Are you stuck on a particular boss in the game and finding it impossible to progress? Find yourself taking far too long to kill a boss and it ruining your records in the Boss Rush mode? Well fret no more, since this boss guide will tell you not only how to kill each and every boss in the game (quickly and efficiently too!), but how to take the minimum of damage and hopefully do well in the Boss Battle mode.
The strategies below were tested in the 3DS version, but probably also work for the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube versions too.
Gohma
First boss of the game, and an infamously easy one (despite King Dodongo arguably being slightly easier). At the start of the battle however, it's just out of sight. Look up at the ceiling, at which point the camera will move over to Gohma and zoom in, and the battle begins.
Here's the easiest part. Gohma rears up, her eye turns red, hit the eye with the Slingshot. Bingo, boss stunned and ready to be attacked with the sword, and if you're quick, killed in about 6 seconds.
If you're less quick, she goes to the ceiling, some eggs fall down (quickly destroy them before they hatch), then drops down again. You know what to do, shoot the eye with the Slingshot when it turns red, and then attack with the sword. If you take more than two turns here, you're probably just about hopeless.
King Dodongo
He's probably worse than Gohma. No really, he takes longer to kill, but his attacks are even less effective than those of the boss prior to him.
This is simple. He'll come up to Link, open his mouth to shoot fire, and you have to throw a Bomb in to stun him. Once he's stunned, attack with the sword.You should know that, he's the exact same as every Dodongo boss in Zelda history.
None the less, after he gets back up, he starts to roll around. If you have a shield here, this is officially the easiest attack to dodge ever (either just duck with the Hylian Shield, which causes him to roll straight over Link without Link taking damage), or stand approx up against the wall with your Deku Shield out, which usually stops him hitting you then. Or stand on the slope near the lava, where every single attack he tries to use will miss.
Repeat what's said above with throwing bombs into his mouth. If you run out, there's an infinite supply of Bomb Flowers, they grow by each wall of the room. After the third time you've attacked him (or three jump attacks), he rolls into the lava and dies. The end.
Barinade
The first boss in the game which has a fighting chance in hell of killing the player if they don't know what they're doing. Really, he's the first difficulty spike moment in the game.
Never the less, your opponent is... some kind of electrical jellyfish parasite. It's not exactly your standard Zelda enemy in any way shape or form and it shows, even the creators don't have a clue what he is:
English description: Bio-electric Anemone
Japanese description: Electric Rotating Intestinal Worm
Probably best to consider it a sort of Bari/Biri hivemind creature or core. Still, how to kill it. Well, the Boomerang's obviously required here, and the first part of the battle is to shoot down the three tentacles attaching it to the ceiling. You should L target these while doing so, and for the love of God keep moving, Barinade loves to fire lightning at Link if Link stands still for more than about three seconds. Once all three are down and the boss is no longer attached to Jabu Jabu, it's on to phase 2.
Five electrified jellyfish will start rotating around it. And by that, I mean will do so at great speed, probably scaring the hell out of unsuspecting players. These act like a shield, so you must get rid of them. Hit Barinade with the Boomerang (keep moving and throwing), and it'll drop down. When this happens, take out the jellyfish (interestingly, they're not electrified when Barinade is stunned, meaning you can also use your sword).
It'll raise another shield made of five jellyfish, and move around the room while spinning at high speed. Yes, it looks terrifying as heck, but keep targeting the boss and firing the Boomerang until you stun it, taking out the next five.
Finally, it'll move around the room at high speed. Stun it now to make it drop down, and you can easily attack it with the sword a few times. After this, it'll drop into the ground for a bit and start shooting electricity at Link, keep running. Eventually, it'll start using two tentacles to shoot the electricity, so run even more, since stopping is pretty much putting a giant bullseye symbol on Link's head.
Eventually it'll come up, so fire the Boomerang to knock it down again, attacking with your sword. Repeat, and eventually you'll kill it, which causes it to explode in a huge pile of flesh and liquid.
Phantom Ganon
A really quite easy boss, with approximately two attacks he might actually ever use.
The first phase is easy enough, and shouldn't give you any trouble. Phantom Ganon rushes into a painting, and there are four paintings around the room. He'll randomly charge out of one, with a fake duplicate of him pretending to charge out of another. You can easily hit him with arrows here, it takes quite a while for the purple vortex to actually let him out the painting dimension, and he's vulnerable all the while. Hit him with arrows to make him get thrown back into the painting, and turn around into the distance.
Note that if you need to know which version of Phantom Ganon is real, it's the one that's moving down the centre of the path, and what one's darker in colour. The second tip is easier to use.
Repeat the above twice, and he'll fly out the painting for good, minus the horse. Now, it becomes a fight in the style of Ganondorf's 'final' boss battle, where you need to reflect energy balls back at Phantom Ganon to knock him down and make him vulnerable.
First things first, L targeting doesn't really matter, if you hit the energy ball back with your sword with the correct timing, it WILL go towards Phantom Ganon. Unless of course he suddenly dodges at the last second, which oddly enough also occurs when you ARE using L targeting.
Eventually, he'll miss and the energy ball will hit him, knocking him to the floor. Attack him with the sword right now, you can often get two Jump Attacks in at this point, speeding up the fight. If you need to make the tennis like game easier, you can also stand practically underneath him, which will often stop him having the time to deflect his own attack back in your direction, knocking him down before he can even block. Requires faster initial reaction times though.
Once all's done (and this battle doesn't take very long at all), you'll win, Phantom Ganon will literally get disintegrated by being banished to the gap between dimensions, and the Forest Temple will be finally over.
Volvagia
An utter pain to kill until you figure out the not at all mentioned strategy to defeat him in one or two rounds, this lava dragon is arguably the second boss in the game with a reasonable chance of killing Link.
To start off the battle, rush off and jump to the middle platform. Surprise surprise, the stone blocks leading back to the door sink into the lava, stranding you in the circular arena with the boss, who appears from a lava pool (and goes straight back in before you can get a sneak attack in).
First of all, you get to attack him with the Megaton Hammer to stun him and attack with the sword. Basically, he comes out a lava pool (you can see the lava bubbling up near the one he appears from), and you hit him with the hammer to stun him. Then, attack with the sword, although you don't really get a lot of time.
Note: You should remember he swings his head around when he appears. It's hence recommended you either attack extremely quickly or wait a bit before going in close and smacking down on his head with the Megaton Hammer, since being knocked over often causes you to miss your attack opportunity.
He'll later come out the lava and start flying around, either breathing fire or cause rocks to fall down. Here, you can actually hurt him a bit with arrows, so L target and fire at him like crazy with them to cause significant damage before he goes back into the hole. I also hear you can use your sword on his head at one point as he's flying.
Dodging his attacks is fairly easy. For when he shoots fire, just stay away. For when he drops boulders, don't stand in the shadows, which indicate where they'll fall. You should also note that the rock attack will often only cause them to fall near where Volvagia himself goes back into the lava, so if you stay away from that and attack from a distance with the bow, you probably won't get hit.
After a few attacks with the Megaton Hammer and Sword, Volvagia will be destroyed (and literally go up in flames). This should happen the second time he sticks his head out the lava if you fired arrows at him while he was in mid air.
You've now beat the Fire Temple!
Morpha
What the heck is this thing anyway? They say it's an amoeba, but it might as well be classed as living, demonically possessed water for all anyone else cares. Never the less, it's a surprisingly easy boss for the dungeon it's in, and not in the slightest way menacing.
P.S. Unless you're scared of water. In that case, I guess this is your phobia in physical form.
Still, you first need to jump onto one of the centre platforms to make it appear, in a fashion usually reserved for Jaws styled man eating sharks. Once Morpha appears from the water, it's then wise to get the hell away from the centre platforms.Instead, go to the outside edge, specifically a corner. Why there? Well, there's more room to dodge, and its tentacles can't even reach you in the far corners of the room, making its attacks near enough useless. Somehow, I don't think this was quite how Nintendo intended Morpha to be fought, I think at one point they intended for you to only stay on the centre platforms and the boss to attack from all sides, but forgotten to take away the outside ledge, or didn't properly test the battle.
Still, when the actual Amoeba (or maybe Nucleus) appears in a water tentacle, use the Longshot on it to pull it out, opening it up to attack. Attack as much as possible, pull it back out the water if it falls in again, and if you can get the thing stuck in the corner of the room, Morpha is literally a sitting duck waiting to be promptly slaughtered in seconds.
Do this until it dies.
Note: You can use three or so Longshot hits or Din's Fire to get rid of a water tentacle that's getting too close to Link.
If you happen to be unlucky enough to get hit, hammer the buttons to make the boss let him go. Otherwise, Link will literally be thrown head first across the room, sometimes into spikes, sometimes into the 'water', which takes away about four hearts or more and opens you right up to repeat attacks from the boss.
Bongo Bongo
It's the shadow beast/demon from Kakariko Well! Or at least, it was from the well until it escaped and rushed off to the Shadow Temple. It's also really, really difficult to describe this thing (see picture), so for a best attempt, it's a Rayman type semi humanoid with floating, seperate hands, an eye where the middle of its neck would be if it was decapitated, and that's constantly playing a giant drum found in the Shadow Temple basement.
First things first, the drum you're fighting on bounces up and down regularly due to Bongo Bongo's... bongo playing. Think of it like fighting on a trampoline and you're not far off the mark. You can negate this effect near entirely by usage of the Hover Boots (which reduces it to a minor tremor), but in the Boss Battle mode Gauntlet, where you fight him straight after Morpha, it's highly unlikely you'll get the Hover Boots before having to defeat this guy.
Oh, and don't fall off the drum, there's acid down there, and it's mildy painful to fall in. Not an instant kill by an means, only doing about half a heart every few seconds, but it can be inconveniant walk from the edge of the room back to the main arena if you're stucking trekking through that stuff. Note that Bongo Bongo will throw you here if you get hit by any attack he uses whatsoever.
So to attack back... first, L target each hand, shooting an arrow at them in sequence. You can also use Ice Arrows if you have them, they'll freeze the hand and cause the other one to try and free it. Use the opportunity to stun the other one too.
Note: Be warned. After you stun one hand, Bongo Bongo's other hand will try to attack Link in retaliation, usually via either slapping him off the drum or throwing him across the room. Avoid this, it's extremely painful.
Once both are stunned, activate the Lens of Truth, and target the eye, which is probably charging towards you about now. Hit it with an arrow (you can also use any other weapon, or even your sword if you're nigh on suicidal) to knock the boss down, and repeatedly attack the eye to hurt it. Eventually it'll get back up, and the process will repeat.
Note: You don't need the Lens of Truth, in theory. You can aim at the eye even when it's not visible by manually aiming the bow and firing at the right point, or even attacking with the hookshot or sword at said point. But it's very risky, and without practice, more likely to end up with Link getting hit than the boss getting stunned.
Still, repeat the process a few times and you'll win, which ends the Shadow Temple dungeon and I think clears up the weather in Kakariko Village.
Twinrova
Some people say Twinrova is a difficult boss. She's not. What she is however, is annoying as hell, purely because the length of the boss battle is near entirely dependant on whenever she fires the right attack at the right time, sometimes making the battle very drawn out, easy and outright repetitive as a result.
The first phase is... debatably difficult. You have two witches, Kotume and Kotake, flying around Link. One of course is fire theme, one ice themed, and quite rarely, they'll actually fire an attack at him. What you need to then do is to get out the Mirror Shield, and reflect the blast back to the witch who didn't fire the attack. So you aim the fire attacks at the ice one and vice versa.
Contrary to popular belief, it's no more difficult if you're L targeting. In general however, this depends quite a bit on chance... is the other witch in the right location as to allow you to hit her with the reflected energy beam before it runs out? If so, you score one 'hit'.
Hit them four times (either one, it's based on the total reflected attacks used against both of them), and they merge and become Twinrova. Now starts the phase of the battle which can best be described as 'dull as hell'. Why? Because you've got one enemy to face, who can be constantly L targeted. She fires either an ice or fire beam, and you have to absorb it with the Mirror Shield. Absorb three shots, and you can fire a giant laser and knock her down to one of the outside platforms, allowing you to strike her with Link's sword.
Problem is, it's entirely luck how quickly she follows up one attack with two others of the same type, and the attacks themselves are extremely easy to dodge AND do little damage. Your Mirror Shield never loses charge until you fire the giant beam of energy/get hit. As a result, you'd better hope she fires three ice beams in a row, or three fire beams in a row, or something along those lines, otherwise you're going to be spending a lot of time sidestepping extremely weak, not too difficult to avoid elemental attacks you can't do anything with.
Thankfully, she tends to only alternate the attacks after the second time she's knocked over and attacked via the sword, so if you can somehow take her out before she gets up a second time, you've saved a heck of a lot of time in the battle. Never the less, when you hit her with the energy beam caused by absorbing three of the same attack, rush over and attack with the sword to cause damage. Repeat the process a few times to win.
Ganondorf
An extremely easy boss in my opinion, if you've gotten the hang of 'Dead Man's Volley' (aka, knocking energy balls back to hit the boss via using your sword), since it isn't even the real final one.
First things first, go to the outside of the room or corners. Why? Because he smashes the floor to pieces in a certain radius, and while being caught there won't kill you or cause you to restart the fight, you'll have to climb all the way back up via the climable wall on the outside of the centre platform, wasting time.
Next, he'll fire an energy ball at you. When it approaches, hit it with the sword to send it back, and he'll then do the same. Repeat until Ganondorf gets hit by his own attack (or if you suck, until YOU get hit by Ganondorf's attack), and he'll be stunned. Next, shoot a Light Arrow at him to knock him down, and rush over to the middle platform to attack.
You'll probably here get in two jump attacks and a few normal sword swings before he gets up, but thankfully the Biggoron's Sword can be used to speed the whole process up.
Repeat this until he 'dies', and the castle collapses.
Note: If you need health or supplies, drop down the pit in the room to the area with the pots, about two stories below. Since most people won't bother to climb down slowly, it's probably best you try this with at least one heart's worth of health as to not get killed by the painful impact that occurs when Link hits the floor.
You can easily get back up by aiming the Longshot right at the top of the climable wall to 'fly' straight up.
Ganon
An interesting case this boss, since despite being the final boss of the game, he's pretty easy to 'kill' and has a lot of weaknesses that can be used against him.Never the less, they all revolve around one thing... attacking his tail. Now, if you're very, very quick, or perhaps entirely suicidal, you can theoretically just run right round him and smack him in the tail with your sword (probably nigh impossible to do this with the Megaton Hammer without stunning him first). But if you want to avoid damage and make the fight easier, you need to stun him first. This can be done in a variety of ways:
1. Shoot a light arrow at his face, and then roll through his legs or run around him and attack his tail. This is the intended way, and stuns him for longest. It's your safest bet if you don't have the Biggoron Sword for some unknown reason and have only weapons like the (incredibly slow) Megaton Hammer to use instead.
2. Shoot his face with arrows, and do the same. Stuns him for far shorter period of time, but should work.
3. Stun him with Deku Nuts, then attack his tail. The time you get with this is nearly non existant, so roll under him to reach his tail more quickly if you do this.You can also hit him multiple times after stunning him once, if you're quick enough and happen to outspeed his turning around animations.
Later in the battle, the ring of fire will drop, and you can get the Master Sword. Obviously, do so (it will be equipped automatically when you pick it up), and rush back up to Ganon to get him attacking again. Note that as far as I know, Ganon won't get back up until you approach him again after getting the Master Sword, so you could theoretically use this to take a break.
Finally, Zelda will stun him, and you can deliver the final blow with the Master Sword. If you hadn't figured this out, there's no real difference to how you finish off Ganon based on exactly what attack you use when he's down, Link will still stab him three times, with the final sword thrust sending it straight into Ganon's forehead. Do whatever the hell you want to attack Ganon with the sword here, the game will treat it like you used the same three stabbing motions regardless.
Now sit back and enjoy the ending!
Mini Bosses
Only the ones of note, which are unique enemies.
Big Octo
It chases you around a rotating spiky platform (or vice versa). So what you need to do is to go after it, and stun it's back with your Boomerang. You can then attack it by striking it's backside with your sword or a Deku Stick (preferrably the second, it does Master Sword level damage and allows you to kill it in two hits, even with the one hit kill glitch being fixed).
Poe Sisters
The first three act the same way. They float around a room, not doing much until Link gets too close, at which point they spin their lanterns to attack.
You can very easily destroy them by firing arrows at them each time they turn visible, often by standing on the steps (in two of the Forest Temple encounters).
However, the purple one, Meg, is slightly different. She appears when you return to the main room after all three of her sisters are defeated, and appears in a circle of duplicates that spin around Link. To defeat her, you have to shoot the real one with an arrow.
How to tell which is the real one? It spins around every now and again. Shoot this one with four arrows to defeat it, opening the way to Phantom Ganon.
Flare Dancer
The fire based creature from hell... sorry, the Fire Temple. Surprisingly, it's not actually a particularly difficult boss, you can use the Hookshot to pull out its core when facing all forms, negating all of its attacks.
You should also hit the ground nearby with the Megaton Hammer first (second appearance) to stun it, then smack it with Link's sword a few times. Keep pulling out and attacking its core until it's dead, then stay away from the explosion.
Dark Link
The fan favourite boss of the Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time 3D, and one which is much easier than many think.
Dark Link is interesting. He's a completely monochrome, black coloured clone of Link, and who has the exact same amount of health (as Link would at full health). He's also your actual shadow, since the room where you defeat him has your shadow disappear when you get halfway across, materialising as the mini boss.
Now, there are tons of ways to win here. You can spam Din's Fire until he dies, if you're not willing to actually put up a fight. You can use the Giant's Knife when broken, because it's too short for Dark Link to be able to jump onto.
Alternatively, the Biggoron Sword allows you to just charge in sword swinging randomly due to the fact your range is about twice his, while the Megaton Hammer is a weapon he finds difficult to block due to having only a sword to use. Deku Nuts work too. As does a trick with the Hookshot. Finally, if you're feeling confident, you can also win with a straight up sword fight, although he will try to block and counter every other attack.
Continue until the illusion fades and you can continue to the room with the Longshot.
Dead Hand
Dear God he's pretty creepy looking, appearing as what looks to be a snake jawed white zombie with multiple disembodied hands. Fought in both the Bottom of the Well and Shadow Temple (Young and Adult Link respectively), he's a bit of a recurring boss in the chapter, and one which gets markably easier when Link's an adult.
As a child, you need to get grabbed by one of his hands to make the boss come out the ground, then hammer A and B to escape. He'll slowly walk towards you, so L target him, and when he sticks his head down to bite, jump attack or rapidly stab him with Link's sword. He'll go back and into the ground. Don't try doing anything here though, you can't hurt him when he's retreating. So repeat the process with the hands grabbing Link and him escaping and then attacking Dead Hand's head with your sword to win and get the Lens of Truth.
As an adult though, the boss is much easier. Instead of getting grabbed (although that works too), turn on the Lens of Truth to see a shadow on the floor. This is the point the boss is hiding beneath, so lay a bomb on it to draw him out. Now, L target him, and repeatedly attack his head. You'll be happy to know Link's weaponry is powerful enough to kill him in seconds this time, so you can probably kill him in one 'round'. Get the Hover Boots from the chest that appears and exit the room.
Iron Knuckle
Armoured knights that look surprisingly like Gerudos:
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=FquUiAHcNbw
That minor easter egg aside, they are extremely difficult to defeat, and hit harder than most actual bosses do, with their axes taking off four hearts and sending poor Link flying across the room. You'll have to face these quite a bit (both as a child and as an adult), so read on.
First things first, wake it up. So go up to it and attacking it with a weapon, which will also cause one hits worth of damage. It'll swing it's axe too, so backflip away or dodge pretty quickly unless you want to cause serious harm to Link.
Now, keep in mind from here on in, you can't really run from the battle. Indeed, any Iron Knuckle will just march towards Link relentlessly, and not stop until it's dead, so keep fighting.
There are multiple ways to destroy these things:
1. Use your sword and backflip or dodge to avoid the axe swings. Risky, but very effective if you have the Biggoron's Sword. Nigh on suicide if you're a kid using the Kokiri Sword.
2. Use bombs or bombchus. it takes an awful lot of them, but it's very, very safe, and the preferred method if you're the child form of Link.
Eventually, it's armour will fall off and it'll speed up (or be defeated if it's the brainwashed Nabooru version fought before Twinrova). This is where you lucky people with the Biggoron's Sword are in luck, one jump attack here will immediately kill the Iron Knuckle.
If not, keep fighting like normal until you win.
The strategies below were tested in the 3DS version, but probably also work for the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube versions too.
Gohma
First boss of the game, and an infamously easy one (despite King Dodongo arguably being slightly easier). At the start of the battle however, it's just out of sight. Look up at the ceiling, at which point the camera will move over to Gohma and zoom in, and the battle begins.
Here's the easiest part. Gohma rears up, her eye turns red, hit the eye with the Slingshot. Bingo, boss stunned and ready to be attacked with the sword, and if you're quick, killed in about 6 seconds.
If you're less quick, she goes to the ceiling, some eggs fall down (quickly destroy them before they hatch), then drops down again. You know what to do, shoot the eye with the Slingshot when it turns red, and then attack with the sword. If you take more than two turns here, you're probably just about hopeless.
King Dodongo
He's probably worse than Gohma. No really, he takes longer to kill, but his attacks are even less effective than those of the boss prior to him.
This is simple. He'll come up to Link, open his mouth to shoot fire, and you have to throw a Bomb in to stun him. Once he's stunned, attack with the sword.You should know that, he's the exact same as every Dodongo boss in Zelda history.
None the less, after he gets back up, he starts to roll around. If you have a shield here, this is officially the easiest attack to dodge ever (either just duck with the Hylian Shield, which causes him to roll straight over Link without Link taking damage), or stand approx up against the wall with your Deku Shield out, which usually stops him hitting you then. Or stand on the slope near the lava, where every single attack he tries to use will miss.
Repeat what's said above with throwing bombs into his mouth. If you run out, there's an infinite supply of Bomb Flowers, they grow by each wall of the room. After the third time you've attacked him (or three jump attacks), he rolls into the lava and dies. The end.
Barinade
The first boss in the game which has a fighting chance in hell of killing the player if they don't know what they're doing. Really, he's the first difficulty spike moment in the game.
Never the less, your opponent is... some kind of electrical jellyfish parasite. It's not exactly your standard Zelda enemy in any way shape or form and it shows, even the creators don't have a clue what he is:
English description: Bio-electric Anemone
Japanese description: Electric Rotating Intestinal Worm
Probably best to consider it a sort of Bari/Biri hivemind creature or core. Still, how to kill it. Well, the Boomerang's obviously required here, and the first part of the battle is to shoot down the three tentacles attaching it to the ceiling. You should L target these while doing so, and for the love of God keep moving, Barinade loves to fire lightning at Link if Link stands still for more than about three seconds. Once all three are down and the boss is no longer attached to Jabu Jabu, it's on to phase 2.
Five electrified jellyfish will start rotating around it. And by that, I mean will do so at great speed, probably scaring the hell out of unsuspecting players. These act like a shield, so you must get rid of them. Hit Barinade with the Boomerang (keep moving and throwing), and it'll drop down. When this happens, take out the jellyfish (interestingly, they're not electrified when Barinade is stunned, meaning you can also use your sword).
It'll raise another shield made of five jellyfish, and move around the room while spinning at high speed. Yes, it looks terrifying as heck, but keep targeting the boss and firing the Boomerang until you stun it, taking out the next five.
Finally, it'll move around the room at high speed. Stun it now to make it drop down, and you can easily attack it with the sword a few times. After this, it'll drop into the ground for a bit and start shooting electricity at Link, keep running. Eventually, it'll start using two tentacles to shoot the electricity, so run even more, since stopping is pretty much putting a giant bullseye symbol on Link's head.
Eventually it'll come up, so fire the Boomerang to knock it down again, attacking with your sword. Repeat, and eventually you'll kill it, which causes it to explode in a huge pile of flesh and liquid.
Phantom Ganon
A really quite easy boss, with approximately two attacks he might actually ever use.
The first phase is easy enough, and shouldn't give you any trouble. Phantom Ganon rushes into a painting, and there are four paintings around the room. He'll randomly charge out of one, with a fake duplicate of him pretending to charge out of another. You can easily hit him with arrows here, it takes quite a while for the purple vortex to actually let him out the painting dimension, and he's vulnerable all the while. Hit him with arrows to make him get thrown back into the painting, and turn around into the distance.
Note that if you need to know which version of Phantom Ganon is real, it's the one that's moving down the centre of the path, and what one's darker in colour. The second tip is easier to use.
Repeat the above twice, and he'll fly out the painting for good, minus the horse. Now, it becomes a fight in the style of Ganondorf's 'final' boss battle, where you need to reflect energy balls back at Phantom Ganon to knock him down and make him vulnerable.
First things first, L targeting doesn't really matter, if you hit the energy ball back with your sword with the correct timing, it WILL go towards Phantom Ganon. Unless of course he suddenly dodges at the last second, which oddly enough also occurs when you ARE using L targeting.
Eventually, he'll miss and the energy ball will hit him, knocking him to the floor. Attack him with the sword right now, you can often get two Jump Attacks in at this point, speeding up the fight. If you need to make the tennis like game easier, you can also stand practically underneath him, which will often stop him having the time to deflect his own attack back in your direction, knocking him down before he can even block. Requires faster initial reaction times though.
Once all's done (and this battle doesn't take very long at all), you'll win, Phantom Ganon will literally get disintegrated by being banished to the gap between dimensions, and the Forest Temple will be finally over.
Volvagia
An utter pain to kill until you figure out the not at all mentioned strategy to defeat him in one or two rounds, this lava dragon is arguably the second boss in the game with a reasonable chance of killing Link.
To start off the battle, rush off and jump to the middle platform. Surprise surprise, the stone blocks leading back to the door sink into the lava, stranding you in the circular arena with the boss, who appears from a lava pool (and goes straight back in before you can get a sneak attack in).
First of all, you get to attack him with the Megaton Hammer to stun him and attack with the sword. Basically, he comes out a lava pool (you can see the lava bubbling up near the one he appears from), and you hit him with the hammer to stun him. Then, attack with the sword, although you don't really get a lot of time.
Note: You should remember he swings his head around when he appears. It's hence recommended you either attack extremely quickly or wait a bit before going in close and smacking down on his head with the Megaton Hammer, since being knocked over often causes you to miss your attack opportunity.
He'll later come out the lava and start flying around, either breathing fire or cause rocks to fall down. Here, you can actually hurt him a bit with arrows, so L target and fire at him like crazy with them to cause significant damage before he goes back into the hole. I also hear you can use your sword on his head at one point as he's flying.
Dodging his attacks is fairly easy. For when he shoots fire, just stay away. For when he drops boulders, don't stand in the shadows, which indicate where they'll fall. You should also note that the rock attack will often only cause them to fall near where Volvagia himself goes back into the lava, so if you stay away from that and attack from a distance with the bow, you probably won't get hit.
After a few attacks with the Megaton Hammer and Sword, Volvagia will be destroyed (and literally go up in flames). This should happen the second time he sticks his head out the lava if you fired arrows at him while he was in mid air.
You've now beat the Fire Temple!
Morpha
What the heck is this thing anyway? They say it's an amoeba, but it might as well be classed as living, demonically possessed water for all anyone else cares. Never the less, it's a surprisingly easy boss for the dungeon it's in, and not in the slightest way menacing.
P.S. Unless you're scared of water. In that case, I guess this is your phobia in physical form.
Still, you first need to jump onto one of the centre platforms to make it appear, in a fashion usually reserved for Jaws styled man eating sharks. Once Morpha appears from the water, it's then wise to get the hell away from the centre platforms.Instead, go to the outside edge, specifically a corner. Why there? Well, there's more room to dodge, and its tentacles can't even reach you in the far corners of the room, making its attacks near enough useless. Somehow, I don't think this was quite how Nintendo intended Morpha to be fought, I think at one point they intended for you to only stay on the centre platforms and the boss to attack from all sides, but forgotten to take away the outside ledge, or didn't properly test the battle.
Still, when the actual Amoeba (or maybe Nucleus) appears in a water tentacle, use the Longshot on it to pull it out, opening it up to attack. Attack as much as possible, pull it back out the water if it falls in again, and if you can get the thing stuck in the corner of the room, Morpha is literally a sitting duck waiting to be promptly slaughtered in seconds.
Do this until it dies.
Note: You can use three or so Longshot hits or Din's Fire to get rid of a water tentacle that's getting too close to Link.
If you happen to be unlucky enough to get hit, hammer the buttons to make the boss let him go. Otherwise, Link will literally be thrown head first across the room, sometimes into spikes, sometimes into the 'water', which takes away about four hearts or more and opens you right up to repeat attacks from the boss.
Bongo Bongo
It's the shadow beast/demon from Kakariko Well! Or at least, it was from the well until it escaped and rushed off to the Shadow Temple. It's also really, really difficult to describe this thing (see picture), so for a best attempt, it's a Rayman type semi humanoid with floating, seperate hands, an eye where the middle of its neck would be if it was decapitated, and that's constantly playing a giant drum found in the Shadow Temple basement.
First things first, the drum you're fighting on bounces up and down regularly due to Bongo Bongo's... bongo playing. Think of it like fighting on a trampoline and you're not far off the mark. You can negate this effect near entirely by usage of the Hover Boots (which reduces it to a minor tremor), but in the Boss Battle mode Gauntlet, where you fight him straight after Morpha, it's highly unlikely you'll get the Hover Boots before having to defeat this guy.
Oh, and don't fall off the drum, there's acid down there, and it's mildy painful to fall in. Not an instant kill by an means, only doing about half a heart every few seconds, but it can be inconveniant walk from the edge of the room back to the main arena if you're stucking trekking through that stuff. Note that Bongo Bongo will throw you here if you get hit by any attack he uses whatsoever.
So to attack back... first, L target each hand, shooting an arrow at them in sequence. You can also use Ice Arrows if you have them, they'll freeze the hand and cause the other one to try and free it. Use the opportunity to stun the other one too.
Note: Be warned. After you stun one hand, Bongo Bongo's other hand will try to attack Link in retaliation, usually via either slapping him off the drum or throwing him across the room. Avoid this, it's extremely painful.
Once both are stunned, activate the Lens of Truth, and target the eye, which is probably charging towards you about now. Hit it with an arrow (you can also use any other weapon, or even your sword if you're nigh on suicidal) to knock the boss down, and repeatedly attack the eye to hurt it. Eventually it'll get back up, and the process will repeat.
Note: You don't need the Lens of Truth, in theory. You can aim at the eye even when it's not visible by manually aiming the bow and firing at the right point, or even attacking with the hookshot or sword at said point. But it's very risky, and without practice, more likely to end up with Link getting hit than the boss getting stunned.
Still, repeat the process a few times and you'll win, which ends the Shadow Temple dungeon and I think clears up the weather in Kakariko Village.
Twinrova
Some people say Twinrova is a difficult boss. She's not. What she is however, is annoying as hell, purely because the length of the boss battle is near entirely dependant on whenever she fires the right attack at the right time, sometimes making the battle very drawn out, easy and outright repetitive as a result.
The first phase is... debatably difficult. You have two witches, Kotume and Kotake, flying around Link. One of course is fire theme, one ice themed, and quite rarely, they'll actually fire an attack at him. What you need to then do is to get out the Mirror Shield, and reflect the blast back to the witch who didn't fire the attack. So you aim the fire attacks at the ice one and vice versa.
Contrary to popular belief, it's no more difficult if you're L targeting. In general however, this depends quite a bit on chance... is the other witch in the right location as to allow you to hit her with the reflected energy beam before it runs out? If so, you score one 'hit'.
Hit them four times (either one, it's based on the total reflected attacks used against both of them), and they merge and become Twinrova. Now starts the phase of the battle which can best be described as 'dull as hell'. Why? Because you've got one enemy to face, who can be constantly L targeted. She fires either an ice or fire beam, and you have to absorb it with the Mirror Shield. Absorb three shots, and you can fire a giant laser and knock her down to one of the outside platforms, allowing you to strike her with Link's sword.
Problem is, it's entirely luck how quickly she follows up one attack with two others of the same type, and the attacks themselves are extremely easy to dodge AND do little damage. Your Mirror Shield never loses charge until you fire the giant beam of energy/get hit. As a result, you'd better hope she fires three ice beams in a row, or three fire beams in a row, or something along those lines, otherwise you're going to be spending a lot of time sidestepping extremely weak, not too difficult to avoid elemental attacks you can't do anything with.
Thankfully, she tends to only alternate the attacks after the second time she's knocked over and attacked via the sword, so if you can somehow take her out before she gets up a second time, you've saved a heck of a lot of time in the battle. Never the less, when you hit her with the energy beam caused by absorbing three of the same attack, rush over and attack with the sword to cause damage. Repeat the process a few times to win.
Ganondorf
An extremely easy boss in my opinion, if you've gotten the hang of 'Dead Man's Volley' (aka, knocking energy balls back to hit the boss via using your sword), since it isn't even the real final one.
First things first, go to the outside of the room or corners. Why? Because he smashes the floor to pieces in a certain radius, and while being caught there won't kill you or cause you to restart the fight, you'll have to climb all the way back up via the climable wall on the outside of the centre platform, wasting time.
Next, he'll fire an energy ball at you. When it approaches, hit it with the sword to send it back, and he'll then do the same. Repeat until Ganondorf gets hit by his own attack (or if you suck, until YOU get hit by Ganondorf's attack), and he'll be stunned. Next, shoot a Light Arrow at him to knock him down, and rush over to the middle platform to attack.
You'll probably here get in two jump attacks and a few normal sword swings before he gets up, but thankfully the Biggoron's Sword can be used to speed the whole process up.
Repeat this until he 'dies', and the castle collapses.
Note: If you need health or supplies, drop down the pit in the room to the area with the pots, about two stories below. Since most people won't bother to climb down slowly, it's probably best you try this with at least one heart's worth of health as to not get killed by the painful impact that occurs when Link hits the floor.
You can easily get back up by aiming the Longshot right at the top of the climable wall to 'fly' straight up.
Ganon
An interesting case this boss, since despite being the final boss of the game, he's pretty easy to 'kill' and has a lot of weaknesses that can be used against him.Never the less, they all revolve around one thing... attacking his tail. Now, if you're very, very quick, or perhaps entirely suicidal, you can theoretically just run right round him and smack him in the tail with your sword (probably nigh impossible to do this with the Megaton Hammer without stunning him first). But if you want to avoid damage and make the fight easier, you need to stun him first. This can be done in a variety of ways:
1. Shoot a light arrow at his face, and then roll through his legs or run around him and attack his tail. This is the intended way, and stuns him for longest. It's your safest bet if you don't have the Biggoron Sword for some unknown reason and have only weapons like the (incredibly slow) Megaton Hammer to use instead.
2. Shoot his face with arrows, and do the same. Stuns him for far shorter period of time, but should work.
3. Stun him with Deku Nuts, then attack his tail. The time you get with this is nearly non existant, so roll under him to reach his tail more quickly if you do this.You can also hit him multiple times after stunning him once, if you're quick enough and happen to outspeed his turning around animations.
Later in the battle, the ring of fire will drop, and you can get the Master Sword. Obviously, do so (it will be equipped automatically when you pick it up), and rush back up to Ganon to get him attacking again. Note that as far as I know, Ganon won't get back up until you approach him again after getting the Master Sword, so you could theoretically use this to take a break.
Finally, Zelda will stun him, and you can deliver the final blow with the Master Sword. If you hadn't figured this out, there's no real difference to how you finish off Ganon based on exactly what attack you use when he's down, Link will still stab him three times, with the final sword thrust sending it straight into Ganon's forehead. Do whatever the hell you want to attack Ganon with the sword here, the game will treat it like you used the same three stabbing motions regardless.
Now sit back and enjoy the ending!
Mini Bosses
Only the ones of note, which are unique enemies.
Big Octo
It chases you around a rotating spiky platform (or vice versa). So what you need to do is to go after it, and stun it's back with your Boomerang. You can then attack it by striking it's backside with your sword or a Deku Stick (preferrably the second, it does Master Sword level damage and allows you to kill it in two hits, even with the one hit kill glitch being fixed).
Poe Sisters
The first three act the same way. They float around a room, not doing much until Link gets too close, at which point they spin their lanterns to attack.
You can very easily destroy them by firing arrows at them each time they turn visible, often by standing on the steps (in two of the Forest Temple encounters).
However, the purple one, Meg, is slightly different. She appears when you return to the main room after all three of her sisters are defeated, and appears in a circle of duplicates that spin around Link. To defeat her, you have to shoot the real one with an arrow.
How to tell which is the real one? It spins around every now and again. Shoot this one with four arrows to defeat it, opening the way to Phantom Ganon.
Flare Dancer
The fire based creature from hell... sorry, the Fire Temple. Surprisingly, it's not actually a particularly difficult boss, you can use the Hookshot to pull out its core when facing all forms, negating all of its attacks.
You should also hit the ground nearby with the Megaton Hammer first (second appearance) to stun it, then smack it with Link's sword a few times. Keep pulling out and attacking its core until it's dead, then stay away from the explosion.
Dark Link
The fan favourite boss of the Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time 3D, and one which is much easier than many think.
Dark Link is interesting. He's a completely monochrome, black coloured clone of Link, and who has the exact same amount of health (as Link would at full health). He's also your actual shadow, since the room where you defeat him has your shadow disappear when you get halfway across, materialising as the mini boss.
Now, there are tons of ways to win here. You can spam Din's Fire until he dies, if you're not willing to actually put up a fight. You can use the Giant's Knife when broken, because it's too short for Dark Link to be able to jump onto.
Alternatively, the Biggoron Sword allows you to just charge in sword swinging randomly due to the fact your range is about twice his, while the Megaton Hammer is a weapon he finds difficult to block due to having only a sword to use. Deku Nuts work too. As does a trick with the Hookshot. Finally, if you're feeling confident, you can also win with a straight up sword fight, although he will try to block and counter every other attack.
Continue until the illusion fades and you can continue to the room with the Longshot.
Dead Hand
Dear God he's pretty creepy looking, appearing as what looks to be a snake jawed white zombie with multiple disembodied hands. Fought in both the Bottom of the Well and Shadow Temple (Young and Adult Link respectively), he's a bit of a recurring boss in the chapter, and one which gets markably easier when Link's an adult.
As a child, you need to get grabbed by one of his hands to make the boss come out the ground, then hammer A and B to escape. He'll slowly walk towards you, so L target him, and when he sticks his head down to bite, jump attack or rapidly stab him with Link's sword. He'll go back and into the ground. Don't try doing anything here though, you can't hurt him when he's retreating. So repeat the process with the hands grabbing Link and him escaping and then attacking Dead Hand's head with your sword to win and get the Lens of Truth.
As an adult though, the boss is much easier. Instead of getting grabbed (although that works too), turn on the Lens of Truth to see a shadow on the floor. This is the point the boss is hiding beneath, so lay a bomb on it to draw him out. Now, L target him, and repeatedly attack his head. You'll be happy to know Link's weaponry is powerful enough to kill him in seconds this time, so you can probably kill him in one 'round'. Get the Hover Boots from the chest that appears and exit the room.
Iron Knuckle
Armoured knights that look surprisingly like Gerudos:
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=FquUiAHcNbw
That minor easter egg aside, they are extremely difficult to defeat, and hit harder than most actual bosses do, with their axes taking off four hearts and sending poor Link flying across the room. You'll have to face these quite a bit (both as a child and as an adult), so read on.
First things first, wake it up. So go up to it and attacking it with a weapon, which will also cause one hits worth of damage. It'll swing it's axe too, so backflip away or dodge pretty quickly unless you want to cause serious harm to Link.
Now, keep in mind from here on in, you can't really run from the battle. Indeed, any Iron Knuckle will just march towards Link relentlessly, and not stop until it's dead, so keep fighting.
There are multiple ways to destroy these things:
1. Use your sword and backflip or dodge to avoid the axe swings. Risky, but very effective if you have the Biggoron's Sword. Nigh on suicide if you're a kid using the Kokiri Sword.
2. Use bombs or bombchus. it takes an awful lot of them, but it's very, very safe, and the preferred method if you're the child form of Link.
Eventually, it's armour will fall off and it'll speed up (or be defeated if it's the brainwashed Nabooru version fought before Twinrova). This is where you lucky people with the Biggoron's Sword are in luck, one jump attack here will immediately kill the Iron Knuckle.
If not, keep fighting like normal until you win.
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