Zelda Fan: I think the key under the platform in the Water Temple is unfair.
Miyamoto: Hold my beer.
Beating Ocarina of Time (OOT) was a profound moment for me. I fondly reminisced over the perfectly tuned fantasy adventure forever changed in how I engaged with video games as art. Furthermore, this masterpiece irrevocably changed the industry. The plot wasn't good (a by-the-books Hero's Journey), but the atmosphere, world building and level design were masterful. OOT 3D was a faithful remaster of an all time classic. It added quality of life changes, such as being able to set boots to item slot and giving an additional binding for an item. The updated models looked great. My only issues were with the low-res textures, the sanitation of the bottom of the Well and the obnoxious cinematic when you first raise the water in the water temple to show you where a key is hidden. The later was a sidestep and not a fix to the issue. In the Bottom of the Well they removed all gore. In the original, there were flayed corpses, pools of blood and the Dead Hand was coated in the blood of a previous victim. As a kid this was terrifying and I was so scared that I had to watch my friend beat it for me. It was satisfying to return to the Well as an adult and conquer my fear. I realize that OOT was pitched as a kids game and that's why they sanitized the art. Honestly though, it added nuance and told a dark tale liking the Sheikah to Hyrule's Gestapo. This goes over the head of a kid, my own included at the time. When I beat the Master Quest, I felt like the Allied Powers after World War 1...
I was shocked to find out Miyamoto was credited as the designer for the Master Quest. It honestly felt like something a Fan made with no experience in game design. They misconstrued unfairness for challenge. Difficulty is a challenging balancing act that can easily topple over and become an immensely unpleasant experience. For example, Demon's Souls and Dark Souls were not designed to be difficult yet the game garnered a reputation of being hard. Dark Souls 2 was made with limited supervision from Miyazaki and the devs seemed to fixate on difficulty over an immersive experience. It was misguided, flawed and unfair but still managed to be a fun action game.
While Master Quest was pitched as a challenging "redesign," it felt unfair and ruined a masterful game in it's incompetence. I expected the Master Quest to feel clunky since the levels were carefully designed and tuned to guide the players down a set path. The rooms were designed for a specific solution and puzzle in mind. I had hoped it would be a cheap imitation of the first time I played OOT, giving a fresh and fun new experience with an added benefit of more challenge. I was wrong. I was so wrong.
For challenge to feel satisfying to conquer it needs to feel fair. I would define 'fair' as communicating rules and clues clearly and adhering to them. While you can add more rules or mechanics as the game progresses, you need to communicate these clearly otherwise a puzzle will feel obtuse and/or unfair. Master Quest seemed more focused on breaking the rules and telling you to "Go Fuck Yourself" whenever you tried to play the game with the old rules.
It's easiest to articulate my perspective by listing the specific puzzles and why I felt they were either unfair or poor decisions. I will start with recurring puzzles, but then break down specific dungeon puzzles.
- Switches hidden under large blocks you need to push and then stand on. This is more stupid than unfair. It broke immersion for me since it makes no sense why a heavy block literally on top of a pressure plate doesn't activate it.
- Chests were hidden under blocks. Again it doesn't make sense.
- Adding monsters and enemy types to locations that don't make sense. For example, Gohma's brood appear in locations outside of the Deku Tree. The lizards in Dodongo cavern appear in tons of other locations where they didn't appear in the original OOT. It breaks immersion. The base game created variety and immersion with enemy types since thought clearly went into what kind of monsters would inhabit certain locations. In addition, Master Quest had a large combat focus. While OOT has an important and influential control and combat schema it's honestly not that good. Play Devil May Cry or Viewtiful Joe if you want responsive and satisfying combat. What made OOT great was the overall adventure, not combat specifically. I felt annoyed and not challenged by the plethora of added encounters.
- An odd fixation with the Song of Time blocks. These were never clever or satisfying puzzles. You just play the song and that's it...it's fixation makes the first three Dungeons obnoxious because their locations force you to return to all three if you want to collect all Gold Skultulas (you need to ocarina of time and song of time before you can move these blocks...). There was some forced backtracking in the original game but it was light. It's prominent in the Master Quest. This is bloat, not challenge. This goes further with plenty of out of reach gold Skultulas that you need the boomerang to collect... again not challenge just bloat.
- You never know when a room is optional until you clear it... The worst offender of this was in the Spirit Temple which I will cover below.
- The redesign has plenty of wasted space, indicating the devs didn't know how to redesign certain areas or elements of a puzzle so they would either lazily block it off or spawn a chest that gives you rupees... Talk about a "fuck you" with how utterly useless rupees are in the game.
- Most Zelda Lullabies will only spawn a blue Rupee. Why not just remove these from the game? Probably because that would have taken more resources than they were willing to invest to just cover the symbol on the floor...
While there were plenty of annoying moments in the first four dungeons, it was still reasonably inoffensive and I was fine with pushing forward. When I started my new file, I noticed I had stopped the Master Quest back in 2011 at the Fire Temple. I soon was rudely reminded why...
Temple specific criticisms:
Jabu Jabu's Belly:
Most switches were replaced with disembodied cow heads lining up the cell walls of the whale. In addition, there was a full cow in stomach acid that apparently had gills since it was mooing and quite alive. This was weird and immersion breaking. Most puzzles revolved around shooting these cow heads. Nothing challenging about it. What I will say is the rule of shooting cows in the face was established in the first room since you need to shoot two in order to progress. So not offensive nor challenging. It's decent design though a perplexing decision. They also side-stepped the escort component of the dungeon entirely. You do very with Ruto which is disappointing considering that her inclusion added an interesting and unique twist to the dungeon.
Fire Temple:
- You are forced to hook shot to METAL torches in order to progress. The way this is implemented is clunky and immersion breaking. I think the puzzle would be fair if you had to hook shot to a wood covered torch. You never had to hook shot to torches in the original game and I honestly don't know if you were able to. If you know the answer please share in the comments!
- You need to use a charged sword swing on the edge of a platform to hit a crystal switch behind a locked door. What makes this obtuse and frustrating is that a bomb explosion won't activate it... I timed chucking a bomb and it wouldn't work which makes no sense. I would have been fine with it if the explosion worked... There's another locked door you need to open in the same way, but the crystal switch is hidden from sight...
- There is a gap you cannot cross unless you play the Song of Time to spawn a block. What makes this unfair is that you aren't given any clue you need to do this besides navi floating green around an area... In the original game there was always a song of time block you could see to indicate you need to play the song. This cheap tactic is repeated multiple times across the game.. I eventually started defaulting to playing the song of time when I had no idea what to do. Not challenging just obtuse.
- The worst offender was going into a miniboss room to fight a dancer. I got nothing for my trouble and when I exited the room I was trapped by a fire wall... The switch to escape was on the other side and there was no object for me to use my hook shot on... I had to save my game and reset just to escape...This likely is the event that caused me to quit the Master Quest back in 2011. I decided to push forward since I was more than halfway done and didn't feel like starting over in the base game. That was a mistake... Only woe awaited me from here.
Frozen Cavern:
Not much to say here other than they made it laughably easier than the base game... so much for a challenge.
Water Temple:
You need to re-enter the tower after it is flooded to progress. In the base game I believe it was IMPOSSIBLE to open a door while underwater. If you could, you never were meant to... making this both obtuse and unfair. O and for salt in the wound it involved making Song of Time blocks spawn again because that's so fun and challenging...
Bottom of the Well:
- Optional rooms filled with combat encounters with no reward... You can either clear this fast or waste a ton of time by opening the wrong door.
- All small keys are not in chests making finding them a royal pain in the ass. At least by having them in chests you can use the compass to find them... One is hidden under a pile of dirt...so you just have to run around like a lunatic blowing everything up. Not clever nor challenging.
- You need to activate a crystal switch that is impossible (or near impossible) to see. Starting in the Water Temple, you need to start smacking and blasting every wall relief and object like you are playing Dark Souls to find hidden crystal switches...
Shadow Temple:
One of the least offensive end game dungeons. It has many of the same issues listed above with an addition of tons of backtracking which makes progression both clunky and tedious. The original Shadow Temple was streamlined.
Spirit Temple:
- You need to activate a switch as an adult and return as a kid to get a small key...not clever and ends up wasting about 5-7 mins.
- There's a decent unique puzzle that ends up being ruined with a massive slap in the face at the end... There's a room with two rolling boulders and a Club Moblin. It's a royal pain to maneuver and I ended up getting smacked back by the Moblin a frustrating amount of times... I did like the puzzle in the room, though it did require some guess work which wasn't great. The Fuck You and smack in the face is the next room is filled to the brim with Skultulas that will slap you around like a pinball. The reward for all this oppression is a chest with a rupee in it... cool... a completely optional room.
Ganon's Tower:
At this point I was fuming. Most rooms were inoffensive. Though the sun room had a cheap trick with a sun you need to hit with the mirror shield hidden behind the door. Impossible (or next to impossible) to see... The bigger offender was the Shadow Barrier. You need to collect silver rupees while maneuvering across invisible and narrow platforms. In addition you need to kill enemies. It's precise and if you tumble off you need to start all over... I had to reset this room a ton of times. It's possible to run out of resources while doing this room which would result in you having to leave Ganon's tower and returning...
TL;DR: Don't waste your time. This game is rubbish. Just play OOT base game. It's masterfully designed and a ton of fun to play.