A Link Between Worlds Dungeon Themes You Would Like To See In Zelda 3DS

[A Link In Time]

Dungeons have always been a central element of the Zelda universe. The original NES game coined them "levels" and the basic navigation from listless room to listless room albeit with different color backgrounds was the same with all nine. Zelda II: Adventure of Link took the franchise design along a completely new route but did little to alleviate this problem. It's with A Link to the Past that things started to spice up. No longer were the interiors of dungeon bland but desert, ice, cave, forest elements were included. Ocarina of Time took this evolution to the next level with a variety of themes like forest, fire, water, ice, dark, and light just to name a few. That template would be followed by most installments to come with one particular element coming to mind when traversing through a dungeon.

Enter Skyward Sword. The first Wii exclusive Zelda title kept golden on Nintendo's promise to alter the traditional series formula and blend dungeon with overworld. The overworld was filled with more puzzles and enemies than ever before whereas the dungeons felt more open. Skyward Sword also added its own twist to the mix by combining multiple themes so to speak in each dungeon. This was particularly well demonstrated by the Lanayru Mining Facility as well as Ancient Cistern which boasted desert/mechanical and water/"undead" zombie elements, respectively.

With yesterday's creation of the Zelda 3DS and Wii U subforums, it's never too early to start thinking about upcoming titles for the franchise. Most seem certain that the next installment will be for the Nintendo 3DS since that would logically follow seeing as how the last was for a home console. The ideas presented in this thread will therefore apply to the 3DS hardware. A mechanical theme comes to mind, twisting cogs into place with the stylus, perchance something along the lines of the fuse boxes in Resident Evil: Revelations. Perhaps a steam punk inspiration could be applied to this idea or perhaps an enemy lair on a moving contraption as a wheel or train.

It'd be splendid to revisit an ice theme as it was blatantly missing from Skyward Sword. A cue could be taken from SS's Skyview Temple by returning twice to this lair. Twist is the dungeon interior drastically changes with the seasons. During the spring/summer it is a water dungeon and when colder days strike in autumn/winter the lair transforms into an icy domain.

My final idea is to revisit the size shrinking gimmick of The Minish Cap and further defy reality by toying with gravity. Titles like Half-Life and Super Mario Galaxy negated the traditional laws of physics and were all the better because of that. Although no specifics come to mind, it's not a far stretch with previous arsenal like the Hover Boots already twisting reality 180 degrees.

Those are some of my notions but I'm certain you'll be able to conjure even greater contraptions with the genius of your whit. What dungeon themes would you like to see in the next Zelda game (presumably for 3DS)? What unique features of the 3DS hardware could be harnessed in future dungeon designs?

 

[Spirit]

Dungeons themes i'd like to see....

Ice dungeon
I love me an ice dungeon, challenging enemies and refreshing aesthetics and location designs, they're always wonderful to behold and I was gutted SS didn't have one, so i'm now feeling overdue for one. Having an ice dungeon in both Zelda3DS and ZeldaU would be wonderful especially if they brought the weather into it; give us a snow storm at some point perhaps, the HD visuals would bring it alive so well on WiiU. conversely, i believe that Nintendo may miss a trick with ZeldaU and try and make it epic and action packed, i'd much rather a slower approach, a more patient feel akin to Shadow of the colossus; in this i think that having an open top ice dungeon with icicles etc and having the sun hit the frozen water at the right angle as it rose could look absolutely gorgeous. I want ZeldaU to feel beautiful and real and i think an ice dungeon could hammer it home.

Electricity Dungeon
what can i say? I'm a bugger for open topped dungeons... but since SS eventually brought in the cliche 'fix the generator' thing, how about an entire dungeon, imagine a factory or powerplant of some sort with four to six large towers, at night during a rainstorm with heavy lightning and the dungeon could be a water/electric dungeon with the rain, lightning and dangers of the plant. It'd ramp up the difficulty pretty wonderfully and look amazing. the goal of the dungeon is to put the towers in the right place and have them all hit by lightning which will allow you to progress, i want to see that so bad, it'd look gorgeous.

More element mixing
As ALIT pointed out, SS did mix some elements in its dungeons; water and undead, and desert and mechanical, though i only felt the combination of elements in the ancient cistern its still an avenue i'd like to see the series pursue (just check out my electric/water dungeon idea above, if for some reason you're reading this bottom to top..) so more of that too in ZeldaU and 3Ds and Zelda's future is something i'd quite like to see.

 

[Ventus]

Ice Dungeon
If there's anything that has been sorely lacking in the Zelda series since after Twilight Princess, it's a great, three dimensional, primarily ice-themed dungeon. It's been long overdue, and I dare say that the last Zelda entry, Skyward Sword, was SUPPOSED to have such a dungeon but for some reason the concept was indubitably dropped. So yes, many powers to the ice theme! Oh, and may I say this? Should such a dungoen appear in Zelda 3DS, PLEASE do not require a typical item (read: a fire-based item) to be the end-all, be-all device for enemies in the dungeon [especially the boss]. Let us take unconventional methods to new heights!

Element Mixes
Just like Spirit and ALIT have noted, mixtures of themes, whether it is GroundxSky, FirexLava, FirexLightning or whatever else might be in store are welcome additions to Zelda 3DS. It's not so much seeing the cool ideas, moreso seeing the cool ideas put into arduous action. Juxtaposing two distinct themes such as fire and water would make for excellent dungeon material, I think.

 

[izi]

I would like to see non-traditional dungeons. In that Zelda Wii U report that came up semi-recently, they talked about the first dungeon (they saw) being a giant forest. Not some ancient temple, not some cavern, but a forest. Of course, the forest would have forest and earth-based puzzles, and that's fine - that's what I want and expect! But maybe a "water temple" spanning over an entire river, or a "fire temple" spanning a mountain. I like bigger dungeons because of all of the different enemies and puzzles.
As for a specific element/focus I'd like to see in a dungeon: Dark/Light. Almost like the Earth Temple from Wind Waker: puzzles based on directing light/darkness the right way to make something happen. I would love to see that element expanded on (because it was a lengthy, but very easy dungeon) in future games.

 

[LinkontheRink]

I would like to see something like the hidden village in TP, but in a Valley. So you need to go through many buildings and alleys of a tightly designed abandoned town in a tight valley. An offshore pirate ship would also be cool. Something behind/in a waterfall as well, in a jungle.

 

[Wasteland Dream]

I'd like a surreal dungeon. Something beyond what Majora's Mask portrayed. Something like The Cabinet of Dr Caligari with a lot of designs mirroring states of minds as the asylum at the end of the film depicted with the spiral floor design.

 

[SuperSwell]

I'd like to see a town as a dungeon of sorts for once.

 

[zeldahero3]

I would like to see something in the deep sea, like a sunken pirate ship, with deadly sea creatures and murky water.
I would also like to see an empty village, just completlely empty, with an extremely eerie feel to it,.

 

[Mister Pom]

1) A labyrinth

2) An undeground city where Gorons live

3) A pyramid

4) A circus

5) A ghost town

6) A hidden civilization under the sea, inspired by the legend of Atlantis

7) A mountain (scaling the moutain would be the dungeon itself)

8) A desert (going through it avoiding all the mirages would be the dungeon itself)

Etc etc

 

[Cfrock]

Tower of Hyrule

Don't worry, I'm not trying to be clever and actually name my ideas, I say Tower of Hyrule so as to convey what I mean by invoking imagery of the Tower of London. Two things I like: dungeons based around ghosts & horror and dungeons which aren't just a dungeon for the sake of it (an example would be Snowpeak Ruins, a mansion). Combine the two and what do you get? Well, I get the Tower of Hyrule. A large, multi-storied environment with lots of secret passageways, tricks and turns and a dark history of imprisonment, torture and death. The Tower of London is regarded as one of the most haunted spots in the UK (if not the entire world) and it's all because of centuries of suffering, gore and executions that took place within its walls. The Shadow Temple in Ocarina of Time alludes to such things but never really builds on it. Well I say build on it and do it in a dungeon that is creepy, labyrinthine and full of secrets and surprises. Such a dungeon could also be used to teach us snippets of Hyrule's history as well, if Nintendo even care about such things, and give us a startling insight into the less than glamorous side of the Royal Family.

A sewer

You heard me. Sewers. Love 'em. Well, not in real life but in video games I can't get enough of 'em. One of my favourite things about The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the fact that the Imperial City has a huge and interlinked sewer underneath it. There are a few missions in various Hitman games where you navigate sewers to get around and bypass certain areas of the level above. Exploring the underground tunnel network in Assassin's Creed III as we speak is reminding me of how much I love sewers in video games. Don't ask me to explain it because I can't. I just love me a good sewer.
With that in mind, Zelda has come tantalisingly close to giving me what I want in the past. Inside the Well from Ocarina of Time has whispers of a sewer about it but doesn't really do anything with the notion while Twilight Princess has us escape Hyrule Castle at the start through a sewer-esque drainage area but it's too short. Sewers are nasty places, filled with rodents and filth and dirty water and all kinds of creepy-crawlies and God knows what else! They're also a huge system of twisting tunnels and cavernous chambers, often quite dark, sometimes quite scary. Sounds to me like a great big sewer could make for an interesting dungeon in a Zelda game.

Urban Dungeon

This is also a point where I'd like to mention that I agree with SuperSwell about an urban dungeon. While I personally feel a sewer would fit that criteria, it'd be very interesting to see how Nintendo could turn Hyrule Castle Town itself into a sort of dungeon. Don't look to me for ideas on how to do this, I just think that it is an interesting concept to think about.

Mixed Dungeons

A few others have mentioned this already (Ventus, Spirit of Rutela) but mixing elemental dungeons would be a very interesting thing to see. Skyward Sword did have some of that, most notably in the Ancient Cistern, but it wasn't really done well. There was no blending of the concepts, one minute you're in a lavish and serene Water-themed dungeon, the next you're in a horrible dark cave full of zombies. There was no transition, no merging of the themes. Well merge them! Don't just combine elements of a Water-themed dungeon and put them alongside elements from an Undead-themed dungeon, combine those ideas before building the space. A sunken ship comes to mind immediately. Underwater dungeon gets us lots of swimming and water-based puzzles. Sunken ship gives us room for ghosts, skeletons and some scares. There, combined both themes into one in less than 10 seconds. And before you say a sunken ghost ship doesn't sound like it'd work, just read this sentence again and see if anything jumps out. Specifically the words "Sunken Ghost Ship". Super Mario World had one of these and it was fantastic.
So yeah, combine the ideas into a unified concept rather than just build half of one theme and half of the other then glue them together like in the Ancient Cistern.

 

[Not Take Mirror]

I'm in favor of more mixed theme dungeons. I really like the ghost ship idea. You can mix water and shadow together unlike the ancient cistern where they are kept more separate.

How about a forest + fire dungeon? I think it would work well since there are naturally forest fires anyway.

Here's an unlikely combo: Desert+water. You start out in a dry desert dungeon and plants and life have died out. The object is to find a hidden oasis of water. Once you find the oasis, you collect the water in bottles, pour it on the plants and animals, and they spring back to life. You can then use these plants and animals to your advantage to allow you to access new areas.

I also really like the ghost town and sewer idea. The sewer would be similar to the bottom of the well, but much bigger and better graphics.

How about a dungeon inside a volcano? You try to ascend the volcano before it erupts.

 

[Ghirahimiscool]

I would love to see a dark, castle like theme. With pitch black walls, weapons everywhere, and the most dark and most evil enemies.

 

[Burning Beast]

A evil crypt built under the bottom of like a church, with green mists and scary music and all sorts of good stuff like that!

 

[Fig]

I would love to see a Dark theme dungeon, something to the lines of the Shadow Temple from OoT. I would also like to see an Ice covered dungeon to bring some sort of challenge for me when I play such a game.

 

[Linknerd09]

I would like to see a castle dungeon, like the one in Twilight Princess or in Minish Cap. I definitely like those types of dungeons. I think that would be great on the Nintendo 3DS. The way that we explore the castle is amazing. I could only imagine it in 3D...