Misery Mire, The Lock & Key Formula - Dungeon Design in Zelda 

I loved how the dichotomy of the desert and the mire worked in the game

I can't wait for you to get to A Link Between Worlds' dungeons. Some of my favorites in the series, especially the Lorulian dungeons and _especially_ especially the Dark Palace, with the Thieves' Hideout being a fairly close second.

Do wish Misery Mire had a bit more swamp elements in it. Like puddles of water as if the swamp has been leaking into it

How I would fix Vitreous: Link enters a room with two floor switches next to two beam shooter statues. Vitreous appears completely covered in impenetrable slime. It's attacks include launching smaller eyeballs that bounce across the room before returning to the slime, and the lightning strikes that aim in a spot where Link is standing. To defeat it, Link must create a block on one of the switches and stand on the other. The combined beams melt the slime, leaving the central eye vulnerable to attack.

Misery Mire used to be the most confusing ALttP dungeon for me because you had access to multiple locked doors at the same time, so I was always worried about wasting keys on dead ends. Also the rooms with the spiky floors are a pain to navigate if you didn't obtain the Magic Cape.

I love this dungeon. I’m… not sure why… but I really love it. I especially really liked the colour scheme of this place- it was always memorable to me. On top of this, I felt like this dungeon has a lot more memorable rooms like the fishbone one and the strange bridges across the void! The cane is just a cool item too; strange it’s utilised far more in the next dungeon. Vitreous… vitreous who? Ah right… lacklustre for sure. Sad this place ends on a mediocre note

I actually thought BotW / TotK missed a huge opportunity - Vitreous could have been brought back as a world boss made of Malice Eyes. Would have been a cool redemption and glowup for the most mid boss in the series not named Facade or Angler.

The thing that always seemed weird about Vitreous (at least as a kid when this game first came out) was that the goop on the floor hurt. Until you beat the eyeball and it stopped hurting.

3:38 - At least the dungeon lived up to its name

Another day, another Dungeon Design in Zelda BANGER! 🙌

The hole in the floor that looks like a death trap is one of the funnier things in the dungeons of this series, pretty sure like you said almost everyone knows to light the fires and to generally avoid black pits lol.

This is my favorite dungeon in ALTTP. I like how the walls are teal and how confusing it is. I even like how it is sort of a water dungeon but it only has one room of water.

Fantastic work as usual... Your "fixes" are always so on-point! This series is epic, thank you so much for the thorough research!

Cane of Somaria usage can be used for utility, granted that it costs MP. I can be sure that it can manipulate the Blade Trap in one of the dark rooms to allow for getting around that if you don't have quick movement down. I also have to check if it affects Winders and/or Anti-Fairies, but if it does, that could help against those things that are right before Vitreous. I will say that I agree that the pit to the Big Key could have stood to be more clear about leading to a safe location. I actually call out about it in my Effective Minimalist/No Damage Run of this place, which by the way has those blasted Medusas as a consistent threat. It's as you say: either a newbie gets confused about opening up the way to a pit that seems to be just a damage taking void, or a veteran will not necessarily realize that the pit was made accessible by lighting the 4 torches. As for Vitreous, standing in one corner eventually gets you hit. I tried that in practice. The fight is bad enough with the RNG lightning that can actually trail off to the side VERY quickly to the point of hitting you even when you're in the non-damaging part of the slime, which is particularly alarming when the stakes for a No Damage Run of this dungeon is having to deal with the Nayru forsaken Medusas all over again. By the way, I haven't checked if the Cane of Somaria's attack does anything to the smaller eyes, but if it does, I suppose it could help in devising a trap or splash damage attack against them without having to throw about Bombs. Of course, you'd be using resources at that point. But hey, you bring up your own points and we can see how we can compare notes. And yeah, the 2nd phase? What's that?

Thanks your community post reminder reminded me to check this out before bed, you are awesome.

Can’t wait for Turtle Rock.. misery mire was an okay dungeon. It reminded me of the legion of doom headquarters. I was hoping to fight like an alpha wizzarobe or aginiham as a boss.

I probably remember this one as the greatest struggle of all them for me when I was 12, but part of that's due to the circumstances. I didn't own the game yet so I was trying to beat it over a weekend rental session. I always had to start over because somebody would erase the game since the last time I rented it. On the try I finally reached this dungeon, I was absolutely stopped dead by that incorrectly represented hole you point out. I had NO idea you could drop down there, and ran out of time on the rental before I could figure it out. The next time I rented the game, I borrowed my friend's Game Genie so I could blast myself back to where I left off. Vitreous is the other boss that I had problems with back then also. I guess I just tried to charge in gung-ho and got owned - the eyeballs do gang up on you if you don't really spam the sword, and of course I didn't even expect the lightning attack the first time in, oof :V

despite some odd design choices such as two small keys in the same room where one is gated off by floor spikes and that one optional locked door that leads to 9 blue rupees after you get the big key, i really like how this dungeon is laid out. it is how to handle a non linear dungeon in a proper manner. only 2 small keys are needed out of the 6 locks and you can see how locked doors do lead to shortcuts.

9:13 I could be wrong, but that feels like a development error. Probably forgot to make sure the texture was right.

Cool, cool, I beat this dungeon last week.

You don't need the Hookshot to get the chest. I posted a video on RU-vid on how you can do that. It basically involves the way the Pegasus Boots work where if you press a directional key in a different direction from where you're dashing, Link will immediately stop dashing and start walking in that new direction. But yeah, I've long loved Misery Mire. Even just the name is memorable for me. I didn't think too much about the boss, but I think your ideas regarding how it can be improved are interesting. It can help prepare you for Turtle Rock, which you need the dungeon item in Misery Mire for.

Been watching this whole series as I am a Game Development Major and I am currently making a puzzle game for one of my classes and this series has been super freaking helpful in terms of thinking through puzzles ❤ Are you going to do Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks as well? I see you just started Link's Awakening so you probably wont get to either of these two anytime soon but I would love to see them in the future ❤️

I literally don't even remember Vitreous, having played this game twice, the second time within the last few years even. It's kinda weird, just dropped out of my brain, doesn't even seem familiar. Pretty much agree with your whole assessment of the dungeon, as well.

I find this way more fun on randomizer runs then normal. To be honest I have no clue what chests unlock normally other than one or two key/map/cane chests. I'm more into some superfluous chest giving me the golden sword or hookshot (after having used the peg boots to actually enter)

Huh...okay. So I was about to make a comment that eyes are basically fluid-filled sacs and that vitreous is the name of that fluid. I was right in a way, but I'm still glad I looked it up as there's more to it than that. So the word vitreous relates to the nature of glass. Specifically, it's a synonym for 'glassy'. What I was originally thinking of is what's called 'vitreous humor', though aside from my erroneous thought that it was the sole definition of 'vitreous', I was otherwise right. The 'vitreous humor' makes up about 80% of an eye's mass, and while definitely a fluid, it's so viscous that it's physically a thick gel. I guess the vitreous humor (and other 'vitreous' named areas of the eye like the 'vitreous membrane' and 'vitreous cortex') got their names because the vitreous humor is right behind the lens, and the vitreous membrane is its housing. Not sure what 'vitreous cortex' is, I just read it alongside 'vitreous membrane' in the blurb Google gave me from a link when I searched for 'vitreous humor'. So yeah, the boss Vitreous. Is it the big eyeball? All of the eyeballs that attack you? The four little eyeballs that stay in the toxic puddle? The toxic puddle itself?

Nice

I loved that block puzzle in the Ice Palace. I like puzzles which twist my minds 😁 Misery Mire dungeon is a good example of "well and clever constructed but badly themed". That's why it is so forgettable sadly... I liked the mire theme in the darkworld. Would have been cool, If they decided to put the mire biome in the depths of gerudo desert. :) the depths is... so poorly designed concerning variety sigh... :(

I’m never sure when you talk about back tracking and dead ends when you think it becomes “bad dungeon design” because a lot of the more labyrinthine dungeons you often talk about having dead ends almost as though it’s a good thing and part of the puzzle, but in other dungeons you praise them for looping you back to a central hub or to the next section via other means to prevent back tracking. Anyway, all good, thanks for these awesome vids 🫡❤

I noticed there is a lot of nitpicks when it comes to what Zelda things are called or named, but two important things to notice, why are ropes not called snakes for example, or why other things don’t follow an obvious naming convention? The second is why doesn’t something that fits in every Zelda game not fit in one specific game. Personally, being raised in a country different from my parents, it’s lead me to understand that many things are seen the same or named similar, but the understanding of the thing both cultures is the same, but that only works if the person knows that, everyone who doesn’t know of the others existence would call it a mystery. Consider “baking cookies and cooking bacon” or feet smell and noses run” if you told someone not from an English country that your nose is running, they would imagine you are speaking colloquially or that you don’t understand the language properly. Zelda feels that it has a lot of this from the translation of the designers mind, to the players mouth, which then goes to listeners ears. I hope this all makes sense to you readers, since what is going on in my mind might not make sense in your mind.

Usually the bosses are so memorable visually, what a shame.

Poor boss, is just a glorified flying tiles room.