What Makes a Good Zelda Dungeon? (ft. NintendoBlackCrisis)

How do the shrines in a region serve as 'earlier rooms' to the Divine Beasts? Big mistake not including them in this discussion.

I don’t consider zelda botw’s divine beast like Zelda temple.
I Find them too short and the puzzle aren’t good like other zelda games

I watched this a little late, but it's a really great analysis
My favorite zelda dungeon is probably the sandship. I think it mixes both linear and unlinear level desing in a great way. It also has some genius puzzles. I also tend to like dungeons that challenge me and while the sandship was challenging it didn't feel unfair. I know your friend NBC really hated it, but I just can't agree with him at all (no hate though, we all have our own opinions). The reason I like the sandship's puzzles so much is that you have to really think outside of the box (literally).
The best puzzle has to be the one where you use a ship on the deck after shooting the timeshift stone to get to one of the generators. While some might find it too cryptic, I actually find it fair and really genius. Here's why: when you first explore the deck you see there's a very clearly indicated thing you can shoot with a bow on top of a small boat on the side of the ship and it moves the boat down, but the doors on the bottom are still closed. When you later solve a puzzle inside the ship it opens the doors and show's you the boat in a small cutscene then you logically realize that you can use the boat on the deck after turning the time to the past to get inside the room and the inside the room you also have to shoot the timeshift stone through the ceiling to access the generator. The puzzle asks you to take note of multiple different pieces of information learned earlier in the dungeons and kind of combine everything you've learned (also why I like sky keep) to solve it and it's incredibly satisfying once you finally understand it.
I can understand people getting frustrated with it though (NBC) if you're playing for the first time and just want to kinda speed through it. I just tend to like taking my time to really thoroughly explore dungeons and think about how to get though them so the more confusing and challenging ones are really my taste I can still see why some people hated it though.
For some reason the more i struggle with puzzles to more I end up liking them which is probably kinda unusual. (sorry for the long comment just felt like expressing my thoughts even if almost no-one will see it.)

An interesting thing about breath of the wild and dungeon items is the fact that you actually have to get the dungeon item before going to the dungeon. So even though you can go do whatever dungeon you want first, you still have to complete a quest to obtain an item prior to actually going to the Divine Beast. The only Divine Beast that doesn't really have an item is the flying beast in Rito. For that, you just have to make sure you either made dishes or acquired proper clothing to stay warm. As far as the others go, you can't complete the dungeon without first doing the side quest. In Zoras Domain, you need the armor to swim up waterfalls and electric arrows. In Gerudo you need the Thunder helm, and in Goron City you need the flamebreaker outfit. I thought that was a very clever way of getting around having a key item in the dungeons but still requiring you to take Special Steps in order to get there.

I was disappointed by every dungeon in breath of the wild, with the notable exception of hyrule castle. I love breath of the wild but I'm really hoping that it's not how future dungeons are going to look

I hate the Majora's Mask dungeons. There were only 4 of them so Nintendo made them all stupid fucking long and tedious. Fuck Great Bay Temple and especially fuck the Stone Tower Temple. God I hate that temple so damn much. I'd play the OoT Water Temple 10x before I play Stone Tower Temple even once.

Ocarina of Time, Skyward Sword, and Twilight Princess get my nods for best temples.

BoTW was based on the first few games, but it seems they took some of the bad in terms of the Divine Beasts.

Dungeons are gay

Divine beast are NOT dungeons.

I feel like the biggest problem with dungeon items and part of why I'm glad BotW doesn't have them is, sometimes, they're one and done. Sure, they might be used in specific moments outside of the dungeon to get an item or two. But can you honestly say you used the spinner much after you were done with the Arbiter's Grounds? Or that the Mirror Shield has any purpose when there isn't focused sunlight/energy to reflect? That's not to say they're bad items, but they feel kind of worthless afterward.

The blights are honestly just boring and too similar.

Disappointed that I didn’t see more 2D dungeons. Lttp is a masterclass in dungeon making

Link between worlds did items right but dungeons too short.

What about the shadow temple in OoT? Holds the Hyrule Royal Family's bloody history, all of the Greek mythos? That temple was amazing

Actually pretty decent analysis of the elements that make up zelda dungeons.
It's obvious to me that the "good backtracking" that was described as a part of OoT and MM is something I have sorely missed for the last 20 years.

If you think about it though, the items in the temples in ocarina of time get less universally useful the later you go. The bow, hammer, and Longshot have more use outside of the temple than the mirror shield and hover boots. It makes sense because by the time you get to the last two temples there's much less game to go through

The divine beasts... They felt more like the little bit you have to pass before you enter a dungeon. Dungeons were what made the Legend of Zelda series so satisfying. BOTW would have been 10 times as amazing if it actually had dungeons.

so after doing the divine beasts, i noticed that they had a lot of potential to be really good, but were too short. naboris was easily the best of the 4 and ruta was probably the worst because it had a very disjointed level design with the most linear path. rudania would have been better if the rotating was either to the left or right and had more of those marble puzzles. medoh ad a very open approach but its puzzles could have been handled better where simply changing the wing direction was not just a lock and key approach.

why does everyone keep forgetting about the temple of the ocean king in phantom hourglass ?

i liked how in the divine beasts that you can manipulate them at any time, however, only vah naboris felt more like a proper dungeon. they would have been fine overall if there were dungeons in the game. the dlc DB is also pretty good.

from a mechanical perspective, would you be willing to rank the top 10 dungeons including the top down titles? as for 3d, i would probably say the sand ship is the best dungeon. best aesthetic is harder to measure because most of skyward sword's dungeons look amazing and TP also has some really good set pieces but are not really fair to compare to several top down dungeons which i argue have many that are mechanically better.

"One of the main reasons why these dungeons can not contain items is because it will completely restrict the game's open-world flow"

CHEESING DIVINE BEASTS WITH REVALI'S GALE

I feel like a fun dungeon structure to try for future games might be something closer to A Link to the Past's design with dungeons that aren't locked down by story content, but with a few key differences.

Some of the dungeons are required in specific orders because other dungeon items are key for overworld progression, but a similar effect can be achieved if dungeon access is unlocked through a puzzle that is hidden in plain sight. Make the puzzle nonobvious to viewers who don't have a greater context and give that context through more strictly defined story content. The dungeon would still be accessible out of order without the story context to a keen player. Optionally provide fast track access to a secondary entrance using a key item from a different dungeon, but with it's own perils associated with it so it doesn't feel like a cheap dungeon skip.

The optional alternate entrance leads into the next point: main dungeon design. Design each dungeon to only require it's own key items, but with a twist. The approach for a naked player who has never completed a different dungeon would only have access to a linear path with each area's mechanics building off the last. Players could skip to do different parts of the dungeon first if they have the right item from a different dungeon, but to compensate they would lose out on key information they could have learned from the naked player approach. This would counter balance the easy access to later portions with less obvious puzzles for the same lack of context reason as dungeon entry. In order to manage complexity and scope of the dungeon in development focus on only 1-3 optional key items per dungeon. Optional treasures could be added that require items outside this main set, but the dungeon design itself should not revolve around them.

It'd be cool to be able to blindly explore a world with 7 or so dungeons that are tough in their own right regardless of which order they are done in, but are still possible to complete. The feeling of adventure and player agency would be incredible.

Edit: Additionally dungeons could feature enemies that are easier to kill with certain items regardless of which items the dungeon chooses to focus on if the enemy is killable without the item, or the enemy isn't required to be killed to proceed. The second type of enemy would work best with an enemy type that hinders free movement through the area.

I wanted to see some talk about the 2D dungeons.

Breath of the wild dongeons would be better if there was a bigger challenge getting the map.

BotW had some great potential to have great dungeons, my biggest suggestion is the inside Akala Citadel as a good example. The only one I enjoyed was Hyrule Castle (if you would include it as a dungeon), it’s very fun and challenging inside, and the guardians are annoying as hell but their drops are worth it.

The champions ability is the item for the BOTW dungeons it’s just that’s is a reward for beating the dungeon instead of being used to complete the dungeon

the more open dungeon design from the divine beasts could still have puzzles that work off each other, however, one solution could be that the tougher challenges are further from the entrance. eagle's tower is a very non linear dungeon and yet each pillar does have a puzzle building off one another but not in a predetermined way. the first pillar is very straight forward to teach the player how the mechanic works while the next two pillar rooms are tougher where the sequence of difficulty is from top to bottom on the right and then on the left. when having too much freedom that is blatantly obvious in level design can also lead to signposting. a good nonlinear dungeon is either laid out where the player can get easily lost but has a more maze like sort of design such as one way paths, locks and keys or even has a critical path that seems linear when branching paths and backtracking are involved especially when the dungeon is recontexualized. snowhead temple may be a fairly short dungeon and has a very linear critical path up the boss room, but more skilled players can realize that the dungeon is actually not that linear where you have an optional key and can even sequence break with hot spring water (which is also a very painful way to play the dungeon). getting the fire arrows also opens up previously explored rooms like in link's awakening. unfortunately, the 3ds version did reveal a small key chest in the freezard room when in the original they had to be killed to open it. a good linear dungeon is when the dungeon itself promotes player directed backtracking, has large explorable spaces, and does not simply have just single room puzzles at a time unless part of the theme is simply to move forward like in hyrule castle tower, the tower of hera or temple of time. hyrule castle sewers is also another good example because it is a mini-dungeon that leads to a new location and the player is unaware that it leads to an exit. some dungeons in twilight princess were hurt by its linearity such as snowpeak ruins or lakebed temple where the latter mostly guides the player to each room and the former has a non-linear map design because of how it is more grid based.

i think botw hyrule castle is the best dungeon

Where were the 2D/top down games? You mentioned them when talking about the spectrum of linearity but seemed to completely forget about them in your analysis.

My favourite dungeon is the Water temple from ocarina of time. It makes you think. I utterly despise the divine beasts with maybe the exception of the camel (its ok).

Has anyone seen Jim Tews?

When I read the title I thought "The Ancient Cistern from Skyward, Of course." And it ended up being the first shot of the video. It's just a no-brainer for me.

BotWs dungeons would've been nearly perfect if they had added elements where the player had to backtrack. They could've added it easily by just having the champion's tell you that you should find an item to enhance the sheikah slate to be compatible with the divine beast, maybe even telling Link the vague location of where they left it as a detail for how they died. (They could also add a picture into his compendium or gallery, the memory searching segment felt underutilized before) The player will do things to try to find the enhancer and will see the terminals along the way until they get to the place the champion described. Then they find their way back to the map and the dungeon continues as normal. Just small things to make the player think and feel cool when they know where a terminal is.

Copying this comment from another video I posted this under as the points I'm making seem to both agree with most of the points you made in this video but disagrees on one key point in that it is the shrines that are the problem, not the divine beasts:

I actually liked the Divine Beasts; it was the shrines that I did not like. I think what pissed me off about the shrines was that they were way too numerous for their own good (not unlike the Korok seeds). In past Zeldas you could enter a dungeon, be faced with a decent introductory challenge somewhat related to the general theme of the dungeon, the challenge iterates up in difficulty as you progress, and by the end of the dungeon you are expected to have mastered, or at the very least have gained, a decent understanding of that dungeon's particular gimmick, along with using lateral thinking to combine that dungeon's gimmick with other gimmicks learned elsewhere in the game, to take on the final few puzzles of the dungeon. In my opinion the Divine Beasts were never meant to replace this structure. They are rather elaborate set pieces created to fully exploit the physics based gameplay of a particular area. To me the shrines are really what replaced the dungeons in this game. The issue here is that the shrines are small chunks spread out over a very large area. This was necessary to make the world seem less barren. But this meant that no particular shrine could iterate up its puzzles beyond an introductory to intermediate interpretation of a particular gimmick. A developer could not predict the path a player could take and so each shrine had to be limited to a base level of skill at any one particular point of the game. In that way, shrines you see when you first enter a particular area are no more difficult than the final set of shrines that you do in a particular area. So the question then is, how can you solve for this while still maintaining an open world experience?

I think what should have been done was that every area in the game (areas being defined as by having a Shiekah tower) should still have had the three different types of shrines: test of strength shrines, blessing shrines (where the world itself outside was the puzzle) and gimmick shrines (like the wind based shrines in Tabantha where the area's central theme played a big part in the puzzle design). The first two types of shrines would not change at all and you could do all or none of them and it would not affect anything. However, with the third type of shrine you can reduce them maybe to three introductory type shrines you can complete in any order (not unlike the shrines that appear in Champions' Ballad but more geared toward the base game). After completing those three shrines NPCs can start to inform you some weird stuff is going on at a particular location. You do a shrine quest at that location and a shrine with a big pointy hat pops out of the ground (again, just using Champions' Ballad as a template here) and inside the shrine you are treated to multiple puzzles that require a good understanding of the concepts taught in that area's introductory shrines. To me I would prefer the "super shrines" to actually change their aesthetic to look more appropriate for the area they are located in so as to add variety to the game found in previous dungeons sorely lacking from the generic cookie cutter shrine aesthetic, but even if they all looked samey, as long as they had more content than a single individual shrine that requires building level of mastery to solve along with lateral thinking, it could have really brought back the feeling of what it was like to complete a dungeon in previous games in the series.

TL;DR
The shrines being mostly single puzzle affairs is where this game really dropped the ball. Reduce the number of shrines from 120 to between 60 - 80 and create more comprehensive experience to award players for mastering a particular mechanic.

I did think it was kind of annoying in WW how they were so afraid of backtracking that they gave you any collectibles needed for a puzzle literally every time they're needed. Oh look! A barrel of torches next to a fire! I wonder what I need to do for this puzzle?

My only complaint in my first time playing BotW was "where are the dungeons?". I grew to accept the fact that the shrines, or at least some of them, were basically mini or lite dungeons, if you will. Initially, to me, the devine beasts never felt at all like dungeons, but this video basically explains why they felt that way because of their non-linear style. Now I can see how they kinda are the BotW equivalent of dungeons. Still, the 'traditional' style Zelda dungeon is the one major thing that I feel is missing from BotW, otherwise it's far and away the best, and my favourite, game in the series. Simply because the emergent style of gameplay far suits me better than the older games ever did, Wind Waker being the only other game in the series that can come anywhere close (which makes sense since it was my fave Zelda game before BotW).

Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask’s atmosphere and themes in dungeons had history too. The shadow temple was a torture and execution chamber used by the sheikah that has since been abandoned and hidden from the public eye, leaving the dead souls to roam in the valley of the dead. The Forest Temple doesn’t really have a forest theming. It feels like some sort of ancient castle or fort that has been overunned by the forest. That ambiguity with the forest temp,e is also great and I think the Forest temple has one of the best atmosphere in the series.

I think your claim about the Divine Breasts not containing key items is because of the game's nonlinear form is invalid. Link Between Worlds had a nonlinear dungeon system (after reaching Lorule), yet each one had a 'key item'. But these items don't impede process of you don't have it, as they are supplimentary items (Master Ore, Red Tunic, etc.). One could claim that the Champion abilities are like this, but those are given after the final boss, not before. Just my two rupees worth. I have been known to be wrong a majority of the time.

In botw's Devin beasts you can think of creative solutions to the puzzles.

I took on thunder blight first as a new player. And won

Don’t you talk to me about vah naboris that one took me 3 hours

each dungon in oot contains 5 golden skulltulas. like, all of them. even bottom of the well and ice cavern.

One of my favorite dungeons, is Hyrule Castle in BotW. Almost constant threat, nonlinear, (you could take one of several paths or climb over it) 1-5 bosses depending on what you prepared, with the final boss also changing it's health depending on what you have done. The special dungeon items are worth while with one of the best shields hidden behind a miniboss, and random loot is very good. It's theme is the strongest of all dungeons in BotW as well.

The divine beasts are not diverse because their architects and functions are inherently similar. They were not contrived to be themed because they were designed to be efficient weapons. The sheika were scientists and engineers. How would theming the beast’s interiors enhance their functionality?? Everyone is entitled to their opinions and I’m not here to say your preference is incorrect. But it should be acknowledged that the beasts are what they are for a reason.

For me, I remember how Boss Keys (a YT thing) put the dungeons in 3 categories. Lock and Key are focused on having to backtrack to use items and such (like the Fire Temple. Gauntlets are effectively a straight shot of challenges (like Wind Waker). Puzzle Boxes have the dungeon itself be a puzzle, like solving a Rubik's Cube from the inside (like the Water Temple)

How you can go on talking abbot zelda dungeons for 26 minutes and not even mention Lttp, LBW, and Link’s awakening is beyond me. All their different dungeons and all their different ways of acquiring the items for those dungeons should not be overlooked when talking about “what makes a good zelda dungeon”