YOUR FAVORITE RPG DUNGEON(S)

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Dungeons have always been an interesting area in game making and RPGs for me. There are many RPGs out there, each with their own set of dungeons.
What makes dungeons good and memorable can be decided by many things: fun mechanics, interesting enemies, creative puzzles, nice and fitting music, beautiful environments, dungeon development (dungeons changing bit by bit the further you go, getting tougher etc.).

I'm very curious to see what dungeons other people favor and most importantly: why.


An RPG dungeon I can think of to call my favorite at the moment would be Liligue Cave, from Grandia II. A simple reason why I enjoy this mostly because of the atmosphere, environments and monsters.
The dungeon has about three different looks, which changes progressively. At the start, it looks like a dark and abandoned mine:

As you get further, the dungeon turns into what appears to be an ancient ceremonial temple, infested with creepy monsters. Something like this:

Just before the boss, you will step outside the temple and find yourself at the edge of some massive cliffs. Unfortunately, I don't have a screenshot of the cliff edge. After the cliffs, you will simply go back in to the temple through another cracked wall/door and fight this thing:

That boss has always been memorable to me. Probably because of how bizarre it looks, the sound it makes and the brutal attacks/spells it uses.

As you probably have noticed, the main reason why I like this dungeon so much is because of the dungeons aesthetics and the bizarre monsters. Mechanic-wise, it's pretty straight forward. Traverse mazes, explore, fight monsters... There are a few puzzles, but they're pretty standard and overly simple switch pressing and block pushing.

The difficulty of the dungeon game is overall pretty easy. I've had little to no problems with this game in terms of battles and puzzles. And yet, this possibly simple dungeon has stuck with me for so long. Of course, there will be nostalgia and personal opinions why we favor the dungeons we do.

What the dungeon could've improve on (IMO): made enemies tougher and puzzles more challenging and/or a little more unique.

What is your favorite dungeon and why? What did you like about it specifically and what do you think developer(s) could've done to make it better?

(If you could include images, that would be very appreciated. ^^ Also, if you want to have any honorable mentions or dungeons from other genres, feel free to do so, but make it pretty brief. The focus here is on 'RPG' dungeons.)
I think my favourite dungeons are a mixed bunch.

Bloody Mary's castle (Sylvain Castle) in Terranigma is my idea of a perfect jRPG dungeon. It's got a lot of 'default' stuff - collect the items in order to unlock the thing to get to the boss whilst avoiding/defeating enemies, but it does that so damn well!



For one, the so-called keys to open the door are gemstones for portraits' eyes which have been cut out and they're hidden all over the place. You have to find them by completing puzzles, battling monsters, searching for hidden secrets and jumping over roofs.


Yes, roof jumping. Parkour in the 90s, folks~


Not only is the castle cut up in to areas, each area looks very different from each other, and yet very much a part of the whole. The design of the dungeon is interesting and varied and you get sucked into the whole atmosphere of the place.


And when you finally find your way through and collect all the eyes, you jump down a hole and have to play with Bloody Mary's doll collection, which would be bad enough, but then... then you have to battle Bloody Mary herself and she is a horrible piece of work.


Welcome to your damage output. She's definitely one of the harder bosses in the game if you don't know how to handle her.


And lets not forget the sound direction which ties the dungeon all together. Noice!



Lufia II's Ancient Dungeon is another one of my favourites, and one that I have spent hours apon hours playing. It's a randomly generated 100 floor dungeon. You start on level 1 with your party and pets de-evolved, 5 potions to your name and have to grab chests (randomly spawning with random items, spells, armour, weapons) and make your way through.


The only way out is if you die (you lose everything), if you use the Providence that you can find around level 20 (yay - though you can drop it or feed it to a pet, which is not-yay) or beat the dungeon (including the boss).


Blue chests hold items that come out of the dungeon with you and can come back into the dungeon again. They also hold some of the best armour and weapons in the game, so finding them is the name of the game - but beware! There are mimics.

Most of Lufia II's dungeons are great - they incorporate puzzles seamlessly and have a lot of hidden treasures. The game is worth playing just to check out the dungeon design. And while the Ancient Dungeon doesn't have puzzles, it's still a hell of a lot of fun.



Lastly, for a more recent (in comparison) dungeon, Okami's first real dungeon makes it on to my list (though to be honest, all of them are great). Okami itself is a very beautiful game and well worth checking out if you haven't already. The dungeon design is also very, very well done.


Hana Valley is your first dungeon and the one that introduces you to restoring the world with the power of your paintbrush. It starts out very grey and bland - a wasteland where imps play their instruments and sit around campfires.


You make your way through, beating the enemies and altering the area with your Celestial brush, cutting rocks that get in your way and shining the sun (yes, you control the celestial bodies) until you get to the end where you pick up another power for your brush.


That of regeneration.


You're then free to revitalise the world, returning the beauty to the barren wasteland it has become, giving back life to the world.



Look at this pretty shit. Look at it. Go play it. Go. Now. While you still have breath in your body. Play. That. Shit.

There's a few that I enjoy, which are mainly Pokémon ones:

Ice Path from Pokémon Gold&Silver is one of my favourite dungeons of all. Not only does it have a nice background theme (shared with Dark Cave and Whirl Islands), the lack of trainers gives the path an overall relaxed theme. Though there is a few NPCs in it in the remakes, those are temporary and mostly unobstrusive. Furthermore, the BGM was remastered in a great way.

Another good one is the Distortion World in Platinum. A mysterious, puzzle-oriented dungeon with a good amount of exposition and great focus on the only two fights (vs. Cyrus and vs. Giratina). Not to mention how this dungeon is introduced.

From Black&White, we have Chargestone Cave. This is proof that it's possible for a dungeon to be original. It also has some cool Pokémon, some interesting story encounters (such as the first meeting with the Shadow Triad) and decent puzzle elements.

Sky Pillar from Emerald wasn't all that interesting, as the puzzle is annoying and all you do is watching Rayquaza fly off at the top. Omega Ruby&Alpha Sapphire make it far more exciting as the final dungeon of the Delta Episode, giving it an amazing design and has you catch Rayquaza by bringing seven Dragonballs Key Stones. Rest is spoilers:
You then battle Zinnia while getting Rayquaza into your team, replacing whoever you want. Rayquaza gains a new move called Dragon Ascent, allowing it to Mega Evolve. To give you an idea how strong it is, there's a banlist on Smogon University that is known as the Uber Tier, full of Pokémon too overpowered for standard play. Mega Rayquaza is so broken that it was banned from Ubers, creating a tier known as Anything Goes. After beating Zinnia, you then use Mega Rayquaza to fly off into space to fight (and hopefully catch) Deoxys.
Interesting dungeons everyone. I'm pretty sure a lot of them could be done similarly with RM.

@Liberty:
I like the layout of that castle. That parkour jump between those towers were awesome! I like the idea of having different entrances/exits to a dungeon, like that castle and Death Mountain from ALttP.

I've heard a lot of good things about Lufia's puzzles, so I guess I'll have to check out that series sooner or later. ^^

@Mysticphoenix:
Toy factory looks pretty cool! I like its aesthetics.

@Lightning:
I've played some of those games and remember Sky Pillar being very hard (when you had to ride fast on your bike past the cracks.) Distortion Worlds was just chaotic and awesome. I enjoyed the platforming and gravity mechanics in that one.

The other dungeons you mentioned looked pretty fun!
I got super stuck in Lufia 2 a bunch of times back when I first played it. Of course, I was a kid, and way worse at puzzles then than I am now. But the last time I replayed it, as a late teen if I remember correctly, some of them were still frustrating enough to make me resort to a guide (although I suppose I've been rather spoiled by having the option.)

I've always felt the final dungeon of Brave Fencer Musashi was really well put together. There are plenty of points in the game that demand puzzle-solving approaches which usually keep you lingering in one spot for a while while you figure them out, but the final dungeon, while not actually timed,unlike a couple other points in the game, is one of few points in the game which cultivates a sense of desperate urgency. Rather than keeping you pinned to one spot for any extended period, the final dungeon throws a barrage of obstacles which would be totally impassable without the complete complement of in-game abilities you've recently acquired, and wave upon wave of formidable enemies, which your character should by now be equipped to mow through with more or less constant momentum. It's well calibrated to make the player feel like the antagonists are throwing everything they've got at the protagonist, but he's become too much of a one-man-army for them to hold him off. Since the protagonist receives his abilities in a very piecemeal fashion over the course of the game, and most of them are only useful in very particular circumstances, but the final dungeon requires you to make full use of everything, it makes for a really satisfying conclusion.

Although none of its dungeons really featured significant puzzle content, or were particularly challenging to my recollection, I still remember the impression some of Final Fantasy VII's dungeons made on me for their atmospheric quality, especially the City of the Ancients.

The final dungeon of Dark Cloud (the Corridor of Time) also had a great atmosphere, and I thought it did a really good job integrating the exposition leading up to the final confrontation with the gameplay mechanics which had, previously in the game, been used for town-building.

I guess even though I like some good puzzles or challenging battles, it's the dungeons with exceptional atmosphere that really stick with me.
For Morrowind, it was mostly Dagoth Ur's creepy, unexpected voice echoing during the last dungeon that has made the end part of that game very memorable for me.

In Final Fantasy VIII, the last dungeon also made an impression due to how underequipped my party had been as I entered that place, and the struggle over many days it took me to prevail (sealing limit breaks first thing WASN'T the best idea one could come with!)
I love FF9 inside and out... every area is so unique yet linked together through esoteric imagery and symbolic use of colour. Many of the dungeons in that game feel suitably ancient, mysterious and threatening and I love the dichotomy between the design of Gaia and Terra. I think that game does a really good job of weaving themes from the plot into the game world itself.

Many dungeons in FF7 are very atmospheric and beautiful. I love huge chunks from that game, especially the more mysterious places like the forgotten city and the northern crater. Like many of the levels in FF9, these places feel very otherworldly and creepy.

I love the glacier section of FF7. Considering Aeris has just been murdered, this part of the game feels strangely serene (well, after you've soared down the mountain on a snowboard) due largely to the gentle music that plays through the whole level. Not sure why but I have fond memories of studying that misleading map, trying to find the landmarks, getting lost and inevitably collapsing only to wake up in that dude's cabin.

Not sure it can be classified as a dungeon, more of a hub world for a few dungeons; in Dragon Age: Inquisition, the first area to really make an impression on me was the Western Front. That place looks like it appeared there from the 1980s Conan movies, and that is so freaking awesome I can hardly stand it. I love seeing all the spiky black towers and statues on the horizon, and the fortress there looks nothing short of badass. The medieval style cryptozoological monsters are really cool, too.

I never finished Wild Arms but I do in retrospect like the very game-y puzzles. Each of your three characters have a set of unique abilities like being able to set fire to things or to rewind time. There're statue-shoving puzzles and the like as well.

My favourite RPG dungeons?

The lighthouses of the Golden Sun Games (The first two).

Some of the other dungeons are iffy (I'm looking at you, elemental rocks! It's so easy to get turned around and lost in those!), but the lighthouses have been consistently awesome. Tons of neat element-themed puzzles, liberal usage of your on-map magic to solve them, the lighthouses are just plain awesome IMO.

That, and you can't top Venus Lighthouse's music. It's heroic, it's epic, it's perfect. ^_^
author=Liberty
I think my favourite dungeons are a mixed bunch.

Bloody Mary's castle (Sylvain Castle) in Terranigma is my idea of a perfect jRPG dungeon. It's got a lot of 'default' stuff - collect the items in order to unlock the thing to get to the boss whilst avoiding/defeating enemies, but it does that so damn well!



For one, the so-called keys to open the door are gemstones for portraits' eyes which have been cut out and they're hidden all over the place. You have to find them by completing puzzles, battling monsters, searching for hidden secrets and jumping over roofs.


Yes, roof jumping. Parkour in the 90s, folks~


Not only is the castle cut up in to areas, each area looks very different from each other, and yet very much a part of the whole. The design of the dungeon is interesting and varied and you get sucked into the whole atmosphere of the place.


And when you finally find your way through and collect all the eyes, you jump down a hole and have to play with Bloody Mary's doll collection, which would be bad enough, but then... then you have to battle Bloody Mary herself and she is a horrible piece of work.


Welcome to your damage output. She's definitely one of the harder bosses in the game if you don't know how to handle her.

And lets not forget the sound direction which ties the dungeon all together. Noice!



Lufia II's Ancient Dungeon is another one of my favourites, and one that I have spent hours apon hours playing. It's a randomly generated 100 floor dungeon. You start on level 1 with your party and pets de-evolved, 5 potions to your name and have to grab chests (randomly spawning with random items, spells, armour, weapons) and make your way through.


The only way out is if you die (you lose everything), if you use the Providence that you can find around level 20 (yay - though you can drop it or feed it to a pet, which is not-yay) or beat the dungeon (including the boss).


Blue chests hold items that come out of the dungeon with you and can come back into the dungeon again. They also hold some of the best armour and weapons in the game, so finding them is the name of the game - but beware! There are mimics.

Most of Lufia II's dungeons are great - they incorporate puzzles seamlessly and have a lot of hidden treasures. The game is worth playing just to check out the dungeon design. And while the Ancient Dungeon doesn't have puzzles, it's still a hell of a lot of fun.



Lastly, for a more recent (in comparison) dungeon, Okami's first real dungeon makes it on to my list (though to be honest, all of them are great). Okami itself is a very beautiful game and well worth checking out if you haven't already. The dungeon design is also very, very well done.


Hana Valley is your first dungeon and the one that introduces you to restoring the world with the power of your paintbrush. It starts out very grey and bland - a wasteland where imps play their instruments and sit around campfires.


You make your way through, beating the enemies and altering the area with your Celestial brush, cutting rocks that get in your way and shining the sun (yes, you control the celestial bodies) until you get to the end where you pick up another power for your brush.


That of regeneration.


You're then free to revitalise the world, returning the beauty to the barren wasteland it has become, giving back life to the world.



Look at this pretty shit. Look at it. Go play it. Go. Now. While you still have breath in your body. Play. That. Shit.


I'm gonna have to concur on all counts, except those aren't my favorite dungeons.

Lufia 2: Dragon Mountain has a weird bomb regen puzzle (for a hidden entrance) followed by a puzzle where you try to move long tiles.

Terranigma: I think the Zue dungeon. Awakening these altars was kinda cool.

Okami: The most memorable one was probably Ninetails dungeon. Racing that talisman thing and having to cheat like crazy because it was going warp speed. To say nothing of the loads of puzzles there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfhCmwEWFJ8

The Hollow Bastion was sorta cool in the first KH game. You had just made it through and were sealing up all these worlds and stuff (depending on what order you did the game, you get some serious extra story content), and then suddenly you have your friends ditch you and your keyblade taken away, you have a puzzle with pieces of a doorway to open, and library shelving. Oh yea, and when you get through it, you get to be a Heartless and navigate through without being able to enter areas normally.
author=bulmabriefs144
Lufia 2: Dragon Mountain has a weird bomb regen puzzle (for a hidden entrance) followed by a puzzle where you try to move long tiles.

You have no idea how flummoxed I was to see an honest-to-god RUSH HOUR puzzle in that game. XD

The Hollow Bastion was sorta cool in the first KH game. You had just made it through and were sealing up all these worlds and stuff (depending on what order you did the game, you get some serious extra story content), and then suddenly you have your friends ditch you and your keyblade taken away, you have a puzzle with pieces of a doorway to open, and library shelving. Oh yea, and when you get through it, you get to be a Heartless and navigate through without being able to enter areas normally.

Totally my favourite world in KH1.

It's also shockingly different depending on your build. The first time, I went in as a straight up warrior. I was panicked without my keyblade, and depended on Beast for everything until I got it back. The second time, when I was a glass cannon mage (What I call the "Sniper" build) was the total opposite. I basically would have told Riku "I don't need a weapon. All I need is this crappy plastic/wooden sword. My magic is all I need. Taking my Keyblade away didn't even slow me down".

It was a heck of an experience to have such radically different runs through that world's opening.
Ah, Golden Sun brings back memories. I've only played the original, but that game really had some nice puzzles. I like how you could use psynergy outside of battles.

Those Lighthouses were particularly awesome from what I can remember; interesting, creative puzzles, nice music, good dungeon length and the plot that was going on just made it all feel so grande.

The GS series is easily one of the better RPGs out there. Very underrated too,
The Forest Temple from Ocarina of Time was particularly great.
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