Though Link, Zelda, Ganon, and the Triforce tend to get the most attention,The Legend of Zeldaseries returns to many, many more of its iconic beats with each new game. Every new Zelda introduces a big, new mechanic —A Link Between Worlds' 2D/3D split, Spirit Tracks' trains,Majora’s Mask’s time loop, and on, and on — but it’s a series that, narratively and iconographically, rarely goes off in entirely new directions.
The Lava Dungeon Has Often Been Remixed Just Like Everything Else
The teams atNintendo, instead, prefer to rework and remix the stories and images that came before. The Zora are usually present, and their domain provides an opportunity to swim around and peek behind waterfalls. For the three most recent entries, you could find the Gerudo’s desert city at the bottom-left corner of the map. And the Gorons are always around, hanging out by lakes of lava.
I just finishedEchoes of Wisdom’s lava dungeon. It was fun enough, I liked seeing my Goron buddies, and I got some cool new Echoes like a big, flat rock. But the thing about doing new variations on old ideas so frequently is that I have a few versions of this same kind of dungeon that I can immediately compare it to. Dodongo’s Cavern was the first Zelda lava dungeon I ever experienced (and I was stuck on it for a while), so it holds a special place in my heart. But, the best Zelda lava dungeon is, without a doubt,Twilight Princess' Goron Mines.
In this level, which hits fairly early on in a very long game, you get one of the coolest tools I’ve ever seen in the Zelda series: Iron Boots. This hefty footwear shows up in other Zelda games, too — again, the series is fond of a remix — but their usage in Twilight Princess is most interesting. InOcarina of TimeandWind Waker, Iron Boots mostly just make you heavier. That’s useful, as the increase in weight allows you to press stubborn buttons and walk on lake beds. But Twilight Princess gives the galvanized galoshes another use in the Goron Mines.
Remembering Twilight Princess' Magnet Boots
In this lava dungeon, Twilight Princess briefly, and wonderfully, becomes a game about magnets. Building on the way Iron Boots were used in previous games, in Twilight Princess, they’re still super heavy, and Link needs them to activate those resistant switches. But once he presses the switch, the real fun kicks in as it activates a tractor beam that will carry his newly magnetic feet up to polarized pathways along the ceiling. Not all 3D Zelda dungeons feel like they absolutelyneedto be in 3D, but this one wouldn’t work without it, as Link walks on the ceiling (which wouldn’t be visible in a top-down game) and on the walls (also hard to see in 2D).
He can switch the polarities, which lets him use those tractor beams as elevators, and can also ride around on magnets hanging from crane arms. It all culminates in a boss fight against Fyrus, who looks like a lanky Goron mixed with the Balrog from Lord of the Rings. You say “You shall not pass!” by stunning him with arrows to the head, then equipping the Iron Boots to attach to the magnetic floor, and yanking on the chains fastened to his ankles to drag him down to the ground. It’s not an all-time great boss fight by any means, but it is a nice cap on a really cool tool.
I’m happy to have 2D Zelda back with Echoes, but revisiting Goron Mines has been a reminder that there are some things that Zelda can only do with that extra dimension. I would love to see the eventual Tears of the Kingdom successor build on the progress Nintendo made with the most recent game, taking us closer to more traditional dungeons. Barring that, I’d be happy to slip on my Iron Boots in a Twilight Princess HD Switch Port.
