Can anyone name good water levels?

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Hydrocity

This is now a dank meem thrread

Donkey Kong Country 2's galley underwater levels, because they have this fucking theme.

Basically any water level that doesn't limit your oxygen or slow your movement in a really annoying way. That's what people hate about water levels.

Not sure if Beach Bowl counts, but it's the comfiest level in Galaxy.

This. Also, they're fun. All 3 DKC games have good underwater levels IIRC

Super Mario Galaxy had a couple great ones.

beach bowl freaked me out because I had a fear of swimming too far down and falling through or swimming out and over the idea just spooked me

Ys Origin's Water Prison was cool.

Aquatic Ruin Zone
Hydrocity
All DKC Water Levels
All Rayman Legends and Rayman Origins water levels.

Yup.

does lost precursor city count as a water level?

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I loved that place

And the entirety of Super Mario Sunshine. Most if not all the 3D Mario games after 64 have great water levels.

64 does have great water levels, though.

Forgot about these

sonic had good water levels

Any Cyssor or Hossin bridge fight in the first PlanetSide

As long as you're holding an item.

Now here's a great example. Reduced gravity, no speed reduction, lots of fun.

Get out, DKC have the quintessential shitty water levels. They're slow as fuck and totally divorced from the standard gameplay. You might as well be moving a mouse cursor around they're so mechanically deficient.

The Water Temple was pretty stilted, but I think the Ocean Temple is the best dungeon in Majora's Mask and one of the better examples of how to do a good water stage, and it's all because of the Zora Mask. The Zora Mask takes everything that is normally boring and frustrating about being underwater and actually makes it fun and exciting.

Games based around water levels usually do water levels pretty good.

Aquaria: the entire game.

The idea that the water temple is terrible because it's hard is just a meme, it's pretty easy save for one part where you're supposed to look up and go through a hole in the ceiling while underwater. Now what was REALLY bullshit in that game was finding out I had to put BLUE FIRE IN A BOTTLE. I tried shooting it with arrows and using all the other items- how was I supposed to know I was supposed to put FIRE IN A FUCKING BOTTLE. But nobody ever talks about this, it's always that stupid "muh wader temble" meme.

I suppose one annoying thing about water levels is how slow you move in water in most games. Majora's Mask solved that by making the Zora form be fast as fuck, which made water travel convenient, which made it fun. That, and being able to instantly sink and walk along the bottom of a body of water with the press of a button. I guess you could say water areas in Majora's Mask were good, if only because of Zora Link.

i can't think about level design when this shit triggers muh waterfright, making water itself the obstacle probably the point of a water level.
i liked how spyro and zora link swam though.

The rayman ones are pretty great, yeah. Especially Legends' which segues into nifty underwater stealth bases.

Planet Undertow in Ristar's pretty fun, and the music is godlike.

Water temple is shit because its tedious and slow. Nintendo can't seem to grasp people dont like waiting. No one thinks its hard, its just fucking boring.

A few of the in-game shops sold Blue Fire, and iirc the item description they gave told you that you needed a bottle to contain it.
But they also sold it for some absurd price like 200 Rupees, so actually buying it before you needed it was unlikely.

I say no. You're mostly inside the sea base.

Nigga its one of the most parroted memes outside of Holla Forums in terms of vidya
Regardless of whether it actually is, its perceived as hard

so why are you addressing a normalfag strawman
nobody here thinks the water temple was hard doofus, that doesnt make it good

the reason I figured it out was you can bottle Poes.

Subnautica

Turok 2 was okay.
Majoras Mask zora mask was great fun, but the water was a bit empty.

dank. I love going into huge animals as levels too. ape escape comes to mind for having a good example of that. I wonder if that's why people have vore fetishes.

The best water levels are the ones with comfy as fuck ambience and soundtracks. Many have been listed here already.

Manaan had some of the most interesting segments in the game despite the slow-ass underwater parts, and even in the rest of the undersea base it really did the survival horror feeling right. Peragus from KotOR II did the same thing, but a lot of people seem to dislike that as well. The court system quests were a nice change of pace from the rest of the game and provided some opportunities to use your brain instead of just slicing up everything with your lightsaber.

Shit nigga I was coming in to post that.

user, that's the whole fucking game.

The Water Temple is actually fucking great. It broke people's brains because it was the first 3D Zelda and early into console 3D in general. But its design is brilliant for how it uses full 3D space and incorporates Zelda's basic concepts to them.

only beefs are not being able to use your sword (doesn't make any less sense than having your hookshot) and the enemy variety, but, it doesn't hurt it in the long run. it's a "figure out a way to progress" level, not a "try not to die" level, i.e. a Zelda game that isn't on the NES

p.s. where the FUCK did you take this screenshot? the textures and bars make it look more like the lab diving pool than the Water Temple, but the bars are too high and there's no spoopy shark. I replayed past Water Temple recently and this doesn't look familiar at all.

Because it was fucking addressed as a meme in general, basically outside of Holla Forums
Its not a "normalfag strawman", its a belief among normalfags

Water Prison

it's time for a "do you really think somebody would do that, just go on the internet" rude awakening

people who talk about the water temple from the "it's not hard, it's just bad" camp are almost certainly kids that never turned on an N64 in their lives and are too stupid to figure out emulation. it's a thing people lie about for epeen bragging rights, like saying Dark Souls is easy and you're a baby if you don't throw your wallet's full content at From just so you can talk about it on the internet. they probably don't play video games whatsoever in real life

You're probably right tbh
Doesn't strike as much beyond shitposting

Water levels are fucking shit.

Pain is the splinter inside me.

The problem with the water level is that, the moment you get confused and think, "Maybe I missed something," you change the water level and it fucks up everything. This applies to basically any dungeon in LoZ: If you just accomplished something, everything it already setup for you to take the next step toward completing the dungeon. Anytime someone thinks "Maybe I need to backtrack" then they've ruined it all. But the Water Temple design makes you feel like it's super likely you missed something.

it strikes me as the dangerous kind of aspergers because it's done on purpose for the sake of manipulating social trends. it's a tendency shared with genuine sociopaths and it's happening en masse. probably amongst a generation that's had smartphones and Facebook since they were 5 and just recently turned 18.

nigger I will fight you

so you have to stop and think about what to do next for like five seconds, and this makes it bad? dude, no. treat that ADD and see me next week.

What about water stages in fighting games? They aren't too common, and admittedly they do suck, but at least it's something different.

Seems like there are several different ways of making a good water level. Either have really good swimming controls, make skilled players able to avoid being underwater for most of the level or just make it a normal level with water themed gimmicks.

You're pretty much entirely right.

Super comfy

Mega Twins (aka Chiki Chiki Boys) has a nice water level. And it's a very good platformer all around.

all of them