I think it’s safe to say that many Zelda fans can recall a time where they were missing a regular Small Key or even the Boss Key, having no idea at all where that key could possibly be located.
A few examples I can personally think of is that one key trickily placed at the beginning of the Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time, the Boss Key hidden behind the shadow waterfall in Twilight Princess, and not being able to find the final key required within the confusing mess that was Turtle Rock in Link’s Awakening. However, personally, there was always one key that was not only difficult for me to find, but was confusing even get to even after I figured out where it was.
I’m going to assume no one will be really surprised by this, but this was one of the biggest slaps to the face in my absolute favorite game of all time. Picture this: You’ve entered the rumored “most difficult and confusing dungeon in Zelda history,” you’re going through all the doors, and you’re maybe thinking to yourself, “Hey, this isn’t actually so bad.” And then you come to that one room with the falling platforms — and a locked door. Lovely. So it took me a long time to even find where this hidden key was, but even when I managed to get to it, I had no idea how to get it.
I know that to some this will seem like a pretty easy answer: Just lower the water level appropriately, come back to the room, and then bomb the wall. But as a kid this always threw me off, mostly because the thought of revisiting an old room at a weird water level all for one small key just never really crossed my mind. Due to the confusing layout of the Water Temple, the game doesn’t really lead you back to this room — you’re just expected to remember this one weird cracked wall on your first visit to the area where you meet Princess Ruto and you’re expected to figure out that you can mess with the water level in a way that isn’t presented in that same room.
You have no idea how long I was stuck at that part as a kid, and when I finally figured it out, I was this close to catapulting my controller out of my hands out of pure irritation. There’s a couple of other bad ones in this dungeon as well, like the one where you have to figure out there’s a Song of Time block behind the Treasure Chest that holds the Longshot, but this one was the worst for me by far.
