VikzeLink's Weekly Sunday Poll 590!

[VikzeLink]

Last week's Question: A live action Zelda-movie has been announced being in the works! Your thoughts?

Third Place: None (0.0%)
Second Place: I'm not sure yet (38.5%)
First Place: Great if they can get it right! (61.5%)

Most of us seem to be on the same page for this at the moment. I guess we need some more info before we can form more thorough opinions on the matter.

RETRO POLL! In the 151th poll from may in 2015 I was asking about different aspects of a dungeon, which ones are most important to you and such. Since then, we've had 2 big entries in the series with dungeons which what most people would call a bit lackluster. Last time, the most important aspect to the voters was the design of the dungeon, but with the new people that have come here since, has that changed?

This week's question: What aspect is most important to you in a dungeon?

The Boss/miniboss
The Dungeon Item
It's Part In The Story
The Puzzles
The Dungeon Design
The Theme of The Dungeon

 

[thePlinko]

What exactly do you mean by “dungeon design?”

What I think is the most important is the navigation. A good dungeon is something to get lost in and slowly uncover layer by layer metroidvania-style. The puzzles, item, and layout are all a big part of that.

 

[BloodyKun]

Bit of a tough question, especially with the two more recent Zelda games. Bosses and mini bosses are important to me more than many things, but mostly it’s the overall design and layout that stand out to me to make a good dungeon. It’s unfortunately why many in the series overall are a bit on the more boring side to me, what with just how linear most are, and why I feel the content outside of them is the true meat and potatoes of a series meant to encourage exploration.

Going for my overall favorites, Majora’s Mask and Skyward Sword, even they aren’t entirely open, but each have a way of twisting back on and over themselves that at least gives the illusion of doing so at times, and at least MM has the stray fairies as an extra layer added to them. On the other end of the extreme, I feel Twilight Princess is the most egregious in this regard, worst offender being the Temple of Time for me. Snowpeak Ruins I felt was the only really decent one of that bunch.

Breath of the Wild’s, well, it was nice to get something sort of new initially, and I wouldn’t say any of them are outright awful given how the game was designed as a whole…but I won’t pretend I wasn’t disappointed we didn’t climb them Shadow of the Colossus style as bosses themselves. I feel that would have been preferable to what we got instead.

Don’t want to spoil anything for those who still haven’t played or finished Tears of the Kingdom, but I’ll say they were overall a step up in the right direction. On paper, there’s little difference between finding 4-5 distinct switches and finding 4-5 or however many keys to unlock doors, etc., and ultimately I prefer the more open ended design in doing whichever I want first, but I think it would go a long way to making these goals more distinct and have different effects on each dungeon. As an example, depending on which bosses you encountered or beat first in the 2008 Prince of Persia, different traps would be set in each level, organically increasing the difficulty and strategy, even if it wasn’t a huge difference. I could see that applied smaller scale to dungeons in the future of this series.

 

[Hyrulian Hero]

Honestly, I'd love to say that it's the design of the dungeon but more often than not, I actually remember the theme of the dungeon when I think of the dungeon. The reason I remember the main chamber in the underground cistern, the shape of the platform in Moldorm's room in the tail cave, or the torture chamber in the bottom of the well isn't because of the geometry of the room or the placement of its exits, but indeed the theme of each of these rooms. The nomenclature of the levels themselves reflect the importance of the theme. Yeah, the lakebed Temple could be described as the one where you need to guide channels of water down a rotating set of stairs in the middle of the temple. I definitely remember that one, but when I think of the lake bed temple, I think of the temple that's on the bed of lake Hylia.

 

[A Link In Time]

The dungeon design and theme are both important to me. The theme gives the first impression, and the design is what really sticks with you. I really like darker dungeons, but not all of them are as memorable to me as the torture chamber that is OoT's Shadow Temple or the contrast between light and purity and dark and decay that is SS's Ancient Cistern.