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alt title(s): Temple O Traps  An ancient temple or city, usually buried deep within the jungle or in the middle of the desert. The temple is often full of ancient yet sophisticated machines and traps that still work to lethal effect even after thousands of years without maintenance.
The Temple Of Doom is almost always inhabited, often by the same Mooks and monsters found in the surrounding environment — oddly, they know how to avoid every single trap — but you can also expect things like ghosts, skeletons, living statues and other ancient guardians. And naturally, whatever treasure you go in there to find will be found in the very spot the Giant Space Flea From Nowhere has decided to make its home.
Occasionally, the Temple Of Doom will be co-opted by the Big Bad to use as his base, which would explain why the traps still work. In which case, you can also expect his Mooks and a few high-tech surprises as well.
Named for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which serves as an obvious inspiration for these levels.
Compare Ruins For Ruins Sake and Landmark Of Lore.
Examples:
- Not only does Indiana Jones have the trope namer, but it also has the ancient idol resting place from the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the temple of the Grail in The Last Crusade, and the eponymous Kingdom of the Crystal Skull...
- His knockoffs have them too. The Hidden temple in The Rundown, the buried treasure chamber buried under Manhattan in National Treasure, and the City of Gold from National Treasure 2.
- Nearly every Moon Crystal in Skies Of Arcadia is found in one of these.
- It'd be quicker to name the games in the Sonic The Hedgehog series that don't have one of these.
- Sonic Heroes... wait, no, Ocean Palace. Damn. Er, Knuckles Chaotix?
- Anyway, for completeness' sake: Marble Zone from Sonic 1 (merged with Lethal Lava Land), Labyrinth Zone from Sonic 1 (merged with Down The Drain), Aquatic Ruins Zone from Sonic 2 (merged with Under The Sea), Marble Garden Zone from Sonic 3, Sandopolis from Sonic and Knuckles (merged with Shifting Sand Land), Rusty Ruins from Sonic 3D, Lost World from Sonic Adventure (merged with Down The Drain)... you get the picture.
- Donkey Kong Country has a "Millstone Mayhem" stage as the last non-boss stage in Monkey Mines, as well as a "Temple Tempest" level near the end of Vine Valley.
- Said level served as inspiration for "Angry Aztecs" world in Donkey Kong 64.
- A large number of levels in the Crash Bandicoot franchise.
- About 70% of the dungeons in The Legend Of Zelda franchise.
- This troper seriously doubts it's that low.
- Agreed. Each dungeon IS its own unique Temple of Doom.
- However, there are the occasional dungeons that involve going inside of something thats alive. But other than that, the dungeons are about 98% Temples of Doom.
- If it wasn't for this trope, everyone's favorite Tomb Raider would have enormously less to do for a living.
- Oddly, sealed-up tombs, with no apparent exits to the outside world apart from the door Lara Croft has just opened, still contain live animals, burning fires, infinite supplies of poison darts for the traps, and structures made from wood which should have rotted hundreds of years before Lara arrives.
- Odder still are the vast amounts of supplies scattered around the tombs, but no bodies of other explorers. Did they just drop them as they wandered about?
- Tomb Raider Anniversary's final level is set in an ancient tomb which by some stroke of luck for Lara, is chock full of ammo and health.
- Final Fantasy VII's Temple of the Ancients, built by, yeah, Ancients.
- Final Fantasy X has three lost temples, each with a sidequest that unlocks an Aeon.
- While conspicuously light on the booby-traps, Final Fantasy XII has the Tomb of King Wraithwall, complete with a That One Boss, a Bonus Boss, and lots and LOTS of undead things crawling around. And it has the Stillshrine of Miriam. And Giruvegan. And Ridorina. And the Sochen Cave Palace. It makes you wonder why modern civilization bothered to build anything, since there's probably enough hidden temples and lost cities to house a nation.
- Mayahem Temple from Banjo-Tooie.
- TheElderScrolls III: Morrowind has several dozen "Daedric ruins" scattered around the country. Each comes complete with a Giant Statue of Doom, Gems of Doom that summon Demons of Doom to attack you when you try to snatch them, and plenty of Cultists of Doom.
- The Ceras Lake Ruins in Suikoden V. Ask not, "why give a sluice control for a dam a complex three-layered lock that can only be unlocked by three buttons on the far sides of a labyrinth, a door controlled by a one-of-a-kind magic rune and fill it with magitek robot guardians?", because the game certainly isn't going to tell you.
- La Mulana has a single Temple Of Doom, the titular ruins, contain all the levels in the entire game.
- Levels 10-13 of Prince Of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame are set in a literal temple, which actually contains most of the Mooks in the game. Levels 6-9 are in a the ruins of a palace, now inhabited by snakes and flying heads.
- Diablo II has lots of them, naturally. Working from memory, there's the various Tombs of Tal Rasha; the temples under the Flayer Jungle, large parts of Kurast...
- The "Temple of Bù" in Little Big Adventure — traps, skeletons and stuff, not to mention it is located underground in the middle of the desert. In the second game, it got turned into a Theme Park and the aliens' secret base.
- Western Animation example: The temple of the Avatar The Last Airbender episode, "The Firebending Masters," with killer spikes, a secretly-cached Mac Guffin, a room that fills full of killer glue, and a justification for the fact that everything's still working: the ancient extinct civilization that built it is not actually extinct. How everyone missed this, who knows.
- The third Quest For Glory game features such a temple as the base of the demons looking to do a divide and conquer on the different peoples of Tarna.
- Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey has the Paramonia and Scrabania temples.
- Arguably, nearly every titular 'dungeon' in any Dungeons And Dragons campaign fits (and possibly made) the trope.
- Metroid has some, though the temples are mostly futuristic (the biggest being "Temple Of Doom meets Eternal Engine" Sanctuary Fortress from Metroid Prime 2), and the most dangerous aren't contraptions, but post-abandonment inhabitants (or in the case of the Sanctuary Fortress, old inhabitants, the haywire-security robots).
- Super Metroid: Ridley and company inhabit what appear to be ruins of Chozo civilization, deep within Zebes.
- Tales Of Symphonia has eight Temples Of Doom, one for each element, where you find the summom spirits.
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