Water Levels SuckSeptember 5th, 2007 by Monique
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Water levels suck.
There, I’ve said it. It was on your mind, anyway, and it has been for several years. You were thinking it when you threw the controller at the television in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time back in 1998 and you’re thinking it now. While in the past decade, gaming has arguably been redefined and many old facets rewritten with the new, at least one thing remains true: water levels suck. Whenever a gamer sees water, they immediately cringe.
My first encounter with a form of water level was rather primitive. It came from an awful game, a real gem known as Friday the 13th. The year was probably 1992, a few years after the game’s port to the NES in late 1989, and I had recently become a proud owner of my first console. I was enjoying gaming until this piece of shit nearly destroyed my young video gaming career. The basic premise of the game was that the infamous Jason Voohres is killing people at the camp and you have to stop him. It’s an awful game, and I won’t discuss that any further–we’ll leave the reviews to the pros, like Angry Video Game Nerd–but I will tell you that the camp where all the people were being massacred?
Well, it just so happens that it’s on a lake.
The game introduces the lake immediately, but for a long time, it remains just another terribly rendered background. As the game gets closer to an end, you even start to think that maybe the lake is inconsequential to killing Jason and saving the world. Eventually, though, it becomes a level. It was the icing on an already inedible cake that was Friday the 13th. Awkwardly paddling through Crystal Lake, trying to dodge slews of ill-placed sea monsters and other beasties/ghoulies, I quickly discovered the horror of water levels.
Hell, thy name is Crystal Lake.
I don’t even know how Friday the 13th ends. I don’t know this because I never finished that level of the game. I turned the game off when the awful controls caused me to drown for the tenth time in a row and I never looked back. I never killed Jason. I never saved those kids. All those kids at Camp Crystal Lake died. They were the first true victims of water levels and their blood is on video game designer’s hands.
Other water levels have been completable at least, if not highly irritating. Super Mario 64 comes into mind when I think of water levels for some reason. 
Other Mario games certainly had water levels too, but when I think of Mario and water, I find myself thinking of the eel with the star on his tail and the eerie sunken ship. Simply put, the eel level was scary. It had ambiance. You had to actually dive–with limited breath and an exceedingly awkward camera view–far under the surface to grab a star from its tail. For some reason, you could not kill the eel even though he wanted to kill you. For some other reason, Mario also swam like a bloated piece of kelp bobbing his way along which was not how a man trying to save a princess in a castle should swim. I mean, seriously, there was no reason for it! I remember looking up with the camera and seeing the surface so far above as the eel stalked Mario, getting closer and closer as Mario floated along, seemingly unaware of his plight. It was a little like the survival horror genre instead of adventure to my ten-year-old self.
Survival horror, actually, has had water levels as well. Every genre has been touched by this plague. Resident Evil’s remake featured a zombified shark named Neptune and his brood in the mansion’s sub levels. 
Apparently scientists thought the T-Virus would make an excellent addition to an aquarium. I would argue that these sharks are more terrifying than any Tyrant or undead abomination. I argue this because I could knife Tyrant, I could laugh in the face of zombie dogs, but the first time I saw that giant shark rip Richard in two, I ran right out of the room–first in the game, then in real life. There is even a scene after you drain the water and the creepy music stops playing where Neptune snaps at you; as if the murky water and the premise of zombie sharks wasn’t terrifying enough, the horror still wasn’t over when the water was removed. It was awful. Resident Evil 2 is my favorite of the series because it didn’t have a water level.
Tomb Raider 2 also had a particularly bitch of a water level that haunted me in my early years. If you ever played the game, you probably remember the scene where you start out underwater and must swim to a sunken oil rig before Lara runs out of breath. That alone might be annoying and terrifying enough–drowning is an awful way to go, when you think about it–but of course, there’s also a giant shark. And he doesn’t want Lara to live, because that would make things too easy. This was on the level of Neptune and the eel, trust me. It was scary.
So far we’ve covered two reasons why water levels tend to suck–the controls, the fear factor–and here’s the third and final reason: the puzzles. This is seen especially in the Legend of Zelda series. This is the basic principle of the inane draining techniques most game designers are inclined to put into a water level; the idea they seem to have that water needs to be drained, or else it wouldn’t be a water level. If you remember OoT’s draining system, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Nothing was scary about the water there and you could even breathe freely thanks to the Zora tunic, but you had to spend hours flipping levers for seemingly no purpose under Lake Hylia in the dark. What a terrible dungeon design. And speaking of design, you don’t want to even get me going on The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker’s version of Kevin Costner’s Waterworld. What a terrible game design. Whoever thought it would be cool to take pieces of Triforce and scatter them deep in the sea deserves a brain aneurysm. Each piece of Triforce I fought for amongst the pirates and sharks was a little piece of my soul being ripped to shreds by idea that water levels had potential to evolve into water games. It was a dark, miserable game and I pray no other designer gets that “creative” again.
So, have water levels ever been enjoyable?
No. They haven’t. 
Water levels truly suck, no matter how good in theory they sound. I mean, even in World of Warcraft, the pre-nerfed Serpentshrine Cavern proved this point when the mobs–consisting of angry Murlocs, Naga and crustaceans–reset every hour like clockwork. The problem with their prompt reset was that they oftentimes took your raid over an hour to kill. In SSC before the nerf, you were lucky if you got any attempts on a boss before the fish were back and ready for more. To top it off, the final boss of Serpentshrine, a giant fish bitch known as Lady Vashj, was unkillable for several weeks and, when she was finally downed, came back to life and generated no loot. It was a coding accident, sure, but if that doesn’t prove water levels suck, then what does?
In the end, water levels are poorly implemented and aggravating on multiple levels. It’s no wonder why we gamers are prone to cringing when we see that lake or that ocean. We know exactly what lies beneath the surface, and we know it ain’t pretty.
September 5th, 2007 at 10:52 am
I couldn’t agree with you more. The water temple in OoT drove me insane. Bad camera angles kept me from seeing the last key that I needed.
September 5th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
SSC doesn’t count as a water level. D: Only WoW instance which really deserves that title even a little is BFD, I think.
However, I am trying to find counterexamples to your thesis and am generally failing. The water level in Star Fox 64 sucked. Water levels with breath bars almost always suck. Labyrinth Zone in Sonic I is actually pretty classic, as is the Chemical Plant zone, but I’m not sure how much of their awesomeness I’d attribute to their waterleveness.
I think Mario 3 had some pretty tolerable water levels though. And actually the water temple in Majora’s Mask was actually pretty cool (I didn’t mind the OoT one so much either, but I won’t argue against the consensus), so… umm…
In the end, though, I think the general problems with water levels are because they exhibit a few common elements:
a) Slow gameplay, since you’re underwater… you don’t move as fast, and hence enemies don’t move as fast.. yawn.
b) Breath meters. Can be stress-inducing and annoying.
c) Often water levels are hard to navigate due to poor camera angles or the occluding environmental effects. This is mainly a problem in 3d games with water levels.
d) A lot of games don’t adapt their engines well to underwater encounters, and it feels kinda stupid if not broken. It’s very annoying to try to fight underwater in WoW, especially if you’re melee. A lot of FPS games, being underwater is just like being on land except now you can traverse the z-axis more easily. etc. etc.
September 5th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I hate water levels right away because of the fear of drowning. When games pressure you to find air to breathe as your life bar diminishes, that pisses me off right away. There’s always one time where you panic, lose your way and die. It’s unnerving for us all.
It’s even more miserable because we grew up with classic games that implemented water = death. Even most recently with “Grand Theft Auto” - a one-man army who’s capable to essentially control the world, but totally incapable of swimming if it meant your life. “Super Mario Bros”, for its initial gaming revolution debut, was nice enough to let the gamer play in the water without fear of the water itself. Maybe that’s why it’s considered the best game ever made?
September 5th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Mot–The camera angles were awful for the first N64 games, especially underwater. That’s why Mario was so bad, and it’s also why OoT’s WT was kind of dismal.
Peter–Two short things! I actually initially liked the Water Temple in OoT, but when I had to replay it a few times plus had played Wind Waker as well as Twilight Princess, I saw it as an enabler; one of the first water levels in 3d, and the first one for Zelda. Secondly, if SSC doesn’t count, then how about the quest in Desolace where you have to free crawfish from the crates? If you can’t carry a staff (i.e. the one from Gnomer) and are too cheap to find a Warlock, it’s goddamn aggravating. In general, water in WoW is awful. I sort of chose to bring up SSC because the Lurker Below, in particular, was a water fight I didn’t like the design of at all. Personal choice/soapbox against SSC
Shawn–Excellent point. I was going to mention GTA because my friend brought up water=death a few days ago when I mentioned I wanted to write about this, but totally forgot. Mario Bros definitely was nice about water, until 64. So was Donkey Kong as well, if I recall correctly. They had some nice pirate ship and fish levels that weren’t miserable.
September 5th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
zomg, I completely agree with you. Water levels suck. Actually any level that is supposed to be ‘different’ sucks. Games either kill you when you touch water, despite you being GODLIKE in your skills, or they torture you slowly.
I swear game designers have a sadistic streak in them that forces them to include an obligatory ‘oh my god I hate this bit’ level in every game.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Weird, I had this conversation with someone 3 days ago.
Even the water levels in that cute old Barbie Nintendo GameBoy game (you know, where you turn into the beautiful mermaid only to be decapitated by evil seahorses and sharks), were heinous.
September 5th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Shawn -
Actually, what I found amusing about Super Mario Bros. is that in the non-water levels, water (and lava) was basically just a background graphic - fall into that pool of “water” and you really just fell through the world like it was a bottomless pit. Lawl. I guess it’s because some levels were simply flagged as ‘water’ and some as ‘land’ and the game couldn’t move back and forth between the two… Mario 2 (Doki Doki Panic) had the same thing, but Mario 3 got past this.
Monique-
The Crawdad quest in Desolace is thankfully one of the easier water quests in Azeroth, mostly because the water isn’t that deep. I think you really have to check out Faldir’s Cove in Arathi (at level 40 or so) to get an appreciation for how annoying water environments in WoW can be, when you have to dive down for 10 seconds or so for every fight and then drag the mobs back to the surface to avoid drowning, to fight mobs that both RUN AWAY and SNARE YOU and you cannot chase at your slow water spped. To have the broken ship aggro mechanics where you end up pulling a billion guys at once when you thought it would be relatively safe, etc. etc. The real shame is that a lot of the underwater environments are very pretty and detailed (the Vile Reef in STV, Faldir’s Cove, the reef in the NW corner of Desolace), but the quests there are just so damn annoying, even with infinite breath.
Also, I was considering mentioning Lurker, but it can only very loosely be considered a water boss (only a little more than Ragnaros :P) and I personally don’t think it was a bad fight.
September 5th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Suzie–you’d almost think that after being gamers themselves they would know what NOT to do. Maybe it’s tempting to try to create the perfect water level. I suppose if I were a gamer dev, I would probably want to try to “fix” it and make a “fun” level and end up with something like Windwaker.
Peter–I think I remember those quests now. They weren’t Arathi, they were Wetlands! The pirates in the ship who were undead that you had to swim to? If it’s the same place I’m thinking of, I now cringe. And keep cringing. And start to feel sick to my stomach.
Elle–I had no idea such a terrible game even existed. Nightmares hi2u.
September 5th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
I’d have to agree about water levels. I remember hating them in the classic Mario games, and still do to this day.
I still remember an area in Legacy of Kain Series: Soul Reaver 2, where you had to do some “swimming”. The controls were a bit of a pain. I think to save time I actually shifted to the spirit realm and just walked it. Though I can’t completly remember that was a while ago.
Another that’s still fresh in my mind would be Kameo. That silly game had two water creatures you could turn into. So you just knew you were doing stuff in the water. They really didn’t think the controls out for the one character at all. I remember tossing my wireless controller in frustration. Best part was…there was a water boss at the end. Yay. :S
September 5th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Shawn and Suzie once again sum it all up perfectly.
1. Anything with a breath bar DOES suck. Especially in Ecco, which is pretty much the worst game of all time besides Friday the 13th (maybe if those rocks didn’t curve so damn much, it would actually be playable, or something), because the whole game is one big water level. Getting air is the most ridiculous thing ever…constantly dodging jelly fish and blow fish just trying to find a freakin’ pocket of water.
2. Suzie - Hahaha yeah, when you touch water you die. I hate games like that, although it’s VERY handy to turn this into your advantage in Worms on xbl. Once they hit water, they die instantly, it’s so crazy.
September 5th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Monique -
Actually, I know what quests you’re referring to in Wetlands, and although they’re not the same, that place was pretty cringe-inducing as well, though it was largely because there was absurd mob density… that can happen anywhere, land or water, though the water does exacerbate it… =\
Look at wowhead’s Arathi map (http://www.wowhead.com/?zone=45) and see the questgivers in the bottom-left cove.. those are the ones I’m talking about. If you’re really never been there, you missed out. D: If only on the frustration which could properly fuel this type of post..
September 6th, 2007 at 5:18 am
Arathi and Wetlands just shouldn’t exist. Those zones were horrible, along with the badlands…which had a delightful absence of water but still sucked somehow.
Must’ve been the mundane quests and the DAMN hyena aggro!
September 6th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Dana - Ecco the dolphin
I had the demo of that game.
Sonic the Hedgehog had pretty cool water levels, as Peter said. I think that’s the only one I can think of. I used to love getting those big water bubbles in Sonic. And letting Tails drown over and over and over and over and over.
September 6th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Water levels… *shudder*
You know, I actually liked the water in the original Tomb Raider. The Cistern is by far one of my most favorite levels ever. Except I recall a panicked swim for safety at the beginning of the next level…
September 9th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Never mentioned Bioshock, though. Does that count?
September 9th, 2007 at 9:10 am
The Challenge of Poseidon in God Of War absolutely sucked. I hated that so freaking much.
September 9th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Wade–I haven’t played Bioshock yet because I don’t own a 360 atm and I didn’t want to buy it for the PC because of the copy protection. I’ve heard it’s awesome though, but there’s always an exception to a rule right?
Vin–Oh man, don’t remind me of that level. That was hell as well.
September 10th, 2007 at 11:56 am
two words…. frog suit
you know what i’m talking about
but yeah, water levels are generally terrible. great article.
September 10th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
The Majora’s Mask water level was terrible too.
The only exception I can find to this rule is the lake in Resident Evil 4. First of all, it’s short and easy enough to not make you want to kill something. Second, Del Lago is one of the coolest bosses ever. Third, you can harpoon the fish and wolves after you kill him. It’s both useful and entertaining.
September 10th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Tchan–Thanks
And yes, I do know haha.
Austin–I loved Del Lago. I loved what RE:4 did with the lake as a whole. They built up the suspense appropriately and made the encounter innovative instead of annoying. Plus they ended the lake immediately; it wasn’t a giant level of never-ending puzzles.
September 10th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Hahaaa.. you know, I actually like water levels. As long as they aren’t pressuring me to swim back for air. I don’t know, I find them a nice change of pace for a moment.
September 10th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
All of these comments and nobody has mentioned the water level on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES. Seriously, evil, evil, evil…but just doable enough so that you kept at it. Great game, but that level made my controllers take a pounding.
Oh, and the ultimate NES water level. Jaws. As stupidly hard as Battletoads, with all of the fun of A Boy And His Blob. If you haven’t played it you should go out and get a ROM…you’ll never wish for the “glory days” of console gaming again.
September 10th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
I don’t know what’s wrong with me then, I LOVE water levels! Dire Dire Docks was my favorite area in Super Mario 64, the Water Temple was my favorite dungeon in OoT. I love the water zones in Sonic the Hedgehog, especial Hyrdocity in 3. And my most anticipated game for 2007 is the indie game Aquaria! I must be nuts.
September 10th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
All I can say is that the Shadow of the Colossus water level freaked the crap out of me. I don’t know why, it was just creepy
September 10th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
I completely agree! I thought I was the only one that hated water levels! I hated the slow impotence of Mario in the original! Ninja Gaiden (xbox) should also be mentioned- even after you get the scuba gear, the only worthwhile weapon you could use was the weak harpoon gun which MIGHT kill those fish in 8 or 9 shots!
September 10th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
There is one water level I liked…..the old SNES game E.V.O started in one
The premise was you started as a fish and had to evolve to higher life forms. It was an interesting game, if you want to see a water level that was done right, try this game ^^
September 10th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Metroid had some fun water levels.
September 11th, 2007 at 12:22 am
YEEEEAaAah, so true, you forgot crash bandicoot, i hated the water levels, i woula rather did the running away from the boulder than do the water levels…
September 11th, 2007 at 12:51 am
I got another WoW water moment for you… how about the level 40 Druid aquatic form quests… to get the form you have to swim to the bottome a damned near impossibly deap lake trying to find fissures that you can breathe near and also while trying to find the pieces to a talisman that when turned in finally grants you the ability to breathe underwater… PITA if you ask me and it took me at least 3 attempts to find the second piece… Cringe factor 6 on those quests thankfully I only did it once and never will have to I rolled a Pally for my next character.
September 11th, 2007 at 4:08 am
Swamp and bog are okay though. Especially in Myst.
September 11th, 2007 at 4:20 am
the only water i ever liked in a game is insanyquarium!! that game ROCKS! but thats probably just becouse the’re fish so they don’t die of drowning, and the game was made for waterlevels.
oh, and in some games you can’t swim, but you CAN fish! like in harvest moon, that game rocks!
September 11th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Water hazard levels in Half-Life 2. Need I say more? They kicked ass, if you discard the huge loading times. Still though, you loose.
September 11th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Was I the only person who played Treasures of the Deep for PSX? I have some very fond memories of that game as a whole, with an exception for that one level with the heavy currents. I think it had something to do with bombs… But seriously, this was great game and it is 100% aquatic.
I see what you mean on some of it though. WoW has some pretty crappy water areas, especially for classes w/o water breathing. Seriously, those damn murlocs of the coast of STV with the shrine? Ridiculous.
Personally I find it’s about 50/50 for water levels. For every innovative and brilliantly designed marine segment, there’s an utterly hellish and frustrating bit that goes on too long with camera and controls that could be better programmed by a dead hippo.
September 11th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Urg…yes, water levels suck, completely and utterly. In Mario 64, they were bad (I downloaded an emulator just so I could speed up the framerate xD), but I couldn’t imagine how awful they are in FPS…
oh yes, and rain is also not cool. It makes seeing hard…and if the rain gathers and starts to fill the room that you’re in, killing you? I’d rather not even get into that >_>
@hammer - ROFL, dead hippo…
September 11th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
I think the only thing I hate more than a water level in a game is the dreaded elevator scene, where you’re on an elevator fighting for your life in a tiny cramped space (usually) and it’s used to many times I dread those elevators..
September 11th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
omg, the water levels in the original 3 sonic games drove me nuts cause I would be zooming along really really fast and then that dundundundundundun music would start playing because I was running out of breath and then I would try to get to the surface as fast as I could and end up dieing because the dundundundundundundun music just made me try too hard on the controls not to mention the physics in those games sucked a$$ >
September 11th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
What about the Water levels in the first Devil May Cry?
*shudder*
September 11th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
I totally forgot about elevator levels… urgh. The one in Metal Gear Solid was decent enough (but the story was corny. “Snake, did you notice that the weight limit alarm went off when you got on the elevator?” “Yeah” “OMFG INVISIBLE ENEMIES!!!”) but it was bearable because it wasn’t too long or hard.
And the challenge on God of War 2, that long elevator ride with all the satyrs and crap? And the one thats actually part of the story with the dogs and you have to stop and push yourself off the top, but the dogs keep biting you and making you die? Lame.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Thank God, someone else who totally hated the water temple in Ocarina.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
The hatred of water levels has spread far and wide. An independent band called The Super 8-bit Brothers (http://www.super8bitbrothers.com/) created a song which opined “Not Another Water Level”. It’s a decent song that captures this sentiment rather well.
September 12th, 2007 at 8:15 am
KotoR had a water level too, and a space level. In both of them, you were wearing this huge, bulky suit and were doing nothing but walking around, no combat. What’s worse is that on all of my playthroughs, I forgot to hit a switch immediately before the space part, so I had to cross the area with godawful slowness at least 4 times each game.
September 12th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
I’m making a water level video game at work right now…. it sucks =(
September 14th, 2007 at 9:02 am
There has not been near enough hatred expressed towards ecco the dolphin. I think that game is the reason I’m afraid of oceans and lakes nowadays.
And as for WoW, I know one good instance of water. If you have unending breath or some equivalent, in Tanaris, the water can equal a safe haven in PvP realms. I can’t count the times i’ve swam into the ocean there and just hid at the bottom for ten minutes or so til my would-be attackers got bored and left.
And lastly, why hasn’t anyone mentioned ff7?!? Creepy music + a little thing called Emerald Weapon that could be (and as far as i was concerned, was) lurking around every corner waiting to ambush you into an impossible fight that was near impossible to escape. I escaped one time, only to get killed by a joker thing outside the gold saucer desert.
September 15th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
So true, so true. The worst part about the LoZ:OoT water level was the fact that if you did it wrong, you could be PERMANENTLY stuck. I glanced at a walkthrough to get through a tricky spot and when I saw that written there, I decided to use it for the whole damn dungeon. Even then it was tedious as hell, constantly going to the menu to take your iron boots on and off.
I played the first three Tomb Raider games extensively, but I didn’t find them all that bad.
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:51 am
Yeah… Labyrinth Zone on Sonic 1 was a bi-atch
October 2nd, 2007 at 5:28 pm
I hated the water temple for another reason. You know that room at the bottom of the water temple, Me, and 3 others couldn’t find that ****ING ROOM FOR 2 MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!
ARRGGGHHHH!!!! THE PAIN! THE PAIN!
and also i loved that first water level in mario. That was sweet. But agreed on the breath meter, that is something from reality that shouldn’t exist.
To whoever isn’t buying bioshock due to copy protection. Buy the legal version, then use a rip. Its moral, and you avoid the copy protection. I still find it great that finally copy protection is making games lose sales.
October 3rd, 2007 at 8:00 am
100& agreed on Zelda OoT and WW. The water level in TP was far better though. As in, not frustrating.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Water levels… *rocks back and forth* …No…. I have a fear of large bodies of water/murky/dark water to begin with. And they always seem to be that in games….
As for WOW, I’d say the pre-nerf Deep Ocean Vast Seaquest counts for water level annoyingness. And swimming past the sharks for the druid water form quest was scarey, especially since I didn’t know where I was going….
And why the hell were there originally elite sharks below the dock in theremaore? Whenever the boat would glitch and dump us all on arrival that sucked at low levels…