A lot of Zelda fans are way too harsh on the Great Bay Temple in my opinion. While it’s certainly not a flawless dungeon, I’d personally rate it as a pretty memorable and challenging experience. Plus, I think it’s one of the more creative water-based temples from throughout the series.
What exactly is “memorable” and “creative” about the Great Bay Temple, I hear you asking skeptically? Well, the whole system of pipes and tunnels, the vibrant colors, the puzzles, the Ice Arrows, and the use of the Zora Mask all make it a one-of-a-kind dungeon to me. Let’s dive in a bit deeper, shall we?
The temple’s aesthetic
The first thing I want to praise about this temple is its style, which at the time really stood out from the normally rustic, feudal, and fantasy-inspired locations in the rest of the series. It’s brimming with complex, almost futuristic technology, with its network of pipes, waterwheels, cogs, and what look like electric lights throughout.
The splashes of color, in particular, make these mechanical elements appear much less mundane. One minute you’re in a room washed in coral greens and blues, and the next you’re in one illuminated by sharp pinks, neon greens, and glowing yellows, which bathe the temple in an aquamarine, yet also almost cyberpunk vibe.
And let’s not forget the way that the remake really turned up the style to eleven. All the colors are even more vibrant, the temple itself is brighter throughout, and water’s waves reflect off the walls, giving it an even greater aquamarine aesthetic. All of this is so eye-catching and immersive.
The style and structure are even more impressive when you remember that the developers were reusing a lot of assets from Ocarina of Time when originally creating this game, as they had a year to do so. It would’ve been easy for them to re-purpose the Water Temple for the Great Bay Temple, but clearly, they wanted to put in the extra effort and make this water-based dungeon something else. Well, it certainly is that.
What’s more is it seems like all of these machines, pipes, and lights function due to hydro-power, rather than unexplained magic. This gives it such a unique vibe compared to the other three dungeons in the game, which all fit that rustic, more ancient vibe I talked about earlier. In fact, there’s just nothing else that looks like the Great Bay Temple in its era of Zelda games. It really feels like you’ve stepped into a place on its way into the future.
The temple’s layout
Possibly the most controversial aspect about this dungeon is its numerous, often difficult-to-navigate routes. Link mostly moves between rooms through various tunnels, usually with one-way water currents, which can result in needing to go all the way around again if you make a false turn.
Now, admittedly, this style of room navigation can be aggravating, particularly because the layout of the dungeon is complex and hard to wrap your head around at first. It’s easy to forget which pipes lead where and whether you’ve already explored that path or not.
However, I personally found myself enjoying this watery maze. A lot of Zelda games have a habit of making dungeons too neatly laid out, like a connect-the-dots puzzle, where you know exactly where to go next because it’s right in front of you. The Great Bay Temple, with its series of tunnels and unclear routes, is a lot less linear to navigate and actually makes you think.
Not only are you navigating between these rooms, but you’re also using the various water wheels, pumps, and switches throughout to manipulate water flow and create new paths. I personally enjoyed this exploration and experimentation aspect — it encourages you to follow your gut and think on your feet. I think this is why I remember all the rooms so clearly. On the one hand, you can call it frustrating backtracking, but on the other, you can call it a deviation from linearity and encouragement of exploration. What fun is a dungeon without a good challenge and one where the answer is too obvious?
This is where the creativity really shines in my opinion, and that leads us right onto the topic of the temple’s puzzle solving.
The temple’s puzzles
I may be alone in this, but I genuinely enjoyed solving the water-based puzzles in the Great Bay Temple. Whether it was figuring out which levers to push or manipulating water geysers, I loved the challenge and visual creativity of it all.
Plus, it contains one of my favorite items in the game: the Ice Arrows.
I absolutely love how the temple utilizes Ice Arrows, and how they function in general. Being able to create your own platforms in water or by freezing enemies is a total game-changer. Now you could create a pathway anywhere you like, making previously inaccessible areas literally a hop, skip, and jump (or fancy cartwheel) away.
I also really appreciate how you need to swap between Link and Zora Link throughout the temple, as it’s my favorite transformation mask. Aside from the Great Bay, there aren’t a lot of water-based areas where you can swim around with Zora Link. It’s so fun to swim and dolphin-dive in and out of water with him. With Zora Link, it adds another layer to the dungeon’s navigation. Not only do you need to navigate horizontally, but also vertically, which you can usually only do by diving and swimming. I really enjoy dungeons that do this. Going back and forward from one room to the next without much vertical navigation often ends up feeling repetitive. Snowhead Temple made a good start on this, but it was almost too vertical. I think Great Bay strikes a nice balance between the two.
On the topic of Zora Link and puzzle-solving, though, we have to talk about the 3DS remake. Why oh why did they have to change how Zora Link swims? I know it was because a lot of people apparently struggled with the dash mechanic in this temple, but I don’t see the issue — you could still swim normally with him if you wanted. I’m sure we’ve all heard plenty about what a strange decision this change was to the Zora Mask, so I’ll leave it at that.
However, I want to also discuss another 3DS remake change that really frustrated me. They made the Ice Arrow — my other favorite aspect of this dungeon — only work on certain spots of water! This immediately stripped all the creativity out of the item and made it feel useless outside of the dungeon to me.
One thing I clearly remember doing with the Ice Arrow when I was younger was starting at the Marine Research Laboratory and creating a path with the Ice Arrow all the way to the other side of the bay. I wanted to see if I could do it without touching the water — just for fun. With the Ice Arrow restricted to only working on certain spots, this creativity was gone. It was such a ridiculous change, clearly designed to make the Great Bay Temple easier, but I don’t remember ever struggling with creating Ice Arrow paths. I think this is why I’ll always prefer the N64 version (or GameCube port) of Majora’s Mask.
So, with all that said — and despite the random 3DS changes — I think the Great Bay Temple is genuinely fun and interesting in terms of design and gameplay. Perhaps I am more forgiving of its frustrating mechanics than other people are, but next time you get around to playing it, see if you can keep a more open mind. See if you can stop to appreciate the effort that went into all the colors, the layout, and the machinery — that went into making it something unique.
