Dungeon Week: Skyward Sword’s Ancient Cistern

It

was always going to be difficult to pit these dungeons against one another. The Legend of Zelda has a long history

of extraordinary dungeon design and prides itself on constantly reinventing the

challenges our hero has to face, while hearkening back to the staples of the

genre whenever it can. The ever-changing advancements in technology and

gameplay capability have had a direct effect on the way that dungeons look and

play, not only in Zelda but in video

games on all platforms.

The

Ancient Cistern is a prime example of how far dungeon-making has come in 25

years of Zelda. Its name may arouse

notions of a very old sewer system, but it is nevertheless a masterful depiction

of daring aesthetics and thought-provoking motifs, delightfully dipped into the

heart of Skyward Sword.

Off

the back of a second visit to the Skyview Temple, the lakeside dungeon comes at

that opportune time — the midway point in a game when the story truly gathers

momentum. In Ocarina of Time, the

fourth dungeon is the first as Adult Link. In The Wind Waker, it’s the first since Link obtains the Master Sword

and rescues Aryll. In Twilight Princess,

it’s the first since the Fused Shadows are stolen and Midna is cursed by Zant. And

in Skyward Sword, the Ancient Cistern

is the first full dungeon since fighting the Imprisoned, flying into the

Thunderhead, and entering the Silent Realm. Like many of its predecessors, the

Ancient Cistern is vital. It can make or break the player’s experience of the rest

of the game. In many ways, it’s the start of Act Two.

Unlike

the majority of dungeons in the Zelda

series, the opening room to the Ancient Cistern is colossal. It wastes no time

in establishing a sense of wonder that pervades every room from start to finish. We’re immediately transported to a place steeped in history and cultural

significance that, along with the columns and high ceiling, dwarfs Link but thankfully doesn’t overawe him.

So

much of the Ancient Cistern’s architecture and design contributes to its

grandeur. There are large lily pads floating on the water. The walls and ceiling

are embedded with lotus patterns. Buddha is immense in the centre of the room —

more present and recognisable than other grand sculptures that have appeared in

Zelda dungeons. He is a figure from

beyond the Zelda universe, and the

focus that watches over the temple. Many dungeons in The Legend of Zelda have played the part

of places of worship, with seals, shrines or springs at the end of them. But

they’ve always been identifiably corrupted. Already, this isn’t a Zelda dungeon as we know it.

The

scale of the Ancient Cistern’s spirituality in its aesthetics is instantly apparent,

and develops further as Link ventures deeper into the temple. Still in the

first room, the pool hides the bottom half of the Buddha and its giant

mechanism. A simple spin manoeuvre allows Link to collect the rupees perched

atop Buddha’s hands, and opens up a larger question of Link’s relationship with

the spirituality that’s being depicted here.

In

Buddhism, Feng Shui dictates that there are ten varieties of mudra or hand gestures that Buddha made, each of which have special significance in the placing of one’s home. When Link

enters the Ancient Cistern, the mudra

expressed by the Buddha statue is known as Varada.

That is, an open hand, palm facing upwards offering compassion, sincerity and

acceptance. But by rolling along the open hands and subsequently closing them, the

idea is suggested that Buddha will no longer offer Link these things. There

isn’t a specific mudra for the closed

hands. However, the closest to it is Karana,

which banishes and expels negativity, so obviously a very different kind of

energy. It’s worth noting that the advice on where to place a Buddha statue

with this mudra is not to have it

facing the front door. This may well all be coincidence, or a desire to read

more into things than is necessary, but the notion that Link’s actions could

affect Buddha’s energies while presiding over the temple is an interesting one nonetheless. I

can’t recall another dungeon that has invested so heavily in a cultural background that endures beyond it.

The

dungeon’s soundtrack also contributes to the Ancient Cistern’s sense of wonder.

The wavering melody and prominent percussion reinforce the idea of a place of

worship, with its gold ornamentation complimented by the glockenspiel, bells, and

various gongs. The Ancient Cistern admittedly doesn’t have as strong and

hummable a melody as some Zelda

dungeons from the past, but what it lacks in memorability it makes up for in lasting atmosphere.

From

a physical standpoint — the way Link moves, and the way the player moves in

order to control Link’s actions — this dungeon has come on leaps and bounds

from the Zelda games of old. There’s

something immensely satisfying about the clinks and chunks of switches, and scaling

the dungeon walls to pull the bars down is an excellent example of that. Link’s

efforts are rewarded with crisp sound effects and a moment to hang out while doors

are unlocked or grates are lifted.

The

majority of the puzzles early on in the dungeon are based around the lily pads

dotted here and there in the water that uphold the Zen garden vibe of much of

the temple. Link can walk across the lily pads’ flat tops or, having fallen from

a height onto them, flip them over and reveal passages beneath the surface.

It’s unusual for a water-based dungeon to focus on aesthetics over abilities,

but that’s what the Ancient Cistern is all about. It’s about the layout and motifs displayed in

the temple and their effect on Link and Hyrule, past and present. It’s not

about hauling your Iron Boots everywhere.

There

is further evidence of this dungeon’s aesthetic value when Link makes it into

the central column of rooms within the Buddha. Lotus imagery adorns the walls

and tall ceiling, and the camera movement infers a need to travel upwards. Given

that what we’ve seen so far of this temple has been a reflection of Far Eastern culture and spirituality, it’s possible to assume that this motion could be a

nod to enlightenment. The dungeon is, after all, a golden paradise — and with the

Triforce having always been the land’s salvation, there’s every chance that some

form of higher plain is being alluded to here. The

invention and delicacy in these facets is what sets the Ancient Cistern apart

from the rest.

Even with these ambitious

ideas, there’s still elements of comedy and classic Zelda hallmarks that the dungeon upholds. For example, what better

way to obtain the dungeon’s item than by slaying a Stalmaster? It has all the

best bits of the Stalfos from the past — plus two more arms, a stylish variety of

swords, and unique cinematics (first, he puts his skull and helmet on the top

of his spine as though he were putting on a baseball cap, readying himself for

sport, and then he shuffles his bodiless legs in confused defeat until they

slip on his redundant skull). I’m doing him a bit of an injustice here, because

aside from these charming moments, he is an excellent and difficult foe with

greater threat and tactical precision than his skeletal predecessors.

That’s

when Link gets the Whip. Now I know it’s a highly suspect item to receive in a

water dungeon. But it’s an item that, having been used in Spirit Tracks, needed further exploration on a more powerful

console. What’s good about getting the Whip so early is the amount of progress

and exploration the Ancient Cistern allows to be uncovered by using it. Often,

dungeons wait a good while before introducing its main prize, and it means there’s

little time to get used to how it works and feels. Having faced this temple’s

boss a few times myself, I can safely say, the practice is needed.

Skyward Sword has been bold in its approach to replace the Hookshot or the Grappling Hook with the Whip. Both of those

items have had successful outings, but considering how much effort Nintendo puts into gameplay when designing a Zelda

game, they’ve come up with the right item to release with this controller. Not

only does the Whip take on board some of the Hookshot and Grappling Hook’s

abilities anyway, but it feels really good to use. Other than the sword, which

can be tricky when the angle of the swing needs to be precise, the Whip is the

closest item to resemble the Wii controller in physicality. Flicking it feels

reasonably close to flicking a whip. Other items in Skyward Sword, like the Beetle and the Bow, are great fun to play

with but are still quite far from feeling like the objects themselves. The Whip gets a

great outing in the Ancient Cistern and provides another way to flip lily pads

and flick switches. I love that Zelda

will always find new ways of doing that.

It’s

not just the switches that benefit from the Whip in the Ancient Cistern. There’s a moment

where Link whips a Bokoblin’s small key off him from behind a grate. And the Furnix

— the large red birds that fly around the central room — work in tandem with

the Whip too. Its tactics and tail design are purpose-made for the Whip’s ability

to pull it towards you and finish off the beast. These enemies are infrequent

but fun and every bit as Whip-dependant as Valoo’s tail and the Gohma fight are

to the Grappling Hook in The Wind Waker.

As

Link ventures further into the dungeon, there are signs that the rich hue of

the place is dulling. What was once serene and welcoming gives way to a sense of foreboding. Link surfaces from a stone fish head into an alley of dull purple

corners. From here he can see a view below, deep into the core of the temple,

and it’s unlike anything the dungeon has so far produced. What awaits in the

depths is a cold and dark underworld — specifically, a black chest atop a bone

pile. Gone are the lotuses and the verdant lily pads, the temple rooms adorned with

gold, the peaceful, openhearted Buddha. And it’s this duality that sets this

dungeon apart. It focuses on more than one aesthetic, theme or place, and is therefore dependent on a much larger construction. Ancient Cistern is a tale within itself, and I can’t recall too many dungeons that that can be said of in video

game history, let alone in Zelda.

Now,

Link finds himself twisting and turning between pipe networks and waterways, and

the patterned doors leading back to the main room. One moment, the room’s edges

are hazy with purple smoke, the next there’s that glint of gold again and a grate opening onto the central Buddha room. Nothing is ever as it seems.

The temple is opening up. Every path opened by the Whip — whether by grate or

geyser switch — is leading back to the Buddha room. The dungeon has really earned its

title now, and it feels like it really once was an ancient temple with an underground water

system that people flocked to from far and wide. At last, you reach the large switch,

flick it with your Whip, and the giant Buddha mechanism shudders downwards until

the head is out of sight and the toes are rooted to the underworld.

The

column of rooms that makes up the giant Buddha statue has moved, and the doors

that once led to one part of the dungeon now lead somewhere completely

different. It’s very unsettling — more

so than in other Zelda dungeons,

because of the vast contrast we’ve been subjected to. Once Link steps foot in the dungeon’s grimy underworld,

all the richness and vibrancy that we perhaps took for granted has disappeared.

Link is set upon by Fire Keese and Cursed Bokoblins — undead versions of their

counterparts. Little hair, fleshless arm, broken horn. And they drool.

There

is a large open stone maw and a lake of poisonous swamp water. Beyond every cavern

there is another menacing sight: spindly stone columns like fingers, dead lily

pads, and another stone maw with swamp water cascading from it. If the first part

of the temple was a golden paradise, then this is its opposite: a living hell.

A

large mechanism constructed from various large cylindrical pillars and cogs plays

a large part of the puzzling element in the underworld. Whether it’s part of

the one that moves the Buddha is unclear, and probably unlikely, but it

confirms the Ancient Cistern’s priority of common sense puzzles over combat

scenarios. Each player will have different preferences in terms of what they

want their Zelda dungeons to provide,

but the depth to which this dungeon has considered its elements is almost certainly

unrivalled. Plus, even if there aren’t as many enemies here than in a

traditional Zelda dungeon, the

Stalmaster and upcoming boss certainly make up for it in tactics and tenacity.

Eventually,

Link makes his way to a long, thin, white thread hanging over another bone

pile. Light shines down from the higher reaches of the temple, and he hauls himself

up, in search once again of paradise. But Cursed Bokoblins follow close behind,

and they’re fast. The sense of urgency and panic is only heightened

by the music — borrowed here from the Silent Realm chase sequences. It’s

not just about the dungeon map, compass, big key routine anymore. This dungeon

holds new and climactic sequences at every turn.

When,

at last, Link reaches the top, it’s not long before he has to re-submerge, with

the black chest and its contents awaiting. And then, with big key in hand, the

column of rooms inside the Buddha statue rises up into the ceiling. By this

point, we can deduce that the boss is waiting there. But therein lies a

question regarding the dungeon’s thematic duality. If the underworld is below

and it’s suggested that the path upwards leads to enlightenment, why is the

boss there? This throws over the ominous feeling that what’s left of paradise

in this place is a façade. In

most other dungeons, it tends to be more black and white — if a temple is going to impose an

innate sense of danger that will be felt from the first room to the last. The

Ancient Cistern is much more complex — it’s a shimmering surface atop a

festering underbelly.

Once

the Blessed Idol — a miniature Buddha in the form of a key — opens the ceiling

panel, further confirming the idea that salvation awaits Link, we find

Ghirahim sat atop some golden trinkets. How unnerving that he made it to “paradise”

before we did, and is about to fashion a malevolent automaton using the same purple

fluid we saw in the underworld. One can only theorise, but perhaps this ancient guardian had long been protecting the temple when Ghirahim overwhelmed it to use against Link and halt his progress.

Whatever

the reason, the boss battle is inevitable. And it’s brilliant. Koloktos is

every bit as challenging and original as this temple deserves. The

music is emphatic and gladiatorial, interspersed with rushing sound effects

that identify when he’s about to attack and maintain the sense of immediate

threat.

The Whip is put to excellent use on Koloktos, coupled with the use of his own sword

against his caged “heart” as his obsidian eyes widen with every hit. Just when some damage

seems to have been dealt, a new phase brings with it greater attack and

agility. He might be wielding six scimitars but that’s only the half of it because he’s also got legs now. The

task at times, seems wonderfully impossible. Like many things in Skyward Sword that have been given a smoother

improvement, Koloktos has extraordinary dexterity. A large portion of the

battle involves the ability to evade his attacks — Link for once has to defend. And he

has great presence too. If we didn’t have to be so focused on defeating him, it

would be nice to take the time to gaze at him as he approaches.

Koloktos

is a brilliant innovation. He has a myriad of original qualities, and Zelda so desperately needs bosses that require creative tactics from the player. In

too many dungeons, we see rehashed boss battles and an overbearing sense of

anticlimax. Once defeated, the hellish power

Ghirahim infused him with disappears, leaving behind the shell of an ancient

guardian. Link moves into the next chamber and imbues his sword with the first

of the Sacred Flames. Job done.

The beauty of the Ancient Cistern’s genius is in its lasting impact — it’s more than just a place in the story. There’s story embedded in it. Many have remarked upon the fact that the majority of the inspiration

for the dungeon layout and action was taken from a short story written in 1918

by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa called The Spider’s

Thread.

In it, Buddha is walking through Paradise one morning when he stops

at a lily pond. Through the crystal-clear waters, he can see the depths of Hell

below. He spots a sinner by the name of Kandata who, despite being a

cold-hearted criminal in his time, once chose not to crush a spider with his

foot. Stirred by this act of compassion, Buddha sends a long thread of spider web from

Paradise down into Hell. There, sinners are struggling in the Pool of Blood

surrounded by the Mountain of Spikes. Kandata sees the thread and makes for

Paradise. He tires before long however, and when he is halfway he looks down to

see how far he has come. With the realisation that he might escape Hell,

Kandata hurries giddily on. But the other sinners have spotted him and are

pulling on the thread to join him. Fearing that it will break, Kandata shouts

down that the thread is his and no-one else’s. At this moment, the thread

breaks and Kandata falls back with the other sinners into Hell. His selfishness

ultimately leads to his condemnation. Buddha walks on in Paradise.

So much of this cultural significance is recognisable in the Ancient Cistern, and

this just isn’t the norm in Zelda. It’s

what justifies spiders in a water-based temple. It’s what builds up the sense

of wonder and grandeur to unprecedented heights. The dungeon generates an extraordinary duality between

light and dark that we’ve seen in Zelda

for decades, but before

now it’s been in the overarching plot or in the fate of

characters, not in the way locations are depicted and developed. It’s a concept

based on everything Link stands for and everything he comes up against.

Ganondorf is the mainstay of evil, returning game after game to seek a way to

blot out the light. Dark Link took our hero and got him to literally battle his

inner demons. Here, in the Ancient Cistern, Link is taken through the vitality

of paradise and into the doldrums of hell and back.

It’s

a masterful dungeon. The Ancient Cistern evokes the balance of serenity with

fear, calmness with dread, light with dark. It is just one dungeon, out of a

hundred or so, but it’s the start of Skyward

Sword’s Act Two and a worthy adventure within itself.

If

Zelda can continue to reproduce

high-quality, unpredictable dungeon design and gameplay like this then fans old

and new are in for a few surprises yet. For it’s in the small details that Zelda is at its most creative.