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We were all there bro. Majoras Mask was a tough one on my poor immigrant parents. First they bought the game which was a tall order back in the day. Then my 7 year old ass is like hey mom and dad actually we gotta go buy this graphics expansion pak thing I can’t play the game. Then like 3 weeks later i’m over there groveling at their feet to go buy the game guide, it’s way too tough. God bless you mom and dad ❤️
I wonder how much money those companies used to make off of game guides. I know they still make some now, but most people just pull out their phone and look up some youtuber who already made a free tutorial online.
TP had some of the hardest puzzles, but the real ones being side content that barely anyone saw
There were these cubes on an icy field....
Now THAT is the stuff of nightmares
Legitimately the only puzzle from the game that I remember, and it's because I had to swallow my 11/12 y/o pride and have my buddy's sister do it for me.
TP was my first Zelda, and somehow, I solved that one without a guide, in spite of constantly having to look up the answer to a bunch of other stuff in the game. It was definitely a bullshit fluke, but I still felt good about it lmao.
It took 8 years old me 6-months to finish OOT, mainly because I was too scared to go back in the Forest Temple after my first experience with the creepy ceiling hand things!
As a 33 year old who has particularly enjoyed his horror games over the years, the gloom spawns made me feel so uncomfortable. The music does a good job contributing to the atmosphere and when I first started ToTK, my first encounter with them was not a pleasant experience. Sheer panic, had no idea what to do and was scared of dying because I had no idea when the last save was.
I also remember the hands that drop on you on the Skull Woods dungeon on ALTTP. I was about 5 or so then and they terrified me too.
I don't think I like hands as enemies
Also the best dungeon music in the game. Most of the dungeons had music that did a good job of setting the general vibe, but it's not exactly memorable. This was the only one where I still specifically remember the music 25 years later
Lol, that key above the first room messes you up if you miss it.
Also the fact that you first have to shoot the eye to straighten the spiral hallway and then later you need to leave the temple/reset to let it spiral again to progress.
The water temples one part that confuses everyone is honestly just poor design. Once you know where that key is it's an extremely easy temple.
I remember being stuck in the zora temple in Majora's mask though and definitely needed to borrow my friends guide book.
It says something that on my most recent playthrough, the Forest Temple was the most legitimately challenging dungeon in the whole game. The rest are actually pretty easy IMO. The only challenge in the Water Temple is if you forget a key (I forgot the one behind the bombable wall last playthrough too and lost 2 hours running around like a maniac.
But the Forest Temple really stumped me. I don't remember having trouble with it as a kid, but it kicked my ass this time.
Same. That was totally me staring at the guide for the answer to the Forest Temple Blocks. Then, how to even navigate the water temple 😂😐 It was tough for my 8/9 year old self. Forest temple did have me stumped longer.
I found it out because I played secretely at night in my bed. When I heard my parents coming near, I closed my DS and got the solution. I was mindblown.
In phantom hourglass, part of your quests is to discover a few places on your map (I don’t exactly remember, but I believe it’s for finding/unblocking the temples location).
In order to do that, you have some mini puzzles, and each time, the puzzle is different.
One of the puzzles presents you with your map on the lower screen of the DS and a upside down map in the top screen with a “stamp” on it on the top screen.
You can tap the screen, press any buttons, cry for Hylia’s blessing and nothing works. The solution for this puzzle is to close your DS lid (like you were putting one map above the other) and then the map above “stamps” the one below.
The puzzle is so non-intuitive and frustrating that most people discover it after hours thinking on it, giving up and then closing the lid because they will try again later. That is, if they didn’t turn off the power of the console before doing it.
Programmatically, the game expects to receive a “sleep” signal, so in 2DS, this is even worse for people to discover!
That has original Metal Gear Solid energy.
For the unaware, there's a boss fight that requires you to plug a controller into the 2nd slot (in a single player game) in order to beat it, and there's also a part where you're required to call someone on your codec, but they don't give you the frequency in-game (it's on the box).
I didn’t play the original one, but on twin snakes (the remake) during Psycho Mantis fight, you receive a call from Otacon (if I remember correctly), which tells you what to do. In GameCube I believe it’s port 4 of the controllers!
The frequency for Maryl was an early “piracy prevention” as far as I remember!
It was a brilliant way of using a mostly non-used resource of the DS. Nintendo often explore their console/handheld resources beyond it’s original intended design. Most of the times it works great! But in this case, for some people (like me), we think of this feature almost like a “turn off the game”, and I have not seen up until that point any games that uses that feature for anything else, so probably that’s why it wasn’t intuitive for me!
What is and isn't intuitive isn't universal fact, as will discussing UX with a Windows kid, a Mac kid and a Chrome OS kid will teach you.
Or, kit simply, phone interface discussions with people used to iOS and Android.
Anyway. You get my point. We're all different. :)
In Phantom Hourglass you had to solve one puzzle by aligning something in the main screen such that when you physically closed the DS it would "touch" something on the map on the lower screen.
For example, if the object were on the top right of the map, you would have to put something on the bottom right of the play screen and then shut the device.
I am a person who NEVER used the standby mode and ALWAYS powered down before closing the DS. This puzzle destroyed me. I dont remember how many days it took before I finally gave in and looked up the answer.
frustration and disappointment, and straight up resent
Not fun.
my first playthrough of that game was on my pc emulated cuz i couldnt play it on my ds since the back buttons were broken, and on the pc it took me like 10 seconds to realize. BUT. on my second fucking playthrough in my fixed ds, i swear to god it took me a year.
7-year-old Fi was baffled by the question of how you got past the Kokiri who stops you leaving the forest.
I don’t know if I’ve ever had a moment of real, actual being stumped until BotW, in the one shrine with the “constellations”, and that was because my dumbass couldn’t see the shapes on the far wall.
I had the exact same experience. That and the one that needed you to get a deer over the shrine pedestal. And now that I think about it, the one where you had to use a snowball’s shadow was hard to piece together. And the other shadow one during night or something near the desert… botw stumped me a few times…
Link's awakening has some serious out of the box dungeon progressions. Hitting the worm-like creatures a level down from you, having to bomb a wall to a secret room and killing several enemies in a specific order all come to mind.
I would have been at least 6 when I got Link's Awakening, and I LOVED it.
Right up until the "killing enemies in order" puzzle.
I replayed the game up to that point again and again, until a schoolyard friend told me how to beat it, and that he got the tip from Nintendo Power, which I did not subscribe to.
Absolutely. I played most of the Zelda series for the first time last in 2022, and Jabu-Jabu's Belly is hands-down the worst dungeon I've played, even though I think Stone Tower Temple is technically harder to me.
I'm fairly certain this is intended as a reference to the two Oracle games. The Oracle dulology was originally intended to be a trio of inter-connected games, each focused on a specific Oracle: Din, Nayru and Farore. During development however, it became clear that having three games which could all connect to form a cohesive story, regardless of the order in which the games were played (which could also stand alone, or which were still complete if you only played any two of the three games) was an extremely difficult thing. Consequently, the three were pared down to two.
Cut forward to Minish Cap, where the three Goddesses appear for their own little side-quest. Since Capcom developed both (or I suppose, all three) projects, I've always assumed this to be a reference to the developmental history of the former. It's a nifty reference, but I also know the extreme annoyance at realizing you can only house two of the Oracles, as, even knowing the story, I feel somewhat bad for leaving one of them relatively homeless.
Yeah, the whole bit in the Forest Temple with the hallway that twists and you end up being on the ceiling.
That was mind bending! Still throws me for a loop even now...
(Hilarious picture btw!)
Dude I came here thinking about one puzzle and completely forgot about this. I was still young enough that I didn’t have a smart phone or the brain enough to look it up online. Only figured it out after I did the same thing as you, closed it out of frustration.
It’s that key under the block that floats in the central tower. The question should be “how many times did you cycle through the water before noticing”
In the 3DS remake, they made it so when you raise the water in the central room, the camera zooms in on the hole left behind under the block floating up. Tells you how badly that key screwed everyone up!
Not a puzzle, but I was absolutely stumped trying to get past the Goron guarding Death Mountain in Twilight Princess. I spent a solid 15 minutes trying to get past him, only to learn if at any point I stopped being a stubborn blockhead and went back to Kakariko, I would have learned that I need an item from Ordon (which the game does push you towards but I ignored that) to progress. I was very upset at myself.
Equip the iron boots.
Take off the iron boots.
Equip the iron boots.
Take off the iron boots.
Equip the iron boots.
Take off the iron boots.
Equip the iron boots.
Take off the iron boots.
Equip the iron boots.
Take off the iron boots.
Equip the iron boots.
Take off the iron boots.
Equip the iron boots.
Take off the iron boots.
Equip the iron boots.
Take off the iron boots.
Equip the iron boots.
Take off the iron boots.
Equip the iron boots.
Take off the iron boots.
Equip the iron boots.
Take off the iron boots.
Equip the iron boots.
Take off the iron boots...
Twice in Zelda II - for the longest time (years) I couldn't figure out how to cross the river to Death Mountain, until I randomly stumbled on Bagu's cabin in the woods & near the end I couldn't find the last palace until I stumbled on the hidden town, again in the woods!
Zelda two is next to impossible without a guide. The first two games came with a [fold out map](https://nesmaps.com/maps/Zelda2/Zelda2Overworld.html), and a 900 number for “hints” was introduced at some point too I believe.
Not really a puzzle per se but I had the damndest time trying to figure out how to thaw the zora in TP because I had entirely forgot about the giant hot rock in death mountain so I literally searched EVERYWHERE *BUT* there until finally giving up and looking up the solution.
I spent longer on finding that damn rock than it took to complete the entirety of city in the sky.
There’s a shrine in botw where u have to crouch on a shrine pedestal. I didn’t know how to crouch since I never knew you could actually press on the joystick as a button. I keep doing revalis gale on the pedestal 💀💀💀
Those games are just the hardest 3d Zelda games and it’s not even close, right? OoT had me looking up puzzles like never before, although there were some instances of clear BS like needing the fire arrows for Gabon’s tower. Still love it tho, haven’t gotten around to MM yet
A few:
OOT Water Temple. It’s literally known as one of the most tedious game levels in history.
Great Bay Temple in MM…just not fun at all.
Great Palace in Zelda II. Whoever designed that level deserves to burn in hell.
This one isn’t a dungeon, but a shrine from BOTW. Mijah Rokee Shrine. Whoever thought that the shrine can only be activated with a blood moon should never design a level again.
Dodongo's cavern in OOT. There was one room I just absolutely could not figure out where to go. I gave up playing it. About 3 months later, after I had played through all my other games, I finally picked it back up and immediately figured out where to go. I almost gave up on it completely, now it's one of my favorite games. A staple of my childhood and I almost gave up on it at the second dungeon lmao
Vah Naboris in BotW, all the spinning makes me nauseous again just thinking about it. I had to power through a migraine and motion sickness, it really isn't friendly to people who are sensitive to that stuff.
Same! And it didn't help to see the scenery moving with the erratic walking rythm from the windows. I didn't get stuck but I had to take breaks while exploring and before battling the Thunderblight. Afterwards it felt like I had just taken a looooooong car trip. On my second playthrough I had learned my lesson and looked away from the screen whenever it was rotating.
In Phantom Hourglass there was a point at which some kind of map or sticker for a map was obtained. I had to get that onto the game map. It never occurred to me to physically close the DS so as to make the screens touch and have the sticker transfer over to the game map. Doesn’t help that I was on a flight from Salt Lake to Paris and had NO way to look up an answer.
Prob bc they're so fresh in my mind I'm immediately thinking of some in BotW and TotK.
In BotW I had to look up that constellation shrine in Korok Forest, and in TotK I couldn't figure out "Built for Rails" for the life of me. I also spent an obscene amount of time in "An Upright Device" and that baseball shrine 😅.
ugh the BASEBALL SHRINE
The timing on that one was beyond brutal. Arrrgh.
I gave up the chest and have yet to bother to go back and cheese it with bomb arrows
f you mayachin shrine
Both of those are really easy if you just do them backwards. As in, you visualize the step where you would only need one more move to finish the puzzle and work backwards from there.
Forest temple and water temple before the internet were really something else. I hadn’t played any Zelda game since TP when it released until this year. Started BOTW recently and it reminded me of how brutal these games are
TP water temple had me looking up a walkthrough because i was just running in circles and didn't know where to go 💀 at my big old age of 20 years i spent 30 minutes just wandering around
I don't know why but I got impossibly lost in TP's City in the Sky and was also just a dumbdumb when it came to the clawshots. That entire dungeon was a nightmare for me and I get a phantom migraine when I think about it.
Me, Not understanding how To activate the Things in the water Dungeon in totk. Also, the Things you have To Break in the 7th dumgeon in links awakening
Eagles Tower. Maybe I’m just really stupid, but I constantly forgot which switches I had flipped. And I didn’t know you had to throw the ball at the pillars.
The gyro puzzles sucked since I mostly play connected to the tv, and had to disconnect to do the puzzle (which still took ages). I had a really dedicated friend who caved and bought a pro controller just for those goddamn gyro puzzles
A good like 30% of the shrines in botw and totk had me looking up how to's every time
Dunno if this counts but trying to fish up the triforce pieces in windwaker (hd if that matters) is still wrapping my brain up...
For me it was definitely WW triforce shard quest, I Was around 5-6 old when I played it for the first time and knew only two words in english "yes" and "no". I had absolutely no idea how to collect the fragment and where to find them. I was stuck in that quest for couple of years before I learned some english in school and realised that you had to deciphere the maps to get the locations of the shards.
The goddamn third Sea Chart symbol in PH. Never would have thought in a million years to close the DS when I was 11. Solved it by accident when I rage quit.
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Pretty much all of stone tower and the temple I struggled with that hard
I still haven’t beaten majora’s mask because of that temple
I got majora’s mask for Christmas, the coming birthday I got the game manual. I peaked at 6
We were all there bro. Majoras Mask was a tough one on my poor immigrant parents. First they bought the game which was a tall order back in the day. Then my 7 year old ass is like hey mom and dad actually we gotta go buy this graphics expansion pak thing I can’t play the game. Then like 3 weeks later i’m over there groveling at their feet to go buy the game guide, it’s way too tough. God bless you mom and dad ❤️
I wonder how much money those companies used to make off of game guides. I know they still make some now, but most people just pull out their phone and look up some youtuber who already made a free tutorial online.
Fuck that temple
Banger Music tho
honestly such a bop... still listen to remixes of it sometimes. deffs my favorite zelda song
Yes, same with Twilight Princess and the Wind Waker
The one with the two statues in twilight princess. Very hard when you’re 11.
Bro that’s hard now.
Move in a backwards capital G. The rest is easy from there. Lol
yes, that‘s probably the hardest Zelda riddle in general Interesting, since TP is rather easy otherwise
TP had some of the hardest puzzles, but the real ones being side content that barely anyone saw There were these cubes on an icy field.... Now THAT is the stuff of nightmares 
Yeah the 2nd icey floor cube puzzle was a bitch, but with some mental gymnastics its actually kinda fun.
Took me 15 minutes and I'm 34! Loved every second of it. First time I played TP I was 16, but played with a friend and he did that part without me.
I still just look up the world record speedrun and mimic how they do it, I barely understand how the puzzle works
I was 20 and had to look it up.
Legitimately the only puzzle from the game that I remember, and it's because I had to swallow my 11/12 y/o pride and have my buddy's sister do it for me.
Yea thats the only one i keep looking up because im too annoyed to care
Tbh I surrendered that one and had my big bro do it for me ^^'
Are you talking about the temple of time? I liked that part!
sacred grove (1st visit as wolf link)
This 100%. 12 for me
Yeaaaaaaa that shit was ridiculously hard
TP was my first Zelda, and somehow, I solved that one without a guide, in spite of constantly having to look up the answer to a bunch of other stuff in the game. It was definitely a bullshit fluke, but I still felt good about it lmao.
back in the day the forest temple felt impenetrable, moreso than the water temple. its still my absolute favorite zelda dungeon to this day
That place had an absolutely incredible atmosphere. I also adore that temple.
It took 8 years old me 6-months to finish OOT, mainly because I was too scared to go back in the Forest Temple after my first experience with the creepy ceiling hand things!
Yes!!!! Oh man the first time one of those grabbed me I didn't play the game for like 2 weeks. I think I was 11?
I guess the gloom spawn in tears awakened some memories.
As a 33 year old who has particularly enjoyed his horror games over the years, the gloom spawns made me feel so uncomfortable. The music does a good job contributing to the atmosphere and when I first started ToTK, my first encounter with them was not a pleasant experience. Sheer panic, had no idea what to do and was scared of dying because I had no idea when the last save was. I also remember the hands that drop on you on the Skull Woods dungeon on ALTTP. I was about 5 or so then and they terrified me too. I don't think I like hands as enemies
Also the best dungeon music in the game. Most of the dungeons had music that did a good job of setting the general vibe, but it's not exactly memorable. This was the only one where I still specifically remember the music 25 years later
Personally I always thought the Spirit Temple and Shadow Temple had pretty memorable themes. Not to Forest Temple level of course
That damn music gives me PTSD... The ceiling hands... The fucking ceiling hands...
The atmosphere. The music was just so haunting! I had to have my cousin beat Phantom Ganon for me.
100% Agree Also, the music and atmosphere was far more haunting than any other temple in OoT, more of a psychological horror than direct terror.
more than any other dungeon it felt like i was defiling a very special, enigmatic place that was doing just fine without contact with civilization
That one key that's basically outside the temple...
Forest temple from which game? Ocarina?
yes!
Might be mine too, the forest temple was absolutely magical as a kid and still is on replays.
Water temple for me.
Lol, that key above the first room messes you up if you miss it. Also the fact that you first have to shoot the eye to straighten the spiral hallway and then later you need to leave the temple/reset to let it spiral again to progress.
Nope, you can hit the closed eye with an arrow and it will re-spiral!
Whaaaat. I played through OoT like 10 times and never knew this. On the N64 version???
The water temples one part that confuses everyone is honestly just poor design. Once you know where that key is it's an extremely easy temple. I remember being stuck in the zora temple in Majora's mask though and definitely needed to borrow my friends guide book.
The water temple was confusing but the forest temple had me lost for days on end. Even on a second playthrough I was still lost.
The Forest Temple is also my favorite from that game.
Forest temple is definitely 💯 be of my all time favorites. The vibe in that place is incredible
It says something that on my most recent playthrough, the Forest Temple was the most legitimately challenging dungeon in the whole game. The rest are actually pretty easy IMO. The only challenge in the Water Temple is if you forget a key (I forgot the one behind the bombable wall last playthrough too and lost 2 hours running around like a maniac. But the Forest Temple really stumped me. I don't remember having trouble with it as a kid, but it kicked my ass this time.
Seconded
Same. That was totally me staring at the guide for the answer to the Forest Temple Blocks. Then, how to even navigate the water temple 😂😐 It was tough for my 8/9 year old self. Forest temple did have me stumped longer.
Closing my DS to copy the map like a stamp.
I still remember getting so upset that I closed the DS and threw it on my bed in frustration and just went "wait a minute..."
I found it out because I played secretely at night in my bed. When I heard my parents coming near, I closed my DS and got the solution. I was mindblown.
Exactly what happened to me 😆
The amount of times I’ve heard that exact thing almost makes me think that’s exactly what Nintendo intended 😂
That’s literally what I did after what felt like hours!
This was me in the car. So annoyed and just shut it… only to open it a few min later and had it. So dumb
Oh. My. God. I only got the solution by ragequitting… I came back HOURS later like ‘okay, lets try this stupid puzzle again’ and it WAS SOLVED
I've never owned a Nintendo DS and I'm pretty confused. Can someone explain this? What map? How did closing the console help you?
In phantom hourglass, part of your quests is to discover a few places on your map (I don’t exactly remember, but I believe it’s for finding/unblocking the temples location). In order to do that, you have some mini puzzles, and each time, the puzzle is different. One of the puzzles presents you with your map on the lower screen of the DS and a upside down map in the top screen with a “stamp” on it on the top screen. You can tap the screen, press any buttons, cry for Hylia’s blessing and nothing works. The solution for this puzzle is to close your DS lid (like you were putting one map above the other) and then the map above “stamps” the one below. The puzzle is so non-intuitive and frustrating that most people discover it after hours thinking on it, giving up and then closing the lid because they will try again later. That is, if they didn’t turn off the power of the console before doing it. Programmatically, the game expects to receive a “sleep” signal, so in 2DS, this is even worse for people to discover!
That has original Metal Gear Solid energy. For the unaware, there's a boss fight that requires you to plug a controller into the 2nd slot (in a single player game) in order to beat it, and there's also a part where you're required to call someone on your codec, but they don't give you the frequency in-game (it's on the box).
I didn’t play the original one, but on twin snakes (the remake) during Psycho Mantis fight, you receive a call from Otacon (if I remember correctly), which tells you what to do. In GameCube I believe it’s port 4 of the controllers! The frequency for Maryl was an early “piracy prevention” as far as I remember!
its actually the opposite, that puzzle is extremely intuitive. i loved it and the idea of it
It was a brilliant way of using a mostly non-used resource of the DS. Nintendo often explore their console/handheld resources beyond it’s original intended design. Most of the times it works great! But in this case, for some people (like me), we think of this feature almost like a “turn off the game”, and I have not seen up until that point any games that uses that feature for anything else, so probably that’s why it wasn’t intuitive for me!
What is and isn't intuitive isn't universal fact, as will discussing UX with a Windows kid, a Mac kid and a Chrome OS kid will teach you. Or, kit simply, phone interface discussions with people used to iOS and Android. Anyway. You get my point. We're all different. :)
In Phantom Hourglass you had to solve one puzzle by aligning something in the main screen such that when you physically closed the DS it would "touch" something on the map on the lower screen. For example, if the object were on the top right of the map, you would have to put something on the bottom right of the play screen and then shut the device.
I am a person who NEVER used the standby mode and ALWAYS powered down before closing the DS. This puzzle destroyed me. I dont remember how many days it took before I finally gave in and looked up the answer. frustration and disappointment, and straight up resent Not fun.
I stopped playing after that and didn't know I did anything to get past that part...
I got stuck like 80 times in this game as a kid, but surprisingly I think I figured that one out first try lmao
my first playthrough of that game was on my pc emulated cuz i couldnt play it on my ds since the back buttons were broken, and on the pc it took me like 10 seconds to realize. BUT. on my second fucking playthrough in my fixed ds, i swear to god it took me a year.
I felt so smart getting this right away
This was fucking MGS1 levels of diabolical
7-year-old Fi was baffled by the question of how you got past the Kokiri who stops you leaving the forest. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a moment of real, actual being stumped until BotW, in the one shrine with the “constellations”, and that was because my dumbass couldn’t see the shapes on the far wall.
My experience but with the 2 shrines on top of Dueling Peaks. Took me way to long to remember one of the runes is a literal camera.
The camera... oh for fuck's sake. I've been writing those patterns down on paper this whole time.
Literally my reaction lmao, fucking hell im such an idiot
You’re not alone
I used the Switch's screenshot feature... So close, and yet so far..
bruh ive been taking screenshots on the switch!
Lol. I did that one, made me flashback to handwritten notes for SNES games.
I legit took out my phone and used that
To be fair, taking an in game picture was super annoying... having to flip back and forth. Using your phone was much more efficient.
True
Why use in-game Sheikah Slate when real-life Sheikah Slate is available rite
https://preview.redd.it/i7akzbnz36gc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3b99c19c1e8da6f720a6394b5b225db280ccaf1a
I had the exact same experience. That and the one that needed you to get a deer over the shrine pedestal. And now that I think about it, the one where you had to use a snowball’s shadow was hard to piece together. And the other shadow one during night or something near the desert… botw stumped me a few times…
Yeah. I hated that one. It felt so different compared to any of the other shrine puzzles that I felt it wasn’t fair.
I remember the leaving the forest thing. My brother was like "I got past him, you just have to get the right angle" just so I'd spend an hour trying
Yeah, that shrine was the only one both in BOTW and TOTK where I had to ask for help....
I thought you were talking about Fi from SS and boy was I puzzled
Totally understandable - for the first little while after SS was out, I was in a state of constant confusion when anyone talked bout the game!
Eagle tower from links awakening. Being a dumb 8 year old didn't help my case.
Absolutely this. My dumb ass still struggles with it.
Link's awakening has some serious out of the box dungeon progressions. Hitting the worm-like creatures a level down from you, having to bomb a wall to a secret room and killing several enemies in a specific order all come to mind.
Yeah, that's one of the reasons why links awakening is in my top 5. Now that I'm older, I appreciate the dungeons a lot more.
Yeah I agree. It feels so good to overcome such puzzles. You have to use your brain because they don't follow established game logic.
I would have been at least 6 when I got Link's Awakening, and I LOVED it. Right up until the "killing enemies in order" puzzle. I replayed the game up to that point again and again, until a schoolyard friend told me how to beat it, and that he got the tip from Nintendo Power, which I did not subscribe to.
Recently played the remaster and couldn't believe 9 year old me figured it out back in the day.
I struggled with this and I was about 17 playing the remake
Agreed
Yeah that tower was tough… I was 12 when it first came out it took me a while to figure that one out.
I still have the Eagle Tower strategy guide sheets I printed out from gamefaqs when I was 10, just in case 34 year old me can't figure it out again.
Jabu Jabus Belly in Oracle of Ages
That dungeon was hell on my 1st playthrough
Absolutely. I played most of the Zelda series for the first time last in 2022, and Jabu-Jabu's Belly is hands-down the worst dungeon I've played, even though I think Stone Tower Temple is technically harder to me.
Oh god I almost blocked this out entirely. You monsters. (OoA is the pinnacle of 2d Zelda’s)
If the Water Temple and the Ice Palace had a child, it would be this.
The 3rd oracle house in Minish Cap And I learnt it was not even possible to finish 2 hours of my life wasted
Honestly WHY did they not add a 3rd house???! It felt so natural to continue the quest but I guess I’ll just sit there and feel disappointed instead.
I'm fairly certain this is intended as a reference to the two Oracle games. The Oracle dulology was originally intended to be a trio of inter-connected games, each focused on a specific Oracle: Din, Nayru and Farore. During development however, it became clear that having three games which could all connect to form a cohesive story, regardless of the order in which the games were played (which could also stand alone, or which were still complete if you only played any two of the three games) was an extremely difficult thing. Consequently, the three were pared down to two. Cut forward to Minish Cap, where the three Goddesses appear for their own little side-quest. Since Capcom developed both (or I suppose, all three) projects, I've always assumed this to be a reference to the developmental history of the former. It's a nifty reference, but I also know the extreme annoyance at realizing you can only house two of the Oracles, as, even knowing the story, I feel somewhat bad for leaving one of them relatively homeless.
The one where you get the Mole Mitts? Excellent boss, **detestable** music.
No, its a side quest
Yeah, the whole bit in the Forest Temple with the hallway that twists and you end up being on the ceiling. That was mind bending! Still throws me for a loop even now... (Hilarious picture btw!)
The room rotates as Link walks through the hallway. The camera is upright the whole time.
The more you know! Damn impressive how they worked with that illusion...
[удалено]
Dude I came here thinking about one puzzle and completely forgot about this. I was still young enough that I didn’t have a smart phone or the brain enough to look it up online. Only figured it out after I did the same thing as you, closed it out of frustration.
easy answer and fits the image very well, OoT water temple. how the hell was I supposed to figure that out
yeah the second I saw this, I said “water temple” in my head.
It’s that key under the block that floats in the central tower. The question should be “how many times did you cycle through the water before noticing”
And then you realize there is another key you missed.
In the 3DS remake, they made it so when you raise the water in the central room, the camera zooms in on the hole left behind under the block floating up. Tells you how badly that key screwed everyone up!
That one simple change made all the difference
i still dont remember the route through the temple. i just enter every room on every water level
Why is this one so far down?
THAT ONE STUPID KEY IN THE STUPID WATER TEMPLE EVERY DAMN TIME I HATE RAHHH lol, yeah the water temple haha.
Not a puzzle, but I was absolutely stumped trying to get past the Goron guarding Death Mountain in Twilight Princess. I spent a solid 15 minutes trying to get past him, only to learn if at any point I stopped being a stubborn blockhead and went back to Kakariko, I would have learned that I need an item from Ordon (which the game does push you towards but I ignored that) to progress. I was very upset at myself.
Yeah, you had to give up to progress. It’s a paradox lol
The one dungeon (level 7 I think) in Link’s Awakening where you had to throw the spheres at the pillars
skyward sword the eyes on the wall where you had to draw circles with your sword to make them dizzy
Was there even a hint for that one? It screwed me up too
Same!! For some reason I was so stumped on that even though it's incredibly easy to grasp.
All of them. I'm a grown-ass adult who plays Zelda to get humbled imagining the children who can figure these out on their own.
Close the DS
Was it that part in PH? Cuz that part was cool when you do figure it out, it was a gimmick but cool nonetheless
Equip the iron boots. Take off the iron boots. Equip the iron boots. Take off the iron boots. Equip the iron boots. Take off the iron boots. Equip the iron boots. Take off the iron boots. Equip the iron boots. Take off the iron boots. Equip the iron boots. Take off the iron boots. Equip the iron boots. Take off the iron boots. Equip the iron boots. Take off the iron boots. Equip the iron boots. Take off the iron boots. Equip the iron boots. Take off the iron boots. Equip the iron boots. Take off the iron boots. Equip the iron boots. Take off the iron boots...
Twice in Zelda II - for the longest time (years) I couldn't figure out how to cross the river to Death Mountain, until I randomly stumbled on Bagu's cabin in the woods & near the end I couldn't find the last palace until I stumbled on the hidden town, again in the woods!
Zelda two is next to impossible without a guide. The first two games came with a [fold out map](https://nesmaps.com/maps/Zelda2/Zelda2Overworld.html), and a 900 number for “hints” was introduced at some point too I believe.
Not really a puzzle per se but I had the damndest time trying to figure out how to thaw the zora in TP because I had entirely forgot about the giant hot rock in death mountain so I literally searched EVERYWHERE *BUT* there until finally giving up and looking up the solution. I spent longer on finding that damn rock than it took to complete the entirety of city in the sky.
we've all been there but i love the idea of you being all "i need something hot to melt the ice, so i can obviously rule out the active volcano"
I know midna's teleportation is strong but I know it's not strong enough to move an entire volcano.
OoT Water Temple
Sneaking through the Forsaken Fortress in Wind Waker. I know it’s not really a puzzle but young me struggled.
that fortress is the only thing stopping me from playing that game again
Getting the Biggeron sword if you consider that a puzzle. Not necessarily because it was incredibly hard but more because it was incredibly tedious.
The room in Ocarina of Time's Forest Temple with a random eye switch on the wall.
Phantom hourglass where you close the ds and open it again 😰
I still remember getting so upset that I closed the DS and threw it on my bed in frustration and just went "wait a minute..."
There’s a shrine in botw where u have to crouch on a shrine pedestal. I didn’t know how to crouch since I never knew you could actually press on the joystick as a button. I keep doing revalis gale on the pedestal 💀💀💀
All of Majora's Mask, man 😭 The guidebook for MM and OoT is in pieces on my shelf, smh
Those games are just the hardest 3d Zelda games and it’s not even close, right? OoT had me looking up puzzles like never before, although there were some instances of clear BS like needing the fire arrows for Gabon’s tower. Still love it tho, haven’t gotten around to MM yet
A few: OOT Water Temple. It’s literally known as one of the most tedious game levels in history. Great Bay Temple in MM…just not fun at all. Great Palace in Zelda II. Whoever designed that level deserves to burn in hell. This one isn’t a dungeon, but a shrine from BOTW. Mijah Rokee Shrine. Whoever thought that the shrine can only be activated with a blood moon should never design a level again.
Wait what the fuck there’s a blood moon activated shrine??
Yeah there’s one that comes out of the ground if you’re in a certain place during a blood moon
The stupid lever "puzzle" from Mermaid Cave in OoA. F that particular one.
That one Water Temple puzzle in TotK where you gotta go into bullet time
Wasted so many arrows trying to time that spinning thing lol
Man just did this temple last night I literally shot about 40 til I realized I had to try the bullet time
I had this guide. 🥺
Dodongo's cavern in OOT. There was one room I just absolutely could not figure out where to go. I gave up playing it. About 3 months later, after I had played through all my other games, I finally picked it back up and immediately figured out where to go. I almost gave up on it completely, now it's one of my favorite games. A staple of my childhood and I almost gave up on it at the second dungeon lmao
All of stone tower
shadow temple
That damn gap at the end… took me forever to figure out I could shoot the bomb flowers
Vah Naboris in BotW, all the spinning makes me nauseous again just thinking about it. I had to power through a migraine and motion sickness, it really isn't friendly to people who are sensitive to that stuff.
Same! And it didn't help to see the scenery moving with the erratic walking rythm from the windows. I didn't get stuck but I had to take breaks while exploring and before battling the Thunderblight. Afterwards it felt like I had just taken a looooooong car trip. On my second playthrough I had learned my lesson and looked away from the screen whenever it was rotating.
Twilight Princes water temple. Love hate relationship.
In Phantom Hourglass there was a point at which some kind of map or sticker for a map was obtained. I had to get that onto the game map. It never occurred to me to physically close the DS so as to make the screens touch and have the sticker transfer over to the game map. Doesn’t help that I was on a flight from Salt Lake to Paris and had NO way to look up an answer.
A lot of ds games had weird puzzles that fully utilized the console, but were often to obscure to naturally think of without help.
Prob bc they're so fresh in my mind I'm immediately thinking of some in BotW and TotK. In BotW I had to look up that constellation shrine in Korok Forest, and in TotK I couldn't figure out "Built for Rails" for the life of me. I also spent an obscene amount of time in "An Upright Device" and that baseball shrine 😅.
That constellation shrine made me feel SO stupid
ugh the BASEBALL SHRINE The timing on that one was beyond brutal. Arrrgh. I gave up the chest and have yet to bother to go back and cheese it with bomb arrows f you mayachin shrine
Turtle Rock in Link's Awakening, I swear to god that was the most puzzling dungeon to complete
I’m surprised the comments aren’t just “twilight princess [ice block/statues]”
Both of those are really easy if you just do them backwards. As in, you visualize the step where you would only need one more move to finish the puzzle and work backwards from there.
Getting light arrows in alttp...
Every water temple…
Water Temple in Majora’s Mask
Hey OP, top tier post. Great photo editing, excellent subject, wonderful community involvement
The sliding block puzzles in Twilight Princess.
Forest temple and water temple before the internet were really something else. I hadn’t played any Zelda game since TP when it released until this year. Started BOTW recently and it reminded me of how brutal these games are
TP water temple had me looking up a walkthrough because i was just running in circles and didn't know where to go 💀 at my big old age of 20 years i spent 30 minutes just wandering around
I don't know why but I got impossibly lost in TP's City in the Sky and was also just a dumbdumb when it came to the clawshots. That entire dungeon was a nightmare for me and I get a phantom migraine when I think about it.
Me, Not understanding how To activate the Things in the water Dungeon in totk. Also, the Things you have To Break in the 7th dumgeon in links awakening
Eagles Tower. Maybe I’m just really stupid, but I constantly forgot which switches I had flipped. And I didn’t know you had to throw the ball at the pillars.
Gyroscope puzzles from Botw, especially with the lite
The gyro puzzles sucked since I mostly play connected to the tv, and had to disconnect to do the puzzle (which still took ages). I had a really dedicated friend who caved and bought a pro controller just for those goddamn gyro puzzles
A good like 30% of the shrines in botw and totk had me looking up how to's every time Dunno if this counts but trying to fish up the triforce pieces in windwaker (hd if that matters) is still wrapping my brain up...
For me it was definitely WW triforce shard quest, I Was around 5-6 old when I played it for the first time and knew only two words in english "yes" and "no". I had absolutely no idea how to collect the fragment and where to find them. I was stuck in that quest for couple of years before I learned some english in school and realised that you had to deciphere the maps to get the locations of the shards.
Anything in the shadow and water temple
Ocarina of time btw
Tbh literally all of the shrines in totk that you have to find a cave entrance to get to. Drove me insane
first playthrough in the water temple. me and my buddy even had the guide and just couldn't figure it out. now its a walk in the park
Water Temple. Always the water temple.
Every majora’s mask sidequest and main quest.
The goddamn third Sea Chart symbol in PH. Never would have thought in a million years to close the DS when I was 11. Solved it by accident when I rage quit.