When players think about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Timewords like “masterpiece,” “classic,” and “nostalgia” may come to mind. Although it is over 25 years old at the time of writing this article, it is still widely enjoyed by both older and newer gamers, thanks to the speedrunning community and the Nintendo Switch Virtual Console. The Unofficial Harkinian's shipwhich among other features enables mod support, ensuring that the game will remain accessible long after the Virtual Console is shut down, should such an event occur.
What players often fail to consider is the vast amount of nightmare fuel that lurks beneath the colorful land of Hyrule, from a parasitic anemone-link that develops ulcers all over its body until it explodes to twisting corridors that Link must navigate, Ocarina of Time undoubtedly left many parents baffled as to how this game got an E rating. Understandably, the Nintendo 3DS remake bumped the rating up to E10+, and still cut or changed some of the more graphic elements of the original. By today's standards, there's no way Ocarina of Time could have been released as is, or at least not without a T rating, as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
The House of the Dead and the Well of the Three Features
They share the same haunting music track
Related
Which horror game scared you the most?
It's one thing to sit down and watch a horror movie through your fingers, but it's another thing to have to act out one in a video game. Titles like Resident Evil 7, PT, Dead Space, and Alien: Isolation have terrified gamers over the years, just to name a few. Which horror game scared you the most while playing?
The Temple of Shadows is without a doubt the scariest place in Ocarina of Timebut the Bottom of the Well is a close second. Both dungeons emphasize macabre themes and feature the most terrifying elements of the game. It might be fair to suggest that The Bottom of the Well is the dissolution of the Temple of Shadowsince they share the same music track, but some elements differ between the two. While the Bottom of the Well is difficult to navigate, the Temple of Shadows is actually the most linear dungeon in the game. In other words, the Bottom of the Well is a random amalgamation of blood and decay, while the Temple of Shadows is a necropolis dedicated to torture and death.
This distinction is shown early in Link's exploration of the Temple of Shadows, when spirits whisper messages to him as he approaches illusory walls. One message in particular sheds light on the temple's purpose before Ganondorf's evil powers corrupted it.
Temple of Shadows… Here lies Hyrule's bloody tale of greed and hatred…
After the Forest Temple is conquered, the Sprout of the Deku Tree informs Link that a fierce war took place before the King of Hyrule unified the country. The Shadow Temple was once used by the Sheikah to interrogate enemies of the Royal Family during that time, and some blood-stained floors and torture devices from that dark history remain when Link explores it. The prominence of the Lens of Truth within the Shadow Temple demonstrates this connection, as it closely resembles the Sheikah Eye Symbol. This piece of lore helps to Ocarina of Timethe horror elements indirectly — means The Temple of Shadows was a horrible place long before Ganondorf rose to power.
The bottom of the well, on the other hand, is only vaguely described by a sign nearby.
Dark! Narrow! Scary! Pit of three features!
An old man from Kakariko Village tells Link that there was a man who had an eye that could “see the truth” long ago, and that his home once stood where the well now stands. Later, an evil shadow spirit breaks free from the bottom of the well after Impa sealed it away to spare the rest of Hyrule long ago. This spirit flees to the Shadow Temple and reveals itself to be its leader, Bongo Bongo.
Apart from these details, nothing else is known about the Bottom of the Well. Had he always been tainted and twisted, or had Bongo Bongo's presence made him so? Were the unsuspecting citizens of Kakariko Village negatively affected by drinking the water from the well before Link drained it with the Song of Storms? Probably not, given how highly Impa regards the village, but it's still disturbing to think about.
When Link explores the Bottom of the Well as a child, he discovers a haunted labyrinth with many illusory walls and floors that only the Royal Family's Tomb remotely resembles. There is no one holding hands in this eerie dungeon, and Link first sees this real place when he moves through one of these illusory walls with a skeleton nearby.
The dungeon's macabre design is firmly imprinted in every player's mind. from this point on as Link cautiously explores it. Gameplay-wise, many illusory walls and floors seemingly pop out of nowhere and ignore many of Ocarina of Time conventions so far. It's easy for Link to slip through an illusionary floor and end up in a cave with nauseating green water and the groaning echoes of a ReDead.
Since the dungeon map can only be acquired after Link falls into an illusionary floor for the first time, the game's developers were counting on players getting hopelessly lost and bravely facing all that horror. Some floors have huge blood stains (though the 3DS version lacks them) and chains hang along the ceilings and walls. This place has all the hallmarks of an old torture chamber: while the Temple of Shadows was necessary during the Great War, what is the excuse for an old well? Did the man who lived where the well is conduct his little symphonies where screams flow like blood? The truth may never be known.
In most games, Link first enters the Shadow Temple after acquiring the Lens of Truth, as certain traps are otherwise very difficult to avoid. While it is tidier than the Bottom of the Well, it is no less scary. Several rooms are dead ends made entirely of crushed skeletons, complete with monsters that must be killed in order to leave. Later, Link boards a “Ferry to the Other World” — a giant wooden ship floating on a fog that will only move when Zelda's lullaby plays. At the end of the “river,” the fog fades and the ship begins to fall — not sink, fall.
Navi warns Link to abandon ship before this happens, but this kind of panic comes out of nowhere and never occurs again throughout the game. This simple layout is meant to add horror to the dungeon, not detract from it. The linearity conveys the feeling that Link is descending deeper and deeper into Hell.
The end itself leads to an abyss where Bongo Bongo resides, a decapitated giant with a plated spine hanging from the ceiling, floating severed hands, and a neck stump housing a giant eyeball. During combat, his body is usually invisible without the Lens of Truth, and he perpetually beats his giant drum over a pool of sickly green water in an eerie, ceremonial manner.
Many scary monsters lurk in these places
Hyrule Market is Overrun by ReDeads
The other monsters found at the Bottom of the Well and the Temple of Shadows are also quite terrifying. The mini-boss in both dungeons, Dead Hand, is one of the scariest in the entire series. When Link first enters his home, he sees a group of long, pale arms sticking out of the ground.
If Link gets too close to one, it will quickly grab him, and the Dead Hand will emerge from the ground with that plaintive laugh to take a bite. The creature's main body is pale and covered in bloodstains (the bloodstains are omitted in the 3DS remake), along with an unnaturally long neck and a giant set of teeth near its eyeless sockets. It also has no arms for added weirdness, given its name.
Another terrifying monster, The ReDead is responsible for many childhood nightmares of the late 90's. The first time players encounter several of these emaciated zombies is well before the Bottom of the Well. The ReDeads remain motionless wherever they are, constantly groaning. These creatures can be heard before they are seen, leaving players paranoid about where they might be. The Nintendo 64 version's lower frame rate and blurry graphics work to the game's advantage here, as players are unable to fully discern what the stiff, shaking man actually is.
When Link runs too close to one, its gaze paralyzes him as he staggers toward it. When this happens, Players hear a bloodcurdling scream as the camera angle changes to show the ReDead. Even if players don't immediately explore the Royal Family's Tomb to learn the Song of the Sun, they will encounter a horde of them in the remains of the Hyrule Market during Link's adulthood. New players won't know that the townspeople have been evacuated to Kakariko Village, so they may mistake them for the reanimated corpses of innocent people. “E” rating everyone, kids.