Nightmare Chamber Dungeons

This special project was an idea that I've been having for quite some time, but didn't want to realize this until I had a completed Hero Mode save file of Link's Awakening on my own Nintendo Switch at the ready. Well, this is now the case. And it's no secret that I was having quite a lot of fun with the Chamber Dungeon on all my playthroughs of the remake, where I've spent a lot of time with it.

Other than completing the challenges in different ways, I've also made my own creations in the past with a small variety of different concepts. The Chamber Dungeon is very limited when it comes to creating dungeons, however, and is best enjoyed as a puzzle, where you try to fit the rooms together, while fulfilling multiple criteria.

Now, what I had in mind for this project was creating "nightmare versions" of all the dungeon from Link's Awakening by following a set of rules. Of course there are clear limitations of how difficult you can make things, but I was trying my best to make them as challenging as possible.

With the exception of the Color Dungeon, none of the dungeons can be fully recreated within the Chamber Dungeon, only parts of them. But these chambers should be in place where they used to be originally, whenever possible. I've used my chamber check from three years ago as a basis for this whole thing.

The rest of the chambers needed to be substituted, which is were the puzzle aspect comes in. The extra chambers for the respective dungeon were given priority, but because of this you will always have the boss twice within the dungeon, where I've usually made the one of the end "harder" by adding the +Bombs effect. As for the rest, I try to go with chambers that have something in common, like an enemy or an element, but what was most important was that the overall path of the dungeon stays in tact. Also, treasure chests should be around the same locations, but this was not a necessity.

And once everything was put in place, I've used +Effects on almost every chamber, where all of them have to be used at least once per dungeon, so there will always be a Wallmaster and a Shadow Link causing trouble. The Shadow Link isn't actually very difficult on his own, because all you have to do is hold R until he has unleashed a Spin Attack, where this is the time to strike. Rinse and repeat. It's most effective when combined with mini-bosses, where he will still attack you, unlike with the nine main bosses, where he just disappears for the moment.

The Wallmaster will leave you be with any sort of boss, even while fighting Shadow Link, but it will otherwise be constantly annoying you once he got summoned and even after it got defeated. Just leaving the current chamber will revive it and he will also revive after a short while in the same chamber... With some dungeons I've made it so that the Wallmaster can be avoided or postponed, with others you will have it on your toes right from the beginning. But it's interesting what you can actually do with one, once you're forced to deal with it, e.g. destroy cracked blocks or defeat enemies.

Now, let's take a look at each nightmare dungeon individually:

The Color Dungeon was my first creation, which I made when I've first replayed Link's Awakening back in 2021. It's where this entire idea started. At first, I simply enjoyed recreating the Color Dungeon inside the Chamber Dungeon, because it's possible from start to finish. It's the only dungeon where every single room got turned into a chamber. But then I wanted to mix things up by making it as difficult as possible by adding +Effects everywhere.

You will run into the Wallmaster right at the first room with the color crystals, so that even going into the Rupee room may give you some trouble. It's where I've put the +Rupees effect, because otherwise it wouldn't be worth the detour.

It's raining bombs pretty much everywhere in this dungeon, which can screw you up quite badly with all the color puzzles. The worst is certainly the room with the nine color switches. If you don't solve this quickly, then one of the raining bombs will mess things up. The bombs will stop eventually, but the Wallmaster keeps coming back and he can also hit the switches, so this can turn a true puzzle nightmare. The bombs can cause such a mess here that this nightmare dungeon still feels like the worst of them, despite being much smaller than the rest.

I've always hated the Giant Buzz Blob and naturally I had to make it worse by adding the Shadow Link there. Originally, I had the Shadow Link in the room with the nine color switches, but then you could just easily avoid him by rushing straight to the boss.

Speaking of the boss, I could have gone for an extended versions with the second Hardhit Beetle and the Great Fairy's Chamber, but fighting the same boss twice in a row seemed a bit lame. Also, then I would have needed to include a chamber from another dungeon, but I wanted to keep things clean in this case, because it was possible.

Since you only get eight free slots for arranging dungeons, I had to copy this over into Hero Mode via amiibo. But that's fine, because the Color Dungeon always was supposed to be an extra dungeon anyway.

The Tail Cave is the perfect example of a dungeon where you have an uneven number of stairs. In this case the stair case before the boss actually went down into the Moldorm pit, but dropping down from the Moldorm boss chamber won't get you there (this would have been an amazing detail, though).

I then came up with an extended version of the dungeon, which has a longer tail. This was to include the second extra chamber with the Blade Traps and Keese, which was based on the chamber with the staircase to the Moldorm pit right below. It has its exits to the south and east, which was otherwise a bad fit. But with the longer tail the dungeon map looks better, too:

Since this is the first dungeon, it's not supposed to be too difficult. I've put the Wallmaster into the room with the Secret Seashell, so you can decide whether you want to face it early or postpone it as long as possible. Right next door Shadow Link is fought together with a Vire, which isn't too tricky as long as you're shielding. You can even reflect Vire's projectiles to hurt the Shadow Link. Or you can avoid fighting them together by standing still in the beginning. The Shadow Link won't spawn until you've moved a bit.

Originally I thought that you may be able to avoid the Wallmaster altogether by letting the Shadow Link follow you into the room with the treasure chest. But the game will still remember that you've entered the Wallmaster chamber and summon it once the Shadow Link got defeated.

With the Bottle Grotto putting things together got already more tricky and I was doubting at first that it was even possible, because of how the staircases connect. You have no control over it and it uses the nearest neighbor principle, so the staircases around the Hinox are getting connected and essentially create a dead end there.

In order to make things work I had to sneak in another staircase where the Conch Horn normally would be. Otherwise the entire upper part of the dungeon would have been cut off and the whole thing wouldn't have been playable... So, you need some leeway here and there. But this also creates a completely different route through the dungeon, where you may end up finding the Nightmare Key where the Power Bracelet or the Map used to be.

With Level 2 I always associate the uneasy feeling of entering the second half of the dungeon, where you have to face the Hinox after the underground tunnel. It's the one point in the game where I still might screw up and die, even after all these years. But of course the Hinox is no threat in the late game, plus he's not even there at the end of the tunnel.

Which is why I've added Shadow Link right there into the Moblin Chief's Chamber... Having this here as a mini-boss felt like a good fit, because you have to battle the Moblin Chief before Level 2. And combining him with Shadow Link makes for an interesting battle, where you have to be on the defense quite heavily. Usually the best strategy is to defeat the mini-boss as quickly as possible and then chill with the Shadow Link, but that's not possible here, because the Moblin Chief can only be hurt after he slammed into the wall.

The Wallmaster also  appears right before the first tunnel, just to give you this threat of being put back to the beginning for the entire rest of the dungeon. Since the Hinox is entirely optional in this design, I've added the +Rupees effect to his chamber, so you have some incentive to go there.

The Key Cavern was a trickier composition, mainly because you don't have any real floors inside the Chamber Dungeon and the stairs needed to be connected just in the right way. There also aren't that many chambers from Level 3 and some of them don't have their stairs anymore, so I had to improvise quite a bit. The small key now looks more like a lock pick, but I had to add the hallways with stairs there to make the necessary connections.

You first play through the big key, where the entire 4x3 part at the top had to be substituted, which is a shame. At least I could use the two extra chambers based on Level 3 in this area. I've also put the Dodongo Snakes room from Level 8 there into the middle, which isn't entirely truthful to the original dungeon in terms of doorways, but sacrifices had to be made.

The Shadow Link also waits for you here in the Ball and Chain Trooper's Chamber, which isn't a big deal, because you can just defeat the trooper very quickly. But it's the same idea as with the Moblin Chief in the "Nightmare Bottle Grotto".

The Angler's Tunnel was a lot more satisfying to craft, despite the fact that it even has less chambers available than Level 3. But the map looks identical to the original and I could make good use of the extra chambers with the bosses to fill some space.

After half of the dungeon you can make a choice between two different Cue Ball fights. The original square has +Bombs, the other to the south has the Shadow Link inside. I never even tried the latter, where I thought it was okay to have at least one dungeon where you can avoid the Shadow Link entirely.

You will have the Wallmaster stalking you the entire time, though, but I liked how he interacted with some elements of the dungeon here, like smashing crystals and cracked blocks.

The Catfish's Maw is the first in the "Labyrinth" tier (all the others before have been "Mazes") and its map shape could also be recreated quite faithfully. You get more than half of the original rooms to work with, which is great.

As a gimmick I wanted to have each of the Master Stalfos chambers to have a different +Effect, where the two dead ends have +Hearts and +Rupees to give you an incentive to enter them... The ones that have to be passed of course throw bombs and the Shadow Link at you, just because. You can skip the former (and easier) battle, however, by using the connected stairs.

Where you normally would find the Hookshot may also your final stop for the nightmare key. Well, technically it's the room right before, but you may decide to still fight the Master Stalfos for some Rupees (not that I still needed any at this point). So, you still get the same order with the Master Stalfos rooms, given that you're doing things efficiently.

The Wallmaster here will only become a threat later on and can also be postponed, because it was getting a bit much at this point...

The Face Shrines looks much bulkier with this extended design, but this is the result of the one chamber above the Smasher, which normally loops you back three rooms into the south. Of course this is not possible with the Chamber Dungeon, so gaps had to be filled and this was the best spot to include the extra chamber with the flying tiles, which you can get from the Town Tool Shop.

Unlike the original dungeon, here you start by clearing the east half of the dungeon. Well, you don't have to, but it's more efficient, because the final boss room is now connected to the west half. This is even true to the original dungeon map, it's just the insides of the rooms of Level 6 were partitioned.

The Smasher can be avoided entirely by using the stairs, but there are the bosses from Level 4 to make up for it in the area with the water trench. You can basically make a choice here between fighting the Smasher or the Cue Ball. Or both, if you want to be thorough.

At first I was going to partner the Smasher with the Shadow Link, but then I included the Armos Knight's Chamber in the upper west wing to make the dungeon symmetrical again. And having the Shadow Link there felt like a more meaningful challenge, while it stays true to same idea from Levels 2 and 3 with the Moblin Chief and the Ball & Chain Trooper. The Armors Knight is the mini-boss who has to be fought before Level 6 (well, you can do it earlier, but this is the latest point), so it's the same pattern as before.

Sadly, there is no chamber for the Lanmola from the Yarna Desert, which would have been great for Level 4.

The Eagle's Tower has always been my favorite dungeon in the base game, but here it's among my least favorite compositions, next to Level 3. There are just so many rooms missing and I didn't even bother with keeping all of the existing chambers in the right spot.

The Grim Creeper now sits down at the first floor, where he can be ignored. There is nothing to change this, because the whole chamber is pointless. I could have added the +Rupees in there, but I was saving this for the next floor..

There you have two Smashers, which are there to represent the pillars that are getting smashed with the iron ball. Pretty clever, huh? They can be entirely avoided, however, and so can the Wallmaster. I had one dungeon where you can fully avoid the Shadow Link (Level 4), so I wanted one where this is true for the Wallmaster as well and here we go. It's also interesting how you basically want to go around the center of 2F, while it's the most important part of the original dungeon with the four pillars.

Anyway, the Shadow Link gets partnered with a Rolling Bones. I already could have done this in the first dungeon, but I didn't, so here is to make up for it, but of course this is one of the easier combos, if not the easiest. He would have made a great combo with the Grim Creeper if there were a chamber with him that you actually need to pass through...

Last but not least, we have Turtle Rock, which got a bit chubbier at the top, but there is a good reason for that. It otherwise would have been tricky to include the extra chambers for the dungeon, where there are five in total and this solution features all of them.

Overall the dungeon has the most chambers to offer with a total of 30, not counting the additional ones. You can recreate two thirds of the entire dungeon, where this was the most fun to make after the Color Dungeon..

The chambers for the Dodongo Snakes both don't fit the original flow, however, so I've put the extra version (also available in the Town Tool Shop) with an exit to the south one space north of where they originally were. It's also connected to the second Hot Head, where here you need to fight it in order to get to the first Blaino, where originally you would obtain the Magic Rod.

On the other side of this expansion you have the extra chamber with the cracked floors and the second Blaino, where the latter simply had to be friends with Shadow Link. This is one of the tougher situations, but as always the key is to take out the mini-boss as quickly as possible. And it's a good finale for the dungeon, where this potentially is the room with the Nightmare Key.

The original Turtle Rock toys with the idea of throwing you back to the entrance, not just with Blaino, but also with the "Vacuum Mouth" in the southwest corner room. So, it seemed like a good fit to expand this with a Wallmaster, who follows you right from the beginning. After you could avoid it entirely in Level 7, I had to just go with the worst for the final dungeon.

I've been iterating most of these dungeons multiple times to make them more difficult, but for the most part this just resulted in placing the Wallmaster and the Shadow Link in tougher positions. There is only so much you can do here and a veteran player (like myself) won't have much trouble with any of these, even in Hero Mode.

And during this project there were three flaws with the Chamber Dungeon that really became apparent once more and made things less enjoyable:

• There are simply too many omissions, mainly chambers from the Levels 3 and 7. With that there are also some enemies that never appear in the Chamber Dungeon, like the Bombites, Like Likes, and Anti-Kirby. It's just disappointing.
  
  
• The chosen tunnels are just random. If you want a specific tunnel somewhere, you will have to remove the chamber with the staircase, place it again, and hope for the best. Of course you won't know what tunnel goes there until you've played the dungeon again...
  
  
• There is always the same music. Even though it has four different renditions based on the size of the dungeon, it just gets very repetitive after going through the 24 challenges and then eight more dungeons. An option to choose from any of the original dungeon tracks would have been really awesome for this project and could have set a much better mood.
  

Still, this is something I wanted to do and something that feels like a great conclusion to my long journey with the Chamber Dungeon. If Nintendo ever were to give us a proper dungeon maker for Zelda, I would probably make good use of it.