on Darknuts. At this point, you should probably be powerful enough that despite the abundance of Darknuts, they're mostly pretty manageable. The Pols Voice spam on the other hand can get really annoying, but at least they're infrequent. The bosses are definitely the highlight here. You get to refight Manhandla a bunch of times, as well as Gohma but with an actual health bar, and the proper boss is Gleeok again. I also like how much of The Lion is completely optional. It's easier to navigate than The Demon and blocks you off less often, but there's more completely out-of-the-way side rooms that lead to cool rewards like the Magical Key.

2. Dungeon 5: The Lizard

A perfectly solid if a tad unremarkable dungeon, which just makes it all the more sad that it's in second place. The Lizard is the first dungeon that starts to really open up and let you explore, with a notable early room branching off into four directions, one of which leading to the dungeon item that will let you defeat the boss. While the boss in question is incredibly underwhelming, The Lizard is notable for the first time a dungeon item is even needed to defeat the boss to begin with. Otherwise, there's some decent water (lava?) bits that make good use of the ladder, a decent amount of Darknuts that can mercifully be taken out easily with your fully upgraded sword, and a pretty BS dead end after the boss that can trap you in a room with enemies.

1. Dungeon 4: The Snake

There is a lot to love about The Snake, it has so much going for it. It's on the linear side like The Moon, but its layout is far more windy and unpredictable. The dungeon actually requires you to take its branching paths to get stuff like keys and the Ladder, which gets fully utilized in the latter half of the dungeon in a manner not unlike modern Zelda games. There's a bunch of bodies of water that you can skip over once you get the Ladder, and that's pretty cool. This dungeon also has the first hidden Rupee room, along with the introduction of some of the more fun enemies to fight like Vire and Gleeok. And on top of that, this dungeon is also the first one that you can't access at the start of the game, and is serves as an important turning point at which Zelda 1 gets a boost in complexity and difficulty. The Snake is just a fantastic dungeon in any Zelda game, it's briskly paced, filled with memorable moments, and feels particularly modern compared to most other Zelda 1 dungeons.

In addition, I thought I'd also rank the dungeon bosses since they tend to be pretty important:

7. Digdogger

What a lame boss. Digdogger barely even attacks you, he just hovers around the room and lets the statues hugging the walls do most of the dirty work. As I said earlier, it's nice that Digdogger is the first boss that demands a dungeon item, you need to use the recorder to shrink it and expose it to damage. However, once you do use the recorder, the Digdogger goes down incredibly quickly with very little effort.

6. Ganon

What is it with NES games and invisible final bosses? Mega Man 4 had it too, though even its final boss was way better than the first Ganon fight. Ganon teleports around the room and you have to hit him four times to expose him, at which point you can take him out with a single Silver Arrow. Since sword beams do nothing on Ganon, you'll have to just blindly swipe around until you hit him a few times, and it's just not fun. It's a final boss that's in the dreaded area of being both underwhelming and annoying at the same time.

5. Dodongo

As a group of enemies, Dodongo can be pretty tricky to deal with since you'll need to precisely place bombs without wasting all of them. But as a singular boss like in The Moon, Dodongo is ridiculously trivial. The hitbox for placing bombs is quite generous, and he lacks any i-frames meaning you can quickly take him out in the span of five seconds without him moving an inch.

4. Gohma

One hit. In his first boss encounter, Gohma goes down in one single hit. To be fair, at the very least he tries to put up a fight. Gohma's eye opens and shuts so you need to time your arrow shot, and he moves around the room shooting projectiles at you. However, that still doesn't really change the fact that he goes down in one hit. Thankfully, his health bar does beef up when he becomes a miniboss, but since I'm reviewing this bosses as boss fights, I can't in good conscience put Gohma any higher.

3. Aquamentus 

Aquamentus is a cool first boss in theory. The fact that the first major encounter in Zelda that you have is a dragon, usually the final boss of fantasy adventure stories like this, really sets the bar high for the kinds of boss fights Zelda 1 will have. However, in execution, Aquamentus can be absolutely trivialized with the right amount of preparation. If you come with the arrows, he can be taken out with only two bow shots, and the magical shield can negate all of his attacks. Both of these items can be acquired before even entering your first dungeon. But even if you don't know to get this equipment, by the time you face off wtih Aquamentus again in The Demon, you'll absolutely have them.

2. Manhandla

Manhandla is such a massive improvement over the first two bosses, and it's still one of the best bosses in Zelda 1. For starters, it's actually challenging! Manhandla moves around the room erratically, shooting projectiles to make things even tougher. As you take out its heads, it begins to move even faster. There are a number of methods to defeating Manhandla, with the fight being easier the more powered up Link is, but nothing is quite as satisfying as using a bomb to blow off most if not all of its heads in one fell swoop.

1. Gleeok

Gleeok is easily the best boss in the first Zelda and it's not even close. Like Aquamentus, it's a dragon, but it's an actually tough one with a pretty beefy health bar and multiple heads you need to take out. To make things even more complicated, taking out one head causes it to fly around the room and shoot even more projectiles at you basically giving the Gleeok fight multiple phases that incremently amp up the difficulty. I also love how the later Gleeoks you fight have increasingly more heads, meaning that his fights actually get more and more difficult (looking at you Aquamentus). For as much as I rag on Tears Of The Kingdom, I was so glad to see Gleeok back, he's always been a badass Zelda boss all the way back to the first game.