Why is it that negatives are so much easier to remember than positives? I mean, of course I remember all the great bosses I’ve fought in The Legend of Zelda: Stallord, Molgera, Twinrova, Koloktos — just to name a few. This series is full of wonderful boss battles, which I guess makes the terrible ones contrast even more. These are the bosses, and the memories I have of them, I think of when I hear the phrase “worst Zelda bosses.”
Before I begin, there are three things I’d like to address. The first is that there is no definitive order to this; these are just six bosses that I remember distastefully. The second is that this is all based on my personal experiences— I actually expect a lot of people to disagree with the majority of my list, which is totally fine. Finally, I won’t be mentioning Morpha, even though I REALLY dislike this boss. Why? Because that fight deserved a full article on the sheer disappointment caused by the pathetic, squiggly arm.
This all being said, let’s begin!
1) Gohma (Ocarina of Time)
Fighting this bore of a boss was the reason I started thinking about terrible battles in Zelda again. The last time I played Ocarina of Time (before my current playthrough of Ocarina of Time 3D) was in high school at a friend’s house. This would have been my second run through of Ocarina of Time if I actually completed it, but I got lazy and put it away for a little under a decade. I had always recalled beating the first dungeon in a quick amount of time, less than a half hour or so. I also remembered defeating Gohma in less than a minute as well. I wondered to myself if I was exaggerating that memory. As it turned out, I was not.
One day not too long ago I accidentally went to work an hour before I was supposed to. Being as I’m there for the morning shifts, there was no one there to let me into the store. Luckily I had my handy-dandy 3DS and my newly acquired Ocarina of Time 3D. I proved my memories to be correct as I not only finished the dungeon in even less time than before but Gohma as well.
Gohma proved no challenge at all and could easily be defeated in seconds. Once it was downed from the ceiling, I rapidly spammed the basic sword attack and she was done for. Not only that, but thanks to the remake’s visual upgrades, the character model and design were more clearly visible, and boy, was she ugly! (And this is coming from someone who likes spiders!) She looked like a spider-crab hybrid with intestines attached to her backside — and I’m sorry, but were we supposed to ignore the division sign in its eye? I mean, maybe it was meant to be hideous, but that just makes me dislike it even more.
2) Kalle Demos (The Wind Waker)
This is probably the first bad boss experience I ever had in a Zelda game, and I still don’t like it to this day. I remember entering the boss’s lair and seeing Makar for the very first time. He was so cute, and I was about to rescue him. Then this monstrous plant comes out of nowhere and gobbles him up! No! Not my precious baby boy, Makar!
I was with two of my friends when I fought this boss. They instructed me on how to defeat him, as I was still new to the franchise at the time. I had a lot of trouble getting all those darned tentacles down with my boomerang, to the point where they regrew before I could get them all and I had to chop them all off again. When I did get the fiend down, I repeatedly threw the boomerang at its dumb face, and killing it took forever!
Now, I didn’t realize at the time that I could have just as easily walked up to it and start smacking its head with my sword when it was exposed. But during one of my many playthroughs of The Wind Waker, I eventually discovered this. To this day I’m still not sure if you’re supposed to use the sword or boomerang to attack the vulnerable plant. Regardless, the fact that you have to choose between taking a long time to safely whack it from a distance or take multiple hearts worth of damage to get the darned fight over with was inconvenient altogether.
3) Demise (Skyward Sword)
This was the only final battle in any Zelda game that I was utterly upset with. I mean, I’ll admit Breath of the Wild’s Ganon came close with its simplicity and underwhelming second battle, but Demise takes the cake. To be honest, I’m being petty with this one, and it’s for one reason and one reason alone: the lightning.
At first, the battle was going fine and I was doing alright. I performed the Skyward Strikes like I was instructed and Demise was starting to take some damage. Then, lightning started to strike. I thought it was merely a background effect, but I was sorely mistaken. I held my sword upward to go for another attack and that’s when it hit me — literally! Struck by lightning right on the spot! There was no other way to defeat him other than using your Skyward Strike at exactly the right time, but the electricity hailing from the sky made that near impossible!
The lightning was horrible enough on its own, but they also gave Demise an opening to attack and he’d land heavy hits on me over and over. This got insanely frustrating to the point where I nearly threw my Wii remote at the floor — but I didn’t. I controlled myself this time. I couldn’t break another controller, not after the Super Mario Galaxy roll goal incident.
Bongo Bongo (Ocarina of Time)
The Shadow Temple is one of my favorite temples in not only Ocarina of Time but The Legend of Zelda as a whole. Its whole grim demeanor had me excited when I arrived at the boss’s gates, thinking I’d be fighting some sort of Grim Reaper or terrifying undead atrocity. What I got was an atrocity alright, but not the kind I was expecting.
A hanging torso with disembodied hands and a flower face called “Bongo Bongo” was the last thing I expected. I mean, the severed hands could have worked really nicely, but the fact that it’s playing an actual bongo during the battle really reduces the creep factor. And yes, you read that right, its face looks like a flower to me, not — er— whatever it’s supposed to look like. Some parts of the design actually work really well, but other parts I had to question what the designers were thinking.
Then there’s the actual fight. I don’t know if it was just me who had a difficult time with this, but there was way too much going on: the bongo floor was bouncing, you had to whip out the Lens of Truth, and the monster was attacking you. And all of this was happening at the same time. I had trouble walking over to him, both with and without the hover boots. I think I did more damage while being launched through the air from the tremoring stadium. This is a fight I am not looking forward to in my replay of Ocarina of Time.
5) Thunderblight Ganon (Breath of the Wild)
I wasn’t thrilled with any of the bosses in Breath of the Wild if I’m being completely honest. The main four are all just slightly different versions of the same boss, or as I call them, the many hairstyles of Ganon. However, each of them did prove entertaining enough and were not overly difficult. That is, except for Thunderblight Ganon.
Remember how I hated the lightning in the battle against Demise? Yeah, I hated it in this one too. Now, I’m a person who’d rather be playing a game than watch someone else play, but I got so fed up with this boss that I shoved my Switch controller in my friend’s hand and made him do it for me. He had beaten it before and said it didn’t take him too long, but that didn’t stop me from looking online to see if there were any tips or tricks.
I don’t know how long it took him to beat this thing in his own file, but for mine, we sat there for about a half-hour. Its teleports got increasingly fast, its body was coated in electricity, and its aggressive moveset did not paint a pretty picture. No wonder Urbosa, the elite Gerudo champion, lost to this frustrating beast! Vah Nabooris was always my least-favorite Divine Beast, and Thunderblight Ganon was just the cherry on top that the dungeon seriously did not need.
6) The Imprisoned (Skyward Sword)
Of course the Imprisoned is on this list! This thing is a menace! And you have to fight it three times, each new encounter being more agonizing than the last. I liked Skyward Sword, but I must admit this tedious boss is a major reason I have not completed the game more than once.
I remember the first time I saw this beast in the trailer. I didn’t think much of it other than its ginormous mouth looked disturbing. I thought attached to these gaping jaws would be some sort of intimidating creature, but it turned out to essentially be a scale-covered jelly bean with little nub feet and jiggly toes. No matter how many limbs they added to the Imprisoned, they just couldn’t get it to look like the horrid menace it was meant to be.
The first time I defeated this boss, I was relieved. It was annoying and I was happy that it was out of my way, but to my dismay, it was not gone for good. It came back, and this time it had arms. Arms! I panicked every time it grabbed for one of the ledges, wondering where all those steam geysers were when I needed them. Not only that, but guess what was back? More electricity, my favorite! (Sarcasm.) Yes, there was electricity in the first round, but at least it only started once its health was down. This time around it began the second it spawned from its seal. This was the thing that always frustrated me the most.
Actually, there was one other thing that annoyed me endlessly about this boss (aside from the fact that you had to fight him three times, of course): when you finally smooshed his jello-toes, he’d topple down with his head facing the opposite direction. This was inconvenient because I had to hit the stone seal to hurt him, and that was located in its forehead. Multiple times I found myself not being able to move around this slab of fat, as it took up the whole path, so I’d have to rush to find a steam geyser that would lead me to its head before it started running amok again. Eight out of ten times I did not make it.
The final encounter with the Imprisoned should have been epic. I was teaming up with Groose, my longtime rival turned companion who created the Groosenator, a bombing contraption to help me take down this ferocious beast. However, it’s more of a hassle than anything. Because the monster’s arms weren’t enough, it used magic to fly. I was about to lose my mind. I kept stumbling over all the controls, trying to beat the monstrosity to the top of the Sealed Grounds, but several times I failed and was subsequently grief-stricken by Impa’s final words. The worst failure came when I had to launch Link from the Groosenator. I was about to deliver the final blow, but the unsteady “surface” caused me to slip and fall to the bottom of the chasm. I swear I could literally feel my blood boil.
It’s good to finally get these experiences off my chest, and I’m glad I did. These bosses were not fun, not challenging, and some were not easy at all. But I made it through each one. Thankfully, I could only remember these six (and Morpha) when thinking about Zelda bosses I had truly unenjoyable experiences with. Out of many, many big boss battles throughout the entire franchise, if I can only regard these few as bad, that is quite a feat.
So I finish here and ask our dear readers what boss gave you the hardest time? Which one was not fun in the slightest or leaned too much toward one side of the difficulty scale? I know I’m not the only one who has a few things to say about these bad bosses, and I’m interested to hear about your experiences as well!
