The Zelda series has always had great dungeon designs and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is no exception. As of this entry I'm over forty hours into the game and through six of the game's rumored nine proper dungeons. That's enough for me to easily say that Twilight Princess has the best dungeon designs out of any of the 3D Zelda titles. I'm not sure if they're better than the 2D A Link to the Past just yet. A dungeon in Zelda is defined as a location that has three essential elements. Those are its own map, compass, and boss key. Twilight Princess doesn't deviate from that basic formula. There is another key element that is present in the Twilight Princess dungeons, and that is a midboss battle that results in an item that grants you some new ability allowing you to make further progress through said dungeon and the rest of the game. Twilight Princess is like the twelfth title released in the series and as such it's safe to say we've covered most of the possible themes for dungeons already. Twilight Princess doesn't try to reinvent the wheel or anything on that level but instead stays true to what's come before with new takes on the classic themes. We get dungeons based on wind, fire, water, and ice mixed in with some new concepts like grinding and minion control. The dungeons are all large and sprawling in design. The puzzle design ranges from purely intuitive brilliance to head-scratching spatial relationship puzzles. You will be stopped for a while from time to time in Twilight Princess' dungeons but for me they've never approached being frustrating. In fact I would say the puzzles walk the perfect line between intuitive and challenging. I have been impressed with each dungeon in the game and I've thoroughly enjoyed them all thus far. Next time on Zelda should cover art design, or maybe boss battles. With entries on story and the final opinion still to come.
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