The Water Temple in Ocarina of Time has certainly earned its reputation of being one of the most annoying dungeons in the series. For many fans, such as myself, this dungeon was easily the hardest one in the game. It wasn’t because the enemies were difficult or that every room was necessarily treacherous; the real challenge was trying to keep track of where you’ve been, and where you were going.
Navigating involved raising or lowering the water level in the central room over and over again. You would swim over to a new door, check your map, think you were heading in the right direction, then realize you needed to take the door one floor below instead. Backtracking sometimes meant finding not one but two of those Triforce tablets on the walls, and playing your Ocarina in front of them to change the water level to the correct height. All that just to reach the next locked door.
For me, the Water Temple could easily take up the better part of an entire afternoon. I vividly remember spending ages trying to figure out the correct route to take. After a while, I had made some progress, only to run straight into another locked door, and I had no key.
I remember thinking, “I’ve come this far. How could they possibly put another locked door in my way?” But they did. I still look back on that and can hear the sounds of the developers laughing at me inside my head.
So, I backtracked again. I pulled out my map and tried to see where I had missed a treasure chest. Probably in a room I was supposed to revisit earlier, but forgot in the confusion of finding which path to take. Some raising and lowering of the water again, and I finally snagged the missing key. Then I had to retrace my steps back to the locked door and finally find the Boss Key waiting on the other side.
Another room I remember is the one with the platforms moving down the waterfall. You had to use your Hookshot to pull yourself from one platform to the next before they sank too far. I remember my dad watching me play and telling me I was taking too long to latch onto the next platform. I’m sure I was, because I fell and had to respawn, and try a few times again before I finally got to the other side.
Once I reached the mini-boss fight against Dark Link, obtained the Longshot, and traversed the room with the vortexes trying to drag me down, the rest of the temple felt much more manageable. By then, it felt like a process of elimination. There were only so many rooms left unexplored, so finishing the rest of the temple was like finishing a jigsaw puzzle after most of the pieces were already in place.
The boss fight against Morpha, from what I remember, wasn’t nearly as stressful as the hours I spent exhausting myself trying to clear the temple. Getting grabbed by those watery tentacles and tossed around the room was annoying, but it was probably because by then, my patience was hanging on by a thread. I just wanted this fight to be over so I could get out of there. That’s really what the Water Temple felt like back then: a long road trip where you’re tired of sitting in the car, and asking “are we there yet?” every few minutes.
The rest of my Water Temple memories are a bit fuzzy, but I’m sure once I finally completed it, I saved my game and shut it off, had dinner, and then spent the rest of the evening unwinding from that whole ordeal.
Now, after all these years, it doesn’t feel nearly as impossible as it did back then. Maybe because I’ve memorized the layout of the temple enough by now, or maybe I just have a better sense of direction than I did as a kid. It’s probably a little bit of both.
Still, if you’re heading into the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time, you may want to make sure you’ve got enough time. You might be in there a while.
