13 replies to this topic

[Bowser Blanchette]

I was asking myself this for a long time. So, here goes!

Which quests had Level-9 as the largest dungeon in a quest? I know of some quests, but I wonder which quest had Level-9 as the largest of all the dungeons.

[DarkFlameWolf]

Well Hidden Duality had a 10 floor level 9 with a bonus final boss world to visit after that.

[Moldorm]

Yeah,Hidden Duality has the largest level 9 I�ve seen.

[Surreal Canine]

Largest level 9 I've ever seen was Ganon's Castle in Grant Cole's quest Shattered Courage.

[Oddity]

For sheer rip-your-hair-out complexity, nothing beats the final dungeon of Dreams of Yesterday: several large floors, with the rooms in one of four states depending upon which of four compass-direction switches was pressed down. (Imagine HoD's Season Isle on steroids guarded by the likes of Mirror Wizzrobes, Magic Octoroks, Super Darknuts, and bosses from previous dungeons, and you'll be pretty close.) I never finished it.

[Feenicks]

I'm planning to have a two-stage final dungeon, the small (but hard) 2-Floor Black Hole, and the 12-floor actual Final Dungeon. I, however, will make it so you don't need to do Black Hole again in order to get to the entrance of the Final Dungeon.

Is it just me, or does this seem like a sort of competion?

[TheOnlyOne]

Didn't The Legend of Link: and His Adventure To Snortsia have a 20 floor final dungeon? You had to go through all the normal dungeons and secret dungeons again, than there were a few new floors.

[Radien]

Eighth Hour is planned to have a 12 floor Ganon's Lair, easily using up 6 whole maps

"Planned" doesn't count; you don't have a big dungeon until you actually create it. It's very difficult to make something that big that's at all fun.

Anyway, I say floors aren't a good measurement of the size of a dungeon. The number of screens is more indicative. My level 1 "Deluge Temple" had 6 floors all told, but it only took up about 32 screens. That's less than 6 screens per floor on average.

My biggest dungeon so far is Death Mountain Peak, which was level 9 in Master Quest. It had exactly 120 screens, and was a full-fledged dungeon with all the maddening challenges that come with it. While I can't definitively state that it's the biggest ZC dungeon out there, it's pretty dang big, and I can at least say that a fair number of people enjoyed it...

[Majora]

I doesn't "Count" but this thread has put forth on me the challenge of a 30-floor, 450 room dungeon (BELIEVE IT) Twilight Tower for TLOZ: EQ

[Radien]

I doesn't "Count" but this thread has put forth on me the challenge of a 30-floor, 450 room dungeon (BELIEVE IT) Twilight Tower for TLOZ: EQ

Hmm. To me, that just sounds boring. It's not like no other game has ever had a dungeon that long; it's just that they usually reserve it as the bonus dungeon. If a dungeon that long is required to finish the game, many players will lose interest.

By the way, my 120-room dungeon was only four floors tall/deep. It had a pyramid structure: 1F = 8 screens x 8 screens, 2F = 6x6, 3F = 4x4, and 4F = 2x2.

If you had a 30-floor dungeon with 450 rooms, wouldn't that mean only 15 rooms per floor? That's not tiny, but it certainly isn't big, since each floor COULD hold up to 64 of those rooms if you so desired.

[WindStrike]

I don't intend to have a ridiculously large level-9 (correction, level 15) dungeon in mine, but it'll probably last ya at least 30 minutes on first time through (note: not coming for another few years cough cough). The largest level in my quest will either be 11 (ice castle) or 14 (that'll take a while... but it'll be SO COOL!... and that's after I get the skills/graphics to pull it off).

Half-related: I originally had this dungeon idea that was just purely intricate - idea came after playing Labrynth of Dinus. Actually, it's an entire game idea. And... we'll just go with the small version, because the big version would require mad skillz/l33tness in every way/godly planning/etc. Anyways, you have an 8x8 (or 16x8) overworld. Beneath this overworld is a fully integrated and connected series of dungeons - probably 4 dugeons, with the 4th being the "level 9." I mean, these dungeons would connect from the side, above, below, tunnels, warps, etc. Some later type stuff could even be hidden within level 1 and all. If I were to do another quest after TAH (The Alternate Hyrule), it'd be this... and it'd be so freaking cool with this idea. More on topic, since the different dungeons are connected and all, I suppose all the dungeons combined would allow for it to be considered the largest level 9 dungeon.


By the way, it's not quite a matter of how long a last level dungeon is (in my opinion), but moreso just darn fun is it without an overwhelming difficulty or a ridiculously easy run-through. Of course, having a certain length to allow for at least 30 minutes of playtime through the dungeon would also be ideal. Now... 450 freaking rooms? Are you bloody insane? That's just way too much... I mean, that's like the number of screens you walk all over in an average quest of 5+ hours. 150 rooms... fine... 450... ... just... no.

Is it just me, or does this seem like a sort of competion?

The standard and by default idiotic nature of just about human on this planet concurs with an "aye."

[Captain Magenta]

I haven't played enough quests to really say that I've encountered a final dungeon that was huge in terms of overall size; Z1's Level Nine in the first quest was in itself pretty large even if it only was a single floor dungeon. The thing is though, going for bigger, more floors, and more rooms is not what makes a dungeon challenging or awe inspiring. In many cases it will simply shake the player's interest in the quest since they will eventually get bored with the "never ending" dungeon. A perfect example of this is the hundred floor cave in The Wind Waker, or the Cave Of Ordeals in Twilight Princess, even if they are not technically dungeons. Eventually I simply get burned out and bored with the game since it just feels like the same thing over and over again, just with more powerful enemies.

For me, a dungeon that is fun is one that engages the player by presenting challenges in terms of puzzles and riddles and forces you to think in order to proceed through the dungeon as well as having instances of challenging combat with enemies. Twilight Princess was pretty good about that since it took some time to complete the dungeons despite them actually being fairly small and contained in terms of physical size. Think about the Water Temple in both Ocarina Of Time and Twilight Princess. The physical size of the dungeons was not all that large in terms of the number and size the rooms, but I'll bet most of you who played through the dungeons actually enjoyed them in a sense because they were devilishly put together and forced you to think in order to proceed, and as a result they provided a great sense of accomplishment when you finally completed them. Of course that's if you are the type that enjoys being challenged in that sense; there are people that hate having to solve complicated puzzles and hated those temples as a result.

Another problem is building a dungeon that is difficult beyond all reason. That was what turned me off about the Labyrinth Of Dinus once I got to the final dungeon. Most of the final dungeon wasn't too bad, but there were a few rooms that were just ridiculous such as the fact there are both a Patra Three and a Hydra (Multiple stacked Fire Gleeoks) in the dungeon, and even with a Red Potion, unless you can use half the potion for one creature and half for the other, fighting them is nearly impossible since to my knowledge there is no way to leave the dungeon to obtain more potion and even with the Red Ring since I only had fourteen hearts those creatures (And the Death Knight in the dungeon!) can tear you apart fairly efficiently! Or the room that had ten Wind Wizzrobes in the room and limited movement with ice (Slow Walk) and spikes (Damage Combos)!! I had to hide in the doorway until I took out enough of them with bombs with quick hit and run attacks to enable me to venture into the room to engage them without having to worry about dodging the wind attacks of ten of them which is truly impossible. Hero Of Dreams on the other hand used those creatures well since you were given the equipment necessary to win the fight, but it still remained challenging despite the odds being better stacked in your favor.

The best final dungeon in my opinion would have several floors and have lots of rooms, but would depend more on puzzle solving and challenging encounters rather than just being a massive test of endurance and ultimately the patience of the player, but balanced as well and not difficult beyond all reason either.

Edited by Captain Magenta, 25 May 2007 - 04:48 AM.

[NoeL]

I can't remember the last quest I finished so I don't know how big people make their dungeons... if anyone played my forest temple, that was about 150 rooms I think, takes 20 min to play through knowing where you're going... how big is that in relation to other ones? (not the biggest obviously, but I just want a general size... like is that half the size of HD's? A third?)