Game Puzzle Analysis

Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker - Earth Temple Mirror Room

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker was a sucessful release in the Zelda series. Thanks to it's new sailing mechanic and cartoonish graphics, it also stood out as one of the most unique releases of the series.

Along with its new features, Wind Waker still held its theme of fighting through monster and puzzle filled dungeons. Out of these dungon puzzles, my favorite is the Mirror room of the Earth Temple.

The Earth temple gives player access to two unique mechanics. The Mirror Shield, which can be used to reflect and direct beams of light in order to active certain switches and stun enemies...

and Medli, a separately controllable character with a reflective harp that has the same abilities as the Mirror Shield.

With these mechanics, combined with the movable mirror statues in the temple, the player has to move and arrange the statues around the room in order to direct two light beams at two different switches, giving player access to the boss room.

One of my favorite aspects of this puzzle is how well introduced it is. As the final puzzle of the dungeon, the player must combine all the mechanics of the Earth Temple from using light beams to damange enimies to using Medli as another mirror to direct the beam light off. They do this via smaller "mini puzzles" which require only one of the new mechanics to complete at a time. This allows players to learn how to utilize the Mirror shield and Medli to tackle harder puzzles like the final room.

If i had to describe the puzzle using the Type Elements i'd say it contains elements of Unusual use of an object, "Building" puzzles, and Sequence puzzles. Unusual use comes from the fact that you're using a shield and a shiny harp as mirrors to direct beams of light. The building aspect comes from the mechanic of arranging the mirror statues in order to create a proper path for the light beams to follow. Finally, the sequence aspects arise when you have to first trigger certain switches in order before the rest of the puzzle can be completed, like moving a statue after triggering a switch so the light can continue on its path.

I believe this puzzle does a great job at making the player feel smart thanks to the difficulty ramp of the mini puzzles before it. It gives the main puzzle this feeling of a "Final Test" for the player to challenge, making its completion much more satisfying