The final dungeon is always a critical juncture in the Hero’s Journey. They’ve conquered all the tasks set before them, defeated every dungeon, braved the highest heights and the lowest lows, and got some great gear along the way. They’ve reached the point of no return. One final roadblock keeps them from their goal.
The Legend of Zelda series has always had fantastic final dungeons. Ganon’s Tower in The Legend of Zelda, Ganon’s Tower in A Link to the Past, Ganon’s Tower in Ocarina of Time, Ganon’s Tower in The Wind Waker, and also a lot of non-Ganon related towers. All joking aside, each of these final areas is a test of your strength and endurance. A culmination of all you have learned throughout your journey.
Then, there’s the Wind Fish’s Egg in Link’s Awakening.
The lead-up to opening the Egg is rad. You’ve got two great bops in a row. The “Tal Tal Heights” theme is one of the greatest adventuring tunes in any of the games and “Ballad of the Wind Fish” is the GOAT. You play your ocarina and the egg cracks open. All right. Time to do this.
The atmosphere inside the Egg is very dark and dour. There are four passageways you can take. You have to enter them in a correct sequence in order to get to a hole in the ground where the final boss resides. That’s it. That’s the dungeon. They put the Lost Woods in an egg and called it a day.
As I previously stated, the final dungeon is incredibly important to close out the adventure. It’s supposed to be the test, the end of the journey. It’s supposed to be reflective of the final boss. Big! Epic! In no way does this reflect the battle with Shadow Nightmare at the bottom of the hole.
The final boss of Link’s Awakening is an amalgamation of Link’s personal “Nightmares.” He fights shadow versions of Agahnim and Ganon, both in their A Link to the Past forms. He fights Moldorm, which is arguably one of the most annoying boss fights in the games. You could even argue that the final form, Dethl, is a shadow version of Vaati (though obviously it wasn’t intended to be since Vaati wasn’t created at that time). It’s actually a pretty tough fight. You’re fighting six bosses in one, each having their own weakness. You have to use your whole arsenal to defeat it.
It’s big! It’s epic!
It deserved better than a cheap Lost Woods rip-off and a hole.
Before I continue, I have to say, I absolutely love Link’s Awakening. It’s my favorite Zelda game that holds a very close place in my heart. It checks all the boxes for me, except this final area. I’m going to say something very spoilery and controversial in the next paragraph, but I need you to know how much I love this game.
Now that’s out of the way: I will make the argument that the disappointing final dungeon is indicative of the disappointing end to the game. One of the easiest ways to end a story is to do the whole “But it was all a dream!” schtick. It’s cliched, it’s boring. You have the grandest of adventures and it doesn’t matter because it was only real in Link’s head! Link was in a coma the whole time! The real adventure was the friends we made along the way, even though they totally don’t exist anymore! It’s an anticlimactic end, especially after an awesome final boss and a really great sky whale design.
I can look past that, though. It’s supposed to be representative of Link coming into his own as a hero, yadda yadda, sure. I cannot look past the terrible final-level design. It’s something that is so easy to fix, as well. Each room could have had some sort of thing you had to do, some puzzle to solve. One room could have colored holes in the ground from the Color Dungeon. Another could have a mini-boss rush. Heck, one could be one of those “fill in the room” puzzles that everyone hates. It would be better than literally just walking around in the dark.
Honestly, though, the first time I got to that point, I was fine with it. It was one of the first games I ever completed. I was so excited to be at the final boss that it didn’t matter how boring the stage was. Each time I went to a different room, my excitement grew. Then, the giddy fear I felt when I reached the end. A room, a hole, darkness. It’s a memory I won’t forget.
And that’s the beauty of these games. Your first adventure is so perfect that you only notice the flaws the second time around.
