Countdown: Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Dungeon Crawl #5 - This One's Fire, Bro

As we tiptoe ever closer to the Ocarina of Time Switch 2 release date, my playthrough of the N64 original continues. Indeed, this week tips me past the halfway point, so there's no turning back.

If you missed weeks one through four, I'm revisiting OoT, one dungeon a week, and sharing all the things I loved (and the things I didn't) on my replay.

With my all-time favourite behind me, it was time to head up Death Mountain once again, don a different tunic, and work out what's up with that giant red cloud in the sky. As always, I'm going into dungeon specifics here, so if you've never played OoT before and you are saving yourself for the remake, just know that there are spoilers ahead!

OoT Dungeon Crawl #5 - The Fire Temple

I'm slightly ashamed to admit that, off the back of the brilliance of The Forest Temple, I always forget about The Fire Temple.

In fact, going into it this playthrough, I remembered very little about it at all. You get the hammer, there's a big pillar, the boss' name sent me into hysterics at age 10. But I owe it an apology because my eyes have been opened this time around. The Fire Temple rules.

It gets off to a simple but very pleasing start. The opening T-shaped corridor houses two doors on the ground level: the left featuring a Goron and the Boss Key chest locked in a cage you can't open, and the right stuck behind an immovable pillar. Just like that, we have an objective (free the Goron and get the key) and a puzzle (the mysterious pillar). Talk about efficiency.

With no key to open the upper-right door, the designers force you left, into its central chamber. If you've read any entry in this Dungeon Crawl series up to this point, you'll know that I'm a sucker for a central chamber (bonus points if it has a big old puzzle in it), and this one is a doozy.

An introductory chat with Darunia tees up the boss location, the item you'll need to defeat it, and your Goron-freeing main objective. Heading left ticks the first Goron off the list and outlines that the only way to get to the boss is to knock that big pillar down from the ceiling. All of that from one room! Again, that's some *chef's kiss* efficiency.

And so began my journey upwards. I've got to give it to the Fire Temple; it manages to make the extremely complex feel extremely simple. This is a dungeon packed with 'hub rooms' — giant spaces that open up to multiple exits — and puzzles that you need to remember and return to later, but it never feels disorienting.

Jabu-Jabu has a much more basic layout, on paper, but I get lost in those bodily tubes every time I get to it. Credit to Darunia for decorating Death Mountain's corridors with such visually distinct palettes, then.

It means that despite the sheer number of small keys and locked doors, I always had a fairly decent idea of where I had already been and where I needed to go next. Things might be a little more confusing if every freed Goron didn't come with a temple tip (there are some mechanics that it would be better to discover yourself, if you ask me), but the constant uncaging gives the whole thing a clear forward momentum from one room to the next.

I particularly enjoyed the number of puzzle box rooms this time around. There is a decent amount of combat in the Fire Temple, but it feels much more thinky on the whole. Not only is this your introduction to crystal switches, but it quickly develops your understanding of them to include timers, platforming requirements and item-specific triggering. Placing a bomb to get a head start on a timer countdown is old news today, but it's still immensely satisfying to pull off.

I'll give a shoutout, too, to the versatility of the dungeon's unlockable item: the Megaton Hammer. It's a weapon, it's an obstacle remover, it's even used to solve puzzles with those rusty switches. I'm mainlining dungeons and ignoring side quests in this playthrough, so who knows, it might even come in handy in the very late game...

It's also crucial for solving the biggest puzzle of them all. Climbing to the top of the dungeon and navigating the fire mazes, I knocked the central pillar free and rode it down to the room where it all started. I can confirm, it's as satisfying a jump today as it was all those years ago.

But there was still one puzzle left: that locked-up Goron and Boss Key Chest we saw in the very first room. With hammer in hand(s), I knocked away the stone statue from the blocked door and took a new path around to the left, slamming the switch and freeing the caged creature. God, I love it when a dungeon goes all circular.

With that itch sufficiently scratched, I hopped across the pillar and entered Volvagia's chamber (with only the slightest titter from the schoolboy in me). This feels like an encounter that will really benefit from some increased dramatics on Switch 2. I love the concept — a lava-filled Whack-a-Dragon that steadily increases in challenge with different hole telegraphing and aerial attacks — but man, the big, scary dragon sure looks a little weedy in 2026.

Either way, with a few swings of my hammer, Volvagia was down, its airborne body dissipating into bones before the skull crashes to the floor. How wonderfully horrifying.

Remake Reflections

The Fire Temple is An Absolute Stunner™ and perhaps the biggest surprise of my playthrough so far. Seriously, how had I forgotten so much about this place? With some fresh HD lava lighting and a suitable boss 'embiggening', this one has the potential to sit right up the top of my list.

It's on to everyone's favourite location next week, as I tackle the most-discussed dungeon in the game. See you all then, and don't forget your spare pair of shoes!